October 21, 2025 • 22 mins
In this bureaucratic episode, Jay Johnson, CEO of Coeus Creative Group, shares behavioral intelligence for team building. If you struggle with personality clashes or self-doubt as a startup founder, you won't want to miss it.
You will discover:
- Why understanding behaviors boosts stage 2 team harmony
- How to assess four elements for better hiring
- What choosing behaviors empowers founder agency
This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stage 5 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quiz
Jay Johnson works with individuals and organizations to empower teams, drive growth, and enhance leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents.
Want to learn more about Jay Johnson's work at Coeus Creative Group? Check out the behavioral assessment at https://behavioralelements.com and connect with Jay on LInkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hello, hello and welcome.
Welcome once again to the Start, Scale and Succeed podcast.
It's the only podcast that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey as afounder.
I'm your host, Scott Ritzheimer.
And one of the things that I see founders struggle with, especially as CEO, especially instage five, is trying to build the right team around them.
(00:25):
And...
We like people that are like us.
uh We need people that aren't like us and we get stuck in between trying to navigate thisspace.
And so there's tension on the team.
There's people who don't see the world the way that you do.
There's people who don't talk the way that you do.
And it can be a huge, huge challenge, especially when we're trying to decipher, is this athem problem, a me problem, an us problem?
(00:50):
How do we get to the bottom of it?
How do we build a high performing team?
ah
I'll let you know if I come up with the answer, but I invited someone who I think doeshave the answer.
And that is the one and only Mr.
Jay Johnson, who works with individuals and organizations to empower teams, drive growth,and enhance leadership.
He's co-founder of Behavioral Elements.
(01:11):
He's a two-time TEDx speaker and designated master trainer by the Association for TalentDevelopment.
With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops toaccelerate high performance in teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four
continents.
Well, Jay, welcome to the show.
I'm excited to have you here.
(01:33):
Thank you, Scott.
Glad to be here with you.
Awesome, awesome.
All right, so let's just start from the beginning here in terms of there are what Ibelieve you call behavioral elements, right?
What are these four elements and why do they matter for busy founders and CEOs listeningtoday?
I love that question Scott and thank you again for having me.
So the behavioral elements is built on a different scientific framework.
(01:58):
Everybody's familiar with things like disc Myers-Briggs or any of those other personalityassessments.
Behavioral elements is actually a little bit different.
It's built on the science of Dr.
Paul Lawrence and Dr.
Nitinoria of Harvard University who established what's called the four drive framework.
And ultimately what they wanted to answer is why do we do
(02:20):
What we do, why do humans make the choices that we make?
Because our choices are ultimately what drive our success and failure.
So what behavioral elements does is measures the four core biological drives.
And to give you a little context in this, this isn't like a personality assessment.
We each have all four of the drives, the drive to acquire, the drive to defend, the driveto learn, and the drive to bond.
(02:48):
We put the elements on those just because it's easier to remember what the elements are.
So FIRE, which is our drive to acquire, that is associated with our dopamine systems, ourdesire circuit.
We want to win.
We want to get results.
Think about it as acquiring resources.
We often see this in sales.
We've done more than 40,000 assessments.
(03:08):
So we've got great behavioral data.
And I can't wait to share with you what founders end up showing.
But the drive to acquire is one of our big ones.
All right.
So this is...
drawing in resources, competitive results focus.
The drive to defend, this is more of our systems and processes.
And Scott, if you've ever been at the other end of this phone call, I need you to comedown to my office.
(03:32):
Were you like, yes, I'm getting a raise.
Or were you like, my God, what's going on?
Right?
We are.
That's right.
We are actually wired to defend ourselves and
We do not like uncertainty.
The brain does not like uncertainty.
So this drive to defend is associated with our limbic system, cortisol, adrenaline,norepinephrine.
(03:56):
And what it does is it tries to plan excessively because if we can plan it, we can surviveit.
If we can predict it, we can survive it.
So this is all about systems, processes, focus.
The drive to learn, I mean, let's think about it.
We all need to learn new skills, new things.
But this is really where our innovation comes from.
(04:17):
It comes from the hippocampal region of our brain.
We get a better understanding of things like uh adaptability, agility, changing,collaboration, all of these things that really kind of help us in the idea of growing new
tools, growing new skills, or exploring new territories.
Last but not least, we have the drive to bond, which is all about people.
(04:39):
It's all about our connection, empathy.
really engaging with others and essentially supporting the idea of larger communities.
Now, every decision we make, every single one, the four drives are at play.
So it's not one or the other, it's all four.
Sometimes they're working in concert, right?
(05:00):
Like if, for example, my family and I, we decide we really need to push forward forresults and everybody's on board, I might see...
my work as contributing to my drive to bond, my drive to acquire.
But there are times when work may pull us away from our families, which now all of asudden, my desire to be with the family, drive to bond, and my desire to work, drive to
(05:24):
acquire, those two things may be in conflict.
So understanding these about ourselves helps us understand our decisions.
When we understand our team's drives, that's
really where the sweet spot is.
There's so much unpacking there.
uh I'm trying to pick which one I want to do first, but let's approach this from the teamperspective, because I think that's really, really helpful.
(05:48):
There are kind of two arenas in which this is playing out.
There's the internal arena.
We have all four of the drives.
They're competing in some, they're collaborating in some, but in a team perspective, oneof the things that um makes it a little harder to navigate is
Twofold, one, not everyone's got the same stack that we do, but two, we'll have a tendencyto personify the differences, right?
(06:15):
So we make it, you you might have a different preference, but that's you and you're wrongas opposed to just a different perspective that we can benefit from.
So how do you help teams to use this four elements approach to really understand eachother better and make better decisions together?
(06:35):
Yeah, it's a great question.
So each of us has all four of the assessment measures, which of these elements is more ofyour primary, which is your secondary, which is your third.
And depending on the levels of your scores in each of these different elements reallysignifies different patterns of behavior.
So I'll share with you, I'm a high fire element.
(06:58):
have a straw.
In fact, I'm unbalanced is we would call it across the entire thing.
Strong drive to acquire, strong drive to learn, lower drive to bond, lowest drive todefend.
Meaning I don't do systems or processes well, I hate monotony.
Give me a spreadsheet and I'm going to try to figure out how we can make money off of itas opposed to I'm the person that's going to sit there and fill in the details.
(07:25):
Now my executive assistant who is very high earth, I'm low earth, uh she is the person who
wants those details.
She's going to structure things for me, put organizations together.
When we're working well together, our fire and earth can really complement each other.
When we're not working well together, she could be like somebody that says, hey, I needall these details and everything from your latest expense report.
(07:51):
And I'm going, I don't have time for that.
I need to get onto this next assignment because my drive to acquire is taking priorityover
the drive for certainty, reliability, et cetera.
So in both instances, we can see how a founder who maybe brings a team together wouldbenefit from knowing, all right, is this person more motivated by reliability, certainty,
(08:17):
structures and systems?
Or are they more motivated by team, connection, culture, bonding?
Or are they more motivated to go and win results, sales, et cetera?
Knowing those different drives in each of us
give us the opportunity to avoid some of those conflicts because you're absolutely right.
How you see something and how I see something could be very different.
(08:40):
That can be beneficial if we're working in collaborative function.
But let me tell you in any startup, in any entrepreneur, or even in any corporate, you'regoing to find places where those drives just don't align and conflict will occur.
Yeah.
So
to look at this through the lens of putting together a team, right?
(09:04):
So as a founder, now CEO, we're trying to kind of build, reinforce, even reimagine whatour executive team can look like.
Let's start with a founder.
You've got a lot of data on this.
What are the typical drives behind founders?
I love it.
So I actually did a study of 400 entrepreneurial founders and startup founders from, uhgave a keynote speech in Estonia at Startup Day Fest, which is one of the big ones in
(09:33):
Europe.
It's really an amazing thing.
And what we ended up finding across there's about 61 % of our founders ended up having airas their primary element, the drive to learn.
And think about it, I mean, it makes a lot of sense.
You're founding something, you're exploring new territory, you're creating.
Now, error elements are exceptional problem solvers.
(09:55):
They look at things different, they're often win-win, they're often very collaborative.
But one of the oppositions of error is structure in systems and processes.
So in this study, what we ended up doing was mapping all of the Harvard data, all of theBusiness Insider, et cetera, for all the reasons why founders and startups fail.
(10:16):
And usually it's because a lack of systems.
Now, Earth is often the lowest in that founder side.
The secondary that we end up seeing is the drive to acquire.
So this is make decisions, move quickly, get things done, and essentially get it acrossthe line.
This is also where we see a lot of people saying, it's less about
(10:38):
the win in the beginning, it's more about the idea and then it shifts into that, okay,this idea can really take off, I can scale, I can sell, I can do all of these things.
So that's what we see as a generalized profile.
Now, it's not always, it's not 100%, but this is one of the common ways that we would lookat this, patterns.
(11:01):
So we've got a error and what was the second one?
em Fire, fire, yes.
Yes, okay.
So high energy type A, know, tend to go get it, see it needs to happen, get it done.
Maybe not the best system and process folks in the world, but like you mentioned, highdegree of failure if you don't have some systems and processes in place.
(11:26):
So we need to...
somehow bring that earth element into the equation.
um To ask this question twofold, how and when do you incorporate that properly?
So that's a great question because there's two different ways to do it.
I'll start with the how.
ah The how for me is twofold.
(11:48):
One is it can be internal.
So here's the cool thing about understanding and bringing awareness to this.
My earth is my lowest.
Just because we're low in an element doesn't actually mean that we're bad at thosebehaviors.
What it means is I'm not motivated to do them.
So let me give an example, uh search engine optimization, super tedious, very detailedwork, very structured, very systematic.
(12:14):
I'm actually very, very good at that.
I like to win.
So I want to get to the top of Google.
So I'm driven to win, but utilizing these earth pattern behaviors.
I'm at the top of Google if you search behavioral intelligence, okay?
I'm not bad at earth behaviors.
It's just,
If I do search engine optimization for 10 minutes, I'm exhausted.
(12:38):
If I'm speaking in public or if I'm out selling, I get energy from that.
So internally, I can shift my own behaviors.
I can learn to adapt to new systems, processes, et cetera.
It may not be comfortable at first, but I can do that.
Secondarily, the opposite way is building a team that helps, uh, helps fill in the gapsthat maybe you have, but you have to be okay.
(13:04):
with giving up a little bit of control.
Because when you bring an earth on and they say, well, where does this fit in a strategicplan?
How does this look?
Why is this a priority now?
Why are you shifting gears?
You can get a lot of frustration if you're the founder, if you're the CEO, if all of asudden you feel like somebody's putting up roadblocks.
Now in their mind, they're not roadblocks, they're safety checks.
(13:25):
So this is one of the things that we have to be aware of.
When should you do this?
I say as early as possible.
Because if you neglect one of the drives, if you neglect one of these areas, ultimately itcan lead to pretty catastrophic failure.
But you got to do it in the right way and make sure that people understand what is myrole?
(13:47):
What is the actual impact that I'm helping to create?
And how can I do this in a very collaborative way?
Yeah.
our founder who tends to be air and fire oriented.
And I can see why founders would love to have a lot more fire people around them, right?
They've got an idea.
They got a bunch of people who are going to win it, right?
Go make it happen.
We've talked about the need for systems and processes and how it's such a significantthreat if you don't have them.
(14:15):
We haven't talked much about the water element.
How does that fit into our executive team that we're building?
Yeah, and I will tell you right now, water is probably the most important element.
And I hate to say one or the other, but if you look at our subset of data, 40,000 peopleacross, you know, general industries, et cetera, 51 % of the average population shows
(14:40):
water as their primary element, which means 51 % of your customers are water.
51 % of your employees are water.
Well, what does that mean?
They're strongly driven towards social connection, bonding and interaction.
They want harmony.
They want to create conditions of a positive culture.
(15:00):
We all know how important culture is.
Culture starts with the drive to bond.
It means that we have a shared value system, a shared future together.
So water becomes one of the most important elements to bring into an organization.
I love it, Scott, and I'll tell you this, and I've consulted with some big organizations.
(15:21):
One of the things that I always hear is, you know, we're trying to fix our culture.
I don't understand why we have disengagement.
I don't know why we have quiet quitting.
We have exceptional pay.
We've got great benefits.
We've got all of these learning opportunities.
And my first question is, is how often does your team high five each other?
How often do they laugh together?
(15:42):
How often do they say thank you to each other?
Those three markers, three small markers,
can actually predict how high a team performs.
It's because we feel connected.
Yeah, I love that.
So what I'm hearing is uh that teams should have at least a sum of each of the styles.
(16:08):
Is that accurate?
Should there be a balance of the styles?
How much should you be paying attention to it when constructing a team?
Yeah, I wouldn't say, and I'll tell you right now, as my profile is imbalanced, my own,and I'm a founder, I'm a start, I was a startup, I've started up a number of different
companies and it's never been balanced.
So don't stress if your team's not balanced because the awareness of it helps us tounderstand as a team, earth would be our lowest.
(16:37):
We do have a lot of fire, but we have a lot of air.
So I know in every meeting,
I need to bring in structure, I need to bring in some kind of system, or I need to bethinking about this.
So as we are pondering a new project, considering a new client, we have a checklist thatwe've created to make sure are we dotting the I's, crossing the T's.
(16:59):
All of these behaviors can be essentially turned into habits, even if you don't have ahigh element, but we have to know, hey, unless...
We systematize the elements.
Nobody's going to be thinking about the systems or the reliability or any of those pieces.
So the way we do it ultimately is get a better understanding of where we are imbalancedand then make sure there's protocols in place to solve for whatever the imbalance might
(17:31):
be.
If we know we're too high a fire, we take a slow down on our decisions.
uh If we are too high in water,
We make sure that everybody feels very comfortable with a five to four decision and movingforward because water wants nine no decisions.
You know what I'm saying?
So we just make sure that those things are in place and that everybody has anunderstanding of those different pieces.
(17:55):
Yeah.
So.
Jay, there's this question that I have that before I let you go, I'm very interested tosee what you have to say.
I asked all my guests and the question is this, what is the biggest secret that you wishwasn't a secret at all?
What's that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
I think the biggest secret, and it took me a very long time to learn this, Scott, isbehavior is a choice.
(18:19):
And how we choose to behave is going to determine our success and failure.
For so long, I was a victim of, hey, this is your personality.
This is who you are.
And this is what you're stuck being.
And the reality is, is yeah, personality is one aspect of behavior, but there's otherthings, environment, context, motivations, drives, et cetera.
(18:42):
And when we really truly adopt the idea that behavior is a choice, it gives us this senseof agency and empowerment that we can actually be in the driver's seat of all the good,
all the challenge, all the negative things that happened to us as founders, as owners oranything else.
So that's the secret that I wish everybody knew.
(19:05):
So good.
good.
Jay, there.
a number of folks that are listening that would love to know more about that.
They're wondering what their natural elements are, what that stack looks like.
Where can they find out more about the work that you do, maybe even take the assessmentaround these four elements?
Yeah, absolutely.
So you can go to behavioralelements.com and take our free assessment.
(19:28):
And you can also connect with me on LinkedIn.
And I am on LinkedIn at jayjohnsonccg.
That is my handle there.
And I'd love to share more information with you or answer any questions you might haveabout behavior.
Jay, thanks so much for being on the show.
It's a real privilege having you here with us today.
And for those of you watching and listening, I highly recommend the assessment.
(19:51):
I got to take it earlier today and it was fantastic.
I also know that your time and attention mean the world to us.
I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did and I cannot wait to seeyou next time.
Take care.
Hello, hello and welcome.
Welcome once again to the Start, Scale and Succeed podcast.
It's the only podcast that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey as afounder.
I'm your host, Scott Ritzheimer.
And one of the things that I see founders struggle with, especially as CEO, especially instage five, is trying to build the right team around them.
(00:25):
And...
We like people that are like us.
uh We need people that aren't like us and we get stuck in between trying to navigate thisspace.
And so there's tension on the team.
There's people who don't see the world the way that you do.
There's people who don't talk the way that you do.
And it can be a huge, huge challenge, especially when we're trying to decipher, is this athem problem, a me problem, an us problem?
(00:50):
How do we get to the bottom of it?
How do we build a high performing team?
ah
I'll let you know if I come up with the answer, but I invited someone who I think doeshave the answer.
And that is the one and only Mr.
Jay Johnson, who works with individuals and organizations to empower teams, drive growth,and enhance leadership.
He's co-founder of Behavioral Elements.
(01:11):
He's a two-time TEDx speaker and designated master trainer by the Association for TalentDevelopment.
With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops toaccelerate high performance in teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four
continents.
Well, Jay, welcome to the show.
I'm excited to have you here.
(01:33):
Thank you, Scott.
Glad to be here with you.
Awesome, awesome.
All right, so let's just start from the beginning here in terms of there are what Ibelieve you call behavioral elements, right?
What are these four elements and why do they matter for busy founders and CEOs listeningtoday?
I love that question Scott and thank you again for having me.
So the behavioral elements is built on a different scientific framework.
(01:58):
Everybody's familiar with things like disc Myers-Briggs or any of those other personalityassessments.
Behavioral elements is actually a little bit different.
It's built on the science of Dr.
Paul Lawrence and Dr.
Nitinoria of Harvard University who established what's called the four drive framework.
And ultimately what they wanted to answer is why do we do
(02:20):
What we do, why do humans make the choices that we make?
Because our choices are ultimately what drive our success and failure.
So what behavioral elements does is measures the four core biological drives.
And to give you a little context in this, this isn't like a personality assessment.
We each have all four of the drives, the drive to acquire, the drive to defend, the driveto learn, and the drive to bond.
(02:48):
We put the elements on those just because it's easier to remember what the elements are.
So FIRE, which is our drive to acquire, that is associated with our dopamine systems, ourdesire circuit.
We want to win.
We want to get results.
Think about it as acquiring resources.
We often see this in sales.
We've done more than 40,000 assessments.
(03:08):
So we've got great behavioral data.
And I can't wait to share with you what founders end up showing.
But the drive to acquire is one of our big ones.
All right.
So this is...
drawing in resources, competitive results focus.
The drive to defend, this is more of our systems and processes.
And Scott, if you've ever been at the other end of this phone call, I need you to comedown to my office.
(03:32):
Were you like, yes, I'm getting a raise.
Or were you like, my God, what's going on?
Right?
We are.
That's right.
We are actually wired to defend ourselves and
We do not like uncertainty.
The brain does not like uncertainty.
So this drive to defend is associated with our limbic system, cortisol, adrenaline,norepinephrine.
(03:56):
And what it does is it tries to plan excessively because if we can plan it, we can surviveit.
If we can predict it, we can survive it.
So this is all about systems, processes, focus.
The drive to learn, I mean, let's think about it.
We all need to learn new skills, new things.
But this is really where our innovation comes from.
(04:17):
It comes from the hippocampal region of our brain.
We get a better understanding of things like uh adaptability, agility, changing,collaboration, all of these things that really kind of help us in the idea of growing new
tools, growing new skills, or exploring new territories.
Last but not least, we have the drive to bond, which is all about people.
(04:39):
It's all about our connection, empathy.
really engaging with others and essentially supporting the idea of larger communities.
Now, every decision we make, every single one, the four drives are at play.
So it's not one or the other, it's all four.
Sometimes they're working in concert, right?
(05:00):
Like if, for example, my family and I, we decide we really need to push forward forresults and everybody's on board, I might see...
my work as contributing to my drive to bond, my drive to acquire.
But there are times when work may pull us away from our families, which now all of asudden, my desire to be with the family, drive to bond, and my desire to work, drive to
(05:24):
acquire, those two things may be in conflict.
So understanding these about ourselves helps us understand our decisions.
When we understand our team's drives, that's
really where the sweet spot is.
There's so much unpacking there.
uh I'm trying to pick which one I want to do first, but let's approach this from the teamperspective, because I think that's really, really helpful.
(05:48):
There are kind of two arenas in which this is playing out.
There's the internal arena.
We have all four of the drives.
They're competing in some, they're collaborating in some, but in a team perspective, oneof the things that um makes it a little harder to navigate is
Twofold, one, not everyone's got the same stack that we do, but two, we'll have a tendencyto personify the differences, right?
(06:15):
So we make it, you you might have a different preference, but that's you and you're wrongas opposed to just a different perspective that we can benefit from.
So how do you help teams to use this four elements approach to really understand eachother better and make better decisions together?
(06:35):
Yeah, it's a great question.
So each of us has all four of the assessment measures, which of these elements is more ofyour primary, which is your secondary, which is your third.
And depending on the levels of your scores in each of these different elements reallysignifies different patterns of behavior.
So I'll share with you, I'm a high fire element.
(06:58):
have a straw.
In fact, I'm unbalanced is we would call it across the entire thing.
Strong drive to acquire, strong drive to learn, lower drive to bond, lowest drive todefend.
Meaning I don't do systems or processes well, I hate monotony.
Give me a spreadsheet and I'm going to try to figure out how we can make money off of itas opposed to I'm the person that's going to sit there and fill in the details.
(07:25):
Now my executive assistant who is very high earth, I'm low earth, uh she is the person who
wants those details.
She's going to structure things for me, put organizations together.
When we're working well together, our fire and earth can really complement each other.
When we're not working well together, she could be like somebody that says, hey, I needall these details and everything from your latest expense report.
(07:51):
And I'm going, I don't have time for that.
I need to get onto this next assignment because my drive to acquire is taking priorityover
the drive for certainty, reliability, et cetera.
So in both instances, we can see how a founder who maybe brings a team together wouldbenefit from knowing, all right, is this person more motivated by reliability, certainty,
(08:17):
structures and systems?
Or are they more motivated by team, connection, culture, bonding?
Or are they more motivated to go and win results, sales, et cetera?
Knowing those different drives in each of us
give us the opportunity to avoid some of those conflicts because you're absolutely right.
How you see something and how I see something could be very different.
(08:40):
That can be beneficial if we're working in collaborative function.
But let me tell you in any startup, in any entrepreneur, or even in any corporate, you'regoing to find places where those drives just don't align and conflict will occur.
Yeah.
So
to look at this through the lens of putting together a team, right?
(09:04):
So as a founder, now CEO, we're trying to kind of build, reinforce, even reimagine whatour executive team can look like.
Let's start with a founder.
You've got a lot of data on this.
What are the typical drives behind founders?
I love it.
So I actually did a study of 400 entrepreneurial founders and startup founders from, uhgave a keynote speech in Estonia at Startup Day Fest, which is one of the big ones in
(09:33):
Europe.
It's really an amazing thing.
And what we ended up finding across there's about 61 % of our founders ended up having airas their primary element, the drive to learn.
And think about it, I mean, it makes a lot of sense.
You're founding something, you're exploring new territory, you're creating.
Now, error elements are exceptional problem solvers.
(09:55):
They look at things different, they're often win-win, they're often very collaborative.
But one of the oppositions of error is structure in systems and processes.
So in this study, what we ended up doing was mapping all of the Harvard data, all of theBusiness Insider, et cetera, for all the reasons why founders and startups fail.
(10:16):
And usually it's because a lack of systems.
Now, Earth is often the lowest in that founder side.
The secondary that we end up seeing is the drive to acquire.
So this is make decisions, move quickly, get things done, and essentially get it acrossthe line.
This is also where we see a lot of people saying, it's less about
(10:38):
the win in the beginning, it's more about the idea and then it shifts into that, okay,this idea can really take off, I can scale, I can sell, I can do all of these things.
So that's what we see as a generalized profile.
Now, it's not always, it's not 100%, but this is one of the common ways that we would lookat this, patterns.
(11:01):
So we've got a error and what was the second one?
em Fire, fire, yes.
Yes, okay.
So high energy type A, know, tend to go get it, see it needs to happen, get it done.
Maybe not the best system and process folks in the world, but like you mentioned, highdegree of failure if you don't have some systems and processes in place.
(11:26):
So we need to...
somehow bring that earth element into the equation.
um To ask this question twofold, how and when do you incorporate that properly?
So that's a great question because there's two different ways to do it.
I'll start with the how.
ah The how for me is twofold.
(11:48):
One is it can be internal.
So here's the cool thing about understanding and bringing awareness to this.
My earth is my lowest.
Just because we're low in an element doesn't actually mean that we're bad at thosebehaviors.
What it means is I'm not motivated to do them.
So let me give an example, uh search engine optimization, super tedious, very detailedwork, very structured, very systematic.
(12:14):
I'm actually very, very good at that.
I like to win.
So I want to get to the top of Google.
So I'm driven to win, but utilizing these earth pattern behaviors.
I'm at the top of Google if you search behavioral intelligence, okay?
I'm not bad at earth behaviors.
It's just,
If I do search engine optimization for 10 minutes, I'm exhausted.
(12:38):
If I'm speaking in public or if I'm out selling, I get energy from that.
So internally, I can shift my own behaviors.
I can learn to adapt to new systems, processes, et cetera.
It may not be comfortable at first, but I can do that.
Secondarily, the opposite way is building a team that helps, uh, helps fill in the gapsthat maybe you have, but you have to be okay.
(13:04):
with giving up a little bit of control.
Because when you bring an earth on and they say, well, where does this fit in a strategicplan?
How does this look?
Why is this a priority now?
Why are you shifting gears?
You can get a lot of frustration if you're the founder, if you're the CEO, if all of asudden you feel like somebody's putting up roadblocks.
Now in their mind, they're not roadblocks, they're safety checks.
(13:25):
So this is one of the things that we have to be aware of.
When should you do this?
I say as early as possible.
Because if you neglect one of the drives, if you neglect one of these areas, ultimately itcan lead to pretty catastrophic failure.
But you got to do it in the right way and make sure that people understand what is myrole?
(13:47):
What is the actual impact that I'm helping to create?
And how can I do this in a very collaborative way?
Yeah.
our founder who tends to be air and fire oriented.
And I can see why founders would love to have a lot more fire people around them, right?
They've got an idea.
They got a bunch of people who are going to win it, right?
Go make it happen.
We've talked about the need for systems and processes and how it's such a significantthreat if you don't have them.
(14:15):
We haven't talked much about the water element.
How does that fit into our executive team that we're building?
Yeah, and I will tell you right now, water is probably the most important element.
And I hate to say one or the other, but if you look at our subset of data, 40,000 peopleacross, you know, general industries, et cetera, 51 % of the average population shows
(14:40):
water as their primary element, which means 51 % of your customers are water.
51 % of your employees are water.
Well, what does that mean?
They're strongly driven towards social connection, bonding and interaction.
They want harmony.
They want to create conditions of a positive culture.
(15:00):
We all know how important culture is.
Culture starts with the drive to bond.
It means that we have a shared value system, a shared future together.
So water becomes one of the most important elements to bring into an organization.
I love it, Scott, and I'll tell you this, and I've consulted with some big organizations.
(15:21):
One of the things that I always hear is, you know, we're trying to fix our culture.
I don't understand why we have disengagement.
I don't know why we have quiet quitting.
We have exceptional pay.
We've got great benefits.
We've got all of these learning opportunities.
And my first question is, is how often does your team high five each other?
How often do they laugh together?
(15:42):
How often do they say thank you to each other?
Those three markers, three small markers,
can actually predict how high a team performs.
It's because we feel connected.
Yeah, I love that.
So what I'm hearing is uh that teams should have at least a sum of each of the styles.
(16:08):
Is that accurate?
Should there be a balance of the styles?
How much should you be paying attention to it when constructing a team?
Yeah, I wouldn't say, and I'll tell you right now, as my profile is imbalanced, my own,and I'm a founder, I'm a start, I was a startup, I've started up a number of different
companies and it's never been balanced.
So don't stress if your team's not balanced because the awareness of it helps us tounderstand as a team, earth would be our lowest.
(16:37):
We do have a lot of fire, but we have a lot of air.
So I know in every meeting,
I need to bring in structure, I need to bring in some kind of system, or I need to bethinking about this.
So as we are pondering a new project, considering a new client, we have a checklist thatwe've created to make sure are we dotting the I's, crossing the T's.
(16:59):
All of these behaviors can be essentially turned into habits, even if you don't have ahigh element, but we have to know, hey, unless...
We systematize the elements.
Nobody's going to be thinking about the systems or the reliability or any of those pieces.
So the way we do it ultimately is get a better understanding of where we are imbalancedand then make sure there's protocols in place to solve for whatever the imbalance might
(17:31):
be.
If we know we're too high a fire, we take a slow down on our decisions.
uh If we are too high in water,
We make sure that everybody feels very comfortable with a five to four decision and movingforward because water wants nine no decisions.
You know what I'm saying?
So we just make sure that those things are in place and that everybody has anunderstanding of those different pieces.
(17:55):
Yeah.
So.
Jay, there's this question that I have that before I let you go, I'm very interested tosee what you have to say.
I asked all my guests and the question is this, what is the biggest secret that you wishwasn't a secret at all?
What's that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
I think the biggest secret, and it took me a very long time to learn this, Scott, isbehavior is a choice.
(18:19):
And how we choose to behave is going to determine our success and failure.
For so long, I was a victim of, hey, this is your personality.
This is who you are.
And this is what you're stuck being.
And the reality is, is yeah, personality is one aspect of behavior, but there's otherthings, environment, context, motivations, drives, et cetera.
(18:42):
And when we really truly adopt the idea that behavior is a choice, it gives us this senseof agency and empowerment that we can actually be in the driver's seat of all the good,
all the challenge, all the negative things that happened to us as founders, as owners oranything else.
So that's the secret that I wish everybody knew.
(19:05):
So good.
good.
Jay, there.
a number of folks that are listening that would love to know more about that.
They're wondering what their natural elements are, what that stack looks like.
Where can they find out more about the work that you do, maybe even take the assessmentaround these four elements?
Yeah, absolutely.
So you can go to behavioralelements.com and take our free assessment.
(19:28):
And you can also connect with me on LinkedIn.
And I am on LinkedIn at jayjohnsonccg.
That is my handle there.
And I'd love to share more information with you or answer any questions you might haveabout behavior.
Jay, thanks so much for being on the show.
It's a real privilege having you here with us today.
And for those of you watching and listening, I highly recommend the assessment.
(19:51):
I got to take it earlier today and it was fantastic.
I also know that your time and attention mean the world to us.
I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did and I cannot wait to seeyou next time.
Take care.
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