September 24, 2022 • 55 mins
Joel Peterson, Chairman of JetBlue Airways and Professor at Stanford
Have you ever been part of a low-trust organization, where people seem to devote more energy to protecting themselves than to collaborating, or building good products? Or one where leaders hoard power and seem reluctant to give the reins over to anyone else? You might ask yourself how things got to that point, but an even more pressing concern is, how do you fix the situation? Our guest today has worked with some 300 companies in various stages of growth, and during his 50-year career he’s observed, researched, written and taught–about leadership, trust, and building strong teams. Today, he’ll help us consider the question:
What can entrepreneurship teach us about creating environments of empowerment?
A conversation with Joel Peterson, on this episode of Lead With a Question.
Guest Bio:
Joel has a long history of successful growth capital investments in a variety of industries. He currently teaches Entrepreneurial Management at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, is the Chairman of the Board of Overseers at the Hoover Institution at Stanford as well as the Chairman of the Board at JetBlue Airways, and serves as a Director of Franklin Covey. He served formerly as Managing Partner of Trammell Crow Company. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. Joel is the author of the books The 10 Laws of Trust: Building the Bonds that Make a Business Great; and Entrepreneurial Leadership: The Art of Launching New Ventures, Inspiring Others, and Running Stuff.
Learn more about Joel and his work by visiting https://www.joelcpeterson.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
this is lead with a question,
the job of the coach is to help people get where they want to go,
but wouldn't be able to get there without your help.
But I think the important part of that was where they want to go.
(00:23):
It gets back to that notion of intrinsic motivation and meaning.
If you can get people aligned around where they want to go,
then the coach can push really hard and correct and get feedback because people are getting where they want to go,
Hi,
I'm rob Callan,
(00:43):
we live in a time when people are seeing that the old way of doing business is broken and that leading into the future requires something new.
A deeper focus on humanity,
the courage to let go of power and ego,
A desire to nurture the conditions for co creation and the bravery,
(01:04):
not to have all the answers on this show.
I along with my friends chris Deaver and Ian clawson connect with guests who embody these principles and whether household names or not they've shattered the status quo,
often as misfits to shape the future with others and achieve miraculous things in work and life.
(01:27):
Have you ever been part of a low trust organization where people seem to devote more energy to protecting themselves than to collaborating or building good products or one where leaders hoard power and seem reluctant to give the reins over to anyone else?
You might ask yourself how things got to that point,
but an even more pressing concern is how do you fix the situation?
(01:52):
Our guest today has worked with some 300 companies in various stages of growth and during his 50 year career he's observed,
researched,
written and taught about leadership trust and building strong teams today,
he'll help us consider the question,
what can entrepreneurship teach us about creating environments of empowerment?
(02:16):
A conversation with Joel Peterson on this episode of lead with a question.
Leadership is a topic that I care a lot about because I was approached by a bunch of students 16 years ago who had taken a course called paths to power and it was very much a very top down model where you control you,
(02:50):
you control reward and punishment,
you issue ex cathedra statements from the corner office and you drive Uh judgments that way.
And they just said isn't there another way would you teach a course in values-based leadership?
And I said there's frankly no other way.
Every all leadership is values,
(03:10):
but you may not like the values,
but people lead from their values.
And so we put together a course that we've now taught for 16 years,
that's one of the more popular courses at Stanford.
So I've actually taught four courses there over 30 years.
Yeah,
you just alluded to kind of the traditional way of of how leadership has been experienced for folks in the workplace,
(03:35):
you know,
very top top down we we like to to correlate the fact that it's very,
you know,
logos heavy meaning a lot of institutions are,
you know founded off of,
you know,
data research,
you know,
science driven and I think um what we're starting to see is this rejection of of an institutional model,
(03:58):
you know,
the traditional workplace and traditional leadership.
And so what we find is people are are are heading towards the antithesis,
which is a pathos,
you know,
way of pursuing their career or life.
You know,
it's very passion driven.
And so I love the fact that your your approach was very value driven.
(04:22):
You know,
we happen to believe that ethos is is the bridge for the future or can be,
it's it's what's missing currently in the dialogue for folks,
what is your take on on ethos and and how it can impact the future for for the workplace?
Well,
I think it's the most fundamental natural and honest way to lead uh in a,
(04:47):
in a really powerful way because people then own the outcomes,
you know,
I think a lot of these cases where you have a leader who's driving something,
it's only the leader that owns the outcome and they grab the credit and they celebrate it and they behave in ways that are consistent with that mindset.
So,
you see in a lot of companies now,
(05:07):
leaders supporting causes and doing various things and virtue signaling and I always made the case that,
you know,
if I'm gonna be giving away an enterprises capital,
uh I could also spend that capital to pay my employees more to pay my shareholders more or to give my customers discounts and give them more value.
(05:30):
And I'd rather have that happen and give them the freedom to then make whatever contributions they want to make than me make it as a chief executive officer and grab the credit.
So I think you see there's this tension now between and I think I'm not sure exactly where it will come out,
but there's clearly a Attention between people who really want freedom,
(05:56):
decentralization.
Um,
all the things that go with with the kinds of things that you're calling pathos and ethos versus sort of this top down authoritarian,
totalitarian.
You know,
and I think we see in our government is acting in a much more totalitarian way than than I've experienced in my 75 years.
(06:18):
So I think we're,
I think we're a little bit of war,
a leadership war.
That's a good point.
Yeah.
I think you highlighted something that resonates with a lot of people,
Joel.
Um,
you know,
the virtue signaling kind of the surface version of leadership and,
and as an expression of pathos,
right?
And,
and just to simplify,
I think it's kind of heart versus mind and,
(06:42):
you know,
in the end.
Uh,
if it's either extreme,
it's it's not going to serve the future right in the right way.
And then the question becomes,
how do we synthesize this?
And,
you know,
to your point principles right or ethos this this way forward really is,
you know,
pulling these things together.
It's not an either or answer?
(07:02):
It's an and answer.
Um,
but then it also has to be balanced with a perspective that is,
you know,
what we call kind of principle powered future that people recognize.
You know,
then in rejecting some things,
you know,
it's not about rejecting the timeless and those timeless things are what are gonna carry carry us forward in the future.
(07:25):
And and to your point,
you know,
you know,
it's,
it's almost the wrong question that leaders seem to be asking right sometimes about this,
right?
It's like,
what do I do about all this?
Well,
you know,
if if they're blown about by the winds,
you know,
it's not gonna be helpful,
you know,
versus what seems to be the case with some of the best leaders is,
hey,
we provide,
you know,
to your point about customers and driving,
(07:46):
you know,
giving,
you know,
serving customers,
the employees and,
and the experience is how do we provide the frame,
right?
And,
and,
and the principles and let them build what they're going to build.
Yeah.
So I actually think that one of the main things that,
that they have to start with is themselves.
(08:07):
And I think becoming trustworthy,
you know,
and really working on their own operating systems.
You know,
I think a leader that isn't trustworthy shouldn't be trusted and therefore you have this built in conflict that will tear things apart over time.
And so I think the leader has to start out and say,
(08:29):
you know,
what do I believe?
What are my values?
What are my priorities and what am I gonna stick to?
And then articulate them clearly,
and maybe make changes to their own operating system?
I think another thing that leaders have to get used to is this idea that there are different kinds of ways to motivate teams to get things done.
(08:49):
And I think there are,
and I've written about this,
there are five fundamental motivators force which we don't use.
You may with a small child,
you know,
when it's an issue of safety,
you may use force,
but typically we don't use that.
But then it's fear and reward.
Fear of punishment and a reward.
That's often a monetary award or a recognition or whatever.
(09:14):
Most businesses use fear and reward.
Uh and most leaders then find that easy.
It's quick,
it's easy.
It's sort of always works until it doesn't.
Uh And then I think that the two superior forms of leading and motivating people are through duty and duty is typically a shared sense of meaning.
(09:35):
People want to find meaning in their work.
And if people,
if you can as a leader can help people define meaning and really own that meaning and feel a duty to that outcome.
You don't have to worry too much about prodding them,
rewarding them,
punishing them.
They are intrinsically driven.
And then the final one,
and this will make you uncomfortable is love.
(09:57):
You know,
and uh,
the way that we talk about love in the in a business sense is fiduciary duty.
We have a duty to others that is the same as to ourselves.
And so I think love is really the most powerful force in the world.
And I think leaders who love the people they're leading are really effective.
It means they listen to them,
(10:18):
they think about them,
they they don't have an agenda when they're talking,
they're trying to solve their issues and problems.
And so I think if leaders can actually transition from fear and reward as their primary motivators to duty and love,
they have fundamentally created a different kind of a culture.
(10:38):
And I think it's a more powerful culture in today's world,
where people are seeking meaning,
where people are more free agents,
where there's kind of a gig economy.
So,
I think if you can transition to that,
you know,
the alternative that you've got,
I think to look at is what goes on in government,
government is fundamentally a power driven thing.
(11:02):
You know,
politicians reward their friends and punish their enemies and they understand power and they apply power,
but the trust levels are close to zero,
people can't even talk to each other,
consequently,
nothing gets done except by the exercise of pure power.
And then it tears the constituents apart.
(11:24):
So I think you have a model that is kind of the old model of leadership in extremists,
it's taken to the point that uh you know,
it's it's breaking down and I think people are observing that uh the problem that we that that I observe is that we don't yet have statesmen,
we don't have people that are wise that know how to do this.
(11:46):
And so consequently you have these power bases.
So I think were observed when I talk about,
you know,
we're sort of at war with ourselves and each other.
It's really over kinds of leadership and so we have,
I think in in both political parties,
we have leaders who don't tend to build trust By duty and love,
(12:07):
you know,
they really understand the fear and reward and they we pit people against each other.
So I think in our political world in which is our news cycle and everything,
we see this old form,
I think in many entrepreneurial enterprise and I've I've been involved in some 300 businesses over the last 50 years.
(12:28):
I think in these morons,
that's why I teach entrepreneurship because I love being able to create high trust environments and actually as a leader,
you can do things to create high trust environments.
If you don't do that,
then you have to have high power environments where power is the currency and I think using power is the currency is a is a very awkward expensive,
(12:53):
inflexible,
almost certain to fail version.
Whereas if you have trust,
if you've ever been involved in a turnaround,
fundamentally,
the currency you have to rely on and to turn around to your suppliers have to trust you,
your creditors have to trust you,
your investors have to trust you,
your customers have to trust you.
They have to believe that you'll do a great job of getting the company back on track.
(13:18):
So,
so I think in small enterprises in turnarounds,
this new model that I'm describing is the only one that really works in these old stodgy institutional top down fear reward models.
They're still working on that,
they're still pushing that I think they're they're becoming even more extreme.
(13:38):
If you look at government,
they're becoming even more extreme.
That's so fascinating.
I think there's like 10 different directions we could go based on that,
that response.
And one of the things that came to mind for me is,
you know,
that that top down traditional model seems to focus on external factors and and really things that ultimately end up answering a question,
(14:02):
where does my next meal come from?
And when when I think about those higher forms of leadership,
that's where,
you know,
the table stakes,
where,
you know,
all of those external things have been met.
You know,
we're not worried about the pay and there's and there's high trust,
I'm not learning,
you know worried about losing my job,
(14:23):
but really you've gotten to a higher level where there's,
there's a more compelling reason for you to stay and there's a more compelling reason for you to go that extra mile and and spend what a lot of people call discretionary effort on um,
you know,
on improving the organization even further.
(14:43):
And one question that came up for me was in working with entrepreneurial environments.
Is there a way to preserve that level of trust as the organization grows?
Or is there any sort of direct relationship between the size of the organization and the level of trust that exists within it?
(15:05):
That's such a great question because usually what happens is as you add people trust goes down and a lot of it is because you build relationships a conversation at a time.
You build trust a molecule at a time assignment completed correctly at a time.
And as organizations get bigger and there are more complex issues,
(15:28):
there are more places for trust to break down.
I got so interested in this.
I'm gonna sound like a book salesman here,
but I got so interested in this topic that I wrote a book called the 10 laws of trust and its thesis was fundamentally that as a leader you can do things to increase the trust levels.
There's even a diagnostic in there where you can ask questions that and and it's it's not accurate in and of itself.
(15:55):
But what gives you is a starting point that then you can measure over time and say,
are we increasing our levels of trust within this organization or not?
If you're not,
you're increasing the costs,
you're decreasing the innovation and the flexibility.
I mean a bunch of things happen when trust breaks up.
So yes,
you can.
And yes,
if the organization get big,
(16:17):
it's harder and harder.
And I actually think one of the things the leader's job is then is to build trust is to go around and build trust to stick their nose in the offices of various people,
ask them what's going on,
How they can help.
You know,
it's it's almost being a cheerleader around values.
You know,
it all depends on values.
What are your values?
Your values are your priorities.
(16:38):
It's how do you force rank what it is you're trying to do and where your values are congruent with other people in the organization.
You don't have to do all kinds of manipulations to get people on value on meaning they buy into those things.
So one of the other things I always say is a big part of your job as a leader is to get the right team on the field.
(17:02):
And what that means is you have to source the right people,
you have to interview them with discretion.
You have to onboard them correctly.
You have to give them good assignment.
You have to give them feedback along the way,
you have to promote or demote and guess what?
You have to fire people.
You have to get them off the field.
(17:23):
And uh that's a constant thing.
So to me building trust,
getting the right team on the field are really a lot of what great leaders have to do in this kind of a model.
Yeah,
that's so good,
Joel.
I love the analogy to the team and you know,
one of the thoughts that with all the disruption that's happened right,
(17:44):
all the change uh recently over the past few years,
which feels like a decade's worth of change,
right?
Uh very just fast way.
And so leaders are,
some of them are reeling right with all the change and to rob's point,
you know,
by externals,
a lot of the levers they were pulling in the past don't have the effect that that they that they used to or you know,
(18:06):
it's catching up,
right?
And so if they're looking to build trust in this new environment right?
Where people are on zoom their home or it's just that there's a lot of different aspects to it and what would you say to them about,
you know,
how to do that?
I would say number one expected to be much harder expected to take longer and to take more time individually.
(18:29):
And then I think there's nothing that gets you away from meeting with people.
I think this idea that we can all be remote and just be on on zoom or whatever platform is a fantasy human beings are social animals and a lot of what happens in these meetings,
we were having our first LP Ceo conference in three years now and uh we're getting from all our C E O s and all our LPS.
(18:55):
We really missed that.
This is a really important event and they rub shoulders and what goes on between sessions is what happens is what matters,
connections are made and I think you have to just recognize that if that isn't happening,
you're going to have a hard time.
So I think you have to find ways for that to happen.
I know the year that so I I talked for a couple of years over Zoom over zoom at stanford and I just could not develop the connections with my students that I normally had and I realized that I would always go into class early,
(19:28):
I always had office hours,
I'd always have lunches with students and that's where I was bonding.
It wasn't in the classroom,
that was a formal thing and we had to go through it and everything,
but it was all of this informal stuff that made the difference.
So I think you have to,
you're gonna have to structure ways to do that.
And I think it's a fantasy to think you can have a bunch of postage stamp sized figures on a screen and you can build a high trust enterprise that will not happen.
(19:58):
So true.
Yeah.
Um some of the things you were saying earlier about this change that's taking place with the old regime and this new era of work and leadership,
you know,
chris and I we we struggle a little bit with some of these concepts when we're talking executives or startup founders,
(20:18):
um because we're just not in a position of wanting to convince traditional leaders that they need to change,
right,
We don't feel like that's worth our time and effort.
But what we do see is there is an up and coming workforce that is watching they're watching these changes happen,
(20:39):
they're watching the crumbling of the old ways of doing things.
They're taking notes on what not to be as a leader,
right?
And so how can we properly foster this new generation that's rising that will become the leaders of the future,
you know,
in this transitional state,
(21:00):
it's really hard for them to find their footing to know,
like there's no articulation,
there's no proper framework that's just readily available for them to just use a playbook and and,
you know,
and run with it.
So how can we kind of wrangle in this this new class of leadership and and really bring out the best in them.
(21:24):
So,
I'm gonna really sound like a book salesman here.
You have a lot of good ideas.
So we want to hear,
you know,
I was interested in this very question.
And so I wrote a book that I wanted to call running stuff,
and harpercollins talked me out of calling it running stuff and into calling an entrepreneurial leadership,
(21:44):
and the notion was uh that the the entrepreneurial leaders act differently from leaders who don't have a stake and that entrepreneurial leadership is really the new way of going about things.
And so what I would recommend any of my students is get the book and read it and see if there are some ideas in there that will uh that you can rally around,
(22:07):
because I do think it captures in a very pithy way,
a lot of the things and fundamentally,
I mean just a brief thumbnail is I say the first thing you have to do is become trustworthy,
you have to have trust as the currency of your enterprise.
Uh and so if you're going to have uh an enterprise that operates the way that we're talking about trust is the medium of exchange,
(22:32):
then you have to have clarity around your goals,
because without which you will not be able to get people rallying around meaning.
So the second thing is having a really clear goal,
and I think that's way harder than people think,
and you need to make it memorable,
it has to be achievable,
you have to keep recognizing it in everything everybody does,
(22:55):
it's like what peak are we climbing?
There's a whole mountain range of peaks you could climb,
but this is the one we've decided to climb and you have to keep that in front of people has to be clear as to be reinforced and people have to own.
One of the things I always used to say is let's pick the five words that we want to be known for.
Brands are really valuable.
(23:15):
I think most people to say yeah brands are really valuable.
So let's pick the five words we want our brand to represent and you should take a couple of months to do that.
Everybody thinks,
oh you can do that in a half hour in one meeting or whatever.
No,
you have to get them,
get them all out on a piece of paper,
force,
rank them,
sleep on it,
talk about it again,
(23:36):
make arguments over them and at the end if people own that,
then they've got meaning around that,
then I think you have to assemble the team and that means getting people off the field and on the field and then finally there's a whole series of execution steps.
I went ahead and interviewed a bunch of entrepreneurs to say,
what are your most 10 difficult thorny issues and they all said,
(23:58):
you know,
these are the 10 so I give examples of how you can make running a meeting effective raising capital,
how you negotiate,
how you sell,
you know,
things that every business has to do,
get good at those,
get good at the execution was a little bit like a football team,
you know,
running its plays over and over and over again until they can do them by perfection.
(24:19):
So to me that was a simple four step process,
trust clarity about goals or mission assembling the team and then execution.
Hey Joel,
how,
how did you first become interested in leadership as,
as a field of study and,
and what has spending a career in this area meant for you personally?
(24:42):
Well,
it's funny.
I,
I started out as a leasing agent in France.
So I was leasing office and warehouse space in France.
And my very first assignment was to raise $10 million Paris.
And uh I started to read the documents and I ran a bunch of financial models and I said,
(25:08):
oh my gosh,
whoever puts up this $10 million is gonna lose it.
This is a terrible idea.
And so I went to the chief financial officer and I said,
you know,
this is a really bad idea to do this.
And he said,
my job is to figure out what to do your job is to go do it.
And so I thought,
okay,
I'm in,
I'm in a tough spot here.
So I reread the documents and I came out with this analysis that said,
(25:31):
we're on the bottom side of a guarantee that we flip to the top side.
In other words,
our exposure becomes greater as we get further into it,
Let's give the project back to the lenders,
the financiers and we'll just work for fees,
not for an equity position.
And it turned out that was actually the right call.
And so I at age 29 became the chief financial officer of the largest real estate development company in the world,
(25:57):
private real estate development company in the world.
And so I worked on on workouts and I found that the way that you got through workouts was because everybody trusted you,
I could take say with an honest face and and belief in my heart,
nobody will do a better job of getting these projects filled up and managed than we will.
(26:22):
And so give us some more time.
And that was quite persuasive because they trusted us to do that.
And so I really started to develop this idea of high trust and high touch and a new way of leading.
And so I just drifted,
I ultimately became the Ceo and then I started my own businesses and one thing led to another and I never planned,
(26:47):
you know,
it's like a lot of people will tell you that's not what I planned to do.
It just happened.
And I think that's kind of what happens.
And so I was always really curious,
you know,
how does this work,
what works and what doesn't work.
And I found things like decentralization work better than centralization for the most part,
you know,
celebrating people work better than punishing them listening work better than talking.
(27:12):
You know,
so a whole bunch of things that you just observe over time,
I'll tell you one funny story,
there was a book called In Search of Excellence,
that was the top business.
It sold 4.5 million copies in the mid seventies.
It was written by tom Peters and bob Waterman and it was the business book of the mid eighties.
(27:33):
So in any event when I became Ceo,
I hired bob Waterman to be my coach and so he attended the first board meeting that I lead and uh I thought I did a great job,
I mean I was just,
I was so proud of myself,
it was kind of you know,
celebrating at what a good job I done.
So I asked him just kind of uh what did you think bob?
(27:57):
And I thought he would say boy,
you're the best young leader I've ever worked with.
And all he said was you talked too much and I said,
well yeah,
maybe I do talk a little bit too much,
but what did you think about the substance and he said you talk too much And that was the best coaching I've ever had,
you know,
and fundamentally he was teaching me,
(28:17):
you know,
you gotta let other people talk,
let them come to conclusions.
So you know,
when you say where did you get this interest?
It was just by making mistakes,
being coached,
being willing to learn,
etc.
And I became over 50 years,
you couldn't help if you,
if you keep your ear to the ground,
you couldn't help but learn a few things.
So that's how it happened.
(28:39):
Yeah,
that gets to like we,
we you said it earlier,
Joel about how a leader can start to address any kind of,
you know,
change or influence or to build something or shape the future be co created with their team.
It really starts with them.
And you lived that right?
You've you've lived that on ongoing,
an ongoing way we think about as like the mirror test,
(29:01):
right?
There's this kind of real version of ourselves and then there's the ideal,
we're kind of in this constant process of trying to bridge that or synthesize.
Um and,
and but it really takes that hard look in the mirror of asking,
right,
what do I need to do differently?
Um I had a similar moment where I,
(29:21):
I shared a presentation,
I thought it was great and I had fortunately a good friend and mentor who was,
you know there and afterwards he just basically said,
hey,
you know,
it's,
I said,
what do you think?
He's like,
well,
it's good to teach because it's better to inspire.
And uh that one line,
right has stuck with me for over 20 years and it's amazing,
(29:45):
right?
That just that,
and I guess the openness to,
wow,
like what,
what is it I need to be learning and being curious about that,
you know,
to your point,
it's almost like this,
this constant exploration.
Well,
I think there are two things to think about was feedback.
One is you have to reward negative feedback when somebody says that you really kind of blew that or you kept talking after the sale was made or whatever,
(30:10):
you have to say,
thank you so much for that.
I'm gonna work on that.
Let me know if I'm getting better most people when they get negative feedback,
they punish the other party in some way or another and uh and you have to really get good at not doing that.
I think the second thing is to institutionalize the notion of feedback sessions.
One of the things that we used to do when I was at Crow was,
(30:32):
we would just have an immediate feedback session.
After we'd made a presentation,
we'd say,
how does it go?
And whoever was leading it would be self critical,
they'd say,
you know,
here's what I think I could have done better.
I talked too long or I presented too many slides or my slides were too dense or you know,
whatever,
I didn't do enough listening and and once the leader had kind of been self critical,
(30:55):
other people would say,
yeah,
I didn't think that didn't go over and I could have done x,
y and z and they got to be fun,
you know,
so feedback can be fun if it is something that says,
hey,
we're all working on getting better.
So I think those are a couple of tips.
I always tell my students at stanford feedback is the Breakfast of Champions.
(31:16):
So you want to make sure that you get your bowl of feedback every day.
What I'm hearing as you're talking is there's sort of a muscle that needs to be built up,
sort of an institutional habit of giving feedback.
And I also think back to some of the things that you shared with us earlier,
which all centered on the importance of trust.
(31:39):
And it would seem to me that one essential prerequisite to that ongoing feedback culture would be would be trust.
And in the last few years we've seen the principle of,
of radical candor,
be focused on a lot.
And I think a lot of people have gotten excited about that um I fear though,
(32:02):
that maybe some people have forgotten about the sort of the care and the foundational trust that that,
you know,
is is needed beforehand prior to diving into that,
that feedback.
But man,
it's it's tough and why,
why do you think that it's so hard for for people and organizations to to build up those,
(32:23):
those cultures of feedback?
Well,
I think we're all insecure,
you know,
and so when you hear negative feedback,
you say,
oh my gosh,
is my job safe?
Am I safe?
Am I thought of,
we want to be well thought of?
So I think you have to make the sessions fun and I think the leader has to take the feedback and be working on it themselves to otherwise it's a top down thing and it will actually make things worse.
(32:50):
So you know,
I think it's a very important process to get set up,
but I think leaders have to be vulnerable,
you know,
a lot of times it used to be that people would teach and particularly in power dynamics,
they would teach leaders not to be vulnerable,
never to show weakness,
never to admit mistakes and everything.
(33:11):
And I've often asked leaders um or people who are following a leader,
do you think less of them when they say,
oh shoot,
I blew that,
you know,
we've got to change that or do you think more of them?
And in every case people say no,
I trust them more when they say,
you know,
we could have done that better and by the way I made the mistake,
(33:32):
it was my mistake.
People don't trust less.
Um so I think there's a,
there's a level of vulnerability and openness that actually builds trust that allows there to be the power that derives from trust rather than the power that drives from position.
And I think that's what you really want to solve for,
(33:52):
you know,
another thing too um in thinking about leadership,
one of the things the areas that I think development could really help and support leaders is for them to become coaches,
for example,
you know,
like I I came from a work environment where I didn't even receive performance evaluations annually,
(34:16):
you know,
and so you're kind of like,
I think I'm doing a good job and then if you get called out on something or you get blamed for something not going right,
you're like,
well,
jeez,
that really wasn't clear,
but I wish I would have received that feedback,
you know,
three months ago.
Right?
So I think if if leaders um were developed to be coaches where,
(34:40):
and I love how you described it,
you know,
like make it a fun environment,
you know,
and it starts with trust,
it starts with that relationship,
but if you can be vulnerable and you have the skills of a coach,
you know,
I think then you're always able to improve throughout the year instead of waiting for the feedback.
(35:01):
I mean,
that's the traditional way,
you guys know who tom Landry,
was that a name that means anything to you?
Tom Landry was the coach of the Dallas cowboys and it's when they were going to the Super Bowl all the time,
they were America's team.
And Landry was was just a famous coach and he basically said the job of the coach is to help people get where they want to go,
(35:28):
but wouldn't be able to get there without your help without your prodding and encouraging etcetera,
but I think the important part of that was where they want to go,
you know,
where it gets back to that notion of intrinsic motivation and meaning,
finding out where people,
if you can get people aligned around where they want to go,
(35:48):
then the coach can push really hard and correct and get feedback because people are getting where they want to go.
And so I think uh that was the reason Landry was so effective,
I think yeah,
11 thought that uh has come to mind to it ties back to what you shared earlier,
Joel about the virtue signaling and essentially what would be surface leadership or surface influence,
(36:16):
You know,
people assuming that if they just solve for the other or that other situation that external that it's gonna kind of fix their life or their work or their work life.
Uh and it's I think first the first answer is what you shared about entrepreneurial leadership,
there's a sense of ownership to that,
which is different,
right?
And then there's this other piece that we're talking about now,
(36:38):
which is,
well,
it seems like it's really about getting to the core of who we are individually,
like personally and being brave in that way,
and it seems like that trust focus as a leader is is where they can make a real difference and be brave and start to take action and have kind of real conversations and I I just wonder like for folks that you're starting out or trying to figure that out,
(37:08):
I think you've answered some of this already,
but what,
you know,
other,
other considerations that uh would help them maybe as they're exploring how to be brave in that way and you know,
charting that new world.
Yeah,
so uh so two ideas out there for you to consider the first one is this idea of mantras,
(37:30):
you know,
I basically rewrote my natural operating system with three mon tras and they really addressed what were the big problems in my leadership and I had ended up saying them to myself several times every day,
you know,
I would have to remind myself until my natural responses came out of this new place,
(37:53):
so I think mantras is one way that you could really encourage me and that starts out with saying what are my weaknesses,
what's getting in my way and what can I say to myself,
to remind myself,
So for me it was,
it's not about me,
it's about the mission,
I was egocentric,
you know,
I have all I need,
(38:13):
you know,
and I was blaming circumstances,
you know,
and so these were things that helped me overcome that,
the the second thing that I think is really important that everybody can do is really this understanding that if you want to execute,
if you want to get a team hitting on all cylinders,
you have to make it simple,
it has to really become clear,
(38:35):
it was all over Wendell Holmes that said,
I would not give a fig for the simplicity,
this side of complexity,
but I would give my life for the simplicity.
The other side of complexity and what that means is you have to go all the way through the complex and then it has to get simple again,
it has to really be,
wait a minute,
This is what we're doing,
(38:55):
once that happens,
meaning comes,
people can do it.
So if you've got these mantras to rewrite your operating system that says I am not gonna blame anymore,
I'm not gonna be at the center of things anymore,
I'm not gonna uh do whatever's in your way.
Uh and you have made simple what it is.
I mean,
I remember JetBlue,
(39:16):
we said we want to bring humanity back to air travel,
that sounds like a really stupid simple simpleton kind of a thing,
but it was really the core of what our customers frustration was that they were treated like cattle and particularly in low cost things,
they felt terrible.
So what we were going to do is bring humanity back to that and that became a really rallying cry and it and it was reinforced by everything we did there,
(39:44):
JetBlue was to bring humanity to our communities,
to the people that worked there,
We didn't furlough people.
We just did a bunch of things that were all around that idea and it became a rally an inspirational rallying cry and again,
that was that took a while to come to.
But that was,
that was I think a really simple kind of a thing to remember.
(40:06):
And I think then then I think the leader has to rewrite their own operating system and then all of a sudden you kind of have this,
the other principal I teach my uh entrepreneurs is you have to find alignment between your values,
your objectives,
what you're solving for your strategy.
(40:27):
Uh what are you gonna do?
What markets are you gonna take your tactics?
Who's going to do what,
by when and then your controls,
What are you gonna measure?
They have to be aligned top to bottom.
If you go through most organizations,
you'll find that there's not alignment.
People say one thing and they do another.
(40:48):
They have other things.
They're measuring,
people are rewarded on something else altogether.
There's all these unspoken systems,
whereas if they will just say we're going to have rigorous alignment between those five categories.
All of a sudden companies almost run themselves.
I mean,
really people hold themselves to wait a minute.
These are our priorities.
(41:09):
And by the way,
priority is a singular term.
You can't have priorities.
You have to have a priority.
Now,
I've cheated a little bit on that and I always let myself believe there are three or four because I can remember three or four,
I can't remember 10.
So any company that tells me they have 10 priorities,
I always tell them,
that means you don't have any,
(41:30):
you have none.
So I think getting alignment,
getting the mission right,
getting trust,
team,
mission and execution steps,
all these things get to be quite simple maps.
And so I think,
I guess what I would say your fundamental question is is there a formula for leadership going forward that is different from the one in the past?
(41:53):
And I think it is,
I think it's a map that can be understood by every single person up and down the organization.
It's not a secret document held in the safe of the guy who sits in the corner office or the woman who sits in the corner office,
you know,
and they,
they speak and you don't know where it came from.
You know,
your pronouncements should be totally predictable because what happens when they're totally predictable.
(42:18):
Other people can make the decisions,
you've just empowered your entire team when you're predictable.
If you're not predictable,
then you retain power.
And so some people want to be unpredictable because it allows them to hold on to power and they think that's how they lead.
Power is leadership.
My sense of leadership is no,
it's the distribution of power that is leadership.
(42:40):
So I think those are really the two different models and uh,
and I think we see it in government and we see it in entrepreneurial organizations at their extremes and I think the more we could bring things to the entrepreneurial,
think the more innovative,
flexible,
creative,
uh efficient,
all kinds of things happen when that happens.
But it does take leaders who have that sent,
(43:02):
who are not insecure,
power hungry,
ego driven,
you know,
they have to rewrite their operating systems and that's hard work.
Yeah,
I love that about uh,
you know,
trust starting with with you,
right?
It's almost like this internal conversation,
do I trust myself and then how do I get better at trusting myself right?
(43:25):
Building that,
that level of honesty as a muscle,
right?
Every day we're working it out and then what you also shared,
which kind of framing it from,
you know,
in a and maybe it's it's the same context really,
but you know,
getting clear about what are our first principles,
where is our focus,
what's going to be meaningful to be building on in the future and then and then taking that down to every day,
(43:50):
right,
simplicity about and what do we focus on?
Um and,
you know,
I worry that,
you know,
yeah,
in an effort and this could just could be true,
you know,
in different cycles and iterations,
it's probably happened over decades where,
you know,
people could get lost in a program of the month or something that they think,
well this is going to solve for,
(44:10):
right?
It's like communication,
I'm gonna do that,
I'm gonna do that well,
and then it's going to solve for my leadership,
you know,
all the shortfalls struggles that I have while the reality of that deep work or that core work,
but then the simple vision sharing that you also suggested that those are the things that can create that alignment and you know,
(44:31):
it's just,
it seems like something that is so needed,
uh you know,
now and will continue to be needed in the future.
So thank you for highlighting that.
One of the things you mentioned is communications,
which I think is kind of at the heart of building a high trust organization.
And I always say that you have to communicate before,
during and after events and you have to give bad news as well as good news and you can't wait for the weekend to do a bad news dump,
(45:02):
you know,
all that does is create a huge withdrawal in the trust account.
And so I think what you're trying to do is if you think about,
I'm gonna be making contributions to the trust account every day,
I'm gonna do something that builds higher and higher trust,
because once your organization is fueled by trust,
people don't leave,
(45:23):
you know,
they like being there,
they find meaning lots of good things happen.
And so,
but it is,
I guess my message is,
it's a system wide thing,
you have to think,
you can't just do one thing when you,
when you and this triggered this thought in my mind,
you know when you have a program to address something.
I remember in an organization,
(45:43):
we used to have a guy who would who uh read a book and he would say,
okay this is the answer.
And so for a month we would go through and we would apply whatever to the thing and and sometimes you'd run into one and say,
okay,
I gotta get through this next month,
this will pass,
this too,
will pass.
And that that's a withdrawal that actually withdraws trust.
(46:05):
So I think this idea of simple maps,
you know,
where you want to be totally productive.
I I had a an agenda for board meetings that I ran where everybody knew exactly what the order of matters was gonna be a long,
we were gonna take on things,
you know,
and it was very predictable and the predictability and consistency is what allows other people to feel empowered.
(46:31):
Where and so you see a lot of leaders like being unpredictable because it keeps the power towards the power.
Yeah,
I believe that that that attribute of leadership was highlighted in a in an HBR article a few years ago and and they kind of talked about,
you know,
one of the most important features of good leadership is actually kind of boring,
(46:56):
but it's it's predictability.
It's the people that you lied knowing what they can expect when they engage with you.
And um so to get a little a little personal and not to like dehumanize the conversation,
but um,
so we recently got our first dog and so we're definitely working through the uh,
(47:19):
you know,
the learning curve of getting,
getting him trained and everything.
And when we become less predictable as his owners and kind of as a family and when we don't provide consistent,
you know,
feedback in the form of rewards or,
or redirection,
then he's unhappy.
(47:40):
We can tell and he's he's more prone to get into trouble.
But when we are boring and consistent and do you know,
similar things in terms of,
you know,
how he knows that he's going to be regarded and and engaged with um he's he thrives and he's and he's happy and so again,
not to dehumanize,
(48:01):
but I think that same principle is so important for,
for people who lead others,
whether formally or informally.
Yeah,
well it's not just consistency,
it's consistency around principles.
That makes sense because some people are consistently bad.
You know,
you can consistently hit your dog up the side of the head and that would actually be consistent,
(48:26):
but it would have deleterious effects.
Yeah,
thats a good clarification.
Yeah.
That contrast of like leadership model,
like the archetype in my head,
there's a visual of like the like the poor,
like the street magician.
That's just like a mess,
right?
And trying to be mysterious and that's just not leadership versus this other visual as an apple.
(48:51):
We brought in this uh Conrad Anker,
he's in imax films,
he climbed miru with his team is 19,000 ft straight up cliff.
And it's it's just a crazy story about a lot of these these hikes that they've done and you talked about the mountain earlier,
right,
in this entrepreneurial nature of taking on something big.
(49:12):
And you know,
Conrad is a guy who it's just very straightforward,
it's all simple,
right?
And his team,
they asked him,
you know,
during this conversation,
we were asking him questions and like how do you guide these people?
Right?
And and if they,
you know,
how do you get them to follow you?
He's like,
well it's very simple,
you know,
it's either life or death.
So you know,
(49:32):
we we we work together and they trust me and of course he's got to do things that build trust uh and he does but uh you know that I love that analogy.
Um and then and then maybe,
you know,
a deeper question sometimes for leaders is how do they create a vision that's as crystal clear as as that right?
The mountain and the dangers that are just as obvious as stark as they are right in that situation.
(49:59):
But to your point,
that's the,
you know,
bad news,
good news and just that continual flow,
right?
That's fluid.
Um and we all trust leaders more that that do that.
Well you bring up an interesting point about the power of analogy,
you know,
if you can get a good analogy,
that's simple people have this visual sense of things.
(50:19):
I've used mountains and where we are on the mountain a number of times uh because there's something about that,
I think sports analogies you have to be careful with them because sometimes women don't feel like they can connect as much as uh as the men do,
so you have to be careful with that one.
But if you get permission on it,
(50:40):
sometimes sports analogies can be good,
but there's something simplifying and clarifying about an analogy.
I I write a little tiny thing for linkedin every day.
My most recent one was how anybody who's honest about their success will refer to the failure that led to it or the failures that led to it,
(51:03):
failure is a part of success.
And then I said,
if you want an analogy of that,
just think of the major league baseball players are only 33 of them that have ever had 3000 hits and they all had over 10,000 at bats,
which means that every time they step to the plate,
they knew their odds of failure were much higher than their odds of success.
(51:25):
And that's and so that's kind of a memory,
jogger.
An analogy that says,
okay,
failure's ok,
you know,
failures on our way to success.
So an analogies can be powerful.
Yeah,
well Joel,
this is this has been really interesting and and I think,
you know,
other than providing you some some time to share anything else that that you um feel like we haven't gotten to.
(51:50):
I think 11 piece that I'm especially interested in on the topic of sort of that self introspection is,
you know,
what what could a leader do,
who maybe knows that they are not um achieving sort of the full measure measure of their potential that they would like to be.
(52:11):
Where could they start to to begin that process of that self introspection and attempting to kind of get to know themselves well enough to where they could have that trust in themselves and then thereby inspire that trust in others.
Adam Bryant used to work for the New York Times and for 15 or so years he wrote this,
(52:34):
he wrote this article called the corner office and he interviewed me for 90 minutes for it and he was asking all these same kinds of questions that you were and I was just rattling on like I did with you and just giving what's ever on my mind and everything.
And then and then he had the article to write.
Uh and I was interested that he chose,
(52:56):
here's the punchline,
here's my answer to your question that the the answer he wrote was listening without an agenda.
And I think that's what most people listen with an agenda.
They're they're searching for something,
they're searching for a compliment or they're searching for something that they can then give their answer to their their crafting their answer.
(53:20):
Listening without an agenda means you are a blank slate you're listening to capture.
So back to your question,
if I were thinking about,
what do I need to do?
I would talk to everybody I could about uh you know,
what do you see that's going well,
what do you see that I could improve on?
Where do you see my limitation,
(53:40):
where my blind spots,
what would you do tomorrow,
etcetera?
And just listen and don't have an agenda.
Don't be looking to respond.
Listen without an agenda,
by the way,
I also think that's the most powerful way to show that you care.
You know,
if you,
if you ever have somebody who listens to you that way you feel so affirmed,
(54:02):
you know,
it's just this most incredible feeling when somebody is not judging or giving an answer or whatever,
they're just capturing.
Tell me more about that.
So are you saying this,
is this what you feel?
And it's it's the most affirming kind of thing.
So I always say if you want your Children to feel like they're loved,
(54:23):
just listen to them,
just sit there and you know,
and not judge,
you know,
don't give feedback,
don't coach,
don't train,
don't discipline anything,
just listen.
And uh and so my answer to your question would be start with listening,
(54:46):
this episode of lead with the question was produced by me rob calen with support from my co hosts and brave core founders,
chris Deaver and Ian clawson.
The music you heard was composed by Ian as part of another project he's involved in called Moon Machine,
Dave Arcade created our podcast cover Art special.
(55:06):
Thanks to Joel Peterson for the conversation today and for giving us so much to think about regardless of the size or state of our organization.
Also we really appreciate you for taking the time to co create these conversations with us,
especially when there are so many other things you could be doing.
If you found any value at all in these episodes,
(55:27):
could you do a favor?
Leave us a rating,
even a review wherever you're listening right now.
It takes about two minutes and helps others discover the show as well.
If you want to learn more about the work we're doing at Brave Core,
you can check out our website at Brave Core dot c o.
The lead with a question podcast is a production of Brave Core LLC.
this is lead with a question,
the job of the coach is to help people get where they want to go,
but wouldn't be able to get there without your help.
But I think the important part of that was where they want to go.
(00:23):
It gets back to that notion of intrinsic motivation and meaning.
If you can get people aligned around where they want to go,
then the coach can push really hard and correct and get feedback because people are getting where they want to go,
Hi,
I'm rob Callan,
(00:43):
we live in a time when people are seeing that the old way of doing business is broken and that leading into the future requires something new.
A deeper focus on humanity,
the courage to let go of power and ego,
A desire to nurture the conditions for co creation and the bravery,
(01:04):
not to have all the answers on this show.
I along with my friends chris Deaver and Ian clawson connect with guests who embody these principles and whether household names or not they've shattered the status quo,
often as misfits to shape the future with others and achieve miraculous things in work and life.
(01:27):
Have you ever been part of a low trust organization where people seem to devote more energy to protecting themselves than to collaborating or building good products or one where leaders hoard power and seem reluctant to give the reins over to anyone else?
You might ask yourself how things got to that point,
but an even more pressing concern is how do you fix the situation?
(01:52):
Our guest today has worked with some 300 companies in various stages of growth and during his 50 year career he's observed,
researched,
written and taught about leadership trust and building strong teams today,
he'll help us consider the question,
what can entrepreneurship teach us about creating environments of empowerment?
(02:16):
A conversation with Joel Peterson on this episode of lead with a question.
Leadership is a topic that I care a lot about because I was approached by a bunch of students 16 years ago who had taken a course called paths to power and it was very much a very top down model where you control you,
(02:50):
you control reward and punishment,
you issue ex cathedra statements from the corner office and you drive Uh judgments that way.
And they just said isn't there another way would you teach a course in values-based leadership?
And I said there's frankly no other way.
Every all leadership is values,
(03:10):
but you may not like the values,
but people lead from their values.
And so we put together a course that we've now taught for 16 years,
that's one of the more popular courses at Stanford.
So I've actually taught four courses there over 30 years.
Yeah,
you just alluded to kind of the traditional way of of how leadership has been experienced for folks in the workplace,
(03:35):
you know,
very top top down we we like to to correlate the fact that it's very,
you know,
logos heavy meaning a lot of institutions are,
you know founded off of,
you know,
data research,
you know,
science driven and I think um what we're starting to see is this rejection of of an institutional model,
(03:58):
you know,
the traditional workplace and traditional leadership.
And so what we find is people are are are heading towards the antithesis,
which is a pathos,
you know,
way of pursuing their career or life.
You know,
it's very passion driven.
And so I love the fact that your your approach was very value driven.
(04:22):
You know,
we happen to believe that ethos is is the bridge for the future or can be,
it's it's what's missing currently in the dialogue for folks,
what is your take on on ethos and and how it can impact the future for for the workplace?
Well,
I think it's the most fundamental natural and honest way to lead uh in a,
(04:47):
in a really powerful way because people then own the outcomes,
you know,
I think a lot of these cases where you have a leader who's driving something,
it's only the leader that owns the outcome and they grab the credit and they celebrate it and they behave in ways that are consistent with that mindset.
So,
you see in a lot of companies now,
(05:07):
leaders supporting causes and doing various things and virtue signaling and I always made the case that,
you know,
if I'm gonna be giving away an enterprises capital,
uh I could also spend that capital to pay my employees more to pay my shareholders more or to give my customers discounts and give them more value.
(05:30):
And I'd rather have that happen and give them the freedom to then make whatever contributions they want to make than me make it as a chief executive officer and grab the credit.
So I think you see there's this tension now between and I think I'm not sure exactly where it will come out,
but there's clearly a Attention between people who really want freedom,
(05:56):
decentralization.
Um,
all the things that go with with the kinds of things that you're calling pathos and ethos versus sort of this top down authoritarian,
totalitarian.
You know,
and I think we see in our government is acting in a much more totalitarian way than than I've experienced in my 75 years.
(06:18):
So I think we're,
I think we're a little bit of war,
a leadership war.
That's a good point.
Yeah.
I think you highlighted something that resonates with a lot of people,
Joel.
Um,
you know,
the virtue signaling kind of the surface version of leadership and,
and as an expression of pathos,
right?
And,
and just to simplify,
I think it's kind of heart versus mind and,
(06:42):
you know,
in the end.
Uh,
if it's either extreme,
it's it's not going to serve the future right in the right way.
And then the question becomes,
how do we synthesize this?
And,
you know,
to your point principles right or ethos this this way forward really is,
you know,
pulling these things together.
It's not an either or answer?
(07:02):
It's an and answer.
Um,
but then it also has to be balanced with a perspective that is,
you know,
what we call kind of principle powered future that people recognize.
You know,
then in rejecting some things,
you know,
it's not about rejecting the timeless and those timeless things are what are gonna carry carry us forward in the future.
(07:25):
And and to your point,
you know,
you know,
it's,
it's almost the wrong question that leaders seem to be asking right sometimes about this,
right?
It's like,
what do I do about all this?
Well,
you know,
if if they're blown about by the winds,
you know,
it's not gonna be helpful,
you know,
versus what seems to be the case with some of the best leaders is,
hey,
we provide,
you know,
to your point about customers and driving,
(07:46):
you know,
giving,
you know,
serving customers,
the employees and,
and the experience is how do we provide the frame,
right?
And,
and,
and the principles and let them build what they're going to build.
Yeah.
So I actually think that one of the main things that,
that they have to start with is themselves.
(08:07):
And I think becoming trustworthy,
you know,
and really working on their own operating systems.
You know,
I think a leader that isn't trustworthy shouldn't be trusted and therefore you have this built in conflict that will tear things apart over time.
And so I think the leader has to start out and say,
(08:29):
you know,
what do I believe?
What are my values?
What are my priorities and what am I gonna stick to?
And then articulate them clearly,
and maybe make changes to their own operating system?
I think another thing that leaders have to get used to is this idea that there are different kinds of ways to motivate teams to get things done.
(08:49):
And I think there are,
and I've written about this,
there are five fundamental motivators force which we don't use.
You may with a small child,
you know,
when it's an issue of safety,
you may use force,
but typically we don't use that.
But then it's fear and reward.
Fear of punishment and a reward.
That's often a monetary award or a recognition or whatever.
(09:14):
Most businesses use fear and reward.
Uh and most leaders then find that easy.
It's quick,
it's easy.
It's sort of always works until it doesn't.
Uh And then I think that the two superior forms of leading and motivating people are through duty and duty is typically a shared sense of meaning.
(09:35):
People want to find meaning in their work.
And if people,
if you can as a leader can help people define meaning and really own that meaning and feel a duty to that outcome.
You don't have to worry too much about prodding them,
rewarding them,
punishing them.
They are intrinsically driven.
And then the final one,
and this will make you uncomfortable is love.
(09:57):
You know,
and uh,
the way that we talk about love in the in a business sense is fiduciary duty.
We have a duty to others that is the same as to ourselves.
And so I think love is really the most powerful force in the world.
And I think leaders who love the people they're leading are really effective.
It means they listen to them,
(10:18):
they think about them,
they they don't have an agenda when they're talking,
they're trying to solve their issues and problems.
And so I think if leaders can actually transition from fear and reward as their primary motivators to duty and love,
they have fundamentally created a different kind of a culture.
(10:38):
And I think it's a more powerful culture in today's world,
where people are seeking meaning,
where people are more free agents,
where there's kind of a gig economy.
So,
I think if you can transition to that,
you know,
the alternative that you've got,
I think to look at is what goes on in government,
government is fundamentally a power driven thing.
(11:02):
You know,
politicians reward their friends and punish their enemies and they understand power and they apply power,
but the trust levels are close to zero,
people can't even talk to each other,
consequently,
nothing gets done except by the exercise of pure power.
And then it tears the constituents apart.
(11:24):
So I think you have a model that is kind of the old model of leadership in extremists,
it's taken to the point that uh you know,
it's it's breaking down and I think people are observing that uh the problem that we that that I observe is that we don't yet have statesmen,
we don't have people that are wise that know how to do this.
(11:46):
And so consequently you have these power bases.
So I think were observed when I talk about,
you know,
we're sort of at war with ourselves and each other.
It's really over kinds of leadership and so we have,
I think in in both political parties,
we have leaders who don't tend to build trust By duty and love,
(12:07):
you know,
they really understand the fear and reward and they we pit people against each other.
So I think in our political world in which is our news cycle and everything,
we see this old form,
I think in many entrepreneurial enterprise and I've I've been involved in some 300 businesses over the last 50 years.
(12:28):
I think in these morons,
that's why I teach entrepreneurship because I love being able to create high trust environments and actually as a leader,
you can do things to create high trust environments.
If you don't do that,
then you have to have high power environments where power is the currency and I think using power is the currency is a is a very awkward expensive,
(12:53):
inflexible,
almost certain to fail version.
Whereas if you have trust,
if you've ever been involved in a turnaround,
fundamentally,
the currency you have to rely on and to turn around to your suppliers have to trust you,
your creditors have to trust you,
your investors have to trust you,
your customers have to trust you.
They have to believe that you'll do a great job of getting the company back on track.
(13:18):
So,
so I think in small enterprises in turnarounds,
this new model that I'm describing is the only one that really works in these old stodgy institutional top down fear reward models.
They're still working on that,
they're still pushing that I think they're they're becoming even more extreme.
(13:38):
If you look at government,
they're becoming even more extreme.
That's so fascinating.
I think there's like 10 different directions we could go based on that,
that response.
And one of the things that came to mind for me is,
you know,
that that top down traditional model seems to focus on external factors and and really things that ultimately end up answering a question,
(14:02):
where does my next meal come from?
And when when I think about those higher forms of leadership,
that's where,
you know,
the table stakes,
where,
you know,
all of those external things have been met.
You know,
we're not worried about the pay and there's and there's high trust,
I'm not learning,
you know worried about losing my job,
(14:23):
but really you've gotten to a higher level where there's,
there's a more compelling reason for you to stay and there's a more compelling reason for you to go that extra mile and and spend what a lot of people call discretionary effort on um,
you know,
on improving the organization even further.
(14:43):
And one question that came up for me was in working with entrepreneurial environments.
Is there a way to preserve that level of trust as the organization grows?
Or is there any sort of direct relationship between the size of the organization and the level of trust that exists within it?
(15:05):
That's such a great question because usually what happens is as you add people trust goes down and a lot of it is because you build relationships a conversation at a time.
You build trust a molecule at a time assignment completed correctly at a time.
And as organizations get bigger and there are more complex issues,
(15:28):
there are more places for trust to break down.
I got so interested in this.
I'm gonna sound like a book salesman here,
but I got so interested in this topic that I wrote a book called the 10 laws of trust and its thesis was fundamentally that as a leader you can do things to increase the trust levels.
There's even a diagnostic in there where you can ask questions that and and it's it's not accurate in and of itself.
(15:55):
But what gives you is a starting point that then you can measure over time and say,
are we increasing our levels of trust within this organization or not?
If you're not,
you're increasing the costs,
you're decreasing the innovation and the flexibility.
I mean a bunch of things happen when trust breaks up.
So yes,
you can.
And yes,
if the organization get big,
(16:17):
it's harder and harder.
And I actually think one of the things the leader's job is then is to build trust is to go around and build trust to stick their nose in the offices of various people,
ask them what's going on,
How they can help.
You know,
it's it's almost being a cheerleader around values.
You know,
it all depends on values.
What are your values?
Your values are your priorities.
(16:38):
It's how do you force rank what it is you're trying to do and where your values are congruent with other people in the organization.
You don't have to do all kinds of manipulations to get people on value on meaning they buy into those things.
So one of the other things I always say is a big part of your job as a leader is to get the right team on the field.
(17:02):
And what that means is you have to source the right people,
you have to interview them with discretion.
You have to onboard them correctly.
You have to give them good assignment.
You have to give them feedback along the way,
you have to promote or demote and guess what?
You have to fire people.
You have to get them off the field.
(17:23):
And uh that's a constant thing.
So to me building trust,
getting the right team on the field are really a lot of what great leaders have to do in this kind of a model.
Yeah,
that's so good,
Joel.
I love the analogy to the team and you know,
one of the thoughts that with all the disruption that's happened right,
(17:44):
all the change uh recently over the past few years,
which feels like a decade's worth of change,
right?
Uh very just fast way.
And so leaders are,
some of them are reeling right with all the change and to rob's point,
you know,
by externals,
a lot of the levers they were pulling in the past don't have the effect that that they that they used to or you know,
(18:06):
it's catching up,
right?
And so if they're looking to build trust in this new environment right?
Where people are on zoom their home or it's just that there's a lot of different aspects to it and what would you say to them about,
you know,
how to do that?
I would say number one expected to be much harder expected to take longer and to take more time individually.
(18:29):
And then I think there's nothing that gets you away from meeting with people.
I think this idea that we can all be remote and just be on on zoom or whatever platform is a fantasy human beings are social animals and a lot of what happens in these meetings,
we were having our first LP Ceo conference in three years now and uh we're getting from all our C E O s and all our LPS.
(18:55):
We really missed that.
This is a really important event and they rub shoulders and what goes on between sessions is what happens is what matters,
connections are made and I think you have to just recognize that if that isn't happening,
you're going to have a hard time.
So I think you have to find ways for that to happen.
I know the year that so I I talked for a couple of years over Zoom over zoom at stanford and I just could not develop the connections with my students that I normally had and I realized that I would always go into class early,
(19:28):
I always had office hours,
I'd always have lunches with students and that's where I was bonding.
It wasn't in the classroom,
that was a formal thing and we had to go through it and everything,
but it was all of this informal stuff that made the difference.
So I think you have to,
you're gonna have to structure ways to do that.
And I think it's a fantasy to think you can have a bunch of postage stamp sized figures on a screen and you can build a high trust enterprise that will not happen.
(19:58):
So true.
Yeah.
Um some of the things you were saying earlier about this change that's taking place with the old regime and this new era of work and leadership,
you know,
chris and I we we struggle a little bit with some of these concepts when we're talking executives or startup founders,
(20:18):
um because we're just not in a position of wanting to convince traditional leaders that they need to change,
right,
We don't feel like that's worth our time and effort.
But what we do see is there is an up and coming workforce that is watching they're watching these changes happen,
(20:39):
they're watching the crumbling of the old ways of doing things.
They're taking notes on what not to be as a leader,
right?
And so how can we properly foster this new generation that's rising that will become the leaders of the future,
you know,
in this transitional state,
(21:00):
it's really hard for them to find their footing to know,
like there's no articulation,
there's no proper framework that's just readily available for them to just use a playbook and and,
you know,
and run with it.
So how can we kind of wrangle in this this new class of leadership and and really bring out the best in them.
(21:24):
So,
I'm gonna really sound like a book salesman here.
You have a lot of good ideas.
So we want to hear,
you know,
I was interested in this very question.
And so I wrote a book that I wanted to call running stuff,
and harpercollins talked me out of calling it running stuff and into calling an entrepreneurial leadership,
(21:44):
and the notion was uh that the the entrepreneurial leaders act differently from leaders who don't have a stake and that entrepreneurial leadership is really the new way of going about things.
And so what I would recommend any of my students is get the book and read it and see if there are some ideas in there that will uh that you can rally around,
(22:07):
because I do think it captures in a very pithy way,
a lot of the things and fundamentally,
I mean just a brief thumbnail is I say the first thing you have to do is become trustworthy,
you have to have trust as the currency of your enterprise.
Uh and so if you're going to have uh an enterprise that operates the way that we're talking about trust is the medium of exchange,
(22:32):
then you have to have clarity around your goals,
because without which you will not be able to get people rallying around meaning.
So the second thing is having a really clear goal,
and I think that's way harder than people think,
and you need to make it memorable,
it has to be achievable,
you have to keep recognizing it in everything everybody does,
(22:55):
it's like what peak are we climbing?
There's a whole mountain range of peaks you could climb,
but this is the one we've decided to climb and you have to keep that in front of people has to be clear as to be reinforced and people have to own.
One of the things I always used to say is let's pick the five words that we want to be known for.
Brands are really valuable.
(23:15):
I think most people to say yeah brands are really valuable.
So let's pick the five words we want our brand to represent and you should take a couple of months to do that.
Everybody thinks,
oh you can do that in a half hour in one meeting or whatever.
No,
you have to get them,
get them all out on a piece of paper,
force,
rank them,
sleep on it,
talk about it again,
(23:36):
make arguments over them and at the end if people own that,
then they've got meaning around that,
then I think you have to assemble the team and that means getting people off the field and on the field and then finally there's a whole series of execution steps.
I went ahead and interviewed a bunch of entrepreneurs to say,
what are your most 10 difficult thorny issues and they all said,
(23:58):
you know,
these are the 10 so I give examples of how you can make running a meeting effective raising capital,
how you negotiate,
how you sell,
you know,
things that every business has to do,
get good at those,
get good at the execution was a little bit like a football team,
you know,
running its plays over and over and over again until they can do them by perfection.
(24:19):
So to me that was a simple four step process,
trust clarity about goals or mission assembling the team and then execution.
Hey Joel,
how,
how did you first become interested in leadership as,
as a field of study and,
and what has spending a career in this area meant for you personally?
(24:42):
Well,
it's funny.
I,
I started out as a leasing agent in France.
So I was leasing office and warehouse space in France.
And my very first assignment was to raise $10 million Paris.
And uh I started to read the documents and I ran a bunch of financial models and I said,
(25:08):
oh my gosh,
whoever puts up this $10 million is gonna lose it.
This is a terrible idea.
And so I went to the chief financial officer and I said,
you know,
this is a really bad idea to do this.
And he said,
my job is to figure out what to do your job is to go do it.
And so I thought,
okay,
I'm in,
I'm in a tough spot here.
So I reread the documents and I came out with this analysis that said,
(25:31):
we're on the bottom side of a guarantee that we flip to the top side.
In other words,
our exposure becomes greater as we get further into it,
Let's give the project back to the lenders,
the financiers and we'll just work for fees,
not for an equity position.
And it turned out that was actually the right call.
And so I at age 29 became the chief financial officer of the largest real estate development company in the world,
(25:57):
private real estate development company in the world.
And so I worked on on workouts and I found that the way that you got through workouts was because everybody trusted you,
I could take say with an honest face and and belief in my heart,
nobody will do a better job of getting these projects filled up and managed than we will.
(26:22):
And so give us some more time.
And that was quite persuasive because they trusted us to do that.
And so I really started to develop this idea of high trust and high touch and a new way of leading.
And so I just drifted,
I ultimately became the Ceo and then I started my own businesses and one thing led to another and I never planned,
(26:47):
you know,
it's like a lot of people will tell you that's not what I planned to do.
It just happened.
And I think that's kind of what happens.
And so I was always really curious,
you know,
how does this work,
what works and what doesn't work.
And I found things like decentralization work better than centralization for the most part,
you know,
celebrating people work better than punishing them listening work better than talking.
(27:12):
You know,
so a whole bunch of things that you just observe over time,
I'll tell you one funny story,
there was a book called In Search of Excellence,
that was the top business.
It sold 4.5 million copies in the mid seventies.
It was written by tom Peters and bob Waterman and it was the business book of the mid eighties.
(27:33):
So in any event when I became Ceo,
I hired bob Waterman to be my coach and so he attended the first board meeting that I lead and uh I thought I did a great job,
I mean I was just,
I was so proud of myself,
it was kind of you know,
celebrating at what a good job I done.
So I asked him just kind of uh what did you think bob?
(27:57):
And I thought he would say boy,
you're the best young leader I've ever worked with.
And all he said was you talked too much and I said,
well yeah,
maybe I do talk a little bit too much,
but what did you think about the substance and he said you talk too much And that was the best coaching I've ever had,
you know,
and fundamentally he was teaching me,
(28:17):
you know,
you gotta let other people talk,
let them come to conclusions.
So you know,
when you say where did you get this interest?
It was just by making mistakes,
being coached,
being willing to learn,
etc.
And I became over 50 years,
you couldn't help if you,
if you keep your ear to the ground,
you couldn't help but learn a few things.
So that's how it happened.
(28:39):
Yeah,
that gets to like we,
we you said it earlier,
Joel about how a leader can start to address any kind of,
you know,
change or influence or to build something or shape the future be co created with their team.
It really starts with them.
And you lived that right?
You've you've lived that on ongoing,
an ongoing way we think about as like the mirror test,
(29:01):
right?
There's this kind of real version of ourselves and then there's the ideal,
we're kind of in this constant process of trying to bridge that or synthesize.
Um and,
and but it really takes that hard look in the mirror of asking,
right,
what do I need to do differently?
Um I had a similar moment where I,
(29:21):
I shared a presentation,
I thought it was great and I had fortunately a good friend and mentor who was,
you know there and afterwards he just basically said,
hey,
you know,
it's,
I said,
what do you think?
He's like,
well,
it's good to teach because it's better to inspire.
And uh that one line,
right has stuck with me for over 20 years and it's amazing,
(29:45):
right?
That just that,
and I guess the openness to,
wow,
like what,
what is it I need to be learning and being curious about that,
you know,
to your point,
it's almost like this,
this constant exploration.
Well,
I think there are two things to think about was feedback.
One is you have to reward negative feedback when somebody says that you really kind of blew that or you kept talking after the sale was made or whatever,
(30:10):
you have to say,
thank you so much for that.
I'm gonna work on that.
Let me know if I'm getting better most people when they get negative feedback,
they punish the other party in some way or another and uh and you have to really get good at not doing that.
I think the second thing is to institutionalize the notion of feedback sessions.
One of the things that we used to do when I was at Crow was,
(30:32):
we would just have an immediate feedback session.
After we'd made a presentation,
we'd say,
how does it go?
And whoever was leading it would be self critical,
they'd say,
you know,
here's what I think I could have done better.
I talked too long or I presented too many slides or my slides were too dense or you know,
whatever,
I didn't do enough listening and and once the leader had kind of been self critical,
(30:55):
other people would say,
yeah,
I didn't think that didn't go over and I could have done x,
y and z and they got to be fun,
you know,
so feedback can be fun if it is something that says,
hey,
we're all working on getting better.
So I think those are a couple of tips.
I always tell my students at stanford feedback is the Breakfast of Champions.
(31:16):
So you want to make sure that you get your bowl of feedback every day.
What I'm hearing as you're talking is there's sort of a muscle that needs to be built up,
sort of an institutional habit of giving feedback.
And I also think back to some of the things that you shared with us earlier,
which all centered on the importance of trust.
(31:39):
And it would seem to me that one essential prerequisite to that ongoing feedback culture would be would be trust.
And in the last few years we've seen the principle of,
of radical candor,
be focused on a lot.
And I think a lot of people have gotten excited about that um I fear though,
(32:02):
that maybe some people have forgotten about the sort of the care and the foundational trust that that,
you know,
is is needed beforehand prior to diving into that,
that feedback.
But man,
it's it's tough and why,
why do you think that it's so hard for for people and organizations to to build up those,
(32:23):
those cultures of feedback?
Well,
I think we're all insecure,
you know,
and so when you hear negative feedback,
you say,
oh my gosh,
is my job safe?
Am I safe?
Am I thought of,
we want to be well thought of?
So I think you have to make the sessions fun and I think the leader has to take the feedback and be working on it themselves to otherwise it's a top down thing and it will actually make things worse.
(32:50):
So you know,
I think it's a very important process to get set up,
but I think leaders have to be vulnerable,
you know,
a lot of times it used to be that people would teach and particularly in power dynamics,
they would teach leaders not to be vulnerable,
never to show weakness,
never to admit mistakes and everything.
(33:11):
And I've often asked leaders um or people who are following a leader,
do you think less of them when they say,
oh shoot,
I blew that,
you know,
we've got to change that or do you think more of them?
And in every case people say no,
I trust them more when they say,
you know,
we could have done that better and by the way I made the mistake,
(33:32):
it was my mistake.
People don't trust less.
Um so I think there's a,
there's a level of vulnerability and openness that actually builds trust that allows there to be the power that derives from trust rather than the power that drives from position.
And I think that's what you really want to solve for,
(33:52):
you know,
another thing too um in thinking about leadership,
one of the things the areas that I think development could really help and support leaders is for them to become coaches,
for example,
you know,
like I I came from a work environment where I didn't even receive performance evaluations annually,
(34:16):
you know,
and so you're kind of like,
I think I'm doing a good job and then if you get called out on something or you get blamed for something not going right,
you're like,
well,
jeez,
that really wasn't clear,
but I wish I would have received that feedback,
you know,
three months ago.
Right?
So I think if if leaders um were developed to be coaches where,
(34:40):
and I love how you described it,
you know,
like make it a fun environment,
you know,
and it starts with trust,
it starts with that relationship,
but if you can be vulnerable and you have the skills of a coach,
you know,
I think then you're always able to improve throughout the year instead of waiting for the feedback.
(35:01):
I mean,
that's the traditional way,
you guys know who tom Landry,
was that a name that means anything to you?
Tom Landry was the coach of the Dallas cowboys and it's when they were going to the Super Bowl all the time,
they were America's team.
And Landry was was just a famous coach and he basically said the job of the coach is to help people get where they want to go,
(35:28):
but wouldn't be able to get there without your help without your prodding and encouraging etcetera,
but I think the important part of that was where they want to go,
you know,
where it gets back to that notion of intrinsic motivation and meaning,
finding out where people,
if you can get people aligned around where they want to go,
(35:48):
then the coach can push really hard and correct and get feedback because people are getting where they want to go.
And so I think uh that was the reason Landry was so effective,
I think yeah,
11 thought that uh has come to mind to it ties back to what you shared earlier,
Joel about the virtue signaling and essentially what would be surface leadership or surface influence,
(36:16):
You know,
people assuming that if they just solve for the other or that other situation that external that it's gonna kind of fix their life or their work or their work life.
Uh and it's I think first the first answer is what you shared about entrepreneurial leadership,
there's a sense of ownership to that,
which is different,
right?
And then there's this other piece that we're talking about now,
(36:38):
which is,
well,
it seems like it's really about getting to the core of who we are individually,
like personally and being brave in that way,
and it seems like that trust focus as a leader is is where they can make a real difference and be brave and start to take action and have kind of real conversations and I I just wonder like for folks that you're starting out or trying to figure that out,
(37:08):
I think you've answered some of this already,
but what,
you know,
other,
other considerations that uh would help them maybe as they're exploring how to be brave in that way and you know,
charting that new world.
Yeah,
so uh so two ideas out there for you to consider the first one is this idea of mantras,
(37:30):
you know,
I basically rewrote my natural operating system with three mon tras and they really addressed what were the big problems in my leadership and I had ended up saying them to myself several times every day,
you know,
I would have to remind myself until my natural responses came out of this new place,
(37:53):
so I think mantras is one way that you could really encourage me and that starts out with saying what are my weaknesses,
what's getting in my way and what can I say to myself,
to remind myself,
So for me it was,
it's not about me,
it's about the mission,
I was egocentric,
you know,
I have all I need,
(38:13):
you know,
and I was blaming circumstances,
you know,
and so these were things that helped me overcome that,
the the second thing that I think is really important that everybody can do is really this understanding that if you want to execute,
if you want to get a team hitting on all cylinders,
you have to make it simple,
it has to really become clear,
(38:35):
it was all over Wendell Holmes that said,
I would not give a fig for the simplicity,
this side of complexity,
but I would give my life for the simplicity.
The other side of complexity and what that means is you have to go all the way through the complex and then it has to get simple again,
it has to really be,
wait a minute,
This is what we're doing,
(38:55):
once that happens,
meaning comes,
people can do it.
So if you've got these mantras to rewrite your operating system that says I am not gonna blame anymore,
I'm not gonna be at the center of things anymore,
I'm not gonna uh do whatever's in your way.
Uh and you have made simple what it is.
I mean,
I remember JetBlue,
(39:16):
we said we want to bring humanity back to air travel,
that sounds like a really stupid simple simpleton kind of a thing,
but it was really the core of what our customers frustration was that they were treated like cattle and particularly in low cost things,
they felt terrible.
So what we were going to do is bring humanity back to that and that became a really rallying cry and it and it was reinforced by everything we did there,
(39:44):
JetBlue was to bring humanity to our communities,
to the people that worked there,
We didn't furlough people.
We just did a bunch of things that were all around that idea and it became a rally an inspirational rallying cry and again,
that was that took a while to come to.
But that was,
that was I think a really simple kind of a thing to remember.
(40:06):
And I think then then I think the leader has to rewrite their own operating system and then all of a sudden you kind of have this,
the other principal I teach my uh entrepreneurs is you have to find alignment between your values,
your objectives,
what you're solving for your strategy.
(40:27):
Uh what are you gonna do?
What markets are you gonna take your tactics?
Who's going to do what,
by when and then your controls,
What are you gonna measure?
They have to be aligned top to bottom.
If you go through most organizations,
you'll find that there's not alignment.
People say one thing and they do another.
(40:48):
They have other things.
They're measuring,
people are rewarded on something else altogether.
There's all these unspoken systems,
whereas if they will just say we're going to have rigorous alignment between those five categories.
All of a sudden companies almost run themselves.
I mean,
really people hold themselves to wait a minute.
These are our priorities.
(41:09):
And by the way,
priority is a singular term.
You can't have priorities.
You have to have a priority.
Now,
I've cheated a little bit on that and I always let myself believe there are three or four because I can remember three or four,
I can't remember 10.
So any company that tells me they have 10 priorities,
I always tell them,
that means you don't have any,
(41:30):
you have none.
So I think getting alignment,
getting the mission right,
getting trust,
team,
mission and execution steps,
all these things get to be quite simple maps.
And so I think,
I guess what I would say your fundamental question is is there a formula for leadership going forward that is different from the one in the past?
(41:53):
And I think it is,
I think it's a map that can be understood by every single person up and down the organization.
It's not a secret document held in the safe of the guy who sits in the corner office or the woman who sits in the corner office,
you know,
and they,
they speak and you don't know where it came from.
You know,
your pronouncements should be totally predictable because what happens when they're totally predictable.
(42:18):
Other people can make the decisions,
you've just empowered your entire team when you're predictable.
If you're not predictable,
then you retain power.
And so some people want to be unpredictable because it allows them to hold on to power and they think that's how they lead.
Power is leadership.
My sense of leadership is no,
it's the distribution of power that is leadership.
(42:40):
So I think those are really the two different models and uh,
and I think we see it in government and we see it in entrepreneurial organizations at their extremes and I think the more we could bring things to the entrepreneurial,
think the more innovative,
flexible,
creative,
uh efficient,
all kinds of things happen when that happens.
But it does take leaders who have that sent,
(43:02):
who are not insecure,
power hungry,
ego driven,
you know,
they have to rewrite their operating systems and that's hard work.
Yeah,
I love that about uh,
you know,
trust starting with with you,
right?
It's almost like this internal conversation,
do I trust myself and then how do I get better at trusting myself right?
(43:25):
Building that,
that level of honesty as a muscle,
right?
Every day we're working it out and then what you also shared,
which kind of framing it from,
you know,
in a and maybe it's it's the same context really,
but you know,
getting clear about what are our first principles,
where is our focus,
what's going to be meaningful to be building on in the future and then and then taking that down to every day,
(43:50):
right,
simplicity about and what do we focus on?
Um and,
you know,
I worry that,
you know,
yeah,
in an effort and this could just could be true,
you know,
in different cycles and iterations,
it's probably happened over decades where,
you know,
people could get lost in a program of the month or something that they think,
well this is going to solve for,
(44:10):
right?
It's like communication,
I'm gonna do that,
I'm gonna do that well,
and then it's going to solve for my leadership,
you know,
all the shortfalls struggles that I have while the reality of that deep work or that core work,
but then the simple vision sharing that you also suggested that those are the things that can create that alignment and you know,
(44:31):
it's just,
it seems like something that is so needed,
uh you know,
now and will continue to be needed in the future.
So thank you for highlighting that.
One of the things you mentioned is communications,
which I think is kind of at the heart of building a high trust organization.
And I always say that you have to communicate before,
during and after events and you have to give bad news as well as good news and you can't wait for the weekend to do a bad news dump,
(45:02):
you know,
all that does is create a huge withdrawal in the trust account.
And so I think what you're trying to do is if you think about,
I'm gonna be making contributions to the trust account every day,
I'm gonna do something that builds higher and higher trust,
because once your organization is fueled by trust,
people don't leave,
(45:23):
you know,
they like being there,
they find meaning lots of good things happen.
And so,
but it is,
I guess my message is,
it's a system wide thing,
you have to think,
you can't just do one thing when you,
when you and this triggered this thought in my mind,
you know when you have a program to address something.
I remember in an organization,
(45:43):
we used to have a guy who would who uh read a book and he would say,
okay this is the answer.
And so for a month we would go through and we would apply whatever to the thing and and sometimes you'd run into one and say,
okay,
I gotta get through this next month,
this will pass,
this too,
will pass.
And that that's a withdrawal that actually withdraws trust.
(46:05):
So I think this idea of simple maps,
you know,
where you want to be totally productive.
I I had a an agenda for board meetings that I ran where everybody knew exactly what the order of matters was gonna be a long,
we were gonna take on things,
you know,
and it was very predictable and the predictability and consistency is what allows other people to feel empowered.
(46:31):
Where and so you see a lot of leaders like being unpredictable because it keeps the power towards the power.
Yeah,
I believe that that that attribute of leadership was highlighted in a in an HBR article a few years ago and and they kind of talked about,
you know,
one of the most important features of good leadership is actually kind of boring,
(46:56):
but it's it's predictability.
It's the people that you lied knowing what they can expect when they engage with you.
And um so to get a little a little personal and not to like dehumanize the conversation,
but um,
so we recently got our first dog and so we're definitely working through the uh,
(47:19):
you know,
the learning curve of getting,
getting him trained and everything.
And when we become less predictable as his owners and kind of as a family and when we don't provide consistent,
you know,
feedback in the form of rewards or,
or redirection,
then he's unhappy.
(47:40):
We can tell and he's he's more prone to get into trouble.
But when we are boring and consistent and do you know,
similar things in terms of,
you know,
how he knows that he's going to be regarded and and engaged with um he's he thrives and he's and he's happy and so again,
not to dehumanize,
(48:01):
but I think that same principle is so important for,
for people who lead others,
whether formally or informally.
Yeah,
well it's not just consistency,
it's consistency around principles.
That makes sense because some people are consistently bad.
You know,
you can consistently hit your dog up the side of the head and that would actually be consistent,
(48:26):
but it would have deleterious effects.
Yeah,
thats a good clarification.
Yeah.
That contrast of like leadership model,
like the archetype in my head,
there's a visual of like the like the poor,
like the street magician.
That's just like a mess,
right?
And trying to be mysterious and that's just not leadership versus this other visual as an apple.
(48:51):
We brought in this uh Conrad Anker,
he's in imax films,
he climbed miru with his team is 19,000 ft straight up cliff.
And it's it's just a crazy story about a lot of these these hikes that they've done and you talked about the mountain earlier,
right,
in this entrepreneurial nature of taking on something big.
(49:12):
And you know,
Conrad is a guy who it's just very straightforward,
it's all simple,
right?
And his team,
they asked him,
you know,
during this conversation,
we were asking him questions and like how do you guide these people?
Right?
And and if they,
you know,
how do you get them to follow you?
He's like,
well it's very simple,
you know,
it's either life or death.
So you know,
(49:32):
we we we work together and they trust me and of course he's got to do things that build trust uh and he does but uh you know that I love that analogy.
Um and then and then maybe,
you know,
a deeper question sometimes for leaders is how do they create a vision that's as crystal clear as as that right?
The mountain and the dangers that are just as obvious as stark as they are right in that situation.
(49:59):
But to your point,
that's the,
you know,
bad news,
good news and just that continual flow,
right?
That's fluid.
Um and we all trust leaders more that that do that.
Well you bring up an interesting point about the power of analogy,
you know,
if you can get a good analogy,
that's simple people have this visual sense of things.
(50:19):
I've used mountains and where we are on the mountain a number of times uh because there's something about that,
I think sports analogies you have to be careful with them because sometimes women don't feel like they can connect as much as uh as the men do,
so you have to be careful with that one.
But if you get permission on it,
(50:40):
sometimes sports analogies can be good,
but there's something simplifying and clarifying about an analogy.
I I write a little tiny thing for linkedin every day.
My most recent one was how anybody who's honest about their success will refer to the failure that led to it or the failures that led to it,
(51:03):
failure is a part of success.
And then I said,
if you want an analogy of that,
just think of the major league baseball players are only 33 of them that have ever had 3000 hits and they all had over 10,000 at bats,
which means that every time they step to the plate,
they knew their odds of failure were much higher than their odds of success.
(51:25):
And that's and so that's kind of a memory,
jogger.
An analogy that says,
okay,
failure's ok,
you know,
failures on our way to success.
So an analogies can be powerful.
Yeah,
well Joel,
this is this has been really interesting and and I think,
you know,
other than providing you some some time to share anything else that that you um feel like we haven't gotten to.
(51:50):
I think 11 piece that I'm especially interested in on the topic of sort of that self introspection is,
you know,
what what could a leader do,
who maybe knows that they are not um achieving sort of the full measure measure of their potential that they would like to be.
(52:11):
Where could they start to to begin that process of that self introspection and attempting to kind of get to know themselves well enough to where they could have that trust in themselves and then thereby inspire that trust in others.
Adam Bryant used to work for the New York Times and for 15 or so years he wrote this,
(52:34):
he wrote this article called the corner office and he interviewed me for 90 minutes for it and he was asking all these same kinds of questions that you were and I was just rattling on like I did with you and just giving what's ever on my mind and everything.
And then and then he had the article to write.
Uh and I was interested that he chose,
(52:56):
here's the punchline,
here's my answer to your question that the the answer he wrote was listening without an agenda.
And I think that's what most people listen with an agenda.
They're they're searching for something,
they're searching for a compliment or they're searching for something that they can then give their answer to their their crafting their answer.
(53:20):
Listening without an agenda means you are a blank slate you're listening to capture.
So back to your question,
if I were thinking about,
what do I need to do?
I would talk to everybody I could about uh you know,
what do you see that's going well,
what do you see that I could improve on?
Where do you see my limitation,
(53:40):
where my blind spots,
what would you do tomorrow,
etcetera?
And just listen and don't have an agenda.
Don't be looking to respond.
Listen without an agenda,
by the way,
I also think that's the most powerful way to show that you care.
You know,
if you,
if you ever have somebody who listens to you that way you feel so affirmed,
(54:02):
you know,
it's just this most incredible feeling when somebody is not judging or giving an answer or whatever,
they're just capturing.
Tell me more about that.
So are you saying this,
is this what you feel?
And it's it's the most affirming kind of thing.
So I always say if you want your Children to feel like they're loved,
(54:23):
just listen to them,
just sit there and you know,
and not judge,
you know,
don't give feedback,
don't coach,
don't train,
don't discipline anything,
just listen.
And uh and so my answer to your question would be start with listening,
(54:46):
this episode of lead with the question was produced by me rob calen with support from my co hosts and brave core founders,
chris Deaver and Ian clawson.
The music you heard was composed by Ian as part of another project he's involved in called Moon Machine,
Dave Arcade created our podcast cover Art special.
(55:06):
Thanks to Joel Peterson for the conversation today and for giving us so much to think about regardless of the size or state of our organization.
Also we really appreciate you for taking the time to co create these conversations with us,
especially when there are so many other things you could be doing.
If you found any value at all in these episodes,
(55:27):
could you do a favor?
Leave us a rating,
even a review wherever you're listening right now.
It takes about two minutes and helps others discover the show as well.
If you want to learn more about the work we're doing at Brave Core,
you can check out our website at Brave Core dot c o.
The lead with a question podcast is a production of Brave Core LLC.
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