Brain and Brawn: Two Powers of Herculean Businesses with Robert Siegel

Brain and Brawn: Two Powers of Herculean Business:
In this dynamic episode, B.D. Dalton II sits down with Robert Siegel to dive into the pivotal themes of digital transformation and systems leadership, as unpacked in Robert's enlightening book "The Brains and Brawn Company". They dissect how the most successful firms are those that effectively meld the digital with the physical, and how traditional companies can evolve to keep pace with rapid technological advancements.
Key Points Discussed:

1. Adapting to Business Changes: B.D. and Robert delve into the relentless evolution of the business landscape, highlighting the crucial role of leaders in steering their teams through the waves of change brought about by AI and global events like the Covid-19 pandemic. The necessity for leaders to develop both their cognitive and emotional intelligence is underscored.

2. Venture Capitalist's Insight: As a seasoned venture capitalist, Robert shares his three-fold criteria for investment: market potential, team execution capability, and business model defensibility. He lays out the attributes he values in CEOs and the strategic importance of corporate venture capital.
3. Expanding Knowledge: Robert advocates for broadening one's horizon through diverse sources of information, stressing the significance of staying abreast of technological trends and their business implications.
4. Technology and Systems Leadership: The conversation shifts to practical technology use and the overarching concept of systems leadership. Robert provides a peek into his upcoming book, aimed at equipping leaders to better navigate the complexities of modern business environments.

B.D. and Robert's discussion serves as a masterclass for modern entrepreneurs and established business leaders alike, offering insights and strategies to thrive in today's fast-paced and interconnected world. Tune in for a blend of practical advice, forward-thinking strategies, and leadership wisdom. More info on Robert Siegel
https://robertesiegel.com/

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Grow, Sell and Retire is thepodcast for the wazy overachiever. Bad Dalton,
author of the assistant Purchase, TrueGravity and Grow, Sell and Retire,
is here to give his twenty fiveyears of secrets, tips and assistants
to take your business to the nextlevel. This podcast is for anyone who
wants to sell more, work less, and make better business. Now here's

(00:25):
your host BD with today's GSR podcast. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the
Gross, Sell and Retire Podcast.I'm really excited about today's episode. I'm
gonna talk to Robert Siegel and Iwas saying, Robert, how do I
introduce you? And actually he saidsomething so much better that I could say.

(00:45):
You know, we're friends, we'refriends digitally, but I don't know
if I could say, I'm sureonce we shake hands and I'll say this
about you in the future. Buttell us what you can say whenever you
want, like there's no problem atall. You can say whatever you want
about me. No, I thinkyour descript is much better. So here's
We're going to talk a lot todayabout digital. We're going to talk about
companies. We're going to talk aboutsmall companies going big, big companies going

(01:07):
backwards. But let's talk tell Leu'stell us why we're talking to you today.
What's your background? And you've wrotewritten a book and are in the
process of writing another book. Butlet's talk about where we got to today
to have us interacting. All right, Well, b D, it's great
to be here. Always good tosee you and talk with you. So
I am a lecturer management at theStanford Graduate School of Business, where I've

(01:27):
taught nine different courses over the lastcouple of decades. My career, however,
was on the operating side, workedin large companies like Ge and Intel.
Was a several time entrepreneur, acouple of companies that got acquired.
Was a middle manager, and acompany that went public a software company.
I was a slimy, scumsucking VCfor fifteen years. And I've kind of

(01:49):
been lucky enough in my life tohave a foot and academia foot and operating
and a foot and investing, andthat's kind of shaped a lot of what
we're going to talk about today.And amongst all of that, you kind
of encapsulated that in a couple ofyears ago popped out a book right by
My first book was The Brains andBrown company, high leading organizations, len

(02:10):
the best of digital and physical.We looked at both incumbents and disruptors,
and we'll talk more about that today. Also, in the process of writing
my second book, I vowed Iwould never write another book. Of course,
now I'm writing another book, whichis about systems leadership. Of course
I teach with my old boss,Jeff Immelt, the former CEO of GE.
It's a good company to be writingwith, very good company. He's

(02:32):
I've been able to know Jeff fora long time and see the high highs
and the low lows, and he'staught me a lot in my career.
That's amazing. So so describe thiswhen you talk about in the book you
talk about physical and digital. Peoplecan kind of imagine that, but talk
about that from a business point ofview. What are you talking about when
you talk where you brought it togetherin the book. You know, when

(02:54):
we started a course in about twentysixteen at Stanford, it was called the
Industrial Dilemma, and the thesis originallywas that digital companies, you know,
signified by Silicon Valley, were movinginto a wide variety of traditional industries,
whether it was mobility or healthcare orfintech, and what we found as we

(03:14):
were meeting with CEOs from companies allover the world was that the best companies
were not just these you know,digital disruptors who were coming in, but
we found that really to be successfulin a world where every product and service
is connected, the best organizations wereblending the best of digital and physical and
so we kind of took it awaythis notion of brains and brawn. The

(03:37):
greatest companies had the digital side,which is the brain side, the bronze
side, the physical side, logistics, manufacturing, et cetera. And we
also found that incumbents were not doomedand disruptors were not ordained. And so
the idea behind the book was tolook at the best practices of what we
saw in companies again all over theworld that really kind of embodied these best

(03:58):
five digital and five physical attributes,and that we also kind of introduced the
notion of systems leadership, which Jeffand I were just starting at the time
and now is going to be thesubject of the second book. That is
really cool. So when you whenyou when you start going down that path,
if you're looking at it it's startinga business or moving it forward,
you know, or not starting abusiness. But let's say that you've already

(04:20):
got the foundations, you're moving itforward. How do you how do you
view this? So when when you'reapproaching it from here's here's my software,
and I'm I'm an uber, Butthen do I own taxis? Am I?
You know, I'm Apple? Butthen do I own the the So
I own iTunes? But do Iown the phone? You know? So
how when when you start to integratethose things? But from somebody that's at

(04:42):
a million, five million, tenmillion pound turnover, that's making bops?
I don't know. I'm not tryingto No, it's actually not that silly,
it's actually it's quiet. It's agreat example because there's really not any
product or service that's not connected.You know, look at our televisions now
and how those changed, and soyou know, the lowly telephone is now
a mini computer that we carry inour pockets. And so we see so

(05:05):
many things that we have that areconnected, our music that we listen to,
how we get our healthcare. Andso what we found was that the
incumbent organizations knew they had to developdigital competencies, and the ones that did
it well were the ones that internalizedit and said, we need to make
this a core competency inside of whatwe have on ourselves. It's got to

(05:25):
be about, you know, howdo we use digitization and how do we
use data and data science with whatwe have and make sure that we don't
just outsource those competencies to other people. How do we think about things about
how we go towards risk, andhow we think about artificial intelligence, how
do we think about things about howwe balance ownership and partnership. And so
what we found was the best incumbentsreally were learning from their digital partners and

(05:49):
the digital up starts coming into theirspace, embracing it but not letting go
of that which made them great.And so you started to see that duality
that came into companies, and soyou couldn't just kind of like, hi,
now we're going to switch to anopen office plan and we're going to
hire a chef and start wearing bluejeans, Like that wasn't enough because those
were superficial changes. Really, howdid you kind of think about not only

(06:13):
hiring in new skills, but requiringyour team to reinvent itself in a world
where technological change was coming at anincreasing rate and speed. So, speaking
of speed and technology, you wrotethis in twenty twenty one, twenty two,
you know, kind of kind ofbrought it out twenty twenty one.
Things have moved on so much fasterdigitally in the last six months seven months.

(06:35):
So if you were going back andI know it's only been two years,
but you were going back and youwere writing the next chapter on AI
and integration and the brand and Braunand stuff like that, was how deep
did you go into it and didyou think that you were right when you
wrote it in the book previously?Well, of course what I wrote it,
I thought I was right. Thehard part about a book like this

(06:58):
is how is it going to age? And some of the examples of the
companies we used have done really welland continued to thrive. Some of them
have struggled. Even if you goback to books like good to Great said
Jim Collinson had to write too greatto heal and or or you know,
all of those things that we kindof go back to. You know,
the world is constantly changing, andthen that's actually one of the consistent themes.

(07:20):
So so I think what we sawright after the book came out was
that the incumbents had some unfair advantagebecause a lot of these industries were slower
to move. You know, theydon't change overnight because they're at such huge
scale energy transition, et cetera,et cetera. However, look at what
happened with AI in the last youknow, basically fifteen months since the launch

(07:41):
of chat GPT, and and what'sat all of that activity. And one
of the themes that I'm writing aboutnow is we live in a world of
constant change, and we live ina world that's a constant crisis. And
if we go back to the lastcouple of decades and you know, kind
of was crazy. You know,we had the Internet bubble that and everything
crashed, Then we had nine eleven, Then we had the global financial crisis.

(08:01):
Right then we have you know,contagion throughout Asia and other parts of
of you know, financial crisis.There, we have wars that happened,
we had COVID, And I think, really this is kind of the new
normal. And so I think whatwhat I'm really starting to write about now
is talking to leaders about is howdo leaders lead in this world of constant

(08:22):
change? Because you know, it'snever like we never get to that point
where we get to put the oarsin the boat and the current just gently
takes us down the stream and everything'sokay. And so, really, how
are leaders in a world where they'rehaving to deal with this constant change?
How do they change their own skillsets, their own competencies, their own
mindset, but how do they kindof project a bit of calm and gravitas

(08:43):
and stand tall in these times?Which, you know, it's interesting.
Alvin Toffler wrote this book Future Shockin nineteen seventy. I've got it,
which is my bookshet. It's abeautiful it's amazing. It's like reading no
Stradamus, right, you know.He predicted you know, the move to
cities, he predicted fast fashion,he predicted influencers, all of this stuff.

(09:05):
And the thesis of the book wherehe coined the phrase information overload,
is that technology is changing so quicklywe as humans like we can't handle it.
And that was fifty four years ago, and so now here out a
time where it's kind of growing atan increasing pace and leaders, no matter
what they do, are feeling like, no matter what they do, they're
getting it wrong. Right, arethey supposed to lead? With IQ or

(09:28):
EQ. Do you bring people into you know they have to be in
the work all the time or iseveryone going to be remote? Do I
speak up on social issues? DoI not speak up on social issues?
What do I have to know aboutdigital and physical? And so much of
it feels overwhelming. So I thinka lot of the trends that we identified
in Brains and Brawn are still true. I think what's really I'm learning that

(09:48):
setting people apart is about how leaders, how they approach it, how they
put systems in place in their organizations, and how even they themselves adapt on
an increasingly frequent basis to learn newskills and new competencies. So will you
and Jeff have people in and they'rethey're sitting through the NBA's or the or
the higher higher levels, and they'relooking back at their business because most of

(10:09):
the people that go through an NBAare either coming out of some sort of
workplace or working for somebody while they'regoing through it. What are some of
the things that you're really seeing repetitivelycoming through that are are systems driven that
you just to say, if youjust did how to hiring policy or you
know something silly but what's something thatyou're seeing repetitively coming through that people are

(10:33):
able to put in place. Youknow, it's a good question, and
I think that there isn't an answerwith a capital A. And that's actually
I think the thing that's that's that'smore important right now. If we think
about it like a series of wavesthat are coming in on the shore.
You know, the waves are goingto continue to come and the question is

(10:54):
how do you ride those waves?And so I've seen the great leaders are
doing certain things. They are goodat both execution and innovation. You know,
one of my colleagues at Stanford,Charles O'Reilly, along with Michael Tishman
at Harvard, wrote about the ambidextrousorganization, which is what they called exploit
and explore. You know, youget your core business and you keep it

(11:16):
functioning well and making money, andthen you've got to have kind of the
new innovation stuff that happens. Andso the ambidextra's organization can do both.
But historically we kept those things separateinside of companies. You know, like
you had the people who were reallygood at operations and then they're crazy long
hairs who came up with crazy ideas, And actually, what we're finding now
is the great leaders know how todo both. They know how to hit
their numbers and they know how tomanage small teams. They also on the

(11:39):
people side, I figured out howto provide both strength and empathy at the
same time. They're not going tobe a hamster who's always going to be
talking about their feelings. By thesame token, they're not going to be
kind of the kind of jerk whoconstantly drove people hard. And we're seeing
the leaders that are really kind ofgetting the followers are the ones that have
the ability to show a strong leaderwhen they walk into a but also to

(12:01):
show their humanity and see the humanityof the people with whom they're speaking.
These are people who understand both internaland external at the same time. Like
historically we had people who were betterkind of in sales or outward facing to
some people who are better inside.And now we're realizing, in a world
where everything is connected, you can'tunderstand what's happening inside if you don't know
what's going on outside. And alsovice versa, we're seeing the great leaders

(12:24):
are combining local and global, youknow, organizations. When I worked at
Intel, and ge These were large, multinational organizations. But now even I
as an individual and as a teacher, you know, my home office became
a television studio during the pandemic,and I have had days where I have
actually literally taught people across four continents. And so you're going to find that

(12:46):
people have to understand what's happening locallyin a region, but be aware globally
of what's going on. That's notjust something that's going to be people in
large organizations. And then the lastthing I'll see that we're seeing leaders do
really well. They're ambitious and theywant to accomplish great things for themselves and
for their companies. But they alsohave a phrase. You know, Jeff

(13:07):
doesn't like when I use this word, but I haven't come up with a
better one. It's kind of thatnotion of statesmanship and stateswomanship. They we
have some really serious problems in ourworld and and business leaders are kind of
at the forefront of them. Andthe question is how do you lead people
in your organizations, some of whomare going to agree with you and some
of whom we are going to disagreewith you, And how do you kind

(13:30):
of do that? At the sametime and get your whole team to the
other side. And you know,how do you be ambitious where you're in
a world you're rewarded for likes andbeing bombastic and putting crazy stuff out there,
But like, how do you kindof like be also like somebody that
looks to and says, well,that's a serious person that I'm going to
want to follow and so managing somethinglike this, or if you were to
have somebody step back and give themselvesa tick list, so pretend like pretend

(13:54):
like you're back to being bloodsucking VCSlimey's come sucking VC exactly. So if
we're back to that world and you'vegot three bosses, three directors, three
whatever owners business owners sat in frontof you asking you for money, and
you actually were to give them threethings that you wanted to tick off of

(14:16):
a list and give an example,what would those three questions be? Because
if we go back together and Iknow this is a hard I'm putting you
on the spot, but three questionsthat you would say, BD, I'm
not going to invest in you,and let you know, I'm gonna invest
in the first one that has allthree or at least two out of three
here it is all right, it'sa good question, and and B I
want to try to reframe it alittle bit in the context of a job.

(14:39):
As a venture capitalist, you haveone job, which is to make
money. All the marketing stuff that'sout there that says we're changing the world,
making a better place, helping entrepreneursget their dreams, that's all nice,
but that's marketing. And really yourjob, you're a money manager,
and you're supposed to make money andgive a certain returns to your limited partners.
Now, there are nice people inventure ca capital and there are not

(15:00):
nice people in venture capital kind ofall over the world. But even those
nice people and not nice people,they are measured the same way. And
so if I'm talking to you,you come to me as an entrepreneur,
I want to know, you know, how big can this business get and
in what time horizon so it canget the times of returns that my investors
want. Do I believe that thisteam and the team that you've got as
the capability of executing to it.And do I think there's defendability? You

(15:24):
know that basically if you do this, you'll have the ability to grow a
big, large company that can sustainitself over time for you as a leader.
I'm evaluating the CEOs on four attributes. You know, at my venture
fund Exceed, we went back andlooked at the deals where we made the
most money, and we asked whatwas it about the CEOs that really stood

(15:46):
out of the ones where we werethe most successful, and we found four
attributes. The first is they wereenergy creators, like they could get us
excited about what they were doing.They could get employees excited to come to
work there, they could get customersexcited about buying their products. The second
thing is, you know, theywere problem solvers, Like being an entrepreneur
is really flip and hard, andstatistics are against you, and so it's

(16:08):
kind of like there's a brick wallin front of us. Are we going
over it, through it, underneathit, or around it. It's Tuesday,
we just got to deal with it. Here's the brick wall. The
third thing, and my personal favoriteis I call them the truth seekers.
These are the people who have afierce desire to get it right, not
to be right. Like I don'tneed it as CEO who has all the
answers. I have a CEO Ineed to have a CEO who wants to

(16:32):
go get the right answers, andsometimes they come up with it themselves and
sometimes they get help from other people. And so somebody who really wants to
kind of, you know, getto that source of ground truth. That's
a key thing. And then thelast thing is, you know, you
want somebody who's a little bit impatient, right because being an entrepreneurs, you
know, it's really hard. Youwant somebody in the vernacular. You want

(16:52):
somebody who's a little bit broken andnot a lot broken. If any of
the listeners are a Star Wars fan, there's a scene in episode five The
Empire Strikes Back. We're Hans Solo, you know, is flying the Millennium
Falcon through an asteroid field and therobot C three pl says to him the
probability of successfully navigating an asteroid fieldis three thousand, two hundred and fifty

(17:15):
to one, and Harrison Ford,the Han Solo character, looks at him
and says, never tell me theodds. And that's kind of what you
look for as an entrepreneur. Somebody'slike, yeah, I know odds are
against me, but like let's go. But you want them to be thoughtful
on how they're saying, let's go. Now, that's a long wind that
answer to your question, but itreally kind of comes back to this notion
of what am I looking for inan opportunity and then what am I looking
for in the team and the leaders? So you're not doing that as much

(17:40):
anymore, right, You're not VCworld. You well, I still have
a toe hold here. I'm stillmaking some investments here and there and advising
several venture funds. But what's interestingabout venture and the link to large organizations
is so many large organizations have corporateventure capital arms and they need to learn
that muscle as a way that theycan not only be successful in their investments,

(18:00):
but take the learnings of what's happeningoutside of their for walls and bring
it back into the organization. Andand that's a real skill for companies to
develop as they get larger and becomebohemous. You know, how do you
like we spend all of our timetalking to ourselves in large organizations with PowerPoint
slides and internal meetings. How dowe know what's going on outside of the

(18:21):
building? And a corporate venture capitalarm is but one way to do that.
And so you know how I workwith an investing Sometimes it's in the
small space where it's or you know, seed series A, Series B,
Series C. But sometimes i'm youknow, advising large organizations who are actually
trying to figure out how they canset up their corporate venture capital arms to
be as effective as possible. Andso when you're when you're looking at that,

(18:44):
when when people are starting to figureout, Okay, I'm selling mops,
how do I now evaluate going frommy bronze to the brain side.
How do I start to take itfrom just we're the best damn mop seller
in all of the UK, justkeeping it that bug centered. How do
I then figure out what my digitalmy forward focused strategy is to start to
reach out in a basic way.What what tick boxes do I need to

(19:07):
put in place? So I'm goingto put that on a again, on
two vectors. Let's start first withthe skills that I think that the companies
need to have, and in brainsand brawn because of course I need to
talk about that because I wrote thebook. You know, I talk about
five digital attributes and the brain sideand how do I think about them?
The left hemisphere right is basically analytics. How do you make sure that you're
using data to improve your products andmost importantly, serve your customers better.

(19:32):
Not just digitizing analog processes for costefficiencies, but how do you create new
capabilities and competencies where you can communicatewith your customers better. There's the right
hemisphere, right, which is howyou deal with creativity. How do you
think differently about new business models?How do you think about new technologies and
incorporating them the amigdalize the incorporating empathy. And I talk about some of the

(19:52):
companies you know that we study theKiser Permanente is particularly strong at that,
Patagonia has been very good at that. Southwest Airlines, you know that prefrontal
cortex. How do you think abouttaking risk? You know, and we
look in the book. I lookat companies like Stripe and John Deere and
ABN dev and how they think aboutrisk and then finally on the inner ear
thinking about ownership and balancing that ownershipand partnership. And look at companies like

(20:15):
twenty three and meters on the onthe disruptor side, but then even companies
like Daimler and and how do theythink about what do they do and what
do they own? Internally and whatdo they keep outside their castle walls.
So you know, the first thingis I want an organization to be thinking
on the digital side, not onlyabout the blocking and tackling of the ones
and zeros, but putting the systemsin place in order to be effective with

(20:37):
it. And then on the otherside of it, you know, making
sure that you've got the right team, and you're going to have a combination
of people internally who will be ableto retrain themselves and molt their shells and
develop new skills, which we allneed to do on an ongoing basis.
But also you're going to need tograft in some new competencies and capabilities.
You've got to hire people who aredifferent and who think different. Katrina Lake

(20:59):
one of my favorite leaders. Shefound it stitch Fis. Talked about hiring
in the context is somebody a culturefit or a culture ad And a lot
of times you want culture fit,but sometimes you need a culture ad.
And so like our large companies,you know, people talk about will this
person fit in here? Well,okay, sometimes the person needs to fit
in, but sometimes the organization needsto grow and adapt and can can outside

(21:21):
people with new skills and new perspectiveshelp us do that. It's like it's
like when you're making a cake orsomething like that is what's what's this missing?
Oh? This is just missing abit of a freak juice, a
bit of jam or whatever. It'sjust that what's it missing? Sometimes you
exactly catalyst. It's an amazing thing. So when you're when you're doing this,
you have people because people get verysector specific, they get very focused

(21:42):
in their vertical How do how doeswith without listening to the news going on
BBC, Fox News, whatever,whatever your thing is, how does somebody
start to well round themselves? Besidesreading books because obviously the brains and bronze
they need to read. But outsideof that, how do they well round
themselves? What do they listen to? What do they read? It's not

(22:03):
just directly into airplane news. Ifyou're a Southwest Airlines guys, what should
they be looking at to widen theirscope? To listen outside of their sector
to figure out directions of travel?So different people do it different ways.
I have found I tend to bea voracious consumer of different perspectives. So

(22:26):
it's kind of like all of theabove of what you described. So podcasts,
right, obviously there's a lot that'sgoing on. They're great podcasts on
topics on you know, whether youwant to go deep on a vertical or
you want to think broadly about something. I happen to every day on a
multiple times per day. Check differentwebsites on the news, and I try

(22:47):
to get different perspectives, so youknow, sometimes I'm hitting Wall Street Journal,
New York Times, Financial Times,sometimes it's CNN, sometimes it's Fox
News. I want to understand howdifferent people are talking about different things.
I will also get a lot ofnewsletters, and you can't always read them
all. It's hard to stay ontop of everything. But when they come

(23:07):
in, there are certain ones thatI will read more than others. So
that's one thing. Second thing isthis notion I think we need to retrain
ourselves is becoming increasingly important given thespeed with which technology is changing. I
think, for example, every leaderneeds to have an opinion on sometimes what
is referred to as the four a'sin technology, artificial intelligence analytics additive,

(23:29):
which is three D printing and automation, which can either be robotics in the
physical world or it can be RPAin the software world, and understanding how
those technologies which are going to impactevery company and every function in every company,
what does it mean for yours?And so now it's not that leaders
need to be able to sling coderight, It's not like the leaders need
to be able to say, shoot, I should have gotten to see S

(23:52):
degree as an undergrad and not apolitical science degree like I had. But
you can go on to like thingslike Coursera and or I or IMD in
Europe, or or London Business Schoolor Stanford or MIT, and there are
courses that teach you what this stuffis and how it works. So I
think it's kind of that curious mindsetwhich is critical for us to kind of

(24:14):
constantly be thinking. By the way, you know, when something comes out,
when something becomes an app that yourchildren are using, do you put
it on your phone right and tryit? And instead of dismissing it and
saying it's horrible, even if wewant to look down on some of these
things, we shouldn't even if that'sour inkling. Do we try it and
get primary data on it or dowe just dismiss it? You know,

(24:36):
back in the day before TikTok becamewhat it is, I remember asking my
students, you're kind of twenty eighteen, how many twenty nineteen, how many
of you have TikTok on your phone? No one did. I did,
and I knew it was addicting beforeeveryone else did, because my wife would
come into like the bedroom and ifI was like scrolling on my iPad,
She's like, oh, you're onTikTok. I can tell. I remember
talking about Snapchat with my students intwenty sixteen. I said, how many

(25:00):
of you have Snapchat on your phone? And they were like, oh,
no, that's my little brother,my little sister, or my younger cousin.
Well, by the way, that'show those people were giving the news
in those days. By the end, we're seeing this with TikTok today.
And so the question is are peoplegoing to get that primary data or is
it just something you read about.So some of it needs to be experiential
and some of it is having awide aperture to take in multiple viewpoints and

(25:22):
not judging it when to come in, processing it and getting a holistic picture
of the system. That's really good. And what so, speaking around technology
and early adopters and early adopters,what bit of technology are using right now?
To either make your life easier ora bit more fun. What's fun
meaning, I don't know, I'mthe most boring man alive bead. So

(25:44):
if you ask my wife and children, I'll say, Dad, you are
the most boring amount alive. Youknow. I don't know that I have
anything that's truly breakthrough. I'll givetwo microcosm exams. It doesn't happen to
break through. I mean I useblinkers to download Okay book books on for
fifteen minutes, and then I goback and buy it if I like it
as soon as I get the gist, So it doesn't have to do I

(26:06):
would say that for me, littlethings like I just over the holidays got
a pixel to watch, and I'vehad various smart watches over the years,
but it's kind of become a muchmore important part of my life. Yes,
and from exercise to notifications and knowinghow to filter that we get so
many notifications that distract us. It'san easy way for me to kind of

(26:27):
figure out, Okay, what's importantand what's not. You know, we
recently cut the cord in our houseand I redesigned the home network and just
kind of going through that where youknow how I, you know, re
establish the mesh network in our house, making sure that it works properly,
looking at the number of devices thatare connected, kind of like forcing myself

(26:48):
to do the boring it work,you know that I used to do a
long time ago, kind of keepingthat those muscles fresh was kind of good.
You know. I don't know thatI have any kind of other technology,
Like, I don't think technology isa savior. I think technology is
just kind of there and it's atool for us to use. I don't

(27:08):
have anything kind of you know,I'm an avid I've for the last you
know, six seven years, I'vebeen an avid user of pixel phones.
My Pixel eight Pro is a goodphone. You know. It's funny,
so I've mentioned too Google products bythe same token. I use an iPad
and a Mac, and again thatnotion of understanding different ecosystems and different architectures
and which work better or worse andwhy that's kind of I just try to

(27:30):
kind of experiment with things. It'snot that I buy every product and then
try them. I don't have timeto do that. But I do try
to integrate into my life a heterogeneoussystem that allows me to have primary data
on things, which, by theway, I think is acutely true.
You know, I talked about itand this question you asked me about how
technology impacts my life. I amseeing so many interesting things happen in other

(27:53):
parts of the world as separate fromSilicon Valley that I'm very excited and hopeful
that even through this world a perpetualcrisis, there are so many awesome things
happening in other parts of the worldthat I actually think that there's a real
hope for us to do a lotof amazing things in a lot of you
know, the parts of our lives, be it in science and healthcare,

(28:15):
living standards of living for people whohaven't had that in the past, energy
transition, et cetera. Some ofthem will take a decade or two.
But seeing what's happening in other partsof the world has very much informed my
worldview when you go and see itwith your own eyes as opposed to just
seeing it through a screen. SoI had one more question before I bring
you back to So I'll give youa chance to think while they make a

(28:36):
little bit of a joke on yourbehalf. You won't be able to see
this because you're an audio right now. But your question is we're going to
go to the rewind sector section here, which is where you give your Oh
my gosh, I can't believe Ijust heard that. I need to rewind
the whole episode and listen to itagain so I know, to keep things
simple. Did you only move toStanford because you're a Liverpool fan? Because

(29:00):
I just I just clocked it asI was there, because you know,
because you couldn't move anywhere else becauseyou're red. So I got to tell
you I never used to like thecolor red, because you know, I
grew up my parents went to uC. L A Blue and gold.
I did my undergraduate work in atUC Berkeley blue and gold. When I

(29:21):
grew up, I rooted for Americanfootball the Los Angeles Rams blue and gold.
When I got did my graduate workat Stanford, it was the first
time I liked the color red.The fact that I became a Liverpool fan
was really more accidental than anything.And yeah, it is kind of strange
that again, that's part of youknow, as as humans we grow and
change. I've learned to appreciate thecolor red or cardinal, in which you
know, I did not used tolike it. For the first few decades

(29:44):
of my life. You adapted,you're growing and maturing. But that's good.
So they're shrinking and hopefully I'm maturingas I get older. So here
here's the reward section. So you'retop two. To a business owner that's
thinking about modifying the business, aregoing in the right direction, what's a

(30:07):
good question or a good statement thatyou would like to make to them?
Run into the disruption, Run intothe disruption. It's you know, we
don't know what the future is goingto be, but we know it's not
like the past, and leadership isyou can't avoid it, right, and
so what you have to do isyou have to run into it and embrace
it. And it's uncomfortable and it'shard, and it's scary, and be

(30:30):
aware of all of those things,but you have no choice. You have
to do it anyways. That's theonly way to get you and your team
to the other side. That's amazing. And where do we get the book?
Besides Amazon? Where do we findout more about you? Okay?
So me, you can go tomy Stanford faculty web page. You can
go to Robert Siegel dot com,which is my personal website. There's a
blog post on medium that I've postedabout several of my courses over the years.

(30:55):
The book is on Amazon and otherof your favorite places to order any
sort of book. The next bookwill be out next year on systems Leadership.
Really still working on the title.I'll have to come back bed when
it's finished. But the theme thatI'm trying to help was move helping leaders
move from chaos to clarity. Isthe idea of what I'm trying to get
to is in a world that's sohard, where people feel like they're being

(31:18):
pulled in such different, you know, disparate directions, and they feel like
no matter what they do, they'regoing to get it wrong. It's like,
this can be done. I can'tmake the world better and easier because
the technological change just going to accelerate, but we as humans are way more
powerful and resilient than we think invery very positive ways, and leaders can

(31:38):
stand up and provide that guidance forthemselves and for their teams. And that's
what I hope leaders will get outof the next book. Robert Siegel,
It's been amazing to spend a halfan hour or a little bit more with
you, even if you're a LiverpoolFan with thank you so much for coming
on the gross sellin Attire podcast.Thanks b D. Always a pleasure to
talk. Do you look forward tomore in the future. Thanks for joining

(32:01):
us on grow Sell and Retire.For more information tools or to book one
of our team members. To workwith your team business, or to speak
at your event or conference, visitrockfind dot co dot uk. If you
like the podcast, you'll love oneof BT's three books, The Assistant Purchase
True Gravity and the Book. Thepodcast is based on grow Sell and Retire.

(32:23):
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