Podcast appearances and mentions of david marquet

As leaders, we always need to be growing in wisdom, thoughtfulness, and decision making. And books can be a powerful tool for introducing new ideas and helping us develop new leadership skills. In this episode, Alex talks with Matt Aiken and Kyle Guemmer about four books that have changed the way they think about leadership, along with a key principle or take away from each. You won't want to miss these insights! Want a clearer picture of what's working in your business—and what needs attention? Take the free 12 Fundamentals Assessment for a personalized score and your clearest next step: 12fundamentals.comEpisode Recap:If you want your business to grow, you'll need to grow, too. How does reading help us grow in wisdom?Don't evaluate decisions based on the outcome of those decisionsA great team member will tell you what they intend to do, then go do it 5 steps to improve efficiency“You sound stupid” Not sure where to start? Describe what's happening in your business or team, then explore 400+ practical resources to help you take the next right step: resources.pathforgrowth.comResources:Follow the podcast on Apple or SpotifySchedule a call to learn more about Path for Growth Coaching and CommunityCheck out our free library of 400+ resources on business and leadershipConnect with our Founder Alex Judd on LinkedIn and InstagramBooks Mentioned in This Episode: “Thinking in Bets” by Annie Duke“Turn the Ship Around” by L. David Marquet “Elon Musk” by Walter Isaacson“Radical Candor” by Kim Scott

When was the last time somebody stopped your line and you thanked them for it? Toyota built the andon cord into the line decades ago and most plants still treat pulling it as a failure. Dr. Michael Gillespie, organizational psychologist at the University of South Florida and co-author of Distancing with David Marquet, studies why the person closest to a problem is often the least able to see it. Being locked inside your own point of view is the default setting, not an occasional lapse, which is how five people can walk up to one stopped line and each honestly see a different problem. Nobody is lying. Everybody is immersed. Mike walks Trevor through the three moves that create distance, be someone else, be somewhere else, be sometime else, and shares the research on why higher performing hospital units report more errors rather than fewer. Trevor brings the plant floor version, including the moment he admits he spent years defending his own department instead of the whole line, and applies temporal distancing live to a month-end budget decision every operations leader will recognize. Ends with one exercise you can try tonight, and it sounds cheesy until you read the research behind it. A practical conversation about decision making, critical thinking, and manufacturing team leadership for plant managers, operations directors, and frontline supervisors.

Zane Keller, CEO of Ducere Wealth Management, is driven to Lead, Guide, & Educate clients and employees by helping them solve meaningful problems and achieve their goals. Through personalized financial guidance and a culture of empowerment, Zane supports clients with complex financial needs while giving employees the tools, trust, and opportunities they need to grow professionally. In this conversation, Zane introduces The Turn the Ship Around Framework—Delegate Decisions to the Source of Information, Put the Right People in the Right Seats, and Remove Friction That Impedes Performance. He explains why informed employees should have the authority to make decisions, how leaders can remove barriers instead of controlling daily operations, and why culture must remain a priority as a company scales. Zane also discusses macro patience and micro speed, creating opportunities for employee ownership, encouraging intrapreneurship, and helping multigenerational families coordinate their investments, tax planning, estate planning, and financial legacies. — Lead, Guide, & Educate with Zane Keller  Good day. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast, and my guest today is Zane Keller, CEO of Ducere Wealth Management, with a vision to be the leading provider of tech-driven, tax-optimized wealth management services for clients through their advisory support, that every client’s assets, time, and relationships are prioritized. Zane, welcome to the show.  Thanks, Steve. Appreciate you having me.  So, Zane, before we jump in and talk about Ducere Wealth, I’m very curious about your personal why, and how are you manifesting it in the company through the company’s business?  Sure. Well, early on, I knew I liked—one of my biggest passions was helping people solve problems. And one of the amazing things about being in the wealth management industry is you get to help people solve a lot of problems that are personal for them, and that’s their finances. It tends to be a personal subject for them, and allowing them guidance, support, understanding, and being a listening ear is what I find to be extremely rewarding in the business we have. But starting a company and having a team, and building that team, and building all the infrastructure and support and all of that, to me, the employees are as much clients as our clients are clients.  And so it’s an interesting position that I’m in, where it’s a dual role of both looking at it from a standpoint of how do we help our clients with the day-to-day or yearly challenges they face, but also how do I make sure that our employees are empowered to deliver the right client service and feel that they can continue to grow and expand in their careers. So I just like helping people, and I get to do it every day.Share on X  Yeah. Okay. That’s great. So when you talk about solving problems, obviously finance is a mirror for all an individual’s life aspirations, problems, challenges, opportunities, all that stuff. Your people are also humans, individuals, and they probably have similar challenges, so that’s a really neat mosaic there. So what is most challenging in building a wealth management firm like that?  I think the most challenging thing is all of the decisions are on you. And when I talk to other business leaders, there isn’t a roadmap, there isn’t a manual in terms of how people build their businesses, build their teams, and a lot of it is a balance of both trusting your instinct and what your background and lessons have been, as well as trusting those that you have brought in to help build the enterprise.  I was fortunate that I get to work with my dad, who had gone through this venture before, and we’ve gotten a chance to partner together and build it from the ground up. We went from a year ago, I had to order two laptops on Amazon, get a URL from GoDaddy, and start from scratch. And, you know, a year later, we find ourselves with 14 employees, an office in Newport, an office in Las Vegas, $600 million in assets under management, and continuing to want to grow, and being fortunate that we have a tremendous client base who trusts us.  But we’ve been able to attract and retain top-quality employees and team members who we rely on every day to continue building out the vision.  Well, I mean, building $600 million in assets under management in a year in a business like wealth management sounds almost like an impossible goal. Did you have a portfolio that you kind of imported into this business, or was that completely from scratch?  No. We had clients that we had worked with previously. We had left a big bank.  Okay.  And so some of those clients came over with us, but a lot of it was growing organically through COIs, through other marketing efforts, and bringing on other advisors who wanted to leverage our platform to provide a better service for their clients.  That’s fantastic. So how does one start a wealth management business? It sounds like one of the hardest businesses to start because it’s a trust-based business, from what I see, and it’s a very slow-burn kind of business. How do you actually grow a business like that?  Well, I think first is, in our industry, what’s interesting is there’s a lot of different business types. You have the wirehouses, the broker-dealers. There are people that are very successful just being anchored to a Wells Fargo or a J.P. Morgan or Merrill Lynch and building within that. Then you have folks who have gone to the roll-ups. Private equity has become pretty involved in our industry—a lot of roll-ups, a lot of consolidation.  Their value proposition is defined platforms that you can just plug in. And then you have what I consider the true independents, ourselves included, where we had a vision of we didn’t want to be held back or bogged down by two areas. One, as things get larger and larger and larger, the wheels turn slower and slower. And I think we're in a unique area from a business evolution cycle that leveraging AI, leveraging the technology, being able to make decisions quickly is going to be a substantial differentiator over the next several years.Share on X  And we didn’t want to have the conflicts that inherently come when you are backed by investors, and the focus is how do you maximize revenue, even if it may be at the expense of clients or at the expense of employees or at the expense of growth that you don’t see the return on investment for several years. So we decided that we were going to do it from scratch. Luckily, I had a background in—at the previous firm, I had helped build out all of the tech stack.  I’d worn almost every hat you can have at an RIA, and I had the experience from my father having gone through this, that between the two of us, there was enough goodwill or brand equity to build it out. But the other thing that we decided to do is there’s a reason it’s not called Keller Wealth or Keller Investments. The goal was never to have it be about ourselves. It was about creating a brand and a vision where others feel like they can be a part of.  357: Lead, Guide, & Educate with Zane KellerShare on X So as we brought on employees, I’ve challenged them that they have a responsibility to make an impact on the organization, and we start with culture. People have to be a culture fit first. We will not sacrifice culture for all the money on God’s green earth because I can confidently say that I don’t know how much business or revenue we’re missing out on if the team is not functioning at the highest level possible. So the first and foremost is a cultural fit. Then we look at the skills, the competencies, the ability to grow. But for us, culture is number one.  Yeah, love it. So what does it take to grow a wealth management firm? What drives growth in your business?  I think it takes three kind of main pieces. One is understanding that there’s a term GaryVee uses called “macro patience, micro speed.” And what we had set out initially is I knew that there were several steps between SEC registration, getting relationships with a custodian, getting relationships with tech vendors, finding office space, all of that that needs to be done just from a basic business foundation standpoint. What I needed to do, when we needed to do it, and logging every week.  I actually would send emails to myself and my dad for the first two months before we had employees of everything that got done the previous week, and what we needed to get done the next week, and what our blockers were if things couldn’t get done. Then that kind of grew into, as we had employees, becoming a consistent weekly check-in as we were heading towards what I consider our launch date, which was July 28th, because that’s when we actually received SEC approval.  So the first two months was just building the architecture, building up where we’re going to work, what we’re going to work with, all of those decisions being put in place. I’m fortunate enough that I’ve been involved with a lot of different companies in the industry over the years. So I had people who had done this before, people who had worked with large RIAs, small RIAs, and everything in between to lean on as advisors.  I think one of the things that I was more than surprised by was the amount of outpouring of support. “I’m happy to help you. What do you need? What can we do to make you successful? I know someone that I can connect you to.” And I think that's kind of the unique thing about our industry, is that there is a lot of camaraderie and willingness to help each other, even if you may be competitors in some aspects.Share on X  That’s interesting. So when you say “macro patience, micro speed,” what do you mean by that exactly?  So our goal is to get to a billion or more in AUM. And while I’d love to do that overnight, it takes time, both from bringing in clients, market performance. I’d love everything to be fully integrated from an AI standpoint, but again, those things take time. So a lot of the times, I think leaders have an issue with wanting to get to the destination as quickly as possible and not thinking through all the steps they need to get there.  So each step along the way, or what I consider the day-to-day, I try to get as much done in the hours that I have during the day, and that’s where the speed lies. And eventually that compounds, just like investing, into where we want to go from an overall firm standpoint. But me saying, “I just want to be at a billion dollars,” that’s great. But you’re going to say, “Well, what are you doing every day to get there?” I can go, “Well, I’ve had this many prospect meetings.  I’ve had this many client meetings. We’ve reviewed this much market information. We’ve decided to put money towards these investments.” It’s the day-to-day decision-making and being quick in doing that that I think is imperative for us to get to where our goal is going to be.  Okay. So this is a podcast called Management Blueprint, and it’s a podcast of frameworks. We are 350-plus episodes in, and every episode is a different framework. So I wonder, what’s a framework that you have come across, or maybe your did or you guys refined it, invented it, or improved it, that helps you build this business, that helps you do something more effectively, maybe getting new clients, maybe building your team members or training them, maybe getting the word out, whatever part of business it is that can be explained in three to five steps?  Sure. So there’s a book called Turn the Ship Around! by David Marquet, and that, from a leadership standpoint, is the mentality that I have taken since day one. To boil it down into one sentence, it’s this: The people with the information make the decisions. And so if the team is coming to me all the time for every possible decision in order to move this business along, there’s no way that we’re going to grow at the rate or grow, arguably, period, the way that we want to succeed.  So when I sit down with the team, one, the first question needs to be, if you’re running an enterprise like this, do you have the right people in the positions they’re at? Do they have the competencies, the understanding, and the cooperation with others to effectively make decisions in their role? And then the second thing that I spend the majority of my time on is, are there things inhibiting them from doing their role? So things such as, do they not know what their budget is? Do they not know who the decision-makers on the other end are? Do they not know that they are responsible or allowed to make those decisions?  So my goal is to make sure that they understand that if they have the information and we have built what the, I guess, framework or the bumpers are in bowling, that it's their decision to make and to inform me why they made the decisionShare on X not for them to come to me and say, “Do we do A or do we do B?” When we have a team, the expectation is there’s a lot of moving pieces. To your point earlier, it’s a lot to run an RIA. It’s a lot to run a wealth management firm.  There’s several things happening all at once, several things that are intertwined, and you can’t have one person that is reasonable as you grow in scale to be aware or understanding of the pros and cons of every decision. So we’ve brought people on. We have a full investment team. They are responsible for making the investment decisions. I listen in, but I’m not doing the due diligence. I’m not meeting with the managers. I’m not doing all of that. We have folks that are responsible from an operations side, making sure things day-to-day happen. I’m not the one making the decisions on that.  But if they come to me and say, “Hey, this is becoming difficult,” or, “We can’t get ahold of so-and-so,” then I step in. But the whole point of it is making sure that they feel empowered. The people with the information make the decisions. You get the right people in place, you should have, from a leadership standpoint, very few decisions you have to make on a day-to-day basis.Share on X Yeah, that’s great. So basically, you share your contextual understanding of your business with the people who work for you so that they can connect the dots as well, make decisions, and you can focus on the strategic part of the business. What do you and your dad focus on?  Yeah. I’d say it’s two parts. One is focusing on the more complex client issues, as we have multi-generational, multi-family clients, and also where we want the business to go. And it’s not one-dimensional. It’s bringing on more clients, plus bringing on additional advisors, plus looking at things from a national standpoint. After COVID, Zoom has become very useful, and people have become comfortable with having what I consider tele-wealth.  So their advisor may be in a different state, and they’re completely comfortable with that. And so it’s pursuing all of these various growth avenues because the day-to-day is being taken care of. So my focus is just that. It’s focusing on strategy. Where does the next $600 million come from? What about the $600 million after that? And how do we continue to grow in a manner where we don’t sacrifice some of the things that make us unique? As an example, our team constantly talks, interacts all day long, not just on “This is the work that needs to be done,” but people genuinely like working together.  I don’t have a strict in-office policy. The entire team’s here five days a week. I’ve not asked them to do that. I’ve not said they need to do that, but they genuinely enjoy working here. So when we open up a second office, how do we keep that kind of consistency? When we open up a third office or fourth? It's those kinds of areas that I think I spend a lot of my time trying to figure out and see how we grow without sacrificing some of the core values that we have.Share on X  Yeah. So what are your core values?  Probably three big ones. One is, I don’t know if I’m allowed to say it on the podcast here, but we have a no-assh*le policy. You have to be a genuinely good person to work here. You have to genuinely care about other people, and that is the first test. Two, we want, just like the firm grows, we expect the team to grow personally and professionally.  So if you’re going to be here when we do a review, I’m going to ask you: How are you better at contributing to the organization, to your team, and to your coworkers than you were a year ago, and what do you expect to do better a year from now? And then the third thing is: How are you defending our culture? We may have new people come in. What are you doing to set the tone as to how we work here at Ducere? Because, as I mentioned earlier, it’s not just about me and my dad. It’s about the collective organization, each individual playing their part to enhance and protect our culture.  Yeah. So it’s very clear that you talk about culture repeatedly. It sounds like it’s a really big part of your identity and how you want to build this firm.  Absolutely.  So what’s one thing that you’re actively trying to figure out in this business right now?  I think one of the big things is: How do we effectively bring on an advisor where we understand they have a book of business, and we understand they have a certain way of doing things, integrating them into our platform, but allowing them to operate with their own unique style. One of the challenges with scale is sometimes you scale and you give up originality or a unique way that, Steve, you may do something, then I do it a little differently, but it ultimately gets the same goal.  And really looking at what are the goals or deliverables that an advisor wants to bring to their clients, and can we allow them flexibility to get there in their own way? And I’ll give you a good example. So what we do from an asset management standpoint is we have what I call an open architecture. So for any given portfolio, there can be a number of combinations and permutations that give you a similar risk profile or result, and we leave that up, if the advisor wants to, for them to decide what that makeup looks like, as long as it’s within the parameters that we’ve set from a risk standpoint.  So as an example, Steve, you say, “I’m aggressive,” and I go, “Great. I’m not going to put you in one stock if you’re retired. That’s too aggressive.” But we do have several things that are approved on the platform, and we do continuous due diligence where we can say, “Steve, here’s two or three options. Which best serves your client? Which is going to be something that your client understands and feels comfortable with?” So that’s one area that we’ve really been trying to focus on and figure out how we express that differentiator in a way that it actually resonates with those advisors.  Yeah. That’s great. So basically, you want to build an organization where people can stay entrepreneurial. They don’t have to just live in a box that is given to them. So you capture more creativity and more personality in your business so that you can grow in a more nimble way. Is this what you’re trying to do here?  Yeah. I think the official term they’ve called it is intrapreneurship instead of entrepreneurship. But yes, the goal is: How do we get the team to come and say, “Hey, I think we have this issue, and here’s the solution I want to have, and it’s a little different than what we do, but I think there’s a way to make it happen”? And again, the people with the information make the decisions. How do I remove as many blockers as possible so they can continue to pursue that avenue? But the big thing is, some folks sometimes get sidetracked.  They go down rabbit holes or they veer off on projects that may not be going towards what our goal is, right? Growing, adding more revenue, adding more clients. And so as long as there’s a tieback to what our goals are as a firm, then we’re all for empowering them to be able to pursue those passions.  How do you maintain that structure in a family-started business? That can be a tricky one. People might feel that there’s a glass ceiling or they’re always going to stay an outsider. How do you resolve this tension?  That’s a great question, and it’s something that verbally hasn’t come up to me, but I can certainly see people’s perspective on it. And so my dad and I tend to be pretty transparent as to what's going on, what we're dealing with, getting feedback from the team.Share on X And while this is a 40-plus-year venture for me, for my dad, it’s probably about another 10-year venture for him.  And so we’ve stated that our goal is to get to the point where we can be 100% employee-owned, but we can have multiple employees who are owners of the firm. I’m a strong believer in giving people the opportunity to earn their equity. And if we do get to the point where we sell the organization one day, I want to brag about how many millionaires I created.  I don’t think anyone will ever care how many millions someone makes for themselves. And so we’ve, from day one, been very vocal and communicative to the team that the expectation is that as many of the employees as it makes sense, and that they’ve earned it, can earn equity. We plan on doing that, but it’s probably not going to be until about year three where we actually start putting that together from a formal standpoint.  Yeah. That’s fascinating. So who is an ideal client for you? So if someone is listening to this and they think, “Ah, maybe I should talk to Ducere,” how do they know whether they are in the sweet spot of what you’re looking for and who you can serve the most?  Sure. Well, our best clients are ones that tend to be multi-generational, so they’re families that are looking to pass on the management of the wealth from maybe the matriarch or the patriarch to the next generation, and they have more complex investments, partnerships, family limited partnerships. They have an interest in private or alternative investments, and they’re looking for someone to help with that transition and possibly help with the next generational transition, and a partnership that’s another 20 to 30 years.  So folks that are qualified investors that tend to have complex tax and estate needs and really want someone who’s a quarterback between all the other professionals that they work with—CPAs, attorneys, et cetera—that’s who our ideal client is. There are firms out there that offer everything in-house, right? We do your taxes, we do everything. And the analogy I like to use with clients is that’s like going to a buffet. Buffets, for some people, are great, but I’ve never had my greatest meal at a buffet.  Usually, it’s fine dining, where it’s a specific niche that they are looking to serve. And so if they’re happy with the other professionals that they work with, our job is to fill in that gap to make sure that things get coordinated, they get an understanding of what their financial picture is, it’s clear-cut as to how to get to those goals. And I think the biggest and most successful clients we’ve had are ones who want to learn. They want to be educated clients. They want to be educated investors. And so those are the type of clients that would be ideal: multi-generational, complex financial needs from a tax, estate planning, and private investment standpoint.  They’re also looking to work with a firm that may not have some of the conflicts that the Merrill Lynches and Wells Fargos, who may sell you their own proprietary products, because we don’t make any commission. We’re fee-only. Or some of the PE firms who are looking to figure out how to maximize profit off each client. And that’s not the way that we look at it either.  Yeah, I think a lot of people are waking up to the idea that if the owners are super profit-oriented, then it means someone will have to pay the bill. And if there’s a huge imbalance between the motivations of the company and the individuals, then it can create tensions down the road. When I look for home services, I always look for, okay, which company is the one that maybe is a locally owned one, genuinely locally owned with real people that I can talk to and who I can trust, rather than a faceless institution that essentially dictates the policies that may not always be in my interest.  So I appreciate the independence. So if the listeners would like to learn more and figure out whether they have enough complexity or whether you are the right fit for them, where can they find out more, and how can they connect with you?  Sure. We have our website, ducerewealth.com. We’re actually, for our one-year anniversary in about two weeks, revamping it, and so there’s going to be a lot of resources for all the various niche types of clients that we work with, and there are several forms out there. You can contact me, zane@ducerewealth.com. I’m a principal, but I talk to our prospects and clients, and we just want to do what’s best for the client. So, ducerewealth.com, and we welcome any and all of those interested.  Okay. So if you have complex financial needs, or you just want to think about your legacy and transition maybe to the next generation and how to maximize your wealth, check out Ducere Wealth Management and reach out to Zane Keller on LinkedIn. And if you enjoyed the show, then make sure you follow us on YouTube, give us a review on Apple Podcasts, and stay tuned because every week we have a couple of exciting entrepreneurial leaders who come to the show and share their most secret frameworks. So Zane, thanks for coming, and thanks for listening.  Thank you, Steve. I appreciate it. Important Links: Zane's LinkedIn: Zane's website: Zane's email: zane@ducerewealth.com

What happens when the identity that made you successful becomes the very thing you need to let go of when you become a leader? Drawing on Brené Brown's The Gifts of Imperfection and L. David Marquet's Turn the Ship Around!, we explore the hats we wear in leadership and the courage, compassion and connection required to move from being an expert and doer to being an authentic leader and enabler of others. This episode invites you to consider what will develop you as a leader, whether it's leading yourself, your team or an organisation.Resources mentioned in the podcast: Brene Brown's resources: https://brenebrown.com/resources/; YouTube summary of David Marquet's Turn the Ship Around: https://youtu.be/OqmdLcyES_Q?si=WCnv57Kv7GAvP4FE.We love hearing how experiments work out for you. Email us at and .  Please rate, review and subscribe.   (Thanks to tedefame from Pixabay for the music.)

Welcome to the Summer Leadership Reset on Partnering Leadership.We have more access to ideas than ever before.More books. More podcasts. More articles. More insights.The challenge isn't finding more information. It's spending enough time with the ideas that can change how we think, decide, and lead.I have seen this in my own life. The books and conversations that have influenced me most aren't the ones I rushed through and moved on from. They are the ones I returned to, wrestled with, and understood differently as my own experiences changed.After more than 450 Partnering Leadership conversations with CEOs, researchers, authors, and leadership thinkers, there are a few I continue coming back to because the ideas become more valuable the more we sit with them.Throughout July and August, I'll be sharing 10 of those conversations.They explore some of the questions I see leaders wrestling with most: adapting to change, building trust, making better decisions, rethinking work, using AI wisely, and creating organizations ready for what comes next.Whether you are listening for the first time or revisiting these conversations, I hope they help you find an insight you can apply and a question worth thinking about long after the episode ends.—MahanConnect with Mahan Tavakoli:Mahan Tavakoli Website Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn Partnering Leadership Website

Your job description was written to get you hired, not help you know if a decision is your to make.That gap between what's on paper and who actually decides is where careers go to die. Experience & Process Improvement Leader Clint Murt once again joins Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Leader Om Patel in a debate on why job descriptions and/or job role descriptions may buy false comfort, when executive "intrusion" is actually legitimate, and the problem with decision-making that nobody owns.Listen or watch if you're interested in :• Why job descriptions go stale the day they're posted• How that "startup magic" that becomes chaos at 100 people and burns out your best talent• When that exec has the right to overrides your roadmap• Why RACIs are fiction and what to use instead• Practical fixes for decision rightsIf you are a product managers, agile coach, or tech leader tired of role confusion and turf wars, this episode is for you!#ProductManagement #DecisionRights #OrganizationalDesignFlow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, David Marquet, RACI matrix, OVIS framework (BCG), Spotify modelLINKSYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagileSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596INTRO MUSICToronto Is My BeatBy Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

One of the biggest Navy policy changes of the year is here, and we're breaking it all down. This week, we discuss NAVADMIN 140/26 and NAVADMIN 162/26, covering the Navy's updated guidance on religious accommodations, grooming standards, and facial hair policy. Joining us is retired Navy Captain Dr. John Cordle, who explains what Pseudofolliculitis Barbae (PFB) is, how it's commonly treated, who it affects, and what these changes could mean for Sailors and the Fleet. We also discuss barracks and BAH challenges for first-term Sailors, Congress looking into the hard fouls on Caitlin Clark, Reserve Chief selection results, truth in reporting, a Navy Senior Chief charged with child pornography, and honor the life of CMDR Gabriel Edwards. Plus, we respond to listener comments, discuss what went wrong with Damo's Instagram story, talk about joining the military later in life, Aaron's first official PTSF DRB, Damon's apartment search for his son, Damo's retirement trip to Norfolk, this week's Do Better segment, and our Picks of the Week.       Referenced Resources: • NAVADMIN 140/26 – Updated Guidance on Grooming Standards and Religious Liberty https://www.mynavyhr.navy.mil/Portals/55/Messages/NAVADMIN/NAV2026/NAV26140.pdf • NAVADMIN 162/26 – Facial Hair Groom Standards Update https://www.mynavyhr.navy.mil/Portals/55/Messages/NAVADMIN/NAV2026/NAV26162.pdf       Do you have “Do Better” that you want us to review on a future episode? Reach out at ptstpodcast@gmail.com       Stay connected with us: https://linktr.ee/Ptsfpodcast       Picks of the Week: Intrusive Leadership (Marcus A. Canady) - https://www.cgaalumni.org/s/1043/21/interior.aspx?sid=1043&gid=1&pgid=6893 Turn the Ship Around - (L. David Marquet) - https://davidmarquet.com/books/turn-the-ship-around-book/ The Captain Class (Sam Walker) - https://www.bysamwalker.com/the-captain-class         PTSF Theme music: Produced by Lim0

Aliu Adewale: The New Scrum Master Trap—Being In Everyone's Business to Look Busy Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "Sometimes the best architecture and design comes from a self-organizing team." - Aliu Adewale   When Aliu first became a Scrum Master, he wanted to be everywhere. New to the role, new to the organization, with a new team relying on him to deliver, he scheduled extra check-ins, sat in on everything, and made sure his manager could see him working. The result wasn't visibility—it was suffocation. The team felt he was in their business, and the deliveries he was trying to protect got worse, not better. Aliu's wake-up call came from his coach, who told him a sentence he still carries: "Stepping back gives your team the space to take ownership and unlock their true potential." The hardest thing a new Scrum Master can do is let things roll on their own for a Sprint or two and adjust through the retrospective. But once Aliu did it, the team started self-organizing, owning their day-to-day, and delivering beyond his expectations. The lesson he names is Agile principle number 5: build projects around motivated individuals, give them the support they need, and trust them to get the job done. The deeper insight from Vasco in this episode: when we want to be in our team's business, it's usually because we don't trust ourselves to know enough—so we try to know everything.   In this episode, we refer to Turn the Ship Around! by David Marquet, which Vasco recommends for any Scrum Master learning to step back, and to the Agile Manifesto.   Self-reflection Question: What are you doing this week to "be visible" that the team would actually be better off without?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Seven books. One summer. A few of them might change how you think about leadership.David Wheatley, co-founder of Humanergy and host of the Humanergy Leadership Podcast, wraps up the season with his annual summer reading list for leaders. This year's picks span decentralized leadership, AI, gender dynamics in the workplace, coaching philosophy, team performance, and how people build a life worth living.The books on the list:Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet — a classic on leader-leader culture that keeps coming back into the conversation for good reason.The AI-Driven Leader by Jeff Woods — the book Humanergy has been recommending all year for leaders trying to get a practical handle on AI.The Only Woman in the Room by Lisa Davis — not just for women. David interviewed Lisa earlier this season; this is a good companion listen.The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh — a look at what actually goes into building a winning culture, from the coach who rebuilt the 49ers.And It Was Beautiful by Phil Hay — the story of Marcelo Bielsa at Leeds, and a counterpoint to Walsh worth reading alongside it.What Great Teams Do Great by Humanergy — if you haven't read it yet, it's 98 pages and worth every one of them.What to Make of a Life by Jim Collins — his newest book. If you know Collins from Good to Great or Great by Choice, you know what to expect: rigorous, research-driven, and worth your time.Drop your own summer reading recommendations in the comments.Humanergy is a leadership development company based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Learn more at humanergy.com.Learn more about Humanergy's work: https://www.humanergy.comJoin the Humanergy community on LinkedIn.Sign up for our FREE leadership workshops. 

Why do so many businesses hit a ceiling at around 10 employees? Many founders start their business because they're brilliant at what they do. In the early days, decisions are fast, communication is simple, and the founder sits at the centre of everything. Then the business grows. Suddenly, what made the business successful starts to become the thing holding it back. In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent speaks with Tameron Chappell, founder of  Athinka, a business psychology consultancy that helps organisations build healthier, higher-performing teams using evidence-based psychology rather than management fads and airport business books. Tameron explains why the transition beyond 10 employees is one of the most challenging moments in a founder's journey, how personality dynamics influence team performance far more than technical capability, and why shared leadership is critical for sustainable growth. About Tameron Chappell Tameron is the founder of  Athinka, a consultancy specialising in business psychology and team effectiveness. Working primarily with startups and scale-ups, Tameron combines psychodynamic and systemic approaches to help founders and leadership teams understand the hidden patterns, behaviours and relationships that influence performance. His work often begins when traditional consulting approaches have failed to deliver lasting results, helping organisations uncover the deeper causes of team dysfunction and leadership challenges. In this episode: Why businesses often stall at 10 employees Many founders unknowingly create a business model that relies entirely on them. As the team grows, this becomes unsustainable. The founder becomes the bottleneck for decisions, problem-solving and accountability. Tameron explains why the 10-person mark is a critical inflection point and why leaders must begin building shared ownership and leadership much earlier than they think. The uncomfortable reality of scaling leadership One of the biggest mindset shifts for founders is recognising that they may not always be the best person for their current role. Growth requires leaders to continually evolve and sometimes redefine their responsibilities. Tameron discusses why succession planning, delegation and leadership development should be part of the scaling conversation from day one. Why personality matters more than technical skills Recruitment often focuses heavily on experience, qualifications and technical competence. However, Tameron argues that personality fit, behavioural tendencies and stress responses are often far better predictors of long-term success. Past performance in one environment does not guarantee success in another. Understanding how individuals naturally operate under pressure can significantly improve hiring decisions and team performance. Understanding the psychology behind team dynamics Rather than viewing personality through simplistic labels and categories, Tameron describes personality as a complex mixing deck of traits that interact differently depending on circumstances. Helping team members understand their own preferences and those of colleagues can reduce conflict, improve communication and increase trust. Evidence-based business psychology Athinka's approach is grounded in established psychological theory and research. The consultancy combines: • Psychodynamic approaches to explore the relationship between an individual's inner world and workplace behaviour. • Systemic approaches to uncover hidden organisational patterns and group dynamics. The result is practical insight that helps teams function more effectively and leaders make better decisions. Standout Quote "Most businesses don't stop growing because of strategy. They stop growing because the founder's control model no longer works." Key Takeaways • The 10-employee mark is often the first major scaling challenge. • Founders must evolve their leadership style as the business grows. • Shared leadership creates stronger, more resilient organisations. • Personality and behavioural fit matter more than technical skills alone. • Team effectiveness improves when people understand how others naturally operate. Resources mentioned in the episode: Internal Family Systems - https://ifs-institute.com/ Lumina Splash App - https://luminalearning.com/our-products/lumina-splash-app Co-Pilot - Claude -   From Tameron: If you're a founder and you're curious about the psychology underneath your business — the patterns, the dynamics, the parts of you that show up under pressure — here are some resources I often recommend: Edgar Schein's work on Humble Leadership for the fundamental shift from 'expert' to open-minded curiosity which is the foundation of all relational leadership. Mike Hohnen's practical interpretation of Dave Snowden's Cynefin model, especially for founders navigating complexity, pace and ambiguity. Mike makes complexity human and usable. Richard Schwartz's Internal Family Systems (IFS) for understanding your inner architecture, your triggers, and how to lead yourself with more clarity and compassion. His book No Bad Parts is a great entry point. Systemic thinking for teams and organisations = anything that helps you uncover the hidden patterns around you. John Whittington's blogs (start with his views on Founders and their Origin Story https://www.linkedin.com/posts/johntkwhittington_systemiccoaching-founders-theoriginstory-activity-7452030365994569728-s7wJ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAC1NiYBYHjcV1QthjsMa96N6IIja61N-Mo ), Jan Jacob Stam's Systemic Leadership, and Tess Cope's Harness and Your Team Is Not The Issue are excellent. Trait‑based personality models such as Lumina Spark, Hogan, or NEO Primary Colours. These help you understand behaviour under pressure and in context. (N.B. Not Type tools like MBTI, DISC, Insights or Strengths, they're fun and ubiquitous, but they don't stand up to psychological scrutiny. If you want something highly practical, David Marquet's intent‑based leadership work (Turn the Ship Around, Leadership is Language) and his short Leadership Nudges videos on YouTube are brilliant for everyday behavioural shifts. And of course… if you've got humans in your business and don't fancy reading all these theories and ideas come and find me - I'm always curious about your world, your successes and challenges. Find me on LinkedIn or at Tameron.Chappell@athinka.com and if you mention you came across me via Kevin's podcast I can offer you a no-strings-attached Diagnostic Conversation where we can focus on your situation, leadership, team and organisation. 

Send us Fan MailWhat if the words you use as a leader are shaping your team's performance more than your strategy?In this episode of Get Amplified, Vic and Sam sit down with leadership consultant Chris Collett to unpack one of the most influential leadership books Vic's ever read: Turn the Ship Around! by David Marquet.The book tells the remarkable true story of a struggling nuclear submarine where traditional command-and-control leadership simply didn't work. Faced with a crew that knew more than he did and a situation where he couldn't possibly have all the answers, Marquet had to rethink what leadership looked like. The result? A powerful shift from giving orders to creating an environment where everyone was empowered to think, contribute and speak up.Along the way, from his second book 'Leadership is Language', they explore why good intentions aren't always enough. Vic shares why this book was a genuine game changer for her, one of the most impactful leadership reads since The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. While she always believed she created space for people to contribute, this book challenged her to look more closely at the language she was using and the unintended influence leaders can have on the conversations around them.The discussion also dives into Marquet's concept of "red work" and "blue work" – doing versus thinking – and why teams need deliberate pauses to reflect, challenge assumptions and make sure they're still heading in the right direction.If you're interested in building teams where people think for themselves, challenge constructively, and move forward with greater clarity and confidence, this episode is packed with practical insights. More than anything, it's a reminder that leadership isn't just about what you do. It's about the environment you create and the conversations you enable.We would love you to follow us on LinkedIn! https://www.linkedin.com/company/amplified-group/

Christian Thordal: How "Fake Kanban" Fooled the Metrics, And What This Agile Coach Did to Fix It Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "The team was like birds in a nest waiting to get fed — completely dependent on the PO for every piece of work." - Christian Thordal   Christian tells us about a team that always appeared busy but was hiding serious dysfunction behind a single healthy metric. When he rated the system across his domain, he found the team scored low in process maturity, effectiveness, and learning — yet their cycle time looked good. The team claimed to practice Kanban, but in reality it meant "we can do whatever we want." Daily standups had become social check-ins. The backlog held over 100 items to do and 50+ in progress, most of them just headlines with no descriptions. Real work assignments happened through 30-minute Slack huddles between the PO and individual developers — pure push, no prioritization. Despite having OKRs, the team could only plan a week ahead. Christian's fix was radical: he restarted the backlog entirely, cutting 150 items down to roughly 30, established WIP limits to create a pull-based system, and brought the team into the process as active participants rather than passive recipients.   In this segment, we refer to Kanban and OKRs.   Self-reflection Question: When was the last time you looked beyond a single "green" metric to understand what was really happening in your team's workflow? Featured Book of the Week: Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet Christian recommends Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet, a former U.S. Navy submarine commander who transformed his crew's performance by replacing permission-seeking with intent-based leadership. Instead of waiting for orders, crew members were expected to say "I intend to..." — transferring ownership and making people accountable for their decisions. Christian says this deeply resonated with his own military background in the Danish Army, where leadership operated on similar principles. The book's core message — stop creating dependency and start building leaders at every level — connects directly to the team story in this episode, where passive dependency on the PO was the root of the dysfunction. You can also listen to previous episodes with David Marquet and explore more on intent-based leadership.   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

As a leader, would you like the people in your team to take more initiative? You might say,“Of course I want them to take more initiative! That's a no-brainer.”If that's what you think, good – because I'll show you how to start encouraging people to take more initiative.But I should warn you this isn't always what you want. It's not always a “no-brainer” that you want people to take more initiative.For example, I see this a lot with AI rollouts. Let's say your organisation is rolling out some new AI system to improve efficiency, and your job as a leader is to get your team on board with this new system.Do you want your team members to take initiative? Well ... maybe. But probably not!You actually want the opposite: to be compliant. They must follow the rules and use the new software. Not keep using the old system, especially secretly behind your back.So, sometimes initiative is the last thing you want. But you want to move past that point as soon as possible, and start showing more initiative.This isn't easy!David Marquet, commander of the US Navy's nuclear submarine Santa Fe, discovered this in 1999.At the time, he was leading his crew through exercises In Pearl Harbor, taking them through a series of intense training exercises.In one such exercise, Marquet ordered the engineer to shut down the nuclear reactor, testing the crew's ability to deal with the situation, and find and correct the fault. The submarine switched to its battery backup, and the trouble-shooters started working diligently through their checklist, trying to isolate the fault before the battery died.Marquet – by his own admission – became bored, and decided to raise the stakes by increasing the submarine's speed. That would significantly increase the drain on the battery, adding extra pressure to the process.He nudged his Officer On Deck, Lieutenant Commander Bill Greene, and asked him to increase the speed from “ahead one third” to “ahead two thirds”. Greene immediately barked out the order to the helmsman, “Ahead two thirds!”And then … nothing. Nobody said anything, the helmsman didn't respond, and Marquet noticed him squirming in his seat. He asked why, and the helmsman replied, “Captain, there is no such setting on this ship!”Marquet realised he had probably been told this during his training, but he had forgotten. He later took Greene aside to ask him why he ordered it. Greene admitted he, too, knew there was no “ahead two thirds”, but went ahead and ordered it “because you told me to”. He went on to say, “I thought you had learned something secret at Commanding Officer school that they only tell the Commanding Officers.”Marquet was stunned. This was his first role commanding this type of submarine, so he was one of its least experienced crew members. But, because he had the title, his crew would respond without question to his orders. He resolved to transform that culture from blind obedience to individual empowerment, and did that over the next twelve months.Marquet realised this crew, as good and as smart as they were, were still compliant. They would obey the hierarchy.He spent the next twelve months building a different culture and turning that around. He tells the story in his book, “Turn the Ship Around”.One of the key principles – and one I encourage you to use – is this simple idea: push authority to information.Push authority to information.If all people do is alert you to problems, that's fine. But even better is when they have the authority to act on that information without always checking in with you.Of course, there are situations where they should check in – that's a matter of judgement. But the first and most important thing you can do to encourage initiative is to push authority to information.If you want people to take more initiative, push authority to information.Download my worksheet here to use with your team to identify ways to put this principle into practice.https://swiy.co/go-push-authority-to-information Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The results of the recent Gallup Worldwide Employee Poll show a continued decline in workplace engagement. How do you change this in your company? David Marquet, a former nuclear submarine commander, was named one of the Top 100 Leadership Speakers by Inc. Mag. A true student of leadership, David is the author of the Amazon #1 Best Seller 'Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders, a book that does not get anywhere near the attention it deserves. Hear how David developed a workplace culture where everyone is engaged and contributes to their full intellectual capacity because they have more control over their work. Imagine a place where everyone is a leader.   LINKS   David's website davidmarquet.com   Book on Amazon Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders   The Mojo Sessions website www.themojosessions.com   The Mojo Sessions on Patreon www.patreon.com/TheMojoSessions Full transcripts of the show (plus time codes) are available on Patreon.   The Mojo Sessions on Facebook www.facebook.com/TheMojoSessions   Gary on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/gary-bertwistle   Gary on Twitter : www.twitter.com/GaryBertwistle   The Mojo Sessions on Instagram www.instagram.com/themojosessions   If you like what you hear, we'd be grateful for a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Happy listening!   © 2026 Gary Bertwistle. All Rights Reserved.  

BONUS: Katie Anderson, Toyota's Real Secret Isn't the Tools — It's the Attitude Towards Learning That Changes Everything Katie Anderson joins us to explore the real engine behind Toyota's legendary success — and it's not what most people think. Drawing from her years living in Japan and her close relationship with 40-year Toyota veteran Isao Yoshino, Katie reveals why tools alone will never create lasting transformation. We explore the Doer Trap, the Telling Habit, and why hansei (deep reflection) is the most productive practice leaders keep skipping. The Only Secret to Toyota "The only secret to Toyota is its attitude towards learning. We don't even notice, and we take it for granted."   Katie moved to Japan over 11 years ago as a continuous improvement practitioner and got to know Isao Yoshino, a Toyota leader with 40 years of experience. After repeatedly asking him what made Toyota so successful, he finally offered an almost offhand answer: "The only secret to Toyota is its attitude towards learning." The deeper insight? Even inside Toyota, they barely noticed it — it was so embedded in how they worked that they took it for granted. Katie explains that most organizations copy the visible tools — the kanban boards, the value streams, the process maps — but miss the invisible layer underneath: people development. Without that foundation of learning, tools lead to project-based improvements that never sustain. The secret sauce is the quality of how organizations develop people to learn, contribute, problem-solve, and innovate. That system of people development underlies the system of process improvement, and without it, organizations stay stuck in what Katie calls "constant whack-a-mole" — fixing the same problems year after year. The Doer Trap and the Five Archetypes "The doer trap is when we're stepping in and doing things, or owning things that aren't ours to own."   Katie identifies five archetypes of the Doer Trap that leaders and change agents fall into. The Hero is the firefighter who jumps from crisis to crisis — it feels good to save the day. The Rescuer can't stand watching people struggle, so they give answers too early, robbing others of the chance to develop their own thinking. The Magician works behind the scenes, subtly shaping outcomes without others' input. The Pair of Hands just jumps in and gets it done because "it's faster." And the Surrogate Leader fills a leadership vacuum that isn't theirs to fill — so when they move on, everything fades away. Each archetype feels productive in the moment but prevents the organization from building real capability. The shift Katie advocates is from command-based leadership to influence-based leadership: still setting direction, but creating the conditions for others to find the way there. Break the Telling Habit "The telling habit is when we're giving our answer instead of holding space for someone else to develop their answer."   Closely linked to the Doer Trap, the Telling Habit is about how leaders — and change agents — default to providing their own ideas, suggestions, and solutions instead of creating space for others to think. Katie sees this show up even in well-intentioned coaches and consultants. The antidote aligns with what David Marquet calls intent-based leadership: instead of telling people what to do, you validate their thinking and ask questions when you spot gaps. Katie frames good leadership through three responsibilities drawn from Mr. Yoshino's example: set the direction (what goal needs to be achieved), provide support (create the capability and conditions for people to succeed), and develop yourself (because if you can't see the system, you can't help others see it either). Learning as Sustainable Competitive Advantage "We need to set up experiments. And experiments are fundamentally based on an attitude towards learning."   Katie argues that as complexity increases, no single leader can hold all the answers. Organizations need to harness what you might call the collective brain — the hive mind of the team — and that requires an experimental mindset. This connects directly to Jeffrey Liker's concept of organizations as socio-technical systems: it's never just the technical processes that matter, but how people interact, influence each other, and navigate the formal and informal structures that actually get things done. Katie's advice to change leaders: develop your own systems thinking skills first. Help leaders see what's really driving behavior — reward structures, people development gaps, the difference between compliance and genuine capability. Everything starts with you. Hansei — Reflection as the Most Productive Practice "The study and adjust part of the cycle is where the learning happens. But we keep cutting it because the doing part feels more productive."   Hansei — Japanese for deep self-reflection — goes far beyond the typical retrospective. Where most teams do a surface-level "what worked, what didn't, let's move on," hansei asks: what did we expect to happen? What were our assumptions? What behaviors drove the outcome? Katie points out that Toyota schedules reflection time deliberately — both large-scale and small-scale — and sticks to it. That discipline is part of their attitude towards learning. She advocates reframing the PDSA cycle as Study-Adjust-Plan-Do, because the reflection should come first, not as an afterthought. At Toyota, PDCA operates at every level: micro-kaizen on the factory floor daily, A3 reports for structured problem-solving, and Hoshin Kanri for annual and five-year strategy deployment. The mindset of experimentation, paired with disciplined reflection, is what makes continuous improvement actually continuous.   About Katie Anderson   Katie Anderson is an internationally recognized keynote speaker, award-winning author, and leadership consultant who helps organizations achieve extraordinary results through continuous learning. She partners with executives and change leaders to build learning cultures, strengthen leadership capability, and drive sustainable success by aligning purpose, developing people, and fostering curiosity, courage, and meaningful transformation.   You can link with Katie Anderson on LinkedIn and visit her website at kbjanderson.com. Listen to her podcast, Chain of Learning.

In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, Kevin Brent is joined by Jack Molyneux, Founder of IDOSY – a new digital marketplace set to disrupt the superyacht charter industry. Jack's journey is anything but conventional. From qualifying as a Master Mariner at just 26 and commanding cruise ships and superyachts around the world, to managing fleets of luxury yachts for a family office, and now launching the first live-booking superyacht platform – this is a true ScaleUp story grounded in deep operational credibility. IDOSY launches mid-April with a bold ambition: to bring live pricing, live availability and instant booking to a market that still runs on emails, brokers and PDF brochures. And yes – it is as complex as it sounds. Our discussion is structured in three parts. First, we explore the business, the model and where IDOSY sits on its ScaleUp journey. Second, we dig into Jack's views on the real challenges of scaling, including raising capital from industry insiders and navigating complex global regulations. And third, we close with a few quickfire questions. One standout message from this episode is this: if you are going to disrupt a market, you need deep operational understanding before you digitise it. Quick heads-up — we're looking for a handful of founders to test our new AI-powered Smart90 Lite app. It's built to help you stay accountable and actually deliver on your goals in just a few minutes a day. It's free while we're in testing, and your feedback will directly shape the final version. You can get access by emailing kevin@biz-smart.co.uk. Make sure you don't miss any future episodes by subscribing to ScaleUp Radio wherever you like to listen to your podcasts and why not give us a follow. For now, continue listening for the full discussion with Jack.   Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for. If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here: https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/kevin You can get in touch with Kevin here: kevin@biz-smart.co.uk     Kevin's Book Is Here! Drawing on BizSmart's own research and experiences of working with hundreds of owner-managers, Kevin Brent explores the key reasons why most organisations do not scale and how the challenges change as they reach different milestones on the ScaleUp Journey. He then details a practical step by step guide to successfully navigate between the milestones in the form of ESUS - a proven system for entrepreneurs to scale up. More on the Book HERE - https://www.esusgroup.co.uk/   Jack can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-m-3580bb7b/ https://www.idosyyachts.com/   Resources: Close To The Wind by Pete Goss - https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/close-to-the-wind-an-extraordinary-story-of-triumph-over-adversity-pete-goss/2215269?ean=9780747259381&next=t Turn The Ship Around by L. David Marquet - https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/turn-the-ship-around-a-true-story-of-building-leaders-by-breaking-the-rules-l-david-marquet/3549368?ean=9780241250945&next=t Diary of a CEO podcast - https://stevenbartlett.com/doac/

Prabhleen Kaur: When Lack of Trust Turns Teams Into Isolated Individuals Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "Teams self-destruct despite best efforts when they lack trust." - Prabhleen Kaur   Prabhleen observed a troubling pattern while shadowing a team: stand-ups had become a register activity where people reported individual status without any connection to the sprint goal. There was no "we" in the conversation—only "I."  The team had experienced a missed deadline due to a PR conflict that wasn't merged in time, but instead of addressing it openly, everyone focused on fixing the immediate problem while avoiding the deeper conversation. The discomfort was never voiced, and resentment accumulated silently.  Prabhleen explains that team destruction is never about one action—it's about the accumulation of unspoken concerns that eventually explode at the worst possible moment. To rebuild trust, she recommends starting with peer reviews that encourage natural collaboration and conversation.  Scrum Masters must be vocal about challenges in front of the entire team, modeling the openness they want to see. For teams that have completely withdrawn, anonymous feedback and scheduled one-on-ones can create safe spaces for honest communication. The key insight? Trust is rebuilt when people realize they will be heard and understood, not judged.   In this segment, we talk about how trust is the foundation of effective teams and how its absence leads to working in silos.   Self-reflection Question: When your team experiences a failure or missed deadline, do you create space for open conversation about what happened, or does everyone quietly move on while resentment builds? Featured Book of the Week: Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland Prabhleen recommends Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland as a foundational read for understanding the spirit behind the framework. "When I actually read the book and understood the nuances of rugby and how the team should be, everything started making sense. I grew beyond the Scrum guide, beyond following rules—it's about how the team operates around you as a collective," she explains. Prabhleen also highly recommends Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet, summarizing its core message as "leaders lead leaders." Both books shaped her understanding that frameworks exist to enable collaboration, not to create compliance. Check out the David Marquet episodes on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast for more insights on intent-based leadership.   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Mohini Kissoon: When Politeness Becomes the Enemy of Team Growth—Escaping the Conflict Avoidance Trap Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "Conflict isn't the enemy. It's when we're avoiding conflict that it becomes an issue for teams." - Mohini Kissoon   Mohini shares a story about the worst self-destructive pattern she has witnessed: teams that are overly polite to avoid addressing conflicts. She worked with a team that prided themselves on being collaborative and drama-free, but beneath that politeness was a hesitancy to have difficult conversations. It started small—in sprint planning, the Product Owner would propose unrealistic scope, and people would just nod and accept. Someone might say "that's quite ambitious," but no one would actually push back. In retrospectives, feedback was always wrapped in layers of positive framing. When a developer consistently delivered work that didn't meet the Definition of Done, no one called it out directly—they just quietly fixed it or worked around it. After three months, side conversations started emerging where people would pull Mohini aside to share concerns they would never voice in the room. The team was skipping the storming phase of the Tuckman model, and this avoidance eventually led to missed deadlines and frustrated stakeholders. The key learning: healthy conflict brings the energy teams need to innovate and grow.   In this segment, we talk about the Tuckman model and why the storming phase is essential for team development.   Self-reflection Question: Is your team's harmony genuine collaboration, or is it a facade hiding unspoken frustrations that will eventually surface at the worst possible moment? Featured Book of the Week: Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet Mohini discovered Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet at a time when she was working with multiple teams and feeling exhausted from being the person everyone looked to for answers. She thought that's what servant leadership meant, but she was actually creating dependency rather than capability. The book tells the story of how Marquet took command of the worst-performing submarine in the US Navy and transformed it into the best by fundamentally changing how leadership worked. "Instead of the traditional leader-follower model, he built a leader-to-leader structure where everyone was expected to think, decide, and own their work," Mohini explains.  The key insight was that we don't just empower teams—we need to build an environment where they can grow and don't need permission to excel. This shifted Mohini's approach: instead of saying "here's what I think we should do," she started asking "what have you tried so far? What do you intend to do next?" The book also emphasizes that pushing decision-making down requires providing the knowledge and context teams need to make good decisions.   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Show NotesBased on the article: Leaders Don't Fix People. Leaders Fix the EnvironmentIn this episode of the Emergency Management Network Podcast, we explore a simple idea that carries profound implications for leadership in emergency management and beyond: Leaders don't fix people. Leaders fix the environment.Inspired by the work and insights of L. David Marquet, this conversation challenges the instinct many leaders have to correct, manage, or “repair” individuals. Instead, we focus on how great leaders shape the conditions in which people can succeed. Culture, trust, clarity of mission, psychological safety, and decision authority matter far more than control or micromanagement.In emergency management, the environment we create determines how teams perform under stress. It influences whether people speak up, take initiative, admit uncertainty, and adapt when plans collide with reality. When leaders build environments that encourage ownership and responsibility, they unlock capacity that no amount of supervision can create.We discuss how fixing the environment means:* Designing systems that support good decision-making* Replacing permission with intent* Shifting from control to trust* Creating space for learning, accountability, and growth* Recognizing that leadership is less about authority and more about stewardshipThis episode connects leadership philosophy to real-world emergency management practice, from EOC operations to planning teams to organizational culture. If you want stronger performance, better morale, and more resilient teams, start by asking not “What's wrong with my people?” but “What kind of environment have I created?”Because when the environment is right, people don't need fixing. They thrive.TagsLeadership, Emergency Management Leadership, Organizational Culture, L David Marquet, Turn the Ship Around, Trust and Empowerment, EOC Leadership, High Reliability Organizations, Psychological Safety, Crisis Leadership, Team Performance, Professional Development, EMN Podcast This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emnetwork.substack.com/subscribe

Shannon Minifie: Box of Crayons Shannon Minifie is the CEO of Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that helps unleash the power of curiosity to create connected and engaged company cultures. They are the organization behind the bestselling book The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier. Shannon and her team recently released a report along with the Harris Poll titled Navigating a Fractured Workplace: How Relational Curiosity increases engagement, trust, and productivity. Of course, you've heard that being curious and coach-like will help in leadership. But sometimes the very thing we think we're doing well is actually getting in the way. In this conversation, Shannon and I explore the kind of curiosity that leaders often miss. Key Points 5-6 hours of the average workweek is lost to the fear of making mistakes. A strong majority of leaders say employees are expressing a desire for more feedback, and a majority also say that people are unable to receive hard feedback. Relationships are the core of these conflicting messages. Without a relationship of trust, helpful feedback often doesn't land that way. Intellectual curiosity helps us learn what we don't know. Relationship curiosity helps the other person learn what they don't know. Ask yourself: what is my goal in asking this question? Rather than asking a question that starts with a “why,” consider asking a question that starts with a “what.” The 7 Essential Questions: What's on your mind? And what else? What's the real challenge here for you? What do you want? How can I help? If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to? What was most useful for you? Resources Mentioned Navigating a Fractured Workplace: How Relational Curiosity Increases Engagement, Trust, and Productivity. Interactive Learning Preview: Invest in the Power of Curiosity The Coaching Habit* by Michael Bungay Stanier Interview Notes Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required). Related Episodes These Coaching Questions Get Results, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 237) How to Ask Better Questions, with David Marquet (episode 454) The Way to Be More Coach-Like, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 458) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Karim Harbott: The Day I Discovered I Was a Scrum Project Manager, Not a Scrum Master Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "I was telling the team what to do, instead of helping the team to be better on their own. There's a lot more to being a Scrum Master than Agile—working with people is such a different skillset." - Karim Harbott   Karim thought he had mastered Scrum. He had read the books, understood the framework, and was getting things done. His team seemed to be moving forward smoothly—until he stepped away for a few weeks.  But, when he returned, everything had fallen apart. The team couldn't function without him constantly directing their work. That's when Karim realized he had fallen into one of the most common anti-patterns in Agile: the Scrum Project Manager.  Instead of enabling his team to be more effective, he had become their bottleneck. Every decision flowed through him, every task needed his approval, and the team had learned to wait for his direction rather than taking ownership themselves. The wake-up call was brutal but necessary.  Karim discovered that pushing project management responsibilities to the people doing the work—as David Marquet advocates—was far more powerful than being the hero who solves all problems. The real skill wasn't in telling people what to do; it was in creating an environment where they could figure it out themselves. Geoff Watts calls this servant leadership, and Karim learned it the hard way: a great Scrum Master makes themselves progressively less necessary, not more indispensable.   Self-reflection Question: Are you enabling your team to be more effective, or have you become the person they can't function without?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

BONUS: Organizations as Ecosystems — Understanding Complexity, Innovation, and the Three-Body Problem at Work In this fascinating conversation about complex adaptive systems, Simon Holzapfel helps us understand why traditional planning and control methods fail in knowledge work — and what we can do instead. Understanding Ecosystems vs. Systems "Complex adaptive systems are complex in nature and adaptive in that they evolve over time. That's different from a static system." — Simon Holzapfel   Simon introduces the crucial distinction between mechanical systems and ecosystems. While mechanical systems are predictable and static, ecosystems — like teams and organizations — are complex, adaptive, and constantly evolving. The key difference lies in the interactions among team members, which create emergent properties that cannot be predicted by analyzing individuals separately. Managers often fall into the trap of focusing on individuals rather than the interactions between them, missing where the real magic happens. This is why understanding your organization as an ecosystem, not a machine, fundamentally changes how you lead. In this segment, we refer to the Stella systems modeling application. The Journey from Planning to Emergence "I used to come into class with a lesson plan — doop, doop, doop, minute by minute agenda. And then what I realized is that I would just completely squash those questions that would often emerge from the class." — Simon Holzapfel   Simon shares his transformation from rigid classroom planning to embracing emergence. As a history and economics teacher for 10 years, he learned that over-planning kills the spontaneous insights that make learning powerful. The same principle applies to leadership: planning is essential, but over-planning wastes time and prevents novelty from emerging. The key is separating strategic planning (the "where" and "why") from tactical execution (the "how"), letting teams make local decisions while leaders focus on alignment with the bigger picture. "Innovation Arrives Stochastically" "Simply by noticing the locations where you've had your best ideas, we notice the stochasticness of arrival. Might be the shower, might be on a bike ride, might be sitting in traffic, might be at your desk — but often not." — Simon Holzapfel   Simon unpacks the concept of stochastic emergence — the idea that innovation cannot be scheduled or predicted in advance. Stochastic means something is predictable over large datasets but not in any given moment. You know you'll have ideas if you give yourself time and space, but you can't predict when or where they'll arrive. This has profound implications for managers who try to control when and how innovation happens. Knowledge work is about creating things that haven't existed before, so emergence is what we rely on. Try to squash it with too much control, and it simply won't happen. In this segment, we refer to the Systems Innovation YouTube channel. The Three-Body Problem: A Metaphor for Teams "When you have three nonlinear functions working at the same time within a system, you have almost no ability to predict its future state beyond just some of the shortest time series data." — Simon Holzapfel   Simon uses the three-body problem from physics as a powerful metaphor for organizational complexity. In physics, when you have three bodies (like planets) influencing each other, prediction becomes nearly impossible. The same is true in business — think of R&D, manufacturing, and sales as three interacting forces. The lesson: don't think you can master this complexity. Work with it. Understand it's a system. Most variability comes from the system itself, not from any individual person. This allows us to depersonalize problems — people aren't good or bad, systems can be improved. When teams understand this, they can relax and stop treating every unpredictable moment as an emergency. Coaching Leaders to Embrace Uncertainty "I'll start by trying to read their comfort level. I'll ask about their favorite teachers, their most hated teachers, and I'll really try to bring them back to moments in time that were pivotal in their own development." — Simon Holzapfel   How do you help analytical, control-oriented leaders embrace complexity and emergence? Simon's approach is to build rapport first, then gently introduce concepts based on each leader's background. For technical people who prefer math, he'll discuss narrow tail distributions and fat tails. For humanities-oriented leaders, he uses narrative and storytelling. The goal is to get leaders to open up to possibilities without feeling diminished. He might suggest small experiments: "Hold your tongue once in a meeting" or "Ask questions instead of making statements." These incremental changes help managers realize they don't have to be superhuman problem-solvers who control everything. Giving the Board a Number: The Paradox of Prediction "Managers say we want scientific management, but they don't actually want that. They want predictive management." — Simon Holzapfel   Simon addresses one of the biggest tensions in agile adoption: leaders who say "I just need to give the board a number" while also wanting innovation and adaptability. The paradox is clear — you cannot simultaneously be open to innovation and emergent possibilities while executing a predetermined plan with perfect accuracy. This is an artifact of management literature that promoted the "philosopher king" manager who knows everything. But markets are too movable, consumer tastes vary too much, and knowledge work is too complex for any single person to control. The burnout we see in leaders often comes from trying to achieve an impossible standard. In this segment, we refer to the episodes with David Marquet.  Resources for Understanding Complexity "Eric Beinhocker's book called 'The Origin of Wealth' is wonderful. It's a very approachable and well-researched piece that shows where we've been and where we're going in this area." — Simon Holzapfel   Simon recommends two key resources for anyone wanting to understand complexity and ecosystems. First, Eric Beinhocker's "The Origin of Wealth" explains how we developed flawed economic assumptions based on 19th-century Newtonian physics, and why we need to evolve our understanding. Second, the Systems Innovation YouTube channel offers brilliant short videos perfect for curious, open-minded managers. Simon suggests a practical approach: have someone on your team watch a video and share what they learned. This creates shared language around complexity and makes the concepts less personal and less threatening. The Path Forward: Systems Over Individuals "As a manager, our goal is to constantly evaluate the performance of the system, not the people. We can always put better systems in place. We can always improve existing systems. But you can't tell people what to do — it's not possible." — Simon Holzapfel   The conversation concludes with a powerful insight from Deming's work: about 95% of a system's productivity is linked to the system itself, not individual performance. This reframes the manager's role entirely. Instead of trying to control people, focus on improving systems. Instead of treating burnout as individual failure, see it as information that something in the system isn't working. Organizations are ever-changing ecosystems with dynamic properties that can only be observed, never fully predicted. This requires a completely different way of thinking about management — one that embraces uncertainty, values emergence, and trusts teams to figure things out within clear strategic boundaries. Recommended Resources As recommended resources for further reading, Simon suggests:  The Origin of Wealth, by Eric Beinhocker The Systems Innovation YouTube channel   About Simon Holzapfel   Simon Holzapfel is an educator, coach, and learning innovator who helps teams work with greater clarity, speed, and purpose. He specializes in separating strategy from tactics, enabling short-cycle decision-making and higher-value workflows. Simon has spent his career coaching individuals and teams to achieve performance with deeper meaning and joy. Simon is also the author of the Equonomist newsletter on Substack, where he explores the intersection of economics, equality, and equanimity in the workplace.   You can link with Simon Holzapfel on LinkedIn.

Darryl Wright: When Enthusiasm Became Interference—Learning to Listen as a Scrum Master Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "Wait stands for Why Am I Talking? Just ask yourself, wait, why am I talking? Is this the right moment for you to give an idea, or is this the right moment to just listen and let them have space to come up with ideas?" - Darryl Wright   Early in his Agile journey, Darryl was evangelically enthusiastic about the principles and practices that had transformed his approach to leadership. He believed he had discovered the answers people were seeking, and his excitement manifested in a problematic pattern—he talked too much. Constantly jumping in with solutions, ideas, and suggestions, Darryl dominated conversations without realizing the impact. Then someone pulled him aside with a generous gift: "You're not really giving other people time to come up with ideas or take ownership of a problem."  They introduced him to WAIT—Why Am I Talking?—an acronym that would fundamentally shift his coaching approach. This simple tool forced Darryl to pause before speaking and examine his motivations. Was he trying to prove himself? Did he think he knew better? Or was this genuinely the right moment to contribute? As he practiced this technique, Darryl discovered something profound: when he held space and waited, others would eventually step forward with insights and solutions.  The concept of "small enough to try, safe enough to fail" became his framework for deciding when to intervene. Not every moment requires a Scrum Master to step in—sometimes the most powerful coaching happens in silence. By developing better skills in active listening and learning to hold space for others, Darryl transformed from someone who provided all the answers into someone who created the conditions for shared leadership to emerge.   In this episode, we refer to David Marquet's episodes on the podcast for practical techniques on holding space and enabling leadership in others.   Self-reflection Question: When was the last time you caught yourself jumping in with a solution before giving your team space to discover it themselves? What would happen if you waited just five more minutes?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Alex Sloley: How to Coach POs Who Treat Developers Like Mindless Robots In this episode, we refer to the previous episodes with David Marquet, author of Turn the Ship Around! The Great Product Owner: Trust and the Sprint Review That Changes Everything Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. "She was like, oh my gosh, I've never seen this before, I didn't think it was possible. I just saw you deliver stuff in 2 weeks that I can actually use." - Alex Sloley In 2011, Alex worked with a client organization creating software for external companies. They needed a Product Owner for a new Agile team, and a representative from the client—who had never experienced Scrum—volunteered for the role. She was initially skeptical, having never witnessed or heard of this approach. Alex gently coached her through the process, asking her to trust the team and be patient. Then came the first Sprint Review, and everything changed. For the first time in her career, she saw working product delivered in just two weeks that she could actually touch, see, and use. Her head exploded with possibility. Even though it didn't have everything and wasn't perfect, it was remarkably good. That moment flipped a switch—she became fully engaged and transformed into a champion for Agile adoption, not just for the team but for the entire company. Alex reflects that she embodied all five Scrum values: focus (trusting the team's capacity), commitment (attending and engaging in all events), openness (giving the new approach a chance), respect (giving the team space to succeed), and courage (championing an unfamiliar process). The breakthrough wasn't about product ownership techniques—it was about creating an experience that reinforced Scrum values, allowing her to see the potential of a bright new future. Self-reflection Question: What practices, techniques, or processes can you implement that will naturally and automatically build the five Scrum values in your Product Owner? The Bad Product Owner: When Control Becomes Domination Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. "They basically just owned the team. The developers on the team might as well have been mindless robots, because they were being assigned all the work, told how much work they could do in a sprint, what the work was." - Alex Sloley In 2018, while working with five interconnected Product Owners, Alex observed a Sprint Planning session that revealed a severe anti-pattern. One Product Owner completely controlled everything, telling the team exactly what work they would take into the Sprint, assigning specific work to specific people by name, and dictating precisely how they would implement solutions down to technical details like which functions and APIs to use. The developers were reduced to helpless executors with no autonomy, while the Scrum Master sat powerless in the corner. Alex wondered what caused this dynamic—was the PO a former project manager? Had the team broken trust in the past? What emotional baggage or trauma led to this situation? His approach started with building trust through coffee meetings and informal conversations, crucially viewing the PO not as the problem but as someone facing their own impediment. He reframed the challenge as solving the Product Owner's problem rather than fixing the Product Owner. When he asked, "Why do you have to do all this? Can't you trust the team?" and suggested the PO could relax if they delegated, the response was surprisingly positive. The PO was willing to step back once given permission and assurance. Alex's key lesson: think strategically about how to build trust and who needs to build trust with whom. Sometimes the person who appears to be creating problems is actually struggling under their own burden. Self-reflection Question: When you encounter a controlling Product Owner, do you approach the situation as "fixing" the PO or as "solving the PO's problem"? How might this reframe change your coaching strategy? [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

In this episode of Think Like Amazon, Jorge sits down with Kristiana Corona (executive coach and former Amazon leader) to unpack what true ownership looks like inside high-performing teams, and the invisible beliefs that hold rising leaders back. They explore powerful insights drawn from Kristiana's experience coaching tech leaders at scale:·       The 3-part Ownership Formula every leader should adopt·       Why “extreme ownership” isn't about doing more—but doing it better·       The most common mindset blockers among Amazon leaders (and how to overcome them) Whether you're growing your influence or leading others to do the same, this episode will challenge how you define leadership, and what it takes to own your next level. Mentioned in this episode:-          Free eBook “10 Ownership Mistakes That Hold Amazonians Back - And the Coaching Questions to Break Through”: https://www.worthytolead.co/amazon-          Kristiana Corona on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona/-          Video “Greatness” by David Marquet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqmdLcyES_Q&t=72s-          Connect with Jorge: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jorgeluispando/

In this thought-provoking conversation, former nuclear submarine commander and bestselling author David Marquet returns to the Partnering Leadership podcast to discuss the core ideas behind his new book: Distancing: How Great Leaders Reframe to Make Better Decisions. Known globally for Turn the Ship Around, Marquet once again challenges traditional leadership assumptions—this time taking aim at a problem many leaders don't realize they have: they're too close to their decisions.Drawing from cognitive psychology, real-world leadership failures, and hard-earned lessons from the military to the boardroom, Marquet introduces a powerful framework he calls “distancing.” At its core: the idea that our best decisions often require us to stop thinking like ourselves. Whether it's asking, “What would my replacement do?” or considering how a future version of yourself might evaluate today's choice, Marquet offers tactical ways leaders can gain clarity, reduce bias, and improve judgment under pressure.Host Mahan Tavakoli guides the conversation toward the real-world application of these ideas, especially for senior executives navigating complexity, volatility, and the weight of past decisions. Marquet's insights are sharp, often counterintuitive, and supported by both research and field-tested leadership practices.Rather than offering platitudes or yet another leadership model, this conversation digs into the cognitive traps leaders fall into—and how to build the mental discipline to lead with more perspective and fewer blind spots. If you're responsible for high-stakes decisions, leading through uncertainty, or shaping organizational strategy, this episode delivers the kind of clarity that shifts how you think about thinking.Actionable TakeawaysYou'll learn why “being present” isn't always good advice—and how it can narrow your thinking at the worst possible timeHear how one shift in language (“What would you do if you were me?”) led to better decisions from Marquet's submarine crew—and how it applies to leadership teams todayDiscover why ego isn't about arrogance—it's about how your brain rewrites reality to protect your self-imageLearn the three dimensions of strategic distancing—and how each one can improve executive judgment under pressureHear how asking “What would my replacement do?” helped Intel's Andy Grove overcome years of legacy inertiaFind out why most retrospectives fall flat—and how to reframe them so people tell the truth without getting defensiveLearn how stress shortens your mental lens—and what leaders can do to create space (not just speed) in decision-makingExplore why decision hygiene matters more in volatile times—and what most leaders get wrong about intuitionYou'll learn why leadership isn't a conceptual exercise—and why Marquet compares it to learning a new languageHear the low-stakes practice Marquet recommends for building real-world empowerment habits—starting at your next restaurant mealConnect with David MarquetDavid Marquet Website David Marquet LinkedIn Connect with Mahan Tavakoli: Mahan Tavakoli Website Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn Partnering Leadership Website

Mariano Gontchar: Breaking Down The Clan Mentality In Agile Teams Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Mariano encountered a competent team that was sabotaging itself through internal divisions and lack of trust. The team had formed clans that didn't trust each other, creating blind spots even during retrospectives. Rather than simply telling the team what was wrong, Mariano created an anonymous fear-based retrospective that revealed the root cause: a Product Owner who behaved like a boss and evaluated team members, creating a culture of fear. His approach demonstrates the power of empowering teams to discover and solve their own problems rather than imposing solutions from above. Self-reflection Question: What fears might be hiding beneath the surface of your team's dynamics, and how could you create a safe space for them to emerge? Featured Book of the Week: Turn the Ship Around! by David Marquet Mariano recommends "Turn the Ship Around!" by David Marquet (we have an episode with David Marquet talking about this book, check it here). Mariano highlights the fascinating story and introduction to the leader-leader model, which differs significantly from the traditional leader-follower approach. This book resonates with Mariano's journey from directive leadership to facilitative leadership, showing how empowering others rather than commanding them creates more effective and engaged teams. [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

The way we manage people today is built on ideas from over 100 years ago—ideas designed for factory floors, not modern workplaces. Management was originally created to enforce control, standardize behavior, and ensure compliance. Engagement, empowerment, and innovation? None of those were part of the equation. And yet, many organizations still operate with that outdated playbook, whether they admit it or not. In today's Leadership Spark, I break down how the roots of management are still shaping the way we lead today, and why that must change. From the rigid philosophies of Frederick Taylor and Henry Fayol to the mindless “yes sir” culture revealed in David Marquet's story as a submarine captain, we explore the dangers of blind obedience, outdated control models, and transactional leadership. You'll also hear how even the words we use, such as manager, employee, and work still reflect an antiquated, dehumanizing view of the workplace. Things are changing, and if you want to lead the future, better start rejecting the “slave driver and cog” model now and build cultures based on trust, empowerment, and shared responsibility. ________________ Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/

Conventional wisdom says that great leaders roll up their sleeves, get in the trenches, and sweat the small stuff. But what if that's only half the story? According to former nuclear submarine captain L. David Marquet and organizational psychologist Michael A. Gillespie, the real superpower of great leaders isn't proximity — it's distance. In their new book, Distancing: How Great Leaders Reframe to Make Better Decisions, they show that stepping back — psychologically, emotionally, imaginatively — helps leaders strip away bias, see what truly matters, and make smarter choices.

In this conversation, David Marquet shares his transformative leadership journey from commanding the Santa Fe submarine, one of the worst performers in the fleet, to implementing a culture of empowerment and accountability. He discusses the importance of shifting from a language of permission to a language of intent, encouraging leaders to empower their teams to think critically and make decisions. Marquet emphasizes the significance of mindset, distance, and self-coaching in effective decision-making, and how visualizing problems can lead to better solutions. The discussion culminates in practical advice for creating a culture of accountability and fostering a proactive mindset within teams. Takeaways Leadership is about inspiring teams, not just giving orders. The language of permission can stifle innovation and accountability. Empower your team to think critically and make decisions. Mindset and distance are crucial for effective decision-making. Coaching yourself can lead to better outcomes. Visualizing problems helps in understanding and solving them. Creating a culture of accountability is essential for success. Encourage a language of intent over a language of permission. Fresh perspectives can lead to innovative solutions. Transformational leadership requires a shift in mindset and language. LINKS Distancing - How Great Leaders Reframe to Make Better Decisions by L. David Marquet and Michael A. Gillespie https://tinyurl.com/wtadnumb You can check out the interview with David's co-author, Michael Gillespie, here: https://on.soundcloud.com/zb166tQR3Ce8gp0tHd Contacting L. David Marquet Web: https://davidmarquet.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmarquet/ Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/4ezbp4a9 Contacting Michael Gillespie University of South Florida: https://tinyurl.com/yds54cbe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-gillespie-78661a4/

L. David Marquet, former nuclear submarine commander and author of Leadership Is Language, shares a precise, operational approach to leadership, one that replaces command-and-control with a language designed for clarity, ownership, and adaptability. Drawing on his experience turning the USS Santa Fe from one of the worst-performing submarines in the fleet to one of the best, David shows how seemingly small shifts in language can radically improve decision-making, learning speed, and execution.   David rejects the traditional leader–follower model in favor of a leader–leader framework, where decision rights are pushed “to the people closest to the information.” He explains how questions, statements, and the timing of communication directly shape whether teams think critically or default to compliance.   “What we say and when we say it changes what people do. Language is a leadership technology.”   Key Takeaways: Replace Permission with Intent Moving from “Can I…?” to “I intend to…” changes accountability and ownership: “When people tell me what they intend to do, they're already owning the decision.” Protect Redwork and Bluework David distinguishes between redwork (doing) and bluework (thinking/planning) and stresses keeping them separate: “Mixing them degrades both. You want focused doing and focused thinking.” Sequence for Thinking, Not Speed Meetings often reward quick answers over thoughtful ones. Asking the most junior person to speak first helps reduce conformity bias. Use Language to Invite Dissent Adding uncertainty—“I'm not sure, but…”—creates psychological safety and surfaces crucial information that might otherwise stay hidden. Leaders Design Systems, Not Just Give Answers The leader's job is to build communication structures that distribute thinking and enable faster adaptation in changing conditions. This episode is a practical blueprint for leaders who want to operationalize empowerment without losing control. By deliberately changing how they speak and listen, executives can create teams that are more resilient, accountable, and high-performing.   Get David's new book here: https://shorturl.at/sv6QO Distancing: How Great Leaders Reframe to Make Better Decisions   Here are some free gifts for you:   Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

In this episode, Dave interviews Dr. Michael Gillespie about his book 'Distancing - How Great Leaders Reframe to Make Better Decisions', which explores psychological distancing as a tool for better decision-making. They discuss the importance of stepping outside one's own perspective to gain clarity, the different types of distancing (self, time, and space), and practical applications of these techniques. The conversation also touches on the role of journaling, the significance of construal level theory, and how mindfulness can complement these strategies. Ultimately, the discussion emphasizes the need for individuals to pause and reflect in order to make more informed decisions. Takeaways • Psychological distancing helps individuals see situations more clearly. • Mindfulness is beneficial, but not always sufficient for immediate decision-making. • There are three primary types of distancing: self, time, and space. • Journaling in the third person can enhance self-awareness and clarity. • Construal level theory explains the difference between high-level abstract thinking and low-level concrete thinking. • Taking a pause is crucial in emotionally charged situations. • Practicing distancing techniques can lead to better emotional regulation. • Being a 'fly on the wall' can provide valuable perspective in difficult moments. • It's important to normalize the practice of pausing in group settings. • The ultimate goal is to make better decisions and improve overall well-being. LINKS Distancing - How Great Leaders Reframe to Make Better Decisions by L. David Marquet and Michael A. Gillespie https://tinyurl.com/wtadnumb Contacting Michael Gillespie University of South Florida: https://tinyurl.com/yds54cbe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-gillespie-78661a4/ Contacting L. David Marquet Web: https://davidmarquet.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmarquet/ Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/4ezbp4a9

Former submarine commander David Marquet joins EconTalk's Russ Roberts to explore how distancing--thinking like someone else, somewhere else, or sometime else--can unlock better choices in business and life. They talk about leadership without giving orders, how to empower teams, and what it means to see yourself as a coach rather than a boss. Along the way, they discuss Jeff Bezos's leap to start Amazon, Steve Jobs' unique vision, and how a simple mindset shift can transform a struggling crew--or your career. A conversation about thinking clearly under pressure, avoiding regret, and becoming the kind of leader who creates other leaders instead of followers.

Steve Jobs once said he'd rather fire someone than force them to buy into a decision they disagreed with. This flies in the face of popular leadership advice like Amazon's "disagree and commit" philosophy. In this episode, we dive deep into Jobs' consensus-driven approach at NeXT and explore why expert-driven decision making might be superior to top-down mandates.We examine how Jobs' 8-person policy team made only 25 major decisions per year, the importance of psychological safety in decision-making, and why paying people to tell you what to do (rather than just do what you say) creates better outcomes. Other topics include...Consensus vs. "disagree and commit" leadership stylesExpert-driven decision making vs. ivory tower decisions Building psychological safety for real alignmentScaling decision frameworks in growing organizationsWhen to fire vs. when to coach through disagreementPerfect for product managers, agile coaches, and leaders looking to build more effective decision-making processes.#DecisionMaking #Leadership #ProductManagementLINKSWatch on YouTubeYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagileSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596Website: http://arguingagile.comREFERENCESSource Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_W6dLP09MQWorking Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon, by Colin Bryar & Bill Carr, 2021Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Turning Followers Into Leaders, by L. David Marquet, 2013AA208 - Jamie Dimon's Rant: Leadership Lessons on Trust and EffectivenessAA201 - Mastering Stakeholder Communication & ManagementINTRO MUSICToronto Is My BeatBy Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

Distancing: How Great Leaders Reframe to Make Better Decisions by L. David Marquet, Michael A. Gillespie https://www.amazon.com/Distancing-Leaders-Reframe-Better-Decisions/dp/0593713109 Distance gives you perspective. Bestselling author of Turn the Ship Around! former US Navy Captain David Marquet and professor of psychology Michael Gillespie show you how to make better decisions by becoming your own coach. Be yourself. Be fully present. Be in the moment. This is a message we hear constantly. While this may be beneficial some of the time, the biggest obstacle to making wiser decisions that actually drive lasting success is ourselves. Being fully immersed in our own limited point of view biases our decisions toward defending our previous actions and maintaining our self-image. We need to exit our me-here-and-now self and get an outside perspective that sees us and the situation we are in objectively. We need a coach. This book shows us how to become our own coach by using a mental technique called psychological distancing. We do this in three ways: self-distancing, spatial distancing, and temporal distancing. First, we can be someone else, inhabiting another's perspective. This activates the neutral observer's outside point of view. Second, we can be somewhere else. We zoom out and see ourselves from afar, as just another person who is part of a larger context. Third, we can be sometime else, imagining that we are our future selves who are thinking back to what we wish we had done today. In each case, we can coach ourselves from this distanced perspective. The result is a powerful and immediate reframe of how we see ourselves, our situation, and what we should do. Featuring compelling scientific research, business cases, and exercises, Distancing equips us with effective practical tools to reduce anxiety, see more clearly, and make better decisions for ourselves and for our organizations.

Joel Bancroft-Connors: Sustainable Value—Redefining Success Beyond Profit Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Joel has evolved his definition of Scrum Master success over time, moving beyond traditional metrics to focus on what truly matters: sustainable value delivery. While Agile principles clearly state the goal of delivering value continuously, Joel emphasizes that success isn't just about making profit - it's about creating sustainable profit through sustainable processes and people practices. He challenges Scrum Masters to consider their "people sustainability metric" and asks whether their approach supports long-term team health and organizational resilience. Joel's definition encompasses three pillars: delivering sustainable value, maintaining sustainable processes, and ensuring sustainability for people. This holistic view of success requires Scrum Masters to think beyond immediate outcomes and consider the long-term impact of their practices. In this segment, we refer to the book Turn the ship around! by David Marquet.  Self-reflection Question: What is your people sustainability metric, and how are you measuring whether your Scrum practices support long-term team and organizational health? Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Back to Basics Joel advocates for returning to the foundational retrospective format outlined in "Agile Retrospectives" by Derby and Larsen. Rather than getting caught up in complex or creative retrospective techniques, he emphasizes the power of following the basic steps: set the stage, gather data, generate insights, decide what to do, and close the retrospective. Joel stresses that there's an important arc to retrospectives that shouldn't be overlooked. By taking time to properly gather data and following the structured approach from the agile retrospectives book, teams can achieve more meaningful and actionable outcomes. Sometimes the most effective approach is simply executing the fundamentals exceptionally well. In this segment, we refer to the book Agile retrospectives, by Derby and Larsen.  [Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

This episode confronts the leadership trends of planting one's practice in only one model without room for growth and agility. Someone has to lead, AND there should be collaborative moments for team member contributions. We need both. Models referenced: situational, servant, transformational leadershipBooks referenced: Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet and Servant Leadership Characteristics in Organizational Life by DeGraaf, Tilley, and NealYouTube Interview with Captain Marquet: https://youtu.be/PbqTbGHd5K8?si=GmkQAvaBRiBO1-Fc

In this solo episode of the Everyday Business Problems podcast, Dave Crysler unpacks what it means to build an intentional culture—and why it's one of the most challenging and impactful things a leader can do. Drawing from over 25 years of leadership experience, Dave shares personal stories, lessons learned, and practical strategies for transforming toxic or fractured company cultures. Whether you're leading change after a leadership shift or experiencing a change of heart yourself, this episode gives you a real-world framework to start shaping a healthier, more effective workplace culture. What You'll Discover: Why culture isn't your mission statement—it's how your people feel on Sunday night. Three key pillars for intentional culture: empathy, kind candor, and clarity before action. How to rebuild trust in organizations with siloed departments and poor communication. Tips for leading with empathy and owning mistakes to earn buy-in from your team. How to respond when you've been part of the problem and are ready to change. The power of involving your team in shaping a shared vision for culture and performance. Book recommendation: Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet for leadership inspiration and practical culture transformation. Subscribe to the Business Systems Saturday Newsletter

I went in a different direction today than I thought I was going to go, but I think you're going to love it! Some quotes from the "Introduction" to a book I was listening to over spring break in Mexico last week. Really good insights for us on the language that we use to lead and to transform culture. Enjoy!For more information to help you on your road to becoming your best, check us out at SlamDunkSuccess.com or email me at scott@slamdunksuccess.com.As always, our background music is "Dance in the Sun" by Krisztian Vass.

Today on the Social-Engineer Podcast: The Security Awareness Series, Chris is joined by Roy Luongo. Roy is the Chief Information Security Officer for the United States Secret Service. He leads a team in the defense and information assurance of all USSS information systems and solutions. Prior to his current role he was the Director, Joint Mission Operations Center for Cyber Command, providing oversight of mission critical Cyber Operations infrastructures. He has also served as Chief, NSA Red Team and Technical Director for Interactive Operations for the NSA. Roy is a retired Army soldier with 20 years' service within the Intelligence and Cyber career fields. [March 17, 2025]   00:00 - Intro 00:17 - Intro Links: -          Social-Engineer.com - http://www.social-engineer.com/ -          Managed Voice Phishing - https://www.social-engineer.com/services/vishing-service/ -          Managed Email Phishing - https://www.social-engineer.com/services/se-phishing-service/ -          Adversarial Simulations - https://www.social-engineer.com/services/social-engineering-penetration-test/ -          Social-Engineer channel on SLACK - https://social-engineering-hq.slack.com/ssb -          CLUTCH - http://www.pro-rock.com/ -          innocentlivesfoundation.org - http://www.innocentlivesfoundation.org/                                                01:55 - Roy Luongo Intro 02:44 - The Path to CISO of the Secret Service 04:58 - Cybersecurity in Early Education 07:50 - The Entry Level Catch-22 12:24 - Quantifying Risk 14:27 - The Best Way Forward 16:51 - The Effects and Future of AI 20:06 - Understanding Your Needs 22:11 - Advise to Young Roy 24:56 - The Cost of Training 29:01 - Mentors -          Ed Skoudis -          Brigadier General Brian D. Vile -          Shawn Turskey 29:55 - Lollipop Moments -          TEDxToronto - Drew Dudley "Leading with Lollipops" 31:33 - Book Recommendations -          Cybersecurity Canon - Rick Howard -          Kingpin - Kevin Poulsen -          Turn the Ship Around! - L. David Marquet 33:49 - Wrap Up & Outro -          www.social-engineer.com -          www.innocentlivesfoundation.org

Thomas Perry’s THE LITTLE BOOK OF IMPEDIMENTS: https://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Impediments-Thomas-Perry/dp/1523485507 Tom’s bio: https://hyperdriveagile.com/trainers/tom-perry Tom on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tlperry/ Mentioned in this episode: David Marquet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYXH2XUfhfo Books by David Marquet: https://www.amazon.com/stores/L.-David-Marquet/author/B008GHTFN2?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true Culture Code: https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Code-Secrets-Highly-Successful/dp/0804176981 The post 294 Performance Mangament & Agile first appeared on Agile Noir.

This is a special episode, where I introduce the "Big Agile Questions" survey and review some of the questions that you've already submitted! Thank you all who did! You can find the submission form here. Submit your questions, as we will be reviewing these in future episodes! To join 25,341 other Agilists on our Newsletter (˜1 post/week), visit this page, and join. The Power of Asking Better Questions At every major turning point in history, from the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution, progress has begun with asking better questions. The Agile movement itself started with the authors of the Agile Manifesto questioning traditional software development methods. Now, in 2025, with significant changes in the industry including PMI's acquisition of the Agile Alliance, the community faces a crucial moment to shape its future direction through thoughtful inquiry and reflection. "Throughout history, the biggest leaps forward have come from people willing to ask difficult, sometimes even quite challenging, questions." The Future Beyond Agile

Chapter 1 What's Turn the Ship Around! by L. David Marquet"Turn the Ship Around!" by L. David Marquet is a leadership book that shares the author's experiences as a U.S. Navy submarine captain. Marquet emphasizes the importance of empowering individuals to take ownership of their work rather than following a top-down command structure. He details how he transformed the USS Santa Fe, a struggling submarine, into one of the best-performing ships in the fleet by promoting a culture of competence and control at all levels. The book introduces concepts like ‘leader-leader' rather than ‘leader-follower,' encouraging leaders to foster an environment where employees are encouraged to think critically, make decisions, and become actively engaged in their roles. Through practical insights and anecdotes, Marquet illustrates that when individuals are trusted and given responsibility, performance and morale improve dramatically.Chapter 2 Turn the Ship Around! by L. David Marquet Summary"Turn the Ship Around!" by L. David Marquet is a leadership and management book that recounts the author's experience as a U.S. Navy submarine captain. Marquet took command of the USS Santa Fe, a submarine that was struggling with low morale and poor performance. Instead of maintaining the traditional top-down leadership approach, Marquet implemented a new philosophy of leadership that he termed "leader-leader" rather than "leader-follower." Key Themes and Concepts:Empowerment and Ownership: Marquet emphasizes the importance of empowering individuals at all levels of an organization. He believed that by giving his crew members ownership of their tasks, they would feel more engaged and responsible for their work. Instead of merely following orders, crew members were encouraged to think critically and make decisions.Control vs. Competence: Traditionally, leaders feel the need to maintain control over their subordinates, which can lead to bottlenecks and disengagement. Marquet argues that leaders should instead focus on building competence within their organization, allowing team members to operate independently with confidence.Communication and Trust: Effective communication is critical in any organization. Marquet cultivated an environment where crew members felt safe to express their ideas and concerns. Establishing trust among team members led to improved collaboration and innovation.Intent-Based Leadership: Instead of the typical command-and-control structure, Marquet introduced the concept of intent-based leadership, where leaders communicate their intent and the team members take the initiative to act. This shift encourages proactivity and adaptability in teams.Decentralizing Decision-Making: Marquet restructured the decision-making process, allowing more junior crew members to make decisions on their own. This approach not only reduced the burden on leaders but also allowed for quicker and more effective responses to challenges. Results:Under Marquet's leadership, the USS Santa Fe transformed from one of the worst-performing submarines in the fleet to one of the best. The morale and engagement of the crew improved significantly, showcasing the effectiveness of his leadership approach. Conclusion:"Turn the Ship Around!" serves as a practical guide for leaders looking to inspire and empower their teams. Marquet's experiences demonstrate that leadership can be transformative when leaders focus on enabling their people to take ownership and responsibility for their work, ultimately leading to better outcomes and a stronger organizational culture.Chapter 3 Turn the Ship Around! AuthorL. David Marquet is a retired United States Navy captain best known for his innovative leadership practices which he documented in his bestselling book "Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders." This book was first published in 2013...

David Marquet: Leadership is Language David Marquet is the former commander of the U.S.S. Santa Fe, a nuclear-powered attack submarine. Under David's command, the ship had an impressive turnaround, achieving the highest retention and operational standings in the Navy. David is the author of the bestseller Turn the Ship Around: A True Story of Turning Followers Into Leaders* and his newer book, Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say and What You Don't*. In this rebroadcast, David and I explored the seven sins of questioning. David shared the story of the ill-fated El Faro and how we can discover better information in leadership by making the shift from self-affirming to self-educating. Seven Ways to Ask Better Questions Instead of questions stacking, try one and done. Instead of a teaching moment, try and learning moment. Instead of a dirty question, try a clear question. Instead of a binary question, start the question with “what” or “how.” Instead of a “why” question, try “tell me more.” Instead of a self-affirming question, try self-educating questions. Instead of jumping to the future, start with the present, past, then future. Resources Mentioned Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say and What You Don't* by David Marquet Turn the Ship Around: A True Story of Turning Followers Into Leaders* by David Marquet Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Sara Caldwell: Human-Centric and Transformational Leadership for Agile Teams Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Sara shares her experience with a healthcare project aimed at digitizing care workers' documentation processes. Despite innovative technical solutions, the team overlooked user empathy, leading to adoption challenges. Engineers who shadowed care workers discovered crucial insights that transformed their approach. Sara reflects on the importance of direct user engagement and how to prevent anti-patterns, like distancing engineers from end-users, in product development. Featured Book of the Week: Brave New Work by Aaron Dignan This transformative book emphasizes the need for organizations to be person-centric and complexity-conscious. Sara shares how Brave New Work inspired her to rethink operating systems for teams. Along with Leadership is Language by David Marquet and Radical Candor by Kim Scott, she discusses actionable lessons to improve leadership and team dynamics. These books provide a blend of theory and practical strategies to create empowered, high-performing teams. [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Damo and Tisha open the episode by discussing workplace arguments. Damo reads a comment responding to a PTSF YouTube short. Tisha explains why she “quit” social media. Is retirement really so hard? Prayers to everyone who has been impacted by this current Hurricane season. The Navy is celebrating our 249th birthday! Make sure you do it in accordance with the policy. The Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP) has had some major changes that everyone isn't pleased with and we want to understand why. Damo and Tisha review the updates to MyNavyPortal. What's the difference between GMT and CMT? The Navy has surpassed our recruiting goals this year! This is definitely a win, considering we were not expecting it. It's Domestic Violence Awareness Month and we want to highlight the Family Advocacy Program (FAP) again. A “Do Better” from a listener is read. Damo and Tisha provide a little feedback. Tisha takes Damo on a personal journey about a “Karen” at her job. A Guardsman is trying to sue the government for Malpractice following a botched surgery in Walter Reed. Remember to follow the ‘Permission to Speak Freely' podcast on TikTok, Facebook, Discord, Instagram, and Twitter, and subscribe on YouTube.   To have your “Do Better” reviewed on a future episode please get in touch with us at ptsfpodcast@gmail.com.       Keep up with the ‘Permission to Speak Freely' podcast on our social media and YouTube - https://linktr.ee/Ptsfpodcast   Links from this episode: U.S Navy Birthday Resources - https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/commemorations-toolkits/navy-birthday.html   Dissolution of EFMP Categories - https://mccareer.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/dissolution-of-navy-efmp-program.pdf   Common Military Training - https://www.mynavyhr.navy.mil/Portals/55/Messages/NAVADMIN/NAV2024/NAV24209.txt?ver=s2MalZl5dN1qGOqyeF0Brw%3d%3d   Navy surpassed Recruiting Goals: https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2024/10/02/navy-bounces-back-surpasses-recruiting-goals-for-fiscal-year-2024/   Family Advocacy Program Resources - https://www.mynavyhr.navy.mil/Support-Services/Culture-Resilience/Family-Advocacy/   Malpractice Suit: https://www-military-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.military.com/daily-news/2024/06/24/paralyzed-during-surgery-walter-reed-guardsman-asks-supreme-court-consider-feres-doctrine-challenge.html?amp       Books of the Week: Damo - Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders (L. David Marquet)- https://davidmarquet.com/turn-the-ship-around-book/   Tisha - Damaged but Not Destroyed: From Trauma to Triumph (Michael Todd) - https://www.iammiketodd.com/damaged-but-not-destroyed       Additional Credits: PTSF “Theme Music” - Produced by Lim0

Laura West: Coaching for Leaders Fellow Laura West is a seasoned leader and researcher with many years experience executing and training others in data analysis and strategy. She's led large teams across several organizations, holds a Ph.D. in linguistics, and is an alum of the Coaching for Leaders Academy. She was selected as one of our new Coaching for Leaders fellows and has taken on a leadership role in supporting our current Academy members. What do you do when you get a request from a stakeholder, but don't have the resources to fulfill it? That's a reality almost every leader faces. In this conversation, Laura and I discuss both the mindset and tactics that will help you respond well. Key Points Rather than an immediate “no,” spend an hour working through some steps to creatively problem solve around the request. Show your work. When you respond, share who you've talked with and what's already been considered to respond to the request. Present options by summarizing 2-4 paths forward and your recommendations. Be the data person. Highlight trends over time that help influence different business decisions and maintain your credibility. Prioritize. But tell, don't ask. Take the lead on identifying what's important on behalf of the stakeholder and begin the work. Resources Mentioned Responding to Stakeholder Requests With Limited Resources by Laura West (free membership required) Related Episodes The Way to Turn Followers Into Leaders, with David Marquet (episode 241) How to Start Managing Up, with Tom Henschel (episode 433) The Way to Influence Executives, with Nancy Duarte (episode 450) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Re-releasing one of DAT's most popular episodes! Dr. Jesse Green is back on the podcast to share more real-life experiences of a dentist. In this episode, Dr. Green shares with Kiera how to move your practice from being profitable to scalable. He shares specific insight about: How to become a training institution How to best back away from the business And how to overcome the fear of giving over your practice It may be a hard pill to swallow, stepping back into a role where you're no longer the primary profit generator, but Dr. Green shares how other doctors of all shapes and mindsets have managed to do so. About Dr. Green: Author, speaker, and entrepreneur, Dr. Jesse Green is a leading dental business coach. He established Savvy Dentist to support dentists to develop financial intelligence, have more time and work less, create high performance teams, and master the art of patient flow. Episode resources: Connect with Dr. Jesse Green Listen to episode 414, How To Be a Savvy Dentist Reach out to Kiera Practice Momentum Group Consulting Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Become Dental A-Team Platinum! Review the podcast Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:05.806) Hey everyone, welcome to the Dental & Team podcast. I'm your host, Keira Dunt, and I had this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective, because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, filler, office manager, regional manager, practice owner, and I have a team of traveling consultants where we have traveled to over 165 different offices coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you, we are you.   Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental. And I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress, and create A -Teams. Welcome to the Dental A -Team Podcast.   The Dental A Team (00:52.866) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kira and you guys, I have a very special guest that I am excited to bring to the show today. I was on his podcast just recently and obviously we want to have him back on our podcast, share a wealth of knowledge and believe it or not, he is actually from Australia. So it is early tomorrow and his time. he said Australia just opened up. So I think his highlight of his day was being able to get a haircut. think all of us here in the States can remember that day.   but I'm so, so excited to welcome Dr. Jesse Green to the show. How are you today? I'm really well, Kira. Thank you so much for having me on the program. I'm really, really, really, really happy to be here to talk to you today. absolutely. I'm so glad. And your haircut does look good. I see you on zoom. It does look nice. It good. It felt fantastic. Honestly, as well as things you appreciate the little things in life and you think how good is a haircut? It's   It's like this luxury that we used to take for granted. Now it feels very luxurious. I absolutely, remember luckily I had just come back from Antarctica when the pandemic hit and I had, so coming back from Antarctica, I got my hair done. got my eyelashes done. got my nails done. Cause I had been gone for three weeks anyway. And so I felt very lucky, but Ooh, towards the end of that shutdown, I was like, man, I was having to learn how to cut my husband's hair again. man. Took me back to pharmacy school days.   I agree. I remember a meme and they said, next time there's a pandemic, can we say that barbers and beauticians and cosmetologists can be considered essential business? And it's got this guy with hair cleared out into his nose. I felt it was very fitting. So, hundred percent. So Jesse, I just wanted to kind of talk to us about how you even got to where you are. I know the topic today that we want to go into is how to earn more while working less. You also talked about how to have a very   a productive associate dentist. So you've got a wealth of knowledge, but just so our listeners know, kind of just give us a quick background and bio on how you even became known as the person who earn more and work less because I'm so excited to learn about that today too. thank you so much. So I'm a dentist by profession. And so like most of your listeners, I did the usual dental school thing, but prior to dental school, I had a business and I was always   The Dental A Team (03:13.74) really interested and engaged in business, loved it. Did the university thing like everyone else, kind of then found my way into clinical practice and really knuckled down and focused on that. And then I was a dentist in the Navy and I learned a lot about leadership and process and, and organizational structure. And then when I went into my own practice, I did traditional practice management kind of teaching. And while it was good, it was fine. We certainly had a business.   producing good money, but in actual fact, I was so tired, so burnt out, so stressed out. My kids were little. was doing dentistry during my work day. Then I'd come home, have dinner with the kids, and then I'd be trying to do payroll or other, you know the how it goes. You know the story, right? And I was, and I was tired and stressed and burnt out. So what I did is I then sold that business and I didn't quite figure out how to fix it until I started a different business, which was around.   I was building websites, running SEO, PPC campaigns. And then it was when I ran that business and I kind of got out of the dental head space and went, my God, I remember all these lessons that I had when I was a kid with my first business that I'd learned that I didn't ever apply to my dental practice. I had this massive, honestly, it was a face palm. I mean, you just go, I can't believe I did that. Jesse, what were you thinking? Clearly not. So then I started thinking about all of the traditional.   practice management techniques and how we could adapt some of those and replace some of those so that businesses can have a true business rather than self -employment. So that's kind of how it came about. I love that because you're right. And the way you just described dentistry is how dentist life is working with so many dentists. I think that that's the life of an entrepreneur as well. I mean, you see lots of different businesses yourself and I think it's just that like, just never feels like there's enough hours in the day, but like you said,   There's got to be a better way to do this. think of it constantly. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I see a lot of people who are way more successful, very, profitable and they don't work crazy hours. They have a true life. Like how do they do that? So I'm excited to have you just dive into that. And I'm excited to see where this podcast rifts and goes to. I also love that you are a dentist as   The Dental A Team (05:31.352) That's why I wanted you on this show. Like let's talk about real life experiences of a dentist and how to, like you said, earn more and work less. That's a mantra that I have. We're actually working on an office manager planner that's called do less, create more. because I think it's really that mentality. So Jesse, take it away. I just want to hear like, your knowledge, tell us how to earn more and work less. Like you figured this out. So share the secrets with us. I'm ready.   Well, thank you. Thank you for that, for that, yeah, free rain. I'm also going to tell you that I learned it the hard way. I learned it. I learned it through experience. learned it easy way. I'm going to learn from you. Well, that's what we want. Right. That's what we're going to give our listeners. But the reason I say that is because everything I've done, I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, Kira. So I just want to start this conversation by saying, I'm not perfect. I didn't get this. wasn't, you   born with some sort of insider knowledge around this. had to learn this through trial and error and bumps and grazes and bruises. But think that's really important. I'm going to jump in right there because I think so often we sometimes hear people say, this is how I got there. And we think, well, they were just born that way, or it was just naturally given. And so I really love that. Like, Hey guys, with hard work, learning from great mentors like Jesse, you can be there too. And not limiting yourself is to me a huge, huge piece of what this is all about. So   Continue on. I'm cheering right alongside of you. Like, yes, go. You're not just this like dipped from, from heaven Hercules. man. If only, so here's what I learned. one of the things that I learned is we, we spend so much of our time doing clinical work and we do that because we want to make a dollar and we understand the necessity of making dollar, but it's also what I call a golden handcuffs. And at some point we need to.   lift our gaze from the patient who's in the dental chair in front of us and start surveying our surroundings. So typically there's a couple of different levels of practice that we see a profitable practice, scalable practice and a valuable practice. And so a profitable practice is that typical practice where the dentist is going to work, doing the dentistry, going home at night, doing the payroll sort of thing. And you can actually make quite good money out of that. mean, this is the trap is you get used to the money.   The Dental A Team (07:51.652) You get used to the toys, you get used to the lifestyle and you get on this treadmill and you keep thinking, my goodness, I've got all this stuff, but I don't have time for my kids. so working harder is not the answer. so let me just repeat that for all the dentists here who are really conscientious, who are normally the people that work hard, the good people that work hard. And we just want   not work quite so hard, but work a little differently. We want to shift our focus. And the way that we cross from a profitable business to a scalable business is by crossing what we call the leverage line. so the leverage line is at that point, you've got a practice owner who's no longer the primary revenue generator. You've created a team and this is your work, right? This is what you help a lot of people with creating what we call a self -managing team, a team of   that know what to do, they know how to do it. We've given them the resources to do their job really well. They know what success looks like. We've got some success metrics in place, but those people come internally motivated to do well. Okay. So we're not having to put the defibrillator on them every day to heart start them. They come with batteries included. And so when we've got a self -managing team and we've got our systems and processes, we're now starting to create some leverage.   How do we get to that point? How do we make that leap? And it is a bit of a leap. And because you guys are North American, I'll try and use a baseball metaphor to go from profitable business to scalable business. It's like going from first base in baseball to second base. can't get to second base by keeping one foot on first. There is a moment in time where you have to leave first base.   And you have to run towards second. And when you're in the middle of the two bases and you're not, you're not yet on second, but you've left first, it's uncomfortable. It's uncertain. And there's doubt. And so managing that emotional journey is really important because the natural tendency for us is to run back to what's comfortable rather than pushing forward. Now, the way we push forward is to understand that making money all day, every day.   The Dental A Team (10:09.217) is a great short -term fix, but it is also what's going to keep us stuck on first base. So we need to dedicate some of our time to building that team, to becoming really good at training people, to being really good at finding great talent, training great talent, bringing them on. And that means we need to take on a mindset of becoming almost a training institution so that we can take these wonderful people and get them up to speed so that they can join   The freeway, it's like an on -ramp onto the freeway, get them up to speed really, really well. When we do that, we build the resources for them to use. We now can start hiving off activities that we don't want to do. So that's where the delegation comes in. Now, of course, this is nothing new. This is quite rudimentary. It's quite basic, but what is the hard part is actually letting go. Kirit, let me ask you a question.   Of all the dentists you know, what proportion do you think tend to have perfectionistic tendencies? Oh, you know, every single one of them. Me included, me included. And that's what I did wrong in my first practice. That's what I did wrong. I had to learn and as I've gone through other businesses to learn that 80 % is okay. 80 % done by someone else is a hundred percent awesome. Yes.   Yes, I love that. Did you guys hear that? 80 % done is a hundred percent awesome. Yeah. So let's get our team members out there being prolific. They may not be perfect, but they'll be prolific. They'll get through a lot of work for you if we let them do it and we resist the urge to micromanage. So how do we get away from micromanaging? Now, one of my good friends and other dentists in the United States gave me a wonderful book called Turn the Ship Around.   And for your listeners there, I'd really encourage you to grab hold of it. The author is a wonderful guy, David Marquet. He's a US Navy submarine commander. And what he talks about is developing a leader -leader model. So rather than teaching people what to do or telling them what to do, we want to teach people how to think like us. Not just to do what we asked them to do or to be task -oriented, we want to develop their thinking. So when our team members come to us and say, yeah, Kira,   The Dental A Team (12:29.793) You know, this has happened. What should I do rather than because you've got the answers at your fingertips rather than saying, Hey Bob or Hey Mary or Hey Susie, this is what I think you should do and give them the answer. By doing that, we're actually training them to come to us all the time. So we want to be able to go with them and say, what do you think we could do? What else could we do? What risks do you see with that type of action? What do you think I'm thinking about and start that conversation so they can understand your thought process?   Now, again, it sounds really simple and it's simple, but not easy. Simple, but not easy. So that, would be a starting point there. Now I'm happy for you to guide me, direct me wherever you want me to go with this conversation. Okay. Number one, I love it because we just talked about number one is I think, I think for me it's accepting that I'm going to have to leap and go into that scary zone. Like you said, it is very easy. Like I think it's that, that control, that safety net   false security of, know that if I work here though, Jesse, I know I can make money. know I can sustain my lifestyle. I know that I can continue to live this way. However, I think it gets to a spot where when does that hamster will become no more? When do you want to say like, I don't want to do this anymore. I feel like until you get to that breaking point where you say enough's enough, you won't want to jump from first base to second base. you use that really great analogy.   But I think when you are there and I know I'm there, I say it all the time, I'm like, you know, there's gotta be a better way to do this. And I have the confidence in me. I've trained myself that, hey, Kira, you know that if it fails, guess what? Worst case scenarios, you're just gonna go back and do it all over again. Like I know I can grow a business. I know I can make it profitable. So like that's already a given and it doesn't matter recession, no recession, pandemic, whatever it is, I believe that people who can build businesses can do it again and again and again.   and so my thought is, so for me, it's a challenge and excitement of like, okay, fantastic. Like you said, this is a profitable business and now we're going into a scalable business. So that leap is, I really love that you talked about having that team do it for you. And I know I get guilty of this often today. I was about to answer an email and I was like, this is literally does not need my answer. I don't need to approve this. can, like, does it really matter? The answer is no. So I just wrote back and said, you have full control on this. I know you know it   The Dental A Team (14:55.363) Just, just take care of it. know you know what to do and you're going to do the best thing. I've trained them. I've trained them. Like you said, it's a training thing. I also loved a lot of the questions you mentioned of asking them to think like leaders and owners versus just telling them because that's more of a long -term game versus a short -term just constantly feeding them. So then I'm curious, like, okay, great. We've got an awesome team in play, but I feel like to really know that you've got this awesome team and play, you do have to make that jump to see does this team actually know how to execute? Because if you're always   They don't have to execute. that's where, that's where I actually go on vacation to see if they sink or swim. Like, good luck. Well, that's exactly, that's exactly the right. he's, that's a really good point you're bringing up and thank you for bringing up because you've actually, answered the question and one of my clients, is a lovely, lovely guy and, his name is Barry and Barry in our community takes more holidays than anyone I know. And he is a really good business owner.   And the way he started stress testing his system, stress testing his team was exactly that. He'd take a holiday. He had take note of what didn't work when he got back and he'd just make some notes and go, Hmm, I've got to fix that. Now I'd like to just leave your listeners with a thought process. Every headache, bottleneck, pain in the neck comes back to a deficiency of assets. So what do mean by   Specifically, there's lots of different types of assets, but in a dental practice, there's a couple of broad categories. There's, you know, there's the goodwill of the business, you know, the patient base, there's the team as an asset, there's the cash, there's the physical infrastructure. But what I'm referring to here specifically are the intellectual property assets. What are the systems, processes, checklists, cheat sheets, whatever else you need to have in place. So when it comes back to these bottlenecks or things that go wrong, we go, hmm.   What asset do we need to create in our business so that if I teach someone how to use that and they've now got the resource to do it and they've got the confidence to do it. If I go away next time, that thing should not break again. And so it's that constant iterative process. to take that metaphor or to give you another case study around that, one of my clients.   The Dental A Team (17:15.311) Uh, really lovely lady. Um, when she was working with us, she was taking home about $350 ,000 a year out of her practice. Yeah. Which is okay. She was working four days a week, about 46 weeks of the year. So it's 184 days. And what we did with her is we did exactly the process I've just shared with your listeners already. And she was able to take her take home money from 350 ,000 to about 1 .1 million and   a day and a quarter a week. So she went from four days a week to a day and a quarter. It wasn't really a day and a quarter week. was 65 days a year, but 65 divided by 52 is a day and a quarter on average. here's the thing. That was great. She loved it. And that's a wonderful headline number to talk about. it, and it makes me sound like an amazing coach. I'm not, she was an amazing client, but here's what I want to say. We made a mistake. This is, this is really important. It sounds   better than it is. The mistake was that in that time out, she went traveling around the world. This is pre -COVID. She went traveling around the world. And what happened is some of those systems, some of that team structure started to erode and to collapse. Yep. And what happened, so here's the thing, is when you get into that scalable space, that when you're starting to create that time, freedom and flexibility, you're still there as the leader.   You're still there setting the vision, the direction, the concept of just being absent. I don't think is entirely sustainable. I don't think you can be on the beach drinking Pina coladas 365 days a year. Maybe, maybe you can, but what we had to do for this client is we had to reinstall a leadership team. So this is the next thing is now we have to build a more robust structure for her. And now.   She still works less than 60 days a year. She's making more money than she was before, but now she's not the only leader in the practice. She's developed a leadership team as well. So I think, yeah, it sounded great upfront and it was great upfront, but she pulled out of the business too soon before she was replacing herself as a leader. And I think even with that team, she's still going to be there to walk the corridors, to set the vision,   The Dental A Team (19:33.227) Yeah. Be the culture champion to do all those sorts of things. Absolutely. And I love that you brought that up because I think so often there's kind of this mindset of if I do it right, I don't have to be at my job and it will be, I think my favorite phrases, it will, what do they say? It will just run on autopilot. That's the phrase that I hear often like, Kira, I just want my practice to run on autopilot. But I love that you point out as leaders, as CEOs, your job is to set the vision. Your job is, I like the phrase you use of culture champion.   really set those that that is your job to do and instill that it's there and to have a leadership team that can continue to drive forward. But my question is to you though, Jesse is what did she do to increase her income that much? She's working less. What were some of the things that she was able to do? Is that having, like you said, a rock star associate producer? Because a lot of times bringing in associates, people are scared they're going to make less. So can you give any insight of how was she able to have more take home pay working less hours? Because I think people kind of get funny in there and   feel that if they work less hours, their income will drop as well, which clearly you've proven. Don't leave your job. You still need to do your job of being there, making sure you're having those people in play. But what were some of the things she was able to do to increase that take -home pay for herself while working substantially less hours? Yeah. So it's a great question. And I also point out this was a two and a half year process as well. again,   I want to make sure we set the expectations of your listeners. is not a good thing. can't just do this tomorrow. I know it's not a magic button. There's no silver bullet. I'm sorry to be the one to, tell you that Santa's not real, but there's no magic bullet. so I feel like now, now I'm going to be unpopular. I hope none of the kids are listening. But look, here's what happened. You're absolutely right. She had very productive associates and what we did over that period of time.   is we were able to help those associates become more more productive. And there was three key things that those associates or three key skills that those associates needed to master. The first one was that they needed to master the ability to build their own appointment book. They need to build a following. So they needed to know a lot about internal marketing, making sure their patients were happy to give them a great clinical experience, clearly to make sure they get a great customer care experience.   The Dental A Team (21:54.541) But from the dentist's point of view to keep rebooking those patients to make sure they're coming back for their scheduled maintenance, we call it a recall system here. I'm not sure what the phrase would be. Same, same. So that makes sure they're coming back for their recall appointments, all of those sorts of things to make sure they're building value for those appointments so that the patients understand why they're coming back, why that treatment is important. The second skill they needed to learn was the ability to master case presentation.   Right? They needed to be able to offer treatment. Firstly, I beg your pardon, they needed to be able to comprehensively diagnose, you know, rather than patch and plug dentistry, they wanted to take a holistic view of the patient's mouth to recommend appropriate clinical care, the same sort of care that offer their mother, and then to be able to present that in a way such that it was accepted. So they needed to learn those skills. And the third skill that they needed to learn.   was the ability to deliver high quality work in an efficient manner. And that comes back to workflow, it comes back to utilizing your auxiliary staff, your dental assistants, other people, just the usual sorts of things about four handed dentistry, rubber dam techniques, all those sorts of clinical things. And to be able to do predictable, high quality dentistry efficiently. And that was the skills.   And the big mindset that united all of those three points, the mindset that those associates adopted was one of being an intrapreneur. So I like that phrase. Yeah. So they, they viewed themselves as their own unit within the business. know, they took responsibility for themselves. They took responsibility for their business. They took responsibility for their productivity.   they took responsibility for the clinical care. And that was a culture shift. It was a mindset piece. And again, that took a little bit of time. And so that was a key thing. Now, in addition to the associate dentists, I don't know exactly how this translates to the United States, but in Australia, we have oral health therapists and they're, they don't have a full dental degree, but they can do quite a lot of restorative dentistry. So what we did in that process,   The Dental A Team (24:09.419) is we used everyone's skillset to the maximum that we could. So we built the team up and we pushed the work down. So we trained the dentist, we trained the oral health therapist, we delegated everything that we could to the oral health therapist. So the dentist's work or the dentist's time was used for its highest and best use. And then that meant that the principal dentist was delegating to the associate dentist as well. So her time was used for his highest and best use.   And so it was just this process of training people, delegating, training people, delegating. And so that cycle continued. I really liked that you, just said that because I think so many, I'm curious, like you might have a, an answer to this because as you said that training up an associate dentist to take over your schedule, sometimes it was very scary, Jesse. some doctors feel like that's their identity.   that if an associate dentist takes over my book of business, I even have a practice anymore? And for your oral health therapists or specialists, we call those like EFTAs. So experienced, expanded function dental assistants that can literally do that. But I have quite a few offices that have these EFTA dental assistants and the dentist will not leave the room. They will do the filling even though they don't have to do the filling because now they have somebody that can do it for them. They could be seeing more patients.   People ask me often how I was able to 365 ,000 a month in a five -op practice. Well, we literally had three columns of doctor production and you better believe I had big production next to each other and we would prep, prep, and then we had like an implant that an assistant couldn't help us with. And then our assistants were working while our dentist was over doing high, high level implant sedation cases. And per hour we were cranking.   but we were very, very, very talented at what we did. We had lots of trainings with our assistants to make sure they were doing just as good, if not better clinical work. how do you, Jessie, what do you say to these people who hear you and they're like, that's a really great idea, but I like to do the fillings or I am scared that if I pass it to my associate, my associate is not as good as me. so, or I feel like it's ego. feel like ego just runs it so much   The Dental A Team (26:23.725) So many people stay in this loop for a long time because they aren't willing to train. So do you have any tips of thoughts for that? Maybe you experienced that, maybe this dentist experienced that because I don't think it's, I don't think the ego is bad. think the ego is a natural part of life. I also think being afraid to give up your practice that you've grown to someone else is a very normal feeling. But do you have any thoughts of how people can overcome that or how you've helped people overcome that fear? Are you guys sick of trying to figure it out on your   I know I am. When I'm trying to run a business, sometimes I just think like, there's got to be a better way to do this. And so for me, my answer has been to find someone who's done it and does it really, really, really well. Like I'm talking the best of the best of the best. I want someone who's been in my shoes, somebody who understands what I'm going through. When I was looking for the consulting business, I found a coach who literally has run a consulting business. Well, that seems like the perfect fit. So you guys right now,   We have a few spaces open in our platinum consulting that is in the consulting where we actually come to your practice. We help you get systems implemented. We don't just tell you what systems implement. We actually implement them with you and for you guys. It is one of the best investments I've ever made is to hire a coach who understands the business I'm in, who's lived it, who's done it. And that's what we in the dental team do. We literally physically fly to   So if you're sick of trying to figure it out on your own, if you just want somebody who understands you, join our platinum. I'd love to have you. I'd love to have our consulting team come out and see you, be in your office, be with your team and truly help you get onto the easy path of dentistry. It doesn't have to be hard. So join us in the platinum. We'd love to have you.   Yeah, sure. And it's a great question. It's probably the question that needs to be answered, isn't it? It's the thing like, yeah, Jesse, I get it intellectually. makes sense. I, you know, I see it all happening, but how do I do it? Right. So I, yeah, this is the emotional journey. This is the emotional journey. And this is why I mean managing the emotional journey is as important as managing the intellectual or the numbers journey around it. So you're absolutely correct. So,   The Dental A Team (28:39.947) I struggled with this as well. This was part of why my first practice, you know, I didn't scale it because I just had all this stuff. A couple of things I'll share with you, in no particular order. I'll drop out a few things and hopefully, God willing, I'll be able to tie these into a nice neat bow at the end of it. Perfect. So I remember a couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to go to Necker Island, Richard Branson's Island   We spent some time with Richard Branson and he was talking about how he runs all these businesses. And he made a comment, which I've read in one of his books as well. And that was about training. know, people often worry about, you know, if I train people up and they leave, you know, aren't I just training the competition, so to speak. And his point was, well, what if you don't train them and they stay? Great question. I like the flip of the mindset.   And I went, wow. So for me, that was a light bulb moment to really see my business as a training institution. Now, what we needed to do with the transition of patients from the principal to the associate, there's a couple of things around this. we have a process, which we call pass the baton and patient transfers. And essentially it's about handing over the patient and being for the associate to be able to leverage the relationship.   that the principal has with them. And I'll explain that in a moment. But if the principal is really worried, maybe just start handing over a few things. Maybe hand over one filling at a time. It doesn't have to be, I'm going to send my entire patient base to my associate in one fell swoop. Maybe let's get used to just handing off one particular procedure. Maybe it's a class one occlusal composite resin.   Maybe it's endodontic treatment. Maybe it's whatever it is that you don't love to do or in your heart of hearts, you know, it's not your strong suit because we all have clinical areas that we know we're not great at or not as strong as other areas. So let's think if you're worried, let's do a dip in the water, know, dip our toe in the water and see how we go. But the way to do that is really about saying, know, Kyra, there's this restoration that we need to do on the lower right -hand   The Dental A Team (30:58.823) And, you know, this is obviously not going to get any smaller. it's going to get bigger if we don't tackle it. And so, I really would like to see this tooth treated as a matter of priority. Now, the challenge I've got is that my diary, is full for the next couple of weeks or months, whatever it is. And I don't really want to wait that length of time to get onto this feeling. I think we need to do that sooner. What I'd really love to do is to book you in with my associate, Peter. Peter's a fantastic dentist. does this all day, every day. And in   Peter's the person I see for my own dentistry. What if we were to get this filling done with Peter and then we can pick up the rest of the treatment plan as we move forward from there. So even if it's just handing off a procedure here or there, just to get things moving, just to build that confidence and then over time we can start transferring patients more fully. And we can even get, if you want to, you can get into a shared care model. I've got a couple of clients that do shared care. So   The patient will come in, they'll have the restorative dentists doing the bread and butter restorative dentistry. We'll have our crown and bridge expert, which is the principal, doing the crown and bridge and the high production work. We'll have our therapist or hygienist doing the hygiene or whatever it is. So again, we can introduce that to new patients and say, here at our practice, we adopt a shared care model. And what that means is that every step of the journey, you are getting our very best team member for this particular part of the treatment plan.   I'm going to coordinate that treatment plan for you, but I'd like to introduce you to my colleagues as we go through this so that you can get the very best set of hands working on you as we go through this treatment plan. So that's another way of doing it as well. really love that, Jessie, because I think you brought up quite a few things that I would like to highlight. And number one is you edify every person who's going to be taking the treatment. And I can tell genuinely, you do think that they are really fantastic. You've done a great job training them.   So you have full confidence. And as a patient hearing that from my dentist that I love, and I mean, instantly I had this interesting thought of when we go to the hospital, we don't expect one doctor to take care of our entire body. have the endocrinologist, we have the heart and vascular, we have the neurosurgeon. So why do we expect everything to be the exact same in our mouth with just a dentist? And so I think like that was a mind shift I have never thought of. so I appreciate you saying that, helping me have a light bulb moment.   The Dental A Team (33:19.603) and I really love that you just edified every single person, like they're going to be fantastic. And you instilled your confidence in that other person. I am going to ask, as we wrap up, how do you, you specifically decide that you are ready to start having less production in your schedule? Because the fear I know a lot of dentists have, and I don't know this, I'm not a dentist. So it's that fear of, okay, Jesse, I heard you. I've trained my team up. I've got a great leadership team. I've heard.   And don't worry, we'll do another podcast guys. Jesse and I will get on another one. So you guys were learning from profitable to scalable. And then what was your last tier? What's the last year? Valuable. Valuable. Scalable to valuable. So we got to still learn how to get valuable. But reality is, okay, I've learned that I'm profitable. Now I'm going to go to scalable, but I'm real scared to have this associate and to start leveraging because I'm terrified that my paycheck is going to go down. So how do I   That that's not going to happen. How do you like make that leap? Because I think that that's what holds people in this circle forever. They're like, I'm fine. I'll just have one practice. I'm literally speaking to a dentist right now. I know he listens to this podcast. So I'm hoping that we can answer this. A couple of them, they're like, I don't want an associate. I don't want to give this over because I won't have anything to do. My paycheck will go down. So what do you say to them? How did you do that for you? So it's a really good, great question. And again, it's a really important question to answer. The key is this is it's   process of gradual reduction. not again, my client didn't go from 184 days to 65 days in one step. What we did is we looked at, if I stop working one day a week or half a day a week, how much am I producing in that half day, one day, whatever it is. For easy mathematics, let's just say I produce $5 ,000 a day. Ease of maths. Maybe it's more, maybe it's less, it doesn't really matter.   Let's just say, so if I give up a day of dentistry, I want to net $5 ,000 from my associate. Now, if we've trained our associates and they're productive, that's great. That's a big help. So A, we've got to train them to be productive first. But what I'd be saying is what do I need to, you know, what do I pay my associate? Now in Australia, our associates are often paid a commission of billings. that how works for you well? Yeah. So let's just say hypothetically,   The Dental A Team (35:42.594) 40%. So a dentist gets 40%. So we would get 3000 of a $5 ,000 associate day. That would mean if I was going to give up $5 ,000 of my own production, I would need net $5 ,000 back from the associate to be in the same financial position. And so then I work at how many associate days do I need to replace my one day with?   Okay, so in this example, it's roughly one and three quarter days of associate time. By the time I pay the associate their commission, that I would now be back to where I was previously. My paycheck remains the same. In fact, it's probably a little bit higher because I'm not paying for a dental assistant twice. I'm paying for it once with the associate. So all of those things would work out. Now,   This is a big question with a long answer that I'm trying to provide concisely. We would run some financial modeling on that and we would go, okay, what's my billing? What's my commission rates for the associates? What are they producing right now? How can we step them up? How can we help them produce more so that we're getting closer to a one -to -one trade? That's really what we're trying to get to.   I feel like that's a little bit of a messy explanation. I hope it landed. hope it makes sense. pretty clear because it just as simple math that is math of how much do I need my associate to work to replace my income? How do I get them there? How do I make them more productive? So that way at the end of the day, associates happy, they're doing super great. They're happy because we've got a very productive schedule for them. So they're killing it. And it's also replacing the income that I would quote unquote be losing. now I'm not losing.   I've actually created an engine that generates income when I'm not working, which then I'm guessing leads you into your valuable level. Yes. Is where that would go. So a hundred percent. just really quickly on that, that then ties into other conversations around capacity. It ties into conversations around patient flow. It ties into all of those other things that come off the back of that. For sure. Absolutely.   The Dental A Team (37:57.491) That's just like a whole nother can of worms. then it's like, well, great. That is a whole can of worms. can say that next time. know my associate, but I don't have space to put this associate. So now I've got to do a build out and now I've got to get them to produce even more because I got to pay for the build out to get them to produce enough. So it just feels like too hard. But like you said, financial modeling, I think is a great idea because when you can see it in writing, you start doing small chunks at it and you'll see that it will pay for itself. Like one operatory usually is paid for within one to two months of production maximum.   It doesn't take that long to pay off that operatory with production running through it. Then they're producing while you're producing. So you're actually not losing anything. And then they're making money when you're not on that day and they've already covered themselves and the practice can still continue on. there's, to me, I'm with you, Jessie. I see it. I've seen it done so many times, but also you and I are on the other side of this business model because we've seen it done so many times that we know it works. So then how does it kick off into valuable? I get a quick wrap up.   which I don't think is fair for you. So we'll definitely like do another one and talk more about this, but I love this idea of how you can earn more without work with working less. So keep, keep it going. I'm excited. I can get out on business all day long. So, well, I think we could do both do that. So I love this conversation. So do you remember we spoke about going from a profitable scale? All we needed to cross the leverage line to go from scalable to valuable. need to cross the enterprise line. So it's understanding what the drivers of enterprise value are.   And so there's a couple of things I just want to share with you around how I built that model. That model used to be called profitable, scalable, sellable. And I changed it because I'd have so many conversations with dentists where they'd be saying, you know, I don't really want to sell my practice. You know, I get it, but you could, and you could do it easily and for a lot of money. And so I changed the language from sellable to valuable because what we're creating there is an asset. Right. And   In profitable, you've created a job. In scalable, you've created a business. In valuable, you've created an asset. So this is the key transition and the mindset shifts as well. So you go from being self -employed in profitable to being a business owner in scalable to being an investor in valuable. That's the different mindset that we bring to this.   The Dental A Team (40:23.975) When we think about the enterprise value line, really what we're trying to do in all of this, the big drivers of enterprise value are really about risk management and how do we reduce risk and then how do we drive earnings. So if we look at the value, again, I know anyone listening to this is an expert in valuation, probably cringe when I say this, but value is often described as the repeatable sustainable earnings times a multiple.   So we want to drive the earnings, which we've spoken about briefly already, and we want to be able to have a higher multiple. And what determines that multiple a lot is risk. So how do we de -risk the practice? So if I'm going to sell that practice, how could the next person come in and reproduce my results consistently from day one? And that comes back to identifying risk. And the biggest risk, of course, is key person risk. Right.   So we want to be able to not just replace the principal dentist to create the leverage that we spoke about at Scalable, but we want to identify the other key people in our team. We want to make sure that we have built training pathways into the practice for all the roles, not just for the associate dentist, but for your dental assistants, for your therapists or hygienists, for your expanded function dental assistants, for your receptionists, for your practice managers, all of those people. So we want to be able to...   replace people. I'm not trying to diminish people as I say that we want to be able to replace people if someone leaves the team quickly, well and reliably. Yep. So it's about understanding that. again, the other thing that I spoke about, repeatable sustainable earnings. If you've ever looked at subscription models, you and I probably live in this world a   I don't know about your business, we run a subscription based business and subscription based businesses that recurring revenue is more valuable because it's more predictable. Now in dentistry, there's a lot of talk about, do I have a subscription model and membership model? And that you could definitely do that. That's fine. But interestingly, we have the recall system, like din as a subscription model. So I was thinking, was like, it's not membership guys. It's your patients are actually a membership program.   The Dental A Team (42:50.611) Like because it comes every six months and that's what insurance is set up. That is literally a subscription model. That's genius. I had never thought of it that way. It's right there for you, right? So we want to make sure that we are really dialing in that repeat business. We want to make sure that we have predictable income and we can project with confidence that, you know, you were doing $360 ,000 a month, I think you said. And so we want to be able to know that next month I'm going to do $360 ,000 as well.   And the month after that, and the month after that, what we don't want is a roller coaster of revenue. We want to see stability of earnings growth. So stability of earnings growth is a metric that Warren Buffett uses to value companies. And so we want to see stability of earnings growth while we're de -risking the business. So I'm sorry that I've kind of a whole lot of stuff in there. Don't apologize because this is actually one of the number one reasons I love to podcast is because I get to talk to really cool people like yourself.   I get a geek out on dentistry. got a geek out on business. The two things I actually love to talk about. And for me, it was fun because these are things that I think about independently, but I don't have a lot of people to talk to about this because I'm supposed to coach it to a lot of people. I'm sure you feel similarly. We have a lot of clients who are coaching this, but to have somebody that I can talk to about these things, geek out with you on it. And I love that you talked about this valuable asset because I love to not think of always having this   because I was actually just talking with another financial investor advisor, dentist advisors, Ryan and I had this conversation the other day and he was talking about how sometimes once our business becomes this profitable asset, sometimes it actually makes more sense to keep it versus sell it because you're actually more profitable long -term because you've created this money -making machine. You're giving amazing value. You're providing incredible jobs.   that it actually is way more profitable than selling it off for millions. And let's be real, most of the people who build these businesses are highly driven entrepreneurs. So give yourself six months and you'll be building another business. why not keep the one that's super profitable, keep that thing churning and use it for other ideas. So I love that you talked about it as an asset. I just hope that the people listening today, I did a podcast with an author, his name's Jeffrey Shaw. He did the self -employed life, very, very talented author.   The Dental A Team (45:11.387) And I remember he and I talked about what makes really successful business owners. And we think that the key tipping point is business intrigue. Those who are intrigued by business, these conversations you and I are having, Jesse, because these are the things that spur the innovation, that spur the hard work of building that training facility, that gets you to dig deep and build a team of leaders. So that way you can pivot from base to base, like we just discussed. So go from profitable, like you said, and I love the imagery of like you're self -employed. Then you become a business owner.   And then what did you call it? Remind me. Investor. An investor. Like even just those mindsets are such different mindsets of how you view your business and where you're providing it. So Jesse, I loved it. I thought it was one of my favorite podcasts actually, and I hope all the listeners did. So Jesse, know you obviously work with dentists. You are a dentist. If people want more, I know you've got your podcast as well. just kind of share how people can get more Jesse Brown in their life like I need in my life. Sure. Well, you can find me at SavvyDentist .com.   the podcast is there. Come and have a listen. This is the sort of stuff we talk about and, Kira and I come and listen to the conversation Kira and I had on my podcast, which was about recruitment and ice cream. It's really, it's a great episode that Kira shared with our audience. So, that was great, but yeah, head across to savvydentist .com or join us on the, in the Facebook group, savvy dentist Facebook group. And we'd love to see you there. So yeah, you just, it's brilliant. Brilliant. I love it so much, Jesse.   Guys, check it out. Jesse, thank you for your time. Thank you for, I mean, sharing your nice haircut with me too. It was so fun to sit here and just feel like we were hanging out together. when Australia opens up to the rest of the world, you'll be one of my first people I want to come see. So super great to have you. So thank you again for being here today. thank you so much for having me. And we can't wait to see you down under. It would be great to have you here and I'd love to catch up and have a beer. Absolutely. All right, you guys, thank you all for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental Elite Team podcast.   The Dental A Team (47:06.003) That wraps it up for another episode of the Dental A Team Podcast. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you next  

Jeff Wetzler: Ask Jeff Wetzler is co-CEO of Transcend, a nationally recognized innovation organization, and an expert in learning and human potential. His experience spans 25+ years in business and education, as a management consultant to top corporations, a learning facilitator for leaders, and as Chief Learning Officer at Teach For America. He is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and is an Edmund Hillary Fellow. Jeff is the author of Ask: Tap Into the Hidden Wisdom of People Around You for Unexpected Breakthroughs in Leadership and Life*. Leaders are not the only people who need to have difficult conversations in the workplace. Yet, leaders set the tone for how much people are willing and able to talk about hard things. In this episode, Jeff and I discuss how leaders can make it easier for those important conversations to happen. Key Points In one study of managers, most people admitted to remaining silent with their bosses and nearly 75% said colleagues also felt uncomfortable speaking up. Meet people on their own turf. Others are more likely to speak up if they are in a setting that's more comfortable for them. Leaders should consider shifting timing and/or medium to one that's of the preference for the person who doesn't have power. Explain why you're asking about a topic and your intention for a conversation at the start. Providing context prevents people from having to guess at your agenda. Set a mutual agenda for a conversation by asking a question like, “In addition to this, what else should be part of our conversation today?” Establish a tone for open communicating by radiating resilience. Words like these might help: “If I were in your shoes, I might be feeling frustrated or even resentful. If that's how you're feeling, I would understand completely. Please don't hold back.” Resources Mentioned Ask: Tap Into the Hidden Wisdom of People Around You for Unexpected Breakthroughs in Leadership and Life* by Jeff Wetzler Interview Notes Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required). Related Episodes How to Ask Better Questions, with David Marquet (episode 454) The Way Out of Major Conflict, with Amanda Ripley (episode 529) How to Grow From Your Errors, with Amy Edmondson (episode 663) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

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