December 11, 2025 • 33 mins
Are you comfortable with uncertainty? Join Dr. Darren as he talks with entrepreneur Jeff about the realities of embracing digital transformation in uncertain times. They explore how a mindset shift can empower teams and companies to adapt and thrive amidst challenges, all while navigating the landscape of technology and change. ## Key Takeaways: - **Embrace Uncertainty**: Entrepreneurs are not necessarily risk-takers; they are individuals who are comfortable with uncertainty and leverage it as an asset. - **Team Performance Matters**: In a reshaping corporate landscape, identifying your team's strengths and weaknesses is crucial for effective performance management. - **Cultural Evolution**: Fostering a culture of internal disruption can lead to innovation, rather than fearing change. - **Lean and Agile**: The economy of scale has shifted; businesses can achieve more with fewer resources when they adapt their structures and mindset. - **Continuous Improvement**: Companies must commit to ongoing development, not just in terms of resources but also in their operational fitness. - **Customer-Centric Focus**: Understand what your customer truly values and provide it consistently to remain relevant in a changing market. ## Chapters: - 00:00 How Entrepreneurs Navigate Uncertainty - 05:45 The Role of Team Performance - 11:30 Empowering Internal Disruption - 17:00 The Shift in Organizational Structures - 22:15 Continuous Improvement in Business - 27:00 Understanding Customer Needs - 32:45 Closing Thoughts and Resources --- Listen to the full conversation to unlock more insights on digital transformation and embrace the uncertainty that comes with it. Don’t forget to share this episode with your network to spread knowledge about navigating the evolving business landscape!
Navigating the Entrepreneurial Landscape
In a world where uncertainty reigns, entrepreneurs thrive by embracing the unpredictable. Today, we dive into insights from **Doctor Darren**, a chief enterprise architect and educator, alongside seasoned entrepreneur **Jeff**, who sheds light on how to navigate uncertainty in business, and the importance of adapting to ever-changing landscapes.
Understanding this topic is crucial for both technologists and business leaders. It highlights how embracing uncertainty can fuel innovation and success, ultimately leading to transformational change within their organizations.
Shifting Perspectives on Risk
The True Nature of Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is often romanticized as an adventure filled with risk-taking or daring ventures, like jumping off a cliff and building an airplane on the way down. However, the essence of an entrepreneur is being comfortable with uncertainty. Entrepreneurs embrace unpredictability and leverage their skills, experience, and adaptability to navigate turbulent waters.
This shift from viewing risk as merely dangerous to understanding it as an opportunity opens up a world of possibilities. By rethinking their approach, entrepreneurs can harness their strengths and create innovative solutions for uncharted challenges.
**Key Takeaways:**
- Embrace risk by reframing it as uncertainty.
- Leverage your skills and experience to navigate challenges.
- Foster adaptability to embrace change.
Building Resilience in Teams
Harnessing the Power of Collaboration
In today's business environment, the most successful organizations foster strong, resilient teams. Jeff emphasizes that effective teams do not solely follow a hierarchy. Instead, they thrive on collaboration, allowing members to share ideas and take ownership of their contributions.
Encouraging open communication creates a culture of innovation, where team members feel empowered to suggest bold ideas and experiment with new approaches. This is especially vital during periods of uncertainty, where organizations must pivot quickly to remain competitive.
**Key Takeaways:**
- Promote teamwork and collaboration to foster innovation.
- Encourage open communication for a culture of transparency.
- Empower team members to take ownership of their contributions.
The Path Forward: Adaptation and Growth
Developing Organizational Agility
To thrive in today's fast-paced landscape, organizations need to develop their agility. This involves continuous evaluation of both their internal processes and external opportunities. By focusing on performance metrics, leaders can enhance team productivity, enabling them to adapt to industry trends swiftly.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And often folks have this perception of itbeing very centered around risk.
(00:04):
And you're a risk seeker.
You're a daredevil, if you will.
You jump out of a jump off a big cliffand build the airplane on the way down.
And while there is some truth to thatand a bit of romance,
I think the deeper truth is
entrepreneurs are individualswho are comfortable with uncertainty.
Welcome to EmbracingDigital Transformation,
(00:25):
where we explore how people process policy
and technology drive effective change.
This is Doctor Darren, chief enterprisearchitect, educator,
author and most importantly, your host.
(00:53):
Jeff, welcome to the show.
Great to be here. Thanks, Darren.
Hey, we first talkedto. It's been a while.
It's been like 2 or 3 weeks. Yeah. So.
And then we talked a little bitright before the show.
I'm really excited about this topic.
It's, it's a big topic.
I'm seeing it everywhere.What we're talking about today.
But before we dive into, you know,teaming and digital transformation
(01:16):
and you know how to get throughuncertainty, everyone knows.
On my show,I only had superheroes on the show.
You already know this, too.
Jeff.
So, Jeff,you're a superhero to be on the show.
What's your background story?
Background story?
I, you know, I might go against the grainand say I'm not a superhero,
but what I am is someone who's donea few interesting things.
(01:39):
And hopefully that's usefulfor the superheroes listening.
Because I'm, you know, a serialentrepreneur, chronically unemployable,
came of age, working, came of age,working in in hospitality.
I always say,you know, if you if you're hiring somebody
and you've got two great candidatesand you can't tell them apart,
anyone who paid their waythrough college work
in hospitalityknows how to deal with difficult people.
(02:00):
So go that way.That was a great experience.
And, and like you guess from afrom a few weeks ago,
almost joinedthe Australian Defense Force, as a pilot.
Got accepted into the equivalentof West Point, which is the ad for Group
and decided not to go that way.
And it's probably for the best,because since then I,
I realized, actually,I needed to drop out of university
(02:21):
that had too much structureand too little immediate pay off.
And so I've been very much an entrepreneurmy entire adult life.
And, and that's been a lot of funand a lot of roller coasters as well.
Well, and, and and you're healthy.
So you must have been somewhat successfulbecause you've eaten and so yet
for the rest,
the entrepreneurs out there, they'rethere is some success out there, right?
(02:45):
Don't give up. Right.
Absolutely.
If you're comfortable with uncertainty,it's a great life choice.
Because even if you don't,you know, win the lottery, so to speak.
You'll you'll have a lot of growth
and personal challengein all of those great ways.
On your journey.
So. Right, right now, Jeff,you help other startups,
(03:05):
build successful teams andand get them moving and things like that.
Let's talk a little bit about thatand then.
Yeah.How do we apply that to big corporations?
Because yeah, I see weird things going on.
Big corporations right now,they're the CEOs and executive management.
They're all frozen.
Yeah.
It's just they're not they're not.
(03:27):
Frozen in a defensive. T yeah, yeah.
They're like frozen in this defensiveposture is what I see.
Yeah that's what I'm seeing.
Really uncomfortable really uncomfortable.
So yeah I to answer your questionon the intro better.
So I'm, I'm working on my fourth
tech company now,I've been a tech company founder
since I dropped out of collegein the early 2000.
And, I've,you know, had some good success with that.
(03:50):
And, and what I do now is,you know, working on this fourth company
is primarily focused on using technologyto help other businesses,
often smaller businesses.
But still,I've had quite a lot of interest
in the beginning of town as wellin improving their performance
of their organizations,but I generally reserve about a day a week
to be an early stage advisor, mentor,and investor for startups as well.
(04:13):
It keeps you shop.
And honestly, the number of timesI'll get off these calls or meetings
with great folks
and have to look in the mirrorand say that great advice
you gavebased on your 20 years of experience.
During this, you need to rememberto take that advice yourself
is worth every minute I spend.
On that, on thatkind of passion, if you will.
(04:34):
You know, people
always say, to learn somethingand internalize it.
You can read it, you can listen to it.
Once you start teaching it yourself.
Totally.
And that my dad was a teacher.
And I think that really underwritesa lot of what I'm doing now
is, is really focused on trying toto help and teach,
because, you know, as you know,someone who's been,
(04:57):
part of, you know, the peakperformance organizations
and trying to drive things forward,
the impact you can have by being ableto teach other people
to, to fish, as opposed to giving themfish, is just so tremendous.
The the geometric progression thereis, is a sight to see, sight to behold.
Yeah. Okay.
So let's talk about when you approachwhen when teams approach you
(05:19):
and you're all about helping thembe more successful in,
in in the eyes of uncertainty, which yeah,
frankly that's all we have right now.
It seems like is uncertaintyin every industry.
I talk to uncertainty in healthcare in high tech.
So much uncertainty in high tech.
Yeah.
(05:39):
In education there's uncertainty. Yeah.
The only certainty I see out there isif you're a plumber or an electrician,
because we need more of them.
We do.
And inthose jobs, those jobs are essential.
So but all this uncertainty,how do you approach
how do you approach that with a company?
(05:59):
Teach me.
Teach people.
So I think when I,
when I was first starting to workas a, as a mentor,
an investor with startups, oftenthe question would come from
whether it was government or other placeshaving been part of accelerators.
They would say, hey, what is it?
You know,what does it mean to be an entrepreneur?
And often folks have this perception of itbeing very centered around risk.
(06:22):
And you're a risk seeker.
You're a daredevil, if you will.
You jump out of a jump off a big cliffand build the airplane on the way down.
And while there is some truth to thatand a bit of romance,
I think the deeper truth is
entrepreneurs are individualswho are comfortable with uncertainty.
And most of us people are not comfortablewith uncertainty.
(06:45):
And so the the answer to your question is,I think
what these current times are really,
providing a massive opportunity foris a lot more entrepreneurship.
I thinkthat's really what it comes down to,
because if you're comfortablewith uncertainty,
then what you rely upon is your skills,your wits, your experience,
(07:07):
and your ability to create something with,
future that we cannot predict.
And, and an inability to defend the castle
that we have just by sort of buildinga bigger wall or deeper moat.
We really need to change our attitudefrom being defensive to more offensive,
but doing that in an entrepreneurial way,as opposed to that person who just,
(07:29):
you know, says, hold my beer,does something great.
But I've seen organizationsthat tried to be offensive
in these times of uncertainty, succeedand some fail miserably.
(07:53):
Is it because they put their ladderon the wrong wall,
or is there some other thingthat's causing that?
I, I think it's going to vary.
And obviously there's lots of case studiesin business schools, but I think in
my experience, it'sa combination of inflexibility
and being offensivefrom the position of fear
(08:16):
as opposed to a positionof genuinely based confidence.
So if you're like, you know, a cornered
wild animal,then you go on the market and you don't
you don't have, you know,you haven't got your thoughts together.
You're you're not centered at all.
You're off balance.
And it's just a really risky proposition.
(08:39):
Whereas if you, on offense,because you've centered yourself
and you've got a planand you're also constantly prepared to
to live in the uncertaintythat it might not be the perfect plan,
and therefore you're going to changeit based on what changes in the future?
I think you're in a much better position.
So it's really that differencebetween kind of wild offense versus,
(09:01):
you know,stepping forward in a darkened room,
knowing that you're feelingthe way down the walls.
And, you know, if you stub your toe,it'll hurt a little bit, but you're not
going to die.
Of. Well, but you know, I like that.
Right? So,
offensive with confidence.
Yeah.
And I think that essential really.
(09:21):
Because the, the abilityfor the current wave of technology
to disrupt entireindustries is like something, you know,
the closest I can come up to is, is,you know, 25 years ago,
with the internet reallystarting to go mainstream, and this feels
an order of magnitude bigger than thatin terms of its impacts.
And it's also going to take a while.
(09:43):
Yeah, I'm feeling the same thing.
I yeah, I was in Silicon Valleyduring the.com boom and bust.
Yeah. Yeah. It was a major change.
This one feelsthis one feels even more so.
Yeah.
The one I was thinking about the other dayas well, Darren, is you know,
this is a change that is goingto be different for our psychology.
(10:04):
So when internet arrivedand enabled a higher degree of the speed
of communication, universalityof communication, almost universality
of information, those were thingsthat were a really big change.
But we already understoodnewspapers, TV, telephone, faxes,
you know, they were already the modesfor us to have as a proxy.
(10:28):
And we would just multiply the speedof them and the and the ubiquity of them.
But this transition for sort of universalintelligence
is like nothingany of us have ever thought of before.
We've always tied intelligence.
If you think of it as the knowledge piece,not the kind of raw IQ.
That's something that's acquiredincrementally through trial and error,
(10:49):
through book smarts and, and,you know, all of those things.
And this is going to be,
I think, a really massive changebecause we don't have a mental framework
to understand this in the same way thatwe just thought, well, email is like a fax
that doesn't have the screechy soundand is a lot faster, you know.
Like it's just a. Bad analog.Really, right?
(11:10):
Yeah. This is this is a major shift.
All right. So I'm a startup.
I got all this uncertainty.
You've come in to help me.
What?
All right, no more.
No more pontificating.
Yeah, because I see a lot of peoplepontificate about this.
You don't pontificate.
What do I do? What do I do? Jeff, help me.
(11:31):
So there's a psychology piecearound the uncertainty.
We'll put that to one sidebecause we've covered that.
Then from a tactical point of view,
it's to really unburden yourselffrom the limiting thoughts
of what you can do,because what you can do now versus what
you could do a year ago or two years ago,is different order of magnitude, right?
(11:55):
So that means you can go a lot fasterwith a lot fewer people.
People, which also means thatthe people you do have,
so much were important to your successcompared to a competitor
who's similarly fundedwith a similar sized team.
So the expectationsfrom a talent point of view,
dramatically increased.
So that's where, you know, the productI'm working on now, Team Score comes
(12:18):
in, is trying to understandwhat the performance of your team
is because frankly, over the past
five ish years,and maybe going back a bit further,
there has been a general sort of slippage
in terms of intensity, because obviouslywe had to get through crazy
times 5 or 6 years ago, and before that,there was still a whole lot of,
(12:42):
you know, extra turbulence and cheapand free money.
And so it allowed organizationsto get bigger than they probably
needed to be, with more duplicationthan they needed have.
And in those environments,you end up with places that end up
having people and rolesand responsibilities that you wouldn't
create or hireor have if you were starting again fresh.
(13:05):
And so the consequence of that isyou need to get in shape.
There's metaphorical,you know, sort of whether it's building
strength or losing pounds,whichever your metaphor is,
I thinkthe defining characteristic of success,
whether you're a startup or a big companyin the transition, we're going through
and thinking about coming outthe other side in five, ten, 15 years
(13:28):
is actually mostly going to come downto your performance in your fitness
because it's all welland good to have a great idea.
But if you don't have the strength,
if you don't have the endurance,if you're not in shape as an organization
to take advantage of it,then I've got some bad news for you.
There's somebody who's a 10thyour size, using the new technology
(13:49):
that is going to come and eat your lunch.
I loveI love the metaphor of losing weight
because we're seeing thatwith big corporations right now.
There's they're shedding people.
But I don't think they're buildingstrength too.
I think that's the big risk,is that people,
you know,assume that they can reduce headcount
and put more pressure onand then just throw in some tools.
(14:11):
And it's a bit like thatAustin Powers scene
where, you know, he's has him tied upand he closes the garage door and,
and you know, he senses are, well, aren'tyou going to watch him die?
He's like,oh no, I'm just going to close the door
to see if everythingwent according to plan.
It's just, you know,
like you watch these big orgs and,and I come up with a plan and then close
that, closed the doorand not say that, that.
(14:45):
Okay, so losing weight
is getting rid of people,building strength in my organization.
Is that skilling up my people,reskilling my people,
building more cohesion in my group?
What what what tips do you have for methere on on building strength in my team.
So I think there's probablya couple of analogies
that folks listeningand watching may be able to take on board.
(15:09):
The one that I've had a lot of resonancewith when I've talked to folks
is the way that the military looksat having sort
of this special forces organization,which is set up with less hierarchy,
more permissionand a lot more responsibility.
And it's more if they tried to make itthe whole size of the if they tried
(15:29):
to make the Rangers, like everyonein the US Army, become a Ranger.
It would fail.
It would fail, right?
Like it has to be special forces.
That's where that special set comes in.
And so I think there'sprobably an opportunity to do some of that
in organizations aroundwhat you change to do
what sounds kind of a bit rote,but is internal disruption because
(15:49):
you better off having internal disruptionthan having someone else come in.
You know, Kodak, you
that requires probably
doing what,you know, Xerox did with Xerox Parc,
but then continuing to stay out of the wayso it doesn't become Apple
who commercializes the PC,or the Mac and the G
or the guy it it could have been Xeroxthe whole way along.
(16:13):
But it was too muchcoming out of Rochester.
You know, once they found out thatthat Menlo Park in California
was starting to get some attention,then there was a smothering effect
going on in the crib that,so I think that's part of it.
You want that Special Forces play,but then you actually need to be able
to protect them, and allow them to dothings that are uncomfortable.
(16:34):
The other option, which has probablysome similarities, is after this being,
you know, if you think back tooh eight in the financial crisis,
but it happens in otherother kind of games as well.
There's a sense of a good bankin a bad bank,
and I know it's very pejorativeand no one's to be put in the bad bank.
But the good thingabout separating your operations into
(16:55):
kind of the good bank,which is the the future
and this is the seeds after the fire,they're going to,
you know, continue to germinateand grow and carry you guys forward.
And, andseparating that out and then having
what could be another a great businessfor another decade or two,
leaving the quote unquotebad bank is potentially what's needed.
No one wants to be in that.
(17:16):
So you have to kind of come upwith a better name for it.
But I do think that the factthat you can do ten times more per person
with the new technology,if those individuals,
empowered, empowered
and, and frankly,you know, expected to do it,
then then you effectivelycan like job of 10% of your org
(17:37):
and expect that to actually bethe size of the current,
all that you have in 48,you know, months or something like that,
like it's not overnight, but it's it's,I think probably the right answer
because everyone I talk to in in whetherit's medium size or large companies,
the number one thing that keeps comingup, like in my, you know, I'm part of Ypo
and there's a lot of really big company
(17:58):
presidentsinvolved in a bunch of these, events.
And I'm part of it.
And it's always about cultureand culture change and and what
I end up hearing from them. Is.
That they kind of stuck in stasisbecause they can't get everybody
to hold hands at the same time and jumpin the pool all at once and all it takes.
(18:19):
If you're trying to get anyone
to jump in the pool togetherfor one of those great photos
at a party is one person,say, I'm not jumping in next.
You know, people have got cuts and
scrapes and, you know, it'sjust it's impossible, right?
So I just think that you can'tmake 100% of people change.
So you better offcreating a self-selecting,
good bank, bad bank or special forcesgroup and empowering them.
(18:40):
Yeah. I'm glad you said that.
Not everyone can be in Special forces.
Whetherbecause there could be a desire thing.
There could be a skill thing.
Yeah.
And I think part of the problemthat we've had in corporate culture,
frankly, over the last 10 or 15 years is,
yeah, everyone should be the same.
Yeah, yeah. And I mean.
(19:02):
Everyone's the same.
No one's better than another.
We've seen thatby getting rid of annual reviews
or organizations have gotten rid of those.
No more stack ranking.
No. There's some employeesthat are far better at their jobs.
And others.
Yeah.
They're just everyone is different, right?
Putting them in the rightposition is critical.
So I like what you said there.
(19:24):
There's some self-selecting.
I want to take the risk.
I want to, to,
getting
engaged in something that may take morethan 40 hours a week because.
Yeah, I have a passion for it,and I want to be held accountable for it.
There are people like that.
Yeah, yeah.And it's it is about the passion.
You know, it's it's a lot of it goes backto some assignments and it's work around
(19:45):
start with y, you know, and folks,
I'm here because I,I want to just keep doing the same thing
I've been doing for the past ten years,for another 20 years,
and gradually increment upthe corporate ladder.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Like we got to take the value judgmentsout of this,
and there is a place and a roleand a need for that.
Like AI isn't going to change everythingovernight, I think,
(20:06):
because there isn't the mental framingto understand what this is going to be.
And the uncertainty is so much higher
that it could take twiceas long as the internet to play out.
But you don't want to find yourself,you know, as the CEO of borders, you know.
Six you know what I mean?
Yeah. No, no, there's there's.
(20:36):
All right.
You fit.
What's next?
You told me to get fit.
I've I've I've got my my special forces.
I've decreased.
I lost some weight. I got rid of some of.
It's not just people I'm getting rid of.
It's process.
Process is huge.
Is is huge.
Because that slows me down, right? Yep.
What's my next step?
I'm fit now.
(20:57):
I think I'm fit right.
Well, I don't really.
Fit as you know, is it never really stops.
Right?
That's from the Special.
Forces of training all the time.
So it's not quite like I did this.
The box gets checkedand then I go in and do that.
No, that's good for me.
It's it's actually like an ongoing thing.
(21:18):
And for some organizations it'sgoing to be a culture change.
That is, is a change.
And and that's okay.
But then the question is, all right,if I've got that as part of my routine
and I've made a commitmentand I'm going to be making incremental
progress, that like, nothing is lesslikely to succeed than a crash diet.
So, all right, I'm making making stepsthat are thoughtful and deliberative
(21:42):
to get fit and get in shapeand not doing massive wholesale reorg
or firing or whatever else, you know,like don't, don't do those things,
but you make those incremental stepsbuilding out a special forces capability.
And then really it comes downto constantly asking not just what
can the new technology let me do, butalso asking what's going to stay the same.
(22:07):
So as a guess, you had, a couple ofweeks ago now who was really talking about
that sentiment of, all right, what iswhat is the customer really want?
Like what is the business you're in and
and not asking it in a Porter'sFive Forces way, but more a deep fashion.
Like what?Why do you exist as an organization?
(22:28):
You might have lost that.
Why? Or it might have been a bit smotheredor hidden under the how and the what
that everyone focuseson around their oil structure
or their budgetsor their accountability lines or whatever.
Rather,internally navel gazing focus goes on.
But if you can continue to focus on thatand ask the hard questions like,
(22:48):
does the world really need somebodywho's focused on maintaining typewriters?
Well, I think you can probably answerthat question pretty clearly now.
But it may not have been so clear50 years ago to pick an extreme example.
So, you know, really, I think thethe step that I would encourage
next is to actually focus on the thingsthat are going to change and.
(23:12):
The things that are not going to change.Right.
You said.
Yeah, I think so.
Like Bezossaid something great a long time ago.
He's like,yeah, you know, all of this changes a lot.
But the thing that I'm pretty confidentis, is people are going to like
to have more selection.
They're going to like stuff cheaperand they're going to like it faster.
It's those three things seempretty universally like that's
(23:32):
not going to change in another,you know, sort of five or 10 or 20 years.
Lots of other things will.
And so being able tothen identify in your business,
what are the things that are goingto, you know, be consistent.
So in my business,one of those key consistencies is
you want to be betterat whether it's serving a client
(23:52):
or running a businessnext year than you were this year.
So how do you get better?
Right. Yeah.
And what does your customer want.
That's going to vary.
Obviously Bezos is examples very B2C.
Everyone I work with is B2B,
but even in that B2B context,there's still this aspect of okay,
what does the customer really want?
(24:12):
And do they want to make better decisions,but they also realize
they generally lie to themselveswhen they say they want to be data driven,
because 90% of our decisions come from
words like gut or heart or, you know,like the things that don't have words
associated with them, right?
That limbic brain iswhere the decisions really come from.
So, you know, they're actually saying,I want to be data driven.
(24:34):
They're really saying,I want to be data justified.
So it's like, okay,what do you really want to do?
You want to have better understandingto feed that limbic brain.
You want to have it, therefore,and then make the decisions and,
and then work through the outcomesof them?
Well, those things are pretty relevant.
You just said something that just makes methink that I will never be able
(24:58):
to run a whole business, because I doesn'thave that intuition, that gut feeling.
Right? Yeah.
We base a lot of our big decisions on.
In fact,
you can probably look at the richest menin the world and women in the world.
Yeah.
And I bet their gut decisions that theymade, they write with data justification.
I love that term, by the way. Yeah. That's
(25:21):
so that's reallyinteresting that you said that because I,
I think that to your gut tellsyou, let's do this.
The data me the and then I gofind the data to justify what I do.
Yeah.
Yeah I know what's interesting iswe need to have the inputs.
We need to think in C and in certainenvironments smell, taste, touch.
(25:43):
We need to havethose inputs to inform our gut.
Right. So we still. Need that ultimately.
Yeah.
But ultimatelythere's something inside it.
And that's whyI don't think I can handle that.
Yeah.
It's going to be interesting too,because, you know, if I is able
to trick us with those things,then maybe it can have effect.
(26:04):
But I think if you wanted to imaginesomeone's literally driving a company
or a team or an OKR, like,
I don't know thatthat that's going to be something.
Whereas using the AI to augment that.
So what I found to be incredibly valuablebuilding my latest company was
being able to use AI as a thought partneruntil it look, you're a McKinsey
(26:27):
consultantwho's been doing this for 20 years,
and now you're my co-founderwho's put everything on the line,
and he is the starting point for a productand a plan.
And in a 90 minutedrive to the mountains earlier
this year, when I was taking my cues upto learn how to ski, and Breckenridge
managed to do more in 90 minutesthan I would have done
pre, I, you know, a whole weeksitting around in a conference room
(26:50):
with whiteboardsand sticky notes to things.
I, I had the samething happened to me, for Thanksgiving.
I drove out to Utah.
So it's a ten hour drive with my wifeand kids are asleep in the car,
(27:14):
and I pulled up ChatGPT,and we had an hour long discussion
on what we could do to improve the showand to get.
Yeah, here's engage.
It was incredible.
I was like, this is great because I couldI could say, give me a different angle,
give me this single, you know, it wasit was awesome.
But ultimately it was my.
(27:36):
It's your decision.
And and you're right, I was regurgitating
back to me what I was telling it, rightin a different way.
That spurred on more brain thought.
Yeah. How do you do that with with a team?
Because that'd be great to addto your Special Forces team.
And I mean, that's sitting therewith you saying, hey, you know,
(27:58):
I want you to take this positionthat us as humans
sometimes have a hard time doing,
especially if I don't have a teamthat's balanced.
Yeah. With diversity of thought.
Yeah, that I can bring in another,
another diverse ideawithout having to hire someone or vet them
and then then become,what's the right word?
(28:20):
Indoctrinated in team.
Yeah, that's a problem, right? Yeah.
It is a really interesting point
I found with the right kind of promptingand frankly, being pretty spicy,
that I can get some of those contrarianthoughts
to the surfacepretty quickly and eliminate, sycophancy.
And so that's where it's like
(28:41):
telling it it's a co-founder who'sput everything on the line like that.
Those sorts of sentiments have actuallybeen pretty effective at creating a,
an adversarial conversationin a very constructive, you know, way.
But I think I,
as a tool for teams, is actuallya really the challenge to like that shared
knowledge that shared context, being ableto make sure that you build upon it,
(29:06):
the context pieceand having that shared in an org continues
to be,
a really big challenge,because most of the stuff
that I'm seeing in the fieldis variations on a search engine,
you know, like I'm going to use Ragand it's going to do this and it's like,
no, that's not quite right.
But the context windowsare increasing significantly.
And then the other thing that I'd say is,
(29:29):
at least
for the foreseeable future, it's still,you know, businesses are going
to move forward based on those peopleto people relationships and interactions.
And so the abilityto pull in a metaphorical McKinsey
consultant, and instead of havingto sign off on a six figure
purchase order, I realize you're dealingwith three months of all of the drama,
instead being able to spend 20 bucksa month and get going is sure.
(29:51):
Is it as good? Is it as unique?
No, but it's many orders of magnitudemore accessible.
So say thank you and get on with it.
And I think that having that advantagethen amongst
a team, like a group of peopleall sharing and thinking in that way,
I think is going to be really beneficial.
I don't see the tech actually piece intomediating the human to human connections.
(30:13):
I think what it's doing is it's allowingeach of us with those thoughts
that are running around on a headall the darn time
to be able to make a lot more of that.
So then when we do havethose human human interactions,
which hopefully are more frequent,not less, that we're actually,
you know, the cream rising to the topa heck of a lot faster.
Yeah, I, I like what you're saying there.
(30:34):
I actually think the same way.
I think that, Jen, I will increasethe human to human interaction.
Yeah.
And get and get rid ofsome of the miscommunications that happen.
Yeah.
Because we can articulate our ideas somuch better now than we could in the past.
Were there, I can't explain it isI can picture it
in my head, but I can'tI can't get the words out.
(30:57):
Yeah, yeah, it's difficult,
but because I'm also afraidthat I'm going to say something stupid.
Does that make sense?
Yeah. No. True, true. Yeah, you've got it.
And you got a trusted place that you can
trust me, stupid and and realizeit was stupid and and you know.
Yeah. And you go to share with your team.
You've actually got a much more formthought now. Now.
Very, very interesting stuff.
(31:18):
All right, Jeff, if people want to findout more about you and what you're doing.
Yeah.
How do they reach out to you?
Yeah.
The best bet for now, isgo to team Scorpio's A team scores
the product I built because of whatI needed in my last company,
which was a better way for managersto have that peripheral vision
as to what their remoteand hybrid folks were working on.
(31:39):
But I refused to roll out the spywaretechnology that's common in the space
because I was like, not doingit is going to mean to the 40%
of really awesome team membersthat are like the top contributors, let's
say, are going to feel really,really cheated
and distrusted just so I 10 or 20%
that I need to sort of workthrough and manage to a better place.
(32:03):
I have visibilitythere, like so that was a bad trade.
So I think Team Scorpio check it out.
It's a free product.
Obviously is paidto like any freemium products,
but if if you've got remote or hybridfolks, check it out.
And, I'd love to hearwhat you think of it.
You can also find me on LinkedIn.
All right, Jeff, again,thank you so much for coming on the show.
This has been a great conversation.
(32:24):
I love to I love talking to to new people.
That's why I do this show.
I started so great.
Thanks again for coming on.
Excellent.
You're most welcome.
Thanks for listeningto Embracing Digital Transformation.
If you enjoyed today's conversation,give us five stars
on your favorite podcasting appor on YouTube.
(32:44):
It really helps others discover the show.
If you want to go deeper, joinour exclusive community
at Patreon.com Slash and Racing Digital,where we share bonus content
and you can always connectwith other changemakers like yourself.
You can always find more resourcesat embracing digital technology.
Until next time,keep embracing the digital transformation.
And often folks have this perception of itbeing very centered around risk.
(00:04):
And you're a risk seeker.
You're a daredevil, if you will.
You jump out of a jump off a big cliffand build the airplane on the way down.
And while there is some truth to thatand a bit of romance,
I think the deeper truth is
entrepreneurs are individualswho are comfortable with uncertainty.
Welcome to EmbracingDigital Transformation,
(00:25):
where we explore how people process policy
and technology drive effective change.
This is Doctor Darren, chief enterprisearchitect, educator,
author and most importantly, your host.
(00:53):
Jeff, welcome to the show.
Great to be here. Thanks, Darren.
Hey, we first talkedto. It's been a while.
It's been like 2 or 3 weeks. Yeah. So.
And then we talked a little bitright before the show.
I'm really excited about this topic.
It's, it's a big topic.
I'm seeing it everywhere.What we're talking about today.
But before we dive into, you know,teaming and digital transformation
(01:16):
and you know how to get throughuncertainty, everyone knows.
On my show,I only had superheroes on the show.
You already know this, too.
Jeff.
So, Jeff,you're a superhero to be on the show.
What's your background story?
Background story?
I, you know, I might go against the grainand say I'm not a superhero,
but what I am is someone who's donea few interesting things.
(01:39):
And hopefully that's usefulfor the superheroes listening.
Because I'm, you know, a serialentrepreneur, chronically unemployable,
came of age, working, came of age,working in in hospitality.
I always say,you know, if you if you're hiring somebody
and you've got two great candidatesand you can't tell them apart,
anyone who paid their waythrough college work
in hospitalityknows how to deal with difficult people.
(02:00):
So go that way.That was a great experience.
And, and like you guess from afrom a few weeks ago,
almost joinedthe Australian Defense Force, as a pilot.
Got accepted into the equivalentof West Point, which is the ad for Group
and decided not to go that way.
And it's probably for the best,because since then I,
I realized, actually,I needed to drop out of university
(02:21):
that had too much structureand too little immediate pay off.
And so I've been very much an entrepreneurmy entire adult life.
And, and that's been a lot of funand a lot of roller coasters as well.
Well, and, and and you're healthy.
So you must have been somewhat successfulbecause you've eaten and so yet
for the rest,
the entrepreneurs out there, they'rethere is some success out there, right?
(02:45):
Don't give up. Right.
Absolutely.
If you're comfortable with uncertainty,it's a great life choice.
Because even if you don't,you know, win the lottery, so to speak.
You'll you'll have a lot of growth
and personal challengein all of those great ways.
On your journey.
So. Right, right now, Jeff,you help other startups,
(03:05):
build successful teams andand get them moving and things like that.
Let's talk a little bit about thatand then.
Yeah.How do we apply that to big corporations?
Because yeah, I see weird things going on.
Big corporations right now,they're the CEOs and executive management.
They're all frozen.
Yeah.
It's just they're not they're not.
(03:27):
Frozen in a defensive. T yeah, yeah.
They're like frozen in this defensiveposture is what I see.
Yeah that's what I'm seeing.
Really uncomfortable really uncomfortable.
So yeah I to answer your questionon the intro better.
So I'm, I'm working on my fourth
tech company now,I've been a tech company founder
since I dropped out of collegein the early 2000.
And, I've,you know, had some good success with that.
(03:50):
And, and what I do now is,you know, working on this fourth company
is primarily focused on using technologyto help other businesses,
often smaller businesses.
But still,I've had quite a lot of interest
in the beginning of town as wellin improving their performance
of their organizations,but I generally reserve about a day a week
to be an early stage advisor, mentor,and investor for startups as well.
(04:13):
It keeps you shop.
And honestly, the number of timesI'll get off these calls or meetings
with great folks
and have to look in the mirrorand say that great advice
you gavebased on your 20 years of experience.
During this, you need to rememberto take that advice yourself
is worth every minute I spend.
On that, on thatkind of passion, if you will.
(04:34):
You know, people
always say, to learn somethingand internalize it.
You can read it, you can listen to it.
Once you start teaching it yourself.
Totally.
And that my dad was a teacher.
And I think that really underwritesa lot of what I'm doing now
is, is really focused on trying toto help and teach,
because, you know, as you know,someone who's been,
(04:57):
part of, you know, the peakperformance organizations
and trying to drive things forward,
the impact you can have by being ableto teach other people
to, to fish, as opposed to giving themfish, is just so tremendous.
The the geometric progression thereis, is a sight to see, sight to behold.
Yeah. Okay.
So let's talk about when you approachwhen when teams approach you
(05:19):
and you're all about helping thembe more successful in,
in in the eyes of uncertainty, which yeah,
frankly that's all we have right now.
It seems like is uncertaintyin every industry.
I talk to uncertainty in healthcare in high tech.
So much uncertainty in high tech.
Yeah.
(05:39):
In education there's uncertainty. Yeah.
The only certainty I see out there isif you're a plumber or an electrician,
because we need more of them.
We do.
And inthose jobs, those jobs are essential.
So but all this uncertainty,how do you approach
how do you approach that with a company?
(05:59):
Teach me.
Teach people.
So I think when I,
when I was first starting to workas a, as a mentor,
an investor with startups, oftenthe question would come from
whether it was government or other placeshaving been part of accelerators.
They would say, hey, what is it?
You know,what does it mean to be an entrepreneur?
And often folks have this perception of itbeing very centered around risk.
(06:22):
And you're a risk seeker.
You're a daredevil, if you will.
You jump out of a jump off a big cliffand build the airplane on the way down.
And while there is some truth to thatand a bit of romance,
I think the deeper truth is
entrepreneurs are individualswho are comfortable with uncertainty.
And most of us people are not comfortablewith uncertainty.
(06:45):
And so the the answer to your question is,I think
what these current times are really,
providing a massive opportunity foris a lot more entrepreneurship.
I thinkthat's really what it comes down to,
because if you're comfortablewith uncertainty,
then what you rely upon is your skills,your wits, your experience,
(07:07):
and your ability to create something with,
future that we cannot predict.
And, and an inability to defend the castle
that we have just by sort of buildinga bigger wall or deeper moat.
We really need to change our attitudefrom being defensive to more offensive,
but doing that in an entrepreneurial way,as opposed to that person who just,
(07:29):
you know, says, hold my beer,does something great.
But I've seen organizationsthat tried to be offensive
in these times of uncertainty, succeedand some fail miserably.
(07:53):
Is it because they put their ladderon the wrong wall,
or is there some other thingthat's causing that?
I, I think it's going to vary.
And obviously there's lots of case studiesin business schools, but I think in
my experience, it'sa combination of inflexibility
and being offensivefrom the position of fear
(08:16):
as opposed to a positionof genuinely based confidence.
So if you're like, you know, a cornered
wild animal,then you go on the market and you don't
you don't have, you know,you haven't got your thoughts together.
You're you're not centered at all.
You're off balance.
And it's just a really risky proposition.
(08:39):
Whereas if you, on offense,because you've centered yourself
and you've got a planand you're also constantly prepared to
to live in the uncertaintythat it might not be the perfect plan,
and therefore you're going to changeit based on what changes in the future?
I think you're in a much better position.
So it's really that differencebetween kind of wild offense versus,
(09:01):
you know,stepping forward in a darkened room,
knowing that you're feelingthe way down the walls.
And, you know, if you stub your toe,it'll hurt a little bit, but you're not
going to die.
Of. Well, but you know, I like that.
Right? So,
offensive with confidence.
Yeah.
And I think that essential really.
(09:21):
Because the, the abilityfor the current wave of technology
to disrupt entireindustries is like something, you know,
the closest I can come up to is, is,you know, 25 years ago,
with the internet reallystarting to go mainstream, and this feels
an order of magnitude bigger than thatin terms of its impacts.
And it's also going to take a while.
(09:43):
Yeah, I'm feeling the same thing.
I yeah, I was in Silicon Valleyduring the.com boom and bust.
Yeah. Yeah. It was a major change.
This one feelsthis one feels even more so.
Yeah.
The one I was thinking about the other dayas well, Darren, is you know,
this is a change that is goingto be different for our psychology.
(10:04):
So when internet arrivedand enabled a higher degree of the speed
of communication, universalityof communication, almost universality
of information, those were thingsthat were a really big change.
But we already understoodnewspapers, TV, telephone, faxes,
you know, they were already the modesfor us to have as a proxy.
(10:28):
And we would just multiply the speedof them and the and the ubiquity of them.
But this transition for sort of universalintelligence
is like nothingany of us have ever thought of before.
We've always tied intelligence.
If you think of it as the knowledge piece,not the kind of raw IQ.
That's something that's acquiredincrementally through trial and error,
(10:49):
through book smarts and, and,you know, all of those things.
And this is going to be,
I think, a really massive changebecause we don't have a mental framework
to understand this in the same way thatwe just thought, well, email is like a fax
that doesn't have the screechy soundand is a lot faster, you know.
Like it's just a. Bad analog.Really, right?
(11:10):
Yeah. This is this is a major shift.
All right. So I'm a startup.
I got all this uncertainty.
You've come in to help me.
What?
All right, no more.
No more pontificating.
Yeah, because I see a lot of peoplepontificate about this.
You don't pontificate.
What do I do? What do I do? Jeff, help me.
(11:31):
So there's a psychology piecearound the uncertainty.
We'll put that to one sidebecause we've covered that.
Then from a tactical point of view,
it's to really unburden yourselffrom the limiting thoughts
of what you can do,because what you can do now versus what
you could do a year ago or two years ago,is different order of magnitude, right?
(11:55):
So that means you can go a lot fasterwith a lot fewer people.
People, which also means thatthe people you do have,
so much were important to your successcompared to a competitor
who's similarly fundedwith a similar sized team.
So the expectationsfrom a talent point of view,
dramatically increased.
So that's where, you know, the productI'm working on now, Team Score comes
(12:18):
in, is trying to understandwhat the performance of your team
is because frankly, over the past
five ish years,and maybe going back a bit further,
there has been a general sort of slippage
in terms of intensity, because obviouslywe had to get through crazy
times 5 or 6 years ago, and before that,there was still a whole lot of,
(12:42):
you know, extra turbulence and cheapand free money.
And so it allowed organizationsto get bigger than they probably
needed to be, with more duplicationthan they needed have.
And in those environments,you end up with places that end up
having people and rolesand responsibilities that you wouldn't
create or hireor have if you were starting again fresh.
(13:05):
And so the consequence of that isyou need to get in shape.
There's metaphorical,you know, sort of whether it's building
strength or losing pounds,whichever your metaphor is,
I thinkthe defining characteristic of success,
whether you're a startup or a big companyin the transition, we're going through
and thinking about coming outthe other side in five, ten, 15 years
(13:28):
is actually mostly going to come downto your performance in your fitness
because it's all welland good to have a great idea.
But if you don't have the strength,
if you don't have the endurance,if you're not in shape as an organization
to take advantage of it,then I've got some bad news for you.
There's somebody who's a 10thyour size, using the new technology
(13:49):
that is going to come and eat your lunch.
I loveI love the metaphor of losing weight
because we're seeing thatwith big corporations right now.
There's they're shedding people.
But I don't think they're buildingstrength too.
I think that's the big risk,is that people,
you know,assume that they can reduce headcount
and put more pressure onand then just throw in some tools.
(14:11):
And it's a bit like thatAustin Powers scene
where, you know, he's has him tied upand he closes the garage door and,
and you know, he senses are, well, aren'tyou going to watch him die?
He's like,oh no, I'm just going to close the door
to see if everythingwent according to plan.
It's just, you know,
like you watch these big orgs and,and I come up with a plan and then close
that, closed the doorand not say that, that.
(14:45):
Okay, so losing weight
is getting rid of people,building strength in my organization.
Is that skilling up my people,reskilling my people,
building more cohesion in my group?
What what what tips do you have for methere on on building strength in my team.
So I think there's probablya couple of analogies
that folks listeningand watching may be able to take on board.
(15:09):
The one that I've had a lot of resonancewith when I've talked to folks
is the way that the military looksat having sort
of this special forces organization,which is set up with less hierarchy,
more permissionand a lot more responsibility.
And it's more if they tried to make itthe whole size of the if they tried
(15:29):
to make the Rangers, like everyonein the US Army, become a Ranger.
It would fail.
It would fail, right?
Like it has to be special forces.
That's where that special set comes in.
And so I think there'sprobably an opportunity to do some of that
in organizations aroundwhat you change to do
what sounds kind of a bit rote,but is internal disruption because
(15:49):
you better off having internal disruptionthan having someone else come in.
You know, Kodak, you
that requires probably
doing what,you know, Xerox did with Xerox Parc,
but then continuing to stay out of the wayso it doesn't become Apple
who commercializes the PC,or the Mac and the G
or the guy it it could have been Xeroxthe whole way along.
(16:13):
But it was too muchcoming out of Rochester.
You know, once they found out thatthat Menlo Park in California
was starting to get some attention,then there was a smothering effect
going on in the crib that,so I think that's part of it.
You want that Special Forces play,but then you actually need to be able
to protect them, and allow them to dothings that are uncomfortable.
(16:34):
The other option, which has probablysome similarities, is after this being,
you know, if you think back tooh eight in the financial crisis,
but it happens in otherother kind of games as well.
There's a sense of a good bankin a bad bank,
and I know it's very pejorativeand no one's to be put in the bad bank.
But the good thingabout separating your operations into
(16:55):
kind of the good bank,which is the the future
and this is the seeds after the fire,they're going to,
you know, continue to germinateand grow and carry you guys forward.
And, andseparating that out and then having
what could be another a great businessfor another decade or two,
leaving the quote unquotebad bank is potentially what's needed.
No one wants to be in that.
(17:16):
So you have to kind of come upwith a better name for it.
But I do think that the factthat you can do ten times more per person
with the new technology,if those individuals,
empowered, empowered
and, and frankly,you know, expected to do it,
then then you effectivelycan like job of 10% of your org
(17:37):
and expect that to actually bethe size of the current,
all that you have in 48,you know, months or something like that,
like it's not overnight, but it's it's,I think probably the right answer
because everyone I talk to in in whetherit's medium size or large companies,
the number one thing that keeps comingup, like in my, you know, I'm part of Ypo
and there's a lot of really big company
(17:58):
presidentsinvolved in a bunch of these, events.
And I'm part of it.
And it's always about cultureand culture change and and what
I end up hearing from them. Is.
That they kind of stuck in stasisbecause they can't get everybody
to hold hands at the same time and jumpin the pool all at once and all it takes.
(18:19):
If you're trying to get anyone
to jump in the pool togetherfor one of those great photos
at a party is one person,say, I'm not jumping in next.
You know, people have got cuts and
scrapes and, you know, it'sjust it's impossible, right?
So I just think that you can'tmake 100% of people change.
So you better offcreating a self-selecting,
good bank, bad bank or special forcesgroup and empowering them.
(18:40):
Yeah. I'm glad you said that.
Not everyone can be in Special forces.
Whetherbecause there could be a desire thing.
There could be a skill thing.
Yeah.
And I think part of the problemthat we've had in corporate culture,
frankly, over the last 10 or 15 years is,
yeah, everyone should be the same.
Yeah, yeah. And I mean.
(19:02):
Everyone's the same.
No one's better than another.
We've seen thatby getting rid of annual reviews
or organizations have gotten rid of those.
No more stack ranking.
No. There's some employeesthat are far better at their jobs.
And others.
Yeah.
They're just everyone is different, right?
Putting them in the rightposition is critical.
So I like what you said there.
(19:24):
There's some self-selecting.
I want to take the risk.
I want to, to,
getting
engaged in something that may take morethan 40 hours a week because.
Yeah, I have a passion for it,and I want to be held accountable for it.
There are people like that.
Yeah, yeah.And it's it is about the passion.
You know, it's it's a lot of it goes backto some assignments and it's work around
(19:45):
start with y, you know, and folks,
I'm here because I,I want to just keep doing the same thing
I've been doing for the past ten years,for another 20 years,
and gradually increment upthe corporate ladder.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Like we got to take the value judgmentsout of this,
and there is a place and a roleand a need for that.
Like AI isn't going to change everythingovernight, I think,
(20:06):
because there isn't the mental framingto understand what this is going to be.
And the uncertainty is so much higher
that it could take twiceas long as the internet to play out.
But you don't want to find yourself,you know, as the CEO of borders, you know.
Six you know what I mean?
Yeah. No, no, there's there's.
(20:36):
All right.
You fit.
What's next?
You told me to get fit.
I've I've I've got my my special forces.
I've decreased.
I lost some weight. I got rid of some of.
It's not just people I'm getting rid of.
It's process.
Process is huge.
Is is huge.
Because that slows me down, right? Yep.
What's my next step?
I'm fit now.
(20:57):
I think I'm fit right.
Well, I don't really.
Fit as you know, is it never really stops.
Right?
That's from the Special.
Forces of training all the time.
So it's not quite like I did this.
The box gets checkedand then I go in and do that.
No, that's good for me.
It's it's actually like an ongoing thing.
(21:18):
And for some organizations it'sgoing to be a culture change.
That is, is a change.
And and that's okay.
But then the question is, all right,if I've got that as part of my routine
and I've made a commitmentand I'm going to be making incremental
progress, that like, nothing is lesslikely to succeed than a crash diet.
So, all right, I'm making making stepsthat are thoughtful and deliberative
(21:42):
to get fit and get in shapeand not doing massive wholesale reorg
or firing or whatever else, you know,like don't, don't do those things,
but you make those incremental stepsbuilding out a special forces capability.
And then really it comes downto constantly asking not just what
can the new technology let me do, butalso asking what's going to stay the same.
(22:07):
So as a guess, you had, a couple ofweeks ago now who was really talking about
that sentiment of, all right, what iswhat is the customer really want?
Like what is the business you're in and
and not asking it in a Porter'sFive Forces way, but more a deep fashion.
Like what?Why do you exist as an organization?
(22:28):
You might have lost that.
Why? Or it might have been a bit smotheredor hidden under the how and the what
that everyone focuseson around their oil structure
or their budgetsor their accountability lines or whatever.
Rather,internally navel gazing focus goes on.
But if you can continue to focus on thatand ask the hard questions like,
(22:48):
does the world really need somebodywho's focused on maintaining typewriters?
Well, I think you can probably answerthat question pretty clearly now.
But it may not have been so clear50 years ago to pick an extreme example.
So, you know, really, I think thethe step that I would encourage
next is to actually focus on the thingsthat are going to change and.
(23:12):
The things that are not going to change.Right.
You said.
Yeah, I think so.
Like Bezossaid something great a long time ago.
He's like,yeah, you know, all of this changes a lot.
But the thing that I'm pretty confidentis, is people are going to like
to have more selection.
They're going to like stuff cheaperand they're going to like it faster.
It's those three things seempretty universally like that's
(23:32):
not going to change in another,you know, sort of five or 10 or 20 years.
Lots of other things will.
And so being able tothen identify in your business,
what are the things that are goingto, you know, be consistent.
So in my business,one of those key consistencies is
you want to be betterat whether it's serving a client
(23:52):
or running a businessnext year than you were this year.
So how do you get better?
Right. Yeah.
And what does your customer want.
That's going to vary.
Obviously Bezos is examples very B2C.
Everyone I work with is B2B,
but even in that B2B context,there's still this aspect of okay,
what does the customer really want?
(24:12):
And do they want to make better decisions,but they also realize
they generally lie to themselveswhen they say they want to be data driven,
because 90% of our decisions come from
words like gut or heart or, you know,like the things that don't have words
associated with them, right?
That limbic brain iswhere the decisions really come from.
So, you know, they're actually saying,I want to be data driven.
(24:34):
They're really saying,I want to be data justified.
So it's like, okay,what do you really want to do?
You want to have better understandingto feed that limbic brain.
You want to have it, therefore,and then make the decisions and,
and then work through the outcomesof them?
Well, those things are pretty relevant.
You just said something that just makes methink that I will never be able
(24:58):
to run a whole business, because I doesn'thave that intuition, that gut feeling.
Right? Yeah.
We base a lot of our big decisions on.
In fact,
you can probably look at the richest menin the world and women in the world.
Yeah.
And I bet their gut decisions that theymade, they write with data justification.
I love that term, by the way. Yeah. That's
(25:21):
so that's reallyinteresting that you said that because I,
I think that to your gut tellsyou, let's do this.
The data me the and then I gofind the data to justify what I do.
Yeah.
Yeah I know what's interesting iswe need to have the inputs.
We need to think in C and in certainenvironments smell, taste, touch.
(25:43):
We need to havethose inputs to inform our gut.
Right. So we still. Need that ultimately.
Yeah.
But ultimatelythere's something inside it.
And that's whyI don't think I can handle that.
Yeah.
It's going to be interesting too,because, you know, if I is able
to trick us with those things,then maybe it can have effect.
(26:04):
But I think if you wanted to imaginesomeone's literally driving a company
or a team or an OKR, like,
I don't know thatthat that's going to be something.
Whereas using the AI to augment that.
So what I found to be incredibly valuablebuilding my latest company was
being able to use AI as a thought partneruntil it look, you're a McKinsey
(26:27):
consultantwho's been doing this for 20 years,
and now you're my co-founderwho's put everything on the line,
and he is the starting point for a productand a plan.
And in a 90 minutedrive to the mountains earlier
this year, when I was taking my cues upto learn how to ski, and Breckenridge
managed to do more in 90 minutesthan I would have done
pre, I, you know, a whole weeksitting around in a conference room
(26:50):
with whiteboardsand sticky notes to things.
I, I had the samething happened to me, for Thanksgiving.
I drove out to Utah.
So it's a ten hour drive with my wifeand kids are asleep in the car,
(27:14):
and I pulled up ChatGPT,and we had an hour long discussion
on what we could do to improve the showand to get.
Yeah, here's engage.
It was incredible.
I was like, this is great because I couldI could say, give me a different angle,
give me this single, you know, it wasit was awesome.
But ultimately it was my.
(27:36):
It's your decision.
And and you're right, I was regurgitating
back to me what I was telling it, rightin a different way.
That spurred on more brain thought.
Yeah. How do you do that with with a team?
Because that'd be great to addto your Special Forces team.
And I mean, that's sitting therewith you saying, hey, you know,
(27:58):
I want you to take this positionthat us as humans
sometimes have a hard time doing,
especially if I don't have a teamthat's balanced.
Yeah. With diversity of thought.
Yeah, that I can bring in another,
another diverse ideawithout having to hire someone or vet them
and then then become,what's the right word?
(28:20):
Indoctrinated in team.
Yeah, that's a problem, right? Yeah.
It is a really interesting point
I found with the right kind of promptingand frankly, being pretty spicy,
that I can get some of those contrarianthoughts
to the surfacepretty quickly and eliminate, sycophancy.
And so that's where it's like
(28:41):
telling it it's a co-founder who'sput everything on the line like that.
Those sorts of sentiments have actuallybeen pretty effective at creating a,
an adversarial conversationin a very constructive, you know, way.
But I think I,
as a tool for teams, is actuallya really the challenge to like that shared
knowledge that shared context, being ableto make sure that you build upon it,
(29:06):
the context pieceand having that shared in an org continues
to be,
a really big challenge,because most of the stuff
that I'm seeing in the fieldis variations on a search engine,
you know, like I'm going to use Ragand it's going to do this and it's like,
no, that's not quite right.
But the context windowsare increasing significantly.
And then the other thing that I'd say is,
(29:29):
at least
for the foreseeable future, it's still,you know, businesses are going
to move forward based on those peopleto people relationships and interactions.
And so the abilityto pull in a metaphorical McKinsey
consultant, and instead of havingto sign off on a six figure
purchase order, I realize you're dealingwith three months of all of the drama,
instead being able to spend 20 bucksa month and get going is sure.
(29:51):
Is it as good? Is it as unique?
No, but it's many orders of magnitudemore accessible.
So say thank you and get on with it.
And I think that having that advantagethen amongst
a team, like a group of peopleall sharing and thinking in that way,
I think is going to be really beneficial.
I don't see the tech actually piece intomediating the human to human connections.
(30:13):
I think what it's doing is it's allowingeach of us with those thoughts
that are running around on a headall the darn time
to be able to make a lot more of that.
So then when we do havethose human human interactions,
which hopefully are more frequent,not less, that we're actually,
you know, the cream rising to the topa heck of a lot faster.
Yeah, I, I like what you're saying there.
(30:34):
I actually think the same way.
I think that, Jen, I will increasethe human to human interaction.
Yeah.
And get and get rid ofsome of the miscommunications that happen.
Yeah.
Because we can articulate our ideas somuch better now than we could in the past.
Were there, I can't explain it isI can picture it
in my head, but I can'tI can't get the words out.
(30:57):
Yeah, yeah, it's difficult,
but because I'm also afraidthat I'm going to say something stupid.
Does that make sense?
Yeah. No. True, true. Yeah, you've got it.
And you got a trusted place that you can
trust me, stupid and and realizeit was stupid and and you know.
Yeah. And you go to share with your team.
You've actually got a much more formthought now. Now.
Very, very interesting stuff.
(31:18):
All right, Jeff, if people want to findout more about you and what you're doing.
Yeah.
How do they reach out to you?
Yeah.
The best bet for now, isgo to team Scorpio's A team scores
the product I built because of whatI needed in my last company,
which was a better way for managersto have that peripheral vision
as to what their remoteand hybrid folks were working on.
(31:39):
But I refused to roll out the spywaretechnology that's common in the space
because I was like, not doingit is going to mean to the 40%
of really awesome team membersthat are like the top contributors, let's
say, are going to feel really,really cheated
and distrusted just so I 10 or 20%
that I need to sort of workthrough and manage to a better place.
(32:03):
I have visibilitythere, like so that was a bad trade.
So I think Team Scorpio check it out.
It's a free product.
Obviously is paidto like any freemium products,
but if if you've got remote or hybridfolks, check it out.
And, I'd love to hearwhat you think of it.
You can also find me on LinkedIn.
All right, Jeff, again,thank you so much for coming on the show.
This has been a great conversation.
(32:24):
I love to I love talking to to new people.
That's why I do this show.
I started so great.
Thanks again for coming on.
Excellent.
You're most welcome.
Thanks for listeningto Embracing Digital Transformation.
If you enjoyed today's conversation,give us five stars
on your favorite podcasting appor on YouTube.
(32:44):
It really helps others discover the show.
If you want to go deeper, joinour exclusive community
at Patreon.com Slash and Racing Digital,where we share bonus content
and you can always connectwith other changemakers like yourself.
You can always find more resourcesat embracing digital technology.
Until next time,keep embracing the digital transformation.
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