Podcasts about Peter Drucker

This episode is brought to you by https://www.ElevateOS.com —the only all-in-one community operating system.Are you managing… or are you leading?In this episode of the Multifamily Collective, we explore one of Peter Drucker's most powerful ideas:"Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things."Here's the truth—great operators know how to execute.They tick boxes, follow routines, and keep the machine running. That's management.But great leaders?They challenge the machine.They know when to question the system……and when to rewire it.Mike shares how real leadership is an art.It's seeing the long arc—past, present, and future—and making decisions that pull your organization forward.Even when the path isn't clear.Even when the data only gets you 40% of the way.If you're leading in Multifamily, this episode is your reminder:Sometimes, the checklist isn't enough.Sometimes, you have to trust your gut.Like this if you've ever felt that tension.Subscribe if you're committed to doing the right things in your leadership journey.For more engaging content, explore our offerings at the[https://www.multifamilycollective.com](https://www.multifamilycollective.com/) and the [https://www.multifamilymedianetwork.com](https://www.multifamilymedianetwork.com/)Join us to stay informed and inspired in the multifamily industry!

In our eighth episode of the season, Clay Adams, President & CEO of Mascoma Bank (NH), joins Vin, Zach, and Joe Kennerson. The guys dig into Clay's background in the private sector and on the Mascoma Board before emerging as the bank's CEO, Peter Drucker and Daniel Pink, the role of AI and stablecoins in banking's future, and how Mascoma Bank created its own SaaS platform (“Stratum”) designed to modernize the technological environment of financial institutions.For more insights and ideas, visit DCG at DarlingConsulting.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” business guru Peter Drucker once said. If that's true in business, how much more in the Church? God's vision is not merely to save individuals but to form a new people with a new way of life—a gospel culture marked by humility, gentleness, patience, and radical love. This is the heart of Ephesians: the Church is where God's love becomes visible, where the beauty of Jesus is displayed in our life together, and where, by the Spirit, His mission moves into the world. Join us this Sunday as we begin our journey through Ephesians. Pray that God would enliven us together as we grasp more deeply the gospel and are shaped into a gospel culture that makes the beauty of Jesus visible to a world desperate for His hope.

Business Lessons from the Movies - The Founder & the Start of McDonalds   - AZ TRT S06 EP13 (275) 7-27-2025              What We Learned This Week: Speedee Service System - assembly line approach invents the fast-food industry, replicated to this day What Business Are You In? - McDonald's is a Real Estate Company w/ an estimated $42B in Real Estate Holdings It's the Name, McDonald's - Branding - from The Founder McDonald's is the New American Church - Positioning     Notes: Seg. 1 The Founder What Business are you in? – McD in real estate biz, largest in US Power of the Name – branding, McDonalds is New American Church Systems – Speedee System, speed and lean, like a factory in the kitchen Bonus * - Perseverance – Kroc was 52 when he met McDonalds brothers, selling milk shake machines         You're not in the burger business you're in the real estate business. You don't build an empire selling $.15 hamburgers. You build an empire on the land that those hamburgers are made of. Power of the name, branding, McDonald's is the new American church on main street. A vision of a wholesome America, families go to eat share values. Branding see that name lit up on the sign. McDonald's sounds like America. Would you eat at a place named Crocs? Guy eats at McDonald's he's never going to get pushed around. Great book on McDonald's, and the industry called Fast Food Nation by Eric S   Speedee system, bring factory component to a kitchen. Redesign a kitchen for speed and efficiency, orders in 30 seconds like a conveyor belt. No plates all paper throw it away when done. You have a service window people walk up and get their food immediately. The idea of being is to go lean. Initially there was a learning curve with customers but soon it caught on and it was the model for all fast food restaurants. They did practice runs to test their system with no customers see it in action and let the data dictate how the plan should be.   https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+founder+movie+clips   ** Clips from past show: Moneyball, Boiler Room, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Founder - Business Lessons from the Movies - BRT S03 EP42 (141) 8-28-2022   Full Show: HERE       Seg. 2 The Founder, the story of Ray Kroc and McDonald's.   What Business Are You In? - McDonalds is a Real Estate Company   Replay Clip from 2/9/20, where Matt talks about the biggest franchise of all, and what their real business model is. McDonalds has built a business empire thru Real Estate, not burgers.  The Dollar Menu is designed to get customers in the door. McDonalds loses $ when people purchase from the dollar menu, it is a Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). This is also called a ‘Loss Leader', selling a product at a low cost to get customers. McDonalds then makes money when people buy more, and off return business. McDonalds is one of the biggest Real Estate companies in the world. The stock is valued on the $37 Billion in Real Estate they own. They make money as a landlord, because the franchisee is their tenant. The Founder – business movie biography of Ray Kroc. Kroc started as a milk shake salesmen to the McDonalds brothers in California, then went on to create the franchise system we know today. The first President of McDonalds Franchise (Harry Sonneborn) helped Kroc create the real estate model that the franchise was base on, and used to scale to a billion $ company. Internally McDonalds used the Brother's Speedee Service System created pre-Kroc. The Question ‘What Business Are You In?' comes from business consultant Peter Drucker. Business owners need to understand what problem or service they really offer their customers. Ie – Starbucks is in the Customer Experience business, not coffee, but the atmosphere of drinking the coffee     ** Clips from past show: McDonalds, Apple, Disruption, 80/20 - Best of Host Matt on Business Topics - BRT S03 EP10 (109) 3-6-2022   Full Show: HERE         Investing Shows: https://brt-show.libsyn.com/category/Investing-Stocks-Bonds-Retirement    ‘Best Of' Topic: https://brt-show.libsyn.com/category/Best+of+BRT      Thanks for Listening. Please Subscribe to the AZ TRT Podcast.     AZ Tech Roundtable 2.0 with Matt Battaglia The show where Entrepreneurs, Top Executives, Founders, and Investors come to share insights about the future of business.  AZ TRT 2.0 looks at the new trends in business, & how classic industries are evolving.  Common Topics Discussed: Startups, Founders, Funds & Venture Capital, Business, Entrepreneurship, Biotech, Blockchain / Crypto, Executive Comp, Investing, Stocks, Real Estate + Alternative Investments, and more…    AZ TRT Podcast Home Page: http://aztrtshow.com/ ‘Best Of' AZ TRT Podcast: Click Here Podcast on Google: Click Here Podcast on Spotify: Click Here                    More Info: https://www.economicknight.com/azpodcast/ KFNX Info: https://1100kfnx.com/weekend-featured-shows/     Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the Hosts, Guests and Speakers, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent (or affiliates, members, managers, employees or partners), or any Station, Podcast Platform, Website or Social Media that this show may air on. All information provided is for educational and entertainment purposes. Nothing said on this program should be considered advice or recommendations in: business, legal, real estate, crypto, tax accounting, investment, etc. Always seek the advice of a professional in all business ventures, including but not limited to: investments, tax, loans, legal, accounting, real estate, crypto, contracts, sales, marketing, other business arrangements, etc.  

Alfredo Ocampo Zamorano es un destacado poeta, científico social e investigador académico colombiano-estadounidense, nacido en Cali en 1930. Su trayectoria abarca la literatura, las ciencias sociales y la docencia universitaria, con una notable presencia tanto en Colombia como en el ámbito internacional. Doctor en Ciencias Jurídicas y Económicas por la Universidad Javeriana (1957). MBA dirigido por Peter Drucker en la Universidad del Valle (1966). Ph.D. en Sociología de la Universidad de Columbia, Nueva York (1972), donde estudió bajo la tutela de reconocidos académicos como Lucien Goldman, Inmanuel Wallerstein y Robert Merton. Ha desempeñado roles como profesor e investigador en diversas instituciones, incluyendo la Universidad del Valle, la Universidad Javeriana y la Tulane University en Nueva Orleans. Además, ha sido consultor para el Banco de la República y ha trabajado en investigaciones sobre líderes de opinión en Colombia. Como poeta bilingüe, Ocampo Zamorano escribe en inglés y español. Entre sus obras más destacadas se encuentran: Poemas Reunidos (1974), que le valió el Primer Premio Nacional de Poesía de Colcultura en 1973. La Savia Sin Nombre (1975). Bitácora, año dos mil (2002). Desde las mil colinas de Ruanda (2008). Farewell: Poems in American-English, 1995–1999. También ha sido galardonado con el Premio Nacional de Poesía en el Año Internacional de la Mujer (1976) y recibió una mención de honor en el Premio Nacional de Poesía Alférez Real (1989). unto a la poeta Guiomar Cuesta Escobar, fundó Apidama Ediciones, una editorial dedicada a promover la poesía afrocolombiana y la literatura escrita por mujeres. Han compilado antologías como ¡Negras Somos! y Poesía colombiana del siglo XX escrita por mujeres, contribuyendo significativamente a la visibilización de voces tradicionalmente marginadas en la literatura colombiana. El 4 de septiembre de 2023, Alfredo Ocampo Zamorano fue nombrado miembro honorario de una academia, destacando su invaluable contribución a la literatura y las ciencias sociales. Su vida y obra reflejan un compromiso profundo con la poesía, la investigación social y la promoción de la diversidad cultural, consolidándolo como una figura influyente en el panorama intelectual colombiano e internacional.

“Manager and leader”? What's the difference. During my conversation this time with Scott Hanton, our guest, we will discuss this very point along with many other fascinating and interesting subjects. As Scott tells us at the beginning of this episode he grew up asking “why” about most anything you can think of. He always was a “why” asker. As he tells it, unlike many children who grow out of the phase of asking “why” he did not. He still asks “why” to this very day.   At the age of 13 Scott decided that he wanted to be a chemist. He tells us how this decision came about and why he has always stayed with it. Scott received his bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Michigan State and his PHD from the University of Wisconsin. Again, why he changed schools for his PHD work is an interesting story. As you will see, Scott tells stories in a unique and quite articulate way.   After his university days were over Scott went to work, yes as a chemist. He tells us about this and how after 20 years with one company how and why he moved to another company and somewhat out of constant lab work into some of the management, business and leadership side of a second company. He stayed there for ten years and was laid off during the pandemic. Scott then found employment as the editorial director of Lab Management Magazine where he got to bring his love of teaching to the forefront of his work.   My hour with Scott gives us all many insights into management, leadership and how to combine the two to create a strong teaming environment. I believe you will find Scott's thoughts extremely poignant and helpful in everything that you do.     About the Guest:   Scott Hanton is the Editorial Director of Lab Manager. He spent 30 years as a research chemist, lab manager, and business leader at Air Products and Intertek. Scott thrives on the challenges of problem-solving. He enjoys research, investigation, and collaboration. Scott is a people-centric, servant leader. He is motivated by developing environments where people can grow and succeed, and crafting roles for people that take advantage of their strengths.   Scott earned a BS in chemistry from Michigan State University and a PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is an active member of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the American Society of Mass Spectrometry (ASMS), and the Association of Lab Managers (ALMA). As a scientist Scott values curiosity, innovation, progress, and delivery of results. Scott has always been motivated by questions beginning with why. Studying physical chemistry in graduate school offered the opportunity to hone answers to these questions. As a professional scientist, Scott worked in analytical chemistry specializing in MALDI mass spectrometry and polymer characterization.   At Scott married his high school sweetheart, and they have one son. Scott is motivated by excellence, happiness, and kindness. He most enjoys helping people and solving problems. Away from work, Scott enjoys working outside in the yard, playing strategy games, and participating in different discussion groups.   Scott values having a growth mindset and is a life-long learner. He strives to learn something new everyday and from everyone. One of the great parts of being a trained research scientist is that failure really isn't part of his vocabulary. He experiments and either experiences success or learns something new. He values both individual and organizational learning.   Scott's current role at Lab Manager encompasses three major responsibilities: ·      Writing articles and giving presentations to share his experience with lab managers. ·      Driving the creation and growth of the Lab Manager Academy (https://labmanageracademy.com/) that currently contains three certificate programs: lab management, lab safety management, and lab quality management. ·      Helping people through his knowledge of science, scientists, management, and leadership. He is very happy sharing the accumulated wisdom of his experiences as a researcher, lab supervisor, and lab manager. Each article posted on Lab Manager addresses a decision that a lab manager needs to make. Lab management is full of decision-making, so helping people make better, faster, more complete decisions is very satisfying. Ways to connect with Scott:   https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-hanton/   About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Well, welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion diversity and the unexpected meet, and mostly we get to deal with the unexpected, as opposed to inclusion or diversity. But that's okay, because unexpected is what makes life fun, and our guest today, Scott Hanton, will definitely be able to talk about that. Scott has been a research chemist. He comes from the chemistry world, so he and I in the past have compared notes, because, of course, I come from the physics world, and I love to tell people that the most important thing I learned about physics was that, unlike Doc Brown, although I do know how to build a bomb, unlike Doc Brown from Back to the Future, I'm not dumb enough to try to go steal fissionable material from a terrorist group to build the bomb. So, you know, I suppose that's a value, value lesson somewhere. But anyway, I am really glad that you're all here with us today, and we have lots to talk about. Scott, as I said, was in chemistry and research chemist, and now is the editorial supervisor and other things for a magazine called lab manager, and we will talk about that as well. So Scott, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're glad   Scott Hanton ** 02:38 you're here. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to have this conversation with you today.   Michael Hingson ** 02:43 Well, I think it'll be a lot of fun, and looking forward to it. Now, you're in Michigan, right?   Scott Hanton ** 02:48 That's right. I live in South Lyon, Michigan,   Michael Hingson ** 02:51 ah, what's the weather back there today?   Scott Hanton ** 02:55 It's probably about 55 degrees and cloudy   Michael Hingson ** 02:58 here today. Well, it's still fairly sunny here, and we're actually, according to my iPhone, at 71 so it was up around 80 earlier in the week, but weather changes are still going to bring some cold for a while   Scott Hanton ** 03:15 in here in Michigan, I visited a customer earlier this week, and I drove by about 1000 orange barrels on the highway, which means it's spring, because there's only two seasons in Michigan, winter and construction.   Michael Hingson ** 03:29 There you go. Yeah, I know. I went to the University of California, Irvine, UCI. And if you ask somebody who doesn't know that UCI stands for University of California at Irvine. If you ask them what UCI stands for, they'll tell you, under construction indefinitely. Sounds right? Yeah. Well, it's been doing it ever since I was there a long time ago, and they they continue to grow. Now we're up to like 32,000 fresh, or excuse me, undergraduates at the university. And when I was there, there were 2700 students. So it's grown a little. That's   Scott Hanton ** 04:05 a lot of change. I'm used to big universities. I'm a graduate of both Michigan State and the University of Wisconsin. So these are big places.   Michael Hingson ** 04:13 Wow, yeah. So you're used to it. I really enjoyed it when it was a small campus. I'm glad I went there, and that was one of the reasons that caused me to go there, was because I knew I could probably get a little bit more visibility with instructors, and that would be helpful for me to get information when they didn't describe things well in class. And it generally worked out pretty well. So I can't complain a lot. Perfect. Glad it worked well for you, it did. Well, why don't you start, if you would, by telling us kind of about the early Scott growing up and all that sort of stuff.   Scott Hanton ** 04:49 I grew up in Michigan, in a town called Saginaw. I was blessed with a family that loved me and that, you know, I was raised in a very. Supportive environment. But young Scott asked, Why about everything you know, the way kids do? Yeah, right. And my mom would tell you that when I was a kid, why was my most favorite word? And most kids outgrow that. I never did, yeah, so Me neither. I still ask why all the time. It's still my most favorite word, and it caused me to want to go explore the sciences, because what I found, as I learned about science, was that I could get answers to why questions better in science than in other places.   Michael Hingson ** 05:34 Yeah, makes sense. So what kinds of questions did you ask about why? Well, I asked   Scott Hanton ** 05:43 all kinds of questions about why, like, why are we having that for dinner? Or, why is my bedtime so early? Those questions didn't have good answers, at least from my perspective, right? But I also asked questions like, why is grass green, and why is the sky blue? And studying physical chemistry at Michigan State answered those questions. And so   Michael Hingson ** 06:03 how early did you learn about Rayleigh scattering? But that's you know?   Scott Hanton ** 06:07 Well, I learned the basic concepts from a really important teacher in my life, Mr. Leeson was my seventh grade science teacher, and what I learned from him is that I could ask questions that weren't pertinent to what he was lecturing about, and that taught me a lot about the fact that science was a lot bigger than what we got in the curriculum or in the classroom. And so Mr. Leeson was a really important person in my development, and showed me that there was that science was a lot bigger than I thought it was as a student, but I didn't really learn about rally scattering until I got to college.   Michael Hingson ** 06:43 But at the same time, it sounds like he was willing to allow you to grow and and learn, which so many people aren't willing to do. They're too impatient.   Scott Hanton ** 06:58 He was a first year teacher the year I had him so he hadn't become cynical yet. So it was great to just be able to stay after class and ask him a question, or put my hand up in class and ask him a question. He also did a whole series of demonstrations that were fabulous and made the science come to life in a way that reading about it doesn't stir the imagination. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 07:23 I had teachers that did that too. I remember very well my freshman general science teacher in high school, Mr. Dills, and one day, and he loved to do kind of unique things, just to push the boundaries of students a little bit. He came in one day and he said, I got a pop quiz for everybody, which doesn't help me, because the pop quiz was in print, but he handed it out. And then he took me to the back of the room, and he said, You're not going to really be able to do this quiz. Let me tell you why. And he said, Oh, and one thing he said is, just be sure you follow all the instructions and you'll be fine on the test to everybody. He brought me back to the back of the room. He says, Well, here's the deal. He says, if people really read the instructions, what they'll do is they'll read the instruction that says, Read all the questions before you start answering, and if you get to the last question, it says answer only the first question, which is what is your name and and sure enough, of course, people didn't read the instructions. And he said, so I wouldn't be able to really deal with you with that one, with that whole thing, just because it wouldn't work well. And I said, I understand, but he loved to make students think, and I learned so much about the whole concept of realizing the need to observe and be observant in all that you do. And it was lessons like that from him that really helped a lot with that. For me,   Scott Hanton ** 08:48 I had a high school chemistry teacher named Mrs. Schultz, and the first experiment that we did in her class, in the first week of classes, was she wanted us to document all of the observations that we could make about a burning candle. And I was a hot shot student. Thought I, you know, owned the world, and I was going to ace this test. And, you know, I had maybe a dozen observations about a burning candle, and thought I had done a great job describing it, until she started sharing her list, and she probably had 80 observations about a burning candle, and it taught me the power of observation and the need to talk about the details of those observations and to be specific about what the observations were. And that experiment seems simple, light a candle and tell me what you see. Yeah, but that lesson has carried on with me now for more than approaching 50 years.   Michael Hingson ** 09:47 Let's see, as I recall, if you light a candle, what the center of the flame is actually pretty cool compared to the outside. It's more hollow. Now I wouldn't be able to easily tell that, because. Is my my process for observing doesn't really use eyesight to do that, so I I'm sure there are other technologies today that I could use to get more of that information. But   Scott Hanton ** 10:12 I'm also sure that that experiment could be re crafted so that it wasn't so visual, yeah, right, that there could be tactile experiments to tell me about observations or or audible experiments about observation, where you would excel in ways that I would suffer because I'm so visually dominant. The   Michael Hingson ** 10:33 issue, though, is that today, there's a lot more technology to do that than there was when I was in school and you were in school, but yeah, I think there is a lot available. There's a company called Independence Science, which is actually owned and run by Dr Cary sapollo. And Carrie is blind, and he is a blind chemist, and he wanted to help develop products for blind people to be able to deal with laboratory work. So he actually worked with a company that was, well, it's now Vernier education systems. They make a product called LabQuest with something like 80 different kinds of probes that you can attach to it, and the LabQuest will will provide visual interpretations of whatever the probes are showing carry, and independent science took that product and made it talk, so that There is now a Talking LabQuest. And the reality is that all those probes became usable because the LabQuest became accessible to be able to do that, and they put a lot of other things into it too. So it's more than just as a talking device, a lab device. It's got a periodic table in it. It's got a lot of other kinds of things that they just put in it as well. But it's really pretty cool because it now makes science a whole lot more accessible. I'm going to have to think about the different kinds of probes and how one could use that to look at a candle. I think that'd be kind of fun.   Scott Hanton ** 12:15 And it's just awesome to hear that there's innovation and space to make science more available to everybody. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 12:23 the real problem that we face is the one that we mostly always have faced, which is societal attitudes, as opposed to really being or not being able to do the experiments, is people think we can't, and that's the barrier that we always, usually have to overcome.   Scott Hanton ** 12:39 What I find in my time as a coach, mentor, supervisor, is that if somebody believes they can't do it, they can't do it. Yeah. And so it's often about overcoming their own mental limitations, the limitations that they've placed on themselves,   Michael Hingson ** 12:56 and that's right, or unfortunately, the limitations that other people place on us, and we, all too often and weigh too much, buy into those limitations. So it's it is something that we, especially in the sciences, should recognize that we shouldn't be doing so much of. I know that when I was at UC Irvine as a graduate student, I learned once that there was a letter in my file that a professor wrote. Fortunately, I never had him as a professor, but it and I was in my master's program at the time in physics, and this guy put a letter in my file saying that no blind person could ever absorb the material to get an advanced degree in physics at the University. Just put that in there, which is so unfortunate, because the real thing that is demonstrated there is a prejudice that no scientist should ever have.   Scott Hanton ** 13:51 I'm hopeful that as you graduated, there was a retraction letter in your file as well,   Michael Hingson ** 13:57 not that I ever heard, but yeah. Well, I'd already gotten my bachelor's degree, but yeah. But you know, things happen, but it is a it is a societal thing, and society all too often creates limitations, and sometimes we don't find them right away, but it is one of the big issues that, in general, we have to deal with. And on all too often, society does some pretty strange things because it doesn't understand what science is all about. I know when we were dealing with covid, when it all started, leaving the conspiracy theorists out of it. One of the things that I learned was that we have all these discussions about AI, if you will. But AI was one of the primary mechanisms that helped to develop the mRNA vaccines that are now still the primary things that we use to get vaccinated against covid, because they the artificial intelligence. I'm not sure how artificial. It is, but was able to craft what became the vaccine in a few days. And scientists acknowledged, if they had to do it totally on their own, it would take years to have done what AI did in a few days.   Scott Hanton ** 15:13 The AI technology is amazing and powerful, but it's not new. No, I met a person who shared her story about AI investigations and talked about what she was doing in this field 30 years ago. Yeah, in her master's work. And you know, I knew it wasn't brand new, but I didn't really realize how deep its roots went until I talked to her.   Michael Hingson ** 15:37 I worked as my first jobs out of college with Ray Kurzweil, who, of course, nowadays, is well known for the singularity and so on. But back then, he developed the first reading machine that blind people could use to read printed material. And one of the things that he put into that machine was the ability, as it scanned more material, to learn and better recognize the material. And so he was doing machine learning back in the 1970s   Scott Hanton ** 16:07 right? And all of this is, you know, as Newton said on the shoulders of giants, right, right? He said it a bit cynically, but it's still true that we all in science, we are learning from each other. We're learning from the broader community, and we're integrating that knowledge as we tackle the challenges that we are exploring.   Michael Hingson ** 16:27 So what got you to go into chemistry when you went into college?   Scott Hanton ** 16:33 That's a good question. So when I was 13 years old, I went on a youth a church group youth trip to another city, and so they split us up, and there were three of us from our group that stayed overnight in a host family. And at dinner that night, the father worked in a pharmaceutical company, and he talked about the work he was doing, and what he was doing was really synthetic chemistry around small molecule drug discovery. And for me, it was absolutely fascinating. I was thrilled at that information. I didn't know any scientists growing up, I had no adult input other than teachers about science, and I can remember going back home and my parents asking me how the trip went. And it's like, it's fantastic. I'm going to be a chemist. And they both looked at me like, what is that? How do you make money from it? How do you get that? My dad was a banker. My mom was a school teacher. They had no scientific background, but that that one conversation, such serendipity, right? One conversation when I was 13 years old, and I came home and said, I'm going to be a chemist, and I've never really deviated from that path. Did you have other siblings? Younger brother and another younger sister?   Michael Hingson ** 17:54 Okay? Did they go into science by any remote chance?   Scott Hanton ** 17:58 Not at all. So they were both seventh grade teachers for more than 30 years. So my brother taught math and English, and my sister teaches social studies.   Michael Hingson ** 18:10 Well, there you go. But that is also important. I actually wanted to teach physics, but jobs and other things and circumstances took me in different directions, but I think the reality is that I ended up going into sales. And what I realized, and it was partly because of a Dale Carnegie sales course I took, but I realized that good sales people are really teachers, because they're really teaching people about products or about things, and they're also sharp enough to recognize what their products might or might not do to help a customer. But that, again, not everyone does that, but so I figure I still was teaching, and today, being a public speaker, traveling the world, talking, of course, about teamwork and other things, it's still all about teaching.   Scott Hanton ** 18:57 I think I've always been a teacher, and if you talk to my coworkers along the way, I enjoy helping people. I enjoy sharing my knowledge. There's always been a teacher inside but only in this job as the editorial director at lab manager have I really been able to do it directly. So we've developed what we call the lab manager Academy, and I create e learning courses to help lab managers be more successful, and it's been a passion project for me, and it's been a load of fun.   Michael Hingson ** 19:30 And it doesn't get better than that. It's always great when it's a load of fun, yes,   Scott Hanton ** 19:35 well, so you left college and you got a bachelor's and a master's degree, right? No masters for me, that step you went right to the old PhD, yeah. So I went straight. I went graduated from Michigan State. So Michigan State was on terms back in those days. So graduated in June, got married in July, moved to Wisconsin in August. To graduate school at the end of August at the University of Wisconsin. Okay? And my second year as a graduate student, my professor asked me, Do you want to stop and complete a master's? And I said, Wait, tell me about this word stop. And he said, Well, you'd have to finish the Master's requirements and write a thesis, and that's going to take some time. And I said, Do I have to and he said, No, and I don't recommend it. Just keep going forward and finish your PhD. So that's   Michael Hingson ** 20:30 and what does your wife do?   Scott Hanton ** 20:33 So my wife also is in the graduate program at the University of Wisconsin, and she decided that a master's degree was the right answer for her, because she didn't want to be a PhD scientist in XYZ narrow band of science. She wanted to be a master of chemistry. Okay, and so we took different paths through graduate school, but each of us took the path that worked best for us, and each pass has great value, so we're both happy with the choices that we made,   Michael Hingson ** 21:06 and complement each other and also give you, still lots of great things to talk about over dinner.   Scott Hanton ** 21:12 Absolutely. And she took that master's degree, went into the pharmaceutical industry and largely behaved as a librarian in her first part of her career, she wasn't called a librarian, but what she really did was a lot of information integrating, and then moved into the Library Group, and was a corporate librarian for a long time, and then a community librarian. So that path worked brilliantly for her. She also has a Masters of Library Science. So I have one PhD. She has two Master's degree. I have one bachelor's degree. She has two bachelor's degree.   Michael Hingson ** 21:50 Oh, so you can have interesting discussions about who really progressed further,   21:54 absolutely.   Michael Hingson ** 21:57 Well, that's, that's, that's cute, though. Well, I I got my bachelor's and master's. My wife, who I didn't meet until years later, wanted to be a librarian, but she ended up getting a a Master's at USC in so in sociology and and ended up getting a teaching credential and going into teaching, and taught for 10 years, and then she decided she wanted to do something different, and became a travel agent, which she had a lot of fun with. That is different, it is, but she enjoyed it, and along the way, then we got married. It was a great marriage. She was in a wheelchair her whole life. So she read, I pushed, worked out well, complimentary skills, absolutely, which is the way, way it ought to be, you know, and we had a lot of fun with it. Unfortunately, she passed now two and a half years ago, but as I tell people, we were married 40 years, and I'm sure she's monitoring me from somewhere, and if I misbehave, I'm going to hear about it, so I try to just behave. Sounds like good advice. Yeah, probably certainly the safe way to go. But we, we, we had lots of neat discussions, and our our activities and our expertise did, in a lot of ways, complement each other, so it was a lot of fun. And as I said, she went to USC. I enjoyed listening to USC football because I thought that that particular college team had the best announcers in the business, least when when I was studying in Southern California, and then when we got married, we learned the the day we got married, the wedding was supposed to start at four, and it didn't start till later because people weren't showing up for the wedding. And we learned that everybody was sitting out in their cars waiting for the end of the USC Notre Dame game. And we knew that God was on our side when we learned that SC beat the snot out of Notre Dame. So there you go. Yeah. Yeah. Oh gosh, the rivalries we face. So what did you do after college?   Scott Hanton ** 24:09 So did my PhD at the University of Wisconsin. And one of the nice things, a fringe benefit of going to a big, important program to do your PhD, is that recruiters come to you. And so I was able to do 40 different, four, zero, 40 different interviews on campus without leaving Madison. And one of those interviews was with a company called Air Products. And that worked out, and they hired me. And so we moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania to go to work. I went to work at Air Products and and Helen found a role in the pharmaceutical industry at Merck. And so we did that for a long time. I was initially a research expert, a PhD expert doing lasers and materials and analytical stuff. And over the years. I progressed up the ladder from researcher to supervisor to what did we call it, group head to Section Manager, to operations manager, and ultimately to General Manager.   Michael Hingson ** 25:13 Well, at least being in Allentown, you were close to a Cracker Barrel restaurant. Yes, that is true. That was the closest to one to where we lived in New Jersey, so we visited it several times. That's how I know   Scott Hanton ** 25:26 about it. Maybe we were there at the same time. Michael, maybe this isn't our first. It's   Michael Hingson ** 25:31 very possible. But we enjoyed Cracker Barrel and enjoyed touring around Pennsylvania. So I should have asked, What prompted you to go to the University of Wisconsin to do your your graduate work, as opposed to staying in Michigan. So   Scott Hanton ** 25:47 my advisor at Michigan State, our advisor at Michigan State, told us, here's the top five schools, graduate programs in chemistry, apply to them all. Go to the one you get into. And so I got into three. Helen got into two. The one that was the same was Wisconsin. So that's where we went, yeah?   Michael Hingson ** 26:09 Well, then no better logic and argument than that.   Scott Hanton ** 26:14 It was a great Madison. Wisconsin is a beautiful city. It one of the things I really liked about the chemistry program there then, and it's still true now, is how well the faculty get along together so many collaborative projects and just friendliness throughout the hallways. And yes, they are all competing at some level for grant support, but they get along so well, and that makes it for a very strong community,   Michael Hingson ** 26:41 and it probably also means that oftentimes someone who's applying for something can enlist support from other people who are willing to help.   Scott Hanton ** 26:50 And as a graduate student, it meant that I had more than one professor that I could go to my advisor. There was a whole group of advisors who ran joint group meetings and would give us advice about our work or our writing or our approach, or just because we needed a pep talk, because completing a PhD is hard. Yeah, right, so that community was really important to me, and it's something I took away that when I started my industrial career, I had seen the value of community, and I wanted to build stronger communities wherever I went, yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 27:26 So what does a company, does air products do   Scott Hanton ** 27:31 that's sort of in the name, right? They're an industrial gas company. Got some of their big, biggest products are taking air and separating it into its components of nitrogen, oxygen, oxygen, argon, whatever, right? But at that time, they also had a chemicals business and a semiconductor business, or electronics business. So there was a lot of chemistry going on, although a lot of my work colleagues were chemical engineers who were working on the gasses side of the business, we had significant number of chemistry, sorts material science, sorts of people who are working on the chemicals side. Now, over time, Air Products divested those businesses, and now it's much more of a true industrial gas company. But I had the opportunity to work in an integrated science company that did all sorts of things.   Michael Hingson ** 28:23 Yeah, and as as we know, certainly a little helium never hurt anyone.   Scott Hanton ** 28:30 No little helium, you know, raises people's spirits, it   Michael Hingson ** 28:34 does and their voices, it does. I I've visited helium tanks many times at UC Irvine when they had liquid helium, which was certainly a challenge because of how cold it had to be. But occasionally we would open a valve and little cold but useful helium gas would escape   Scott Hanton ** 28:56 very cold. Please be safe. Cryogens are are dangerous materials, and we gotta make sure we handle them with due respect.   Michael Hingson ** 29:05 Yeah, well, we, we all did and and didn't take too many chances. So it worked out pretty well. So you stayed in Allentown and you stayed with Air Products for how long   Scott Hanton ** 29:19 I was in Air Products for 20 years. So the analytical group that I was part of, we were about 92 or 93 people when I joined the company, when I just left after earning my PhD. After 20 years, that group was down to about 35 just progressive series of decisions that made the department smaller, and as the Department got smaller and smaller, we were worried about our abilities to sustain our work. And so a dear friend and a key colleague, Paula McDaniel, and I, worked to try to see what other kind of opportunities there were. Yeah. And so we reached out to a contract research organization called Intertech to see if they would be interested in maybe acquiring our analytical department. And when we called them, and by the way, we called them before we talked to our boss about it, she forgave us later, but when we called the guy on the end of the phone said, Wait a minute, let me get your file. And it's like, what you have a file on Air Products, analytical, really? Why? Well, it turned out that they had a file, and that they had an active Merger and Acquisition Group, and they wanted an integrated analytical department on the east coast of the US. And so we engaged in negotiation, and ultimately this analytical department was sold by Air Products to Intertech. So on Friday, we're a little cog in a giant engine of an global, international company, and our funding comes from Vice Presidents. And on Monday, we're a standalone business of 35 people, we need to write quotes in order to make money. So it was an enormous challenge to transition from a service organization to a business. But oh my goodness, did we learn a lot,   Michael Hingson ** 31:13 certainly a major paradigm shift,   Scott Hanton ** 31:18 and I was lucky that I lost the coin flip, and Paula won, and she said, I want to be business development director. And I said, thank God. So she went off to be the key salesperson, and Paula was utterly brilliant as a technical salesperson, and I became the operations manager, which allowed me to keep my hands dirty with the science and to work with the scientists and to build a system and a community that allowed us to be successful in a CRO world.   Michael Hingson ** 31:49 So at that time, when you became part, part of them, the new company, were you or the standalone business? Were you working in lab? Still yourself?   Scott Hanton ** 32:01 Yes. So I had the title Operations Manager and all of the scientific staff reported into me, but I was still the technical expert in some mass spectrometry techniques, particularly MALDI and also tough Sims, and so I still had hands on lab responsibility that I needed to deliver. And over time, I was able to train some people to take some of those responsibilities off. But when the weight of the world was particularly heavy, the place for me to go was in the lab and do some experiments.   Michael Hingson ** 32:34 Yeah, still so important to be able to keep your hand in into to know and understand. I know I had that same sort of need being the manager of an office and oftentimes working with other people who were the engineers, coming from a little bit of a technical background as well. I worked to always make sure I knew all I could about the products that I was dealing with and selling, and my sales people who worked for me constantly asked, How come, you know, all this stuff, and we don't then, my response always was, did you read the product bulletin that came out last week? Or have you kept up on the product bulletins? Because it's all right there, whether I actually physically repaired products or not, I knew how to do it. And so many times when I was involved in working with some of our engineers, I remember a few times our field support people, and we were working out of New Jersey, and then in New York at the time, in the World Trade Center, we had some customers up at Lockheed Martin, up in Syria, Rochester, I think it was. And the guys would go up, and then they'd call me on the phone, and we'd talk about it, and between us, we came up with some bright ideas. And I remember one day, all of a sudden, I get this phone call, and these guys are just bouncing off the walls, because whatever it was that was going on between them and me, we figured it out, and they put it in play and made it work, and they were all just as happy as clams at high tide, which is the way it ought to   Scott Hanton ** 34:13 be. It's great to work in a team that finds success. The longer I was in technical management, the more I enjoyed the success of the team. It didn't need to be my success anymore that helping the scientists be successful in their roles was truly satisfying,   Michael Hingson ** 34:33 and that helped you, by definition, be more successful in your role.   Scott Hanton ** 34:36 And no question, it could be seen as a selfish byproduct, but the fact is that it still felt really good.   Michael Hingson ** 34:43 Yeah, I hear you, because I know for me, I never thought about it as I've got to be successful. It's we've got problems to solve. Let's do it together. And I always told people that we're a team. And I have told every salesperson. I ever hired. I'm not here to boss you around. You've convinced me that you should be able to sell our products, and sometimes I found that they couldn't. But I said my job is to work with you to figure out how I can enhance what you do, and what skills do I bring to add value to you, because we've got to work together, and the people who understood that and who got it were always the most successful people that I ever had in my teams.   Scott Hanton ** 35:30 One of the things I strive to do as a leader of any organization is to understand the key strengths of the people on the team and to try to craft their roles in such a way that they spend the majority of their time executing their strengths. Yeah. I've also discovered that when I truly investigate poor performance, there's often a correlation between poor performance and people working in their weaknesses. Yeah, and if we can shift those jobs, change those roles, make change happen so that people can work more often in their strengths, then good things happen.   Michael Hingson ** 36:07 And if you can bring some of your skills into the mix and augment what they do, so much the better.   Scott Hanton ** 36:16 Yeah, because I'm just another member of the team, my role is different, but I need to also apply my strengths to the problems and be wary of my weaknesses, because as the leader of the organization, my words carried undue weight. Yeah, and if, if I was speaking or acting in a space where I was weak, people would still do what I said, because I had the most authority, and that was just a lose, lose proposition   Michael Hingson ** 36:43 by any standard. And and when you, when you operated to everyone's strengths, it always was a win. Yep, which is so cool. So you went to Intertech, and how long were you there?   Scott Hanton ** 36:57 I was at Intertech for 10 years, and work I can if you know, for any listeners out there who work in the CRO world, it is a tough business. It is a grind working in that business, yeah? So it was a lot of long hours and testy customers and shortages of materials and equipment that was a hard a hard a hard road to plow,   Michael Hingson ** 37:22 yeah, yeah, it gets to be frustrating. Sometimes it's what you got to do, but it still gets to be frustrating gets to be a challenge. The best part   Scott Hanton ** 37:32 for me was I had a great team. We had senior and junior scientists. They were good people. They worked hard. They fundamentally, they cared about the outcomes. And so it was a great group of people to work with. But the contract lab business is a tough business. Yeah, so when covid came, you know, the pandemic settles in, all the restrictions are coming upon us. I was tasked as the General Manager of the business with setting up all the protocols, you know, how are we going to meet the number of people this basing the masks, you know, how could we work with and we were essential as a lab, so we had to keep doing what we were doing. And it took me about a week to figure non stop work to figure out what our protocols were going to be, and the moment I turned them into my boss, then I got laid off. So what you want to do in a time of crisis is you want to let go of the the general manager, the safety manager, the quality manager and the Chief Scientist, because those are four people that you don't need during times of stress or challenge or crisis. On the plus side for me, getting laid off was a bad hour. It hurt my pride, but after an hour, I realized that all the things that I'd been stressing about for years trying to run this business were no longer my problem. Yeah, and I found that it was a tremendous weight lifted off my shoulders to not feel responsible for every problem and challenge that that business had.   Michael Hingson ** 39:14 And that's always a good blessing when you when you figure that out and don't worry about the the issues anymore. That's a good thing. It was certainly   Scott Hanton ** 39:25 good for me. Yeah, so I'm not going to recommend that people go get laid off. No world to get fired. But one problem that I had is because Paula and I worked to create that business, I sort of behaved like an owner, but was treated like an employee. And my recommendation to people is, remember, you're an employee, find some personal boundaries that protect you from the stress of the business, because you're not going to be rewarded or treated like an owner.   Michael Hingson ** 39:58 Yeah, because you're not because. Or not.   Scott Hanton ** 40:01 So I got laid off. It was in the height of the pandemic. So, you know, I'm too busy of a human being to sort of sit in a rocking chair and watch the birds fly by. That's not my style or my speed. So I started a consulting business, and that was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed doing the consulting work, but I learned something really important about myself, and that's that while I can sell and I can be an effective salesperson, I don't like selling, and as a company of one, when I didn't sell, I didn't make any money, yeah, and so I needed to figure out something else to do, because I really hated selling, and I wasn't doing it. I was procrastinating, and that made the business be unpredictable and very choppy   Michael Hingson ** 40:51 in that company of one, that guy who was working for you wasn't really doing all that you wanted.   Scott Hanton ** 40:56 Exactly the Yeah, you know me as the founder, was giving me as the salesman, a poor performance review was not meeting objectives. So I had a long time volunteer relationship with lab manager magazine. I had been writing articles for them and speaking for them in webinars and in conferences for a long time, probably more than 10 years, I would say, and they asked me as a consultant to produce a a to a proposal to create the lab manager Academy. So the the founder and owner of the the company, the lab X Media Group, you really saw the value of an academy, and they needed it done. They needed it done. They couldn't figure it out themselves. So I wrote the proposal. I had a good idea of how to do it, but I was new to consulting, and I struggled with, how do I get paid for this? And I had four ideas, but I didn't like them, so I slept on it, and in the morning I had a fifth, which said, hire me full time. I sent in the proposal. An hour later, I had a phone call. A week later, I had a job, so that worked out fantastic. And I've really enjoyed my time at lab manager magazine. Great people, fun work. It's really interesting to me to be valued for what I know rather than for what I can do. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 42:23 the two relate. But still, it does need to be more about what you know, what you really bring, as opposed to what you can do, because what you can do in general probably is an offshoot of what you know.   Scott Hanton ** 42:38 So this gives me the opportunity to help lots of people. So on the outside of the company, I'm writing articles, creating courses, giving talks to help lab managers. Because I was a lab manager for a long time, yeah, over 20 years, and I know what those challenges are. I know how hard that job is, and I know how many decisions lab managers need to make, and it's wonderful to be able to share my experience and help them, and I am motivated to help them. So was it hard? Oh, go ahead, on the inside, I'm literally an internal subject matter expert, and so I can coach and teach and help my colleagues with what's the science? What do lab managers really think? How do we pitch this so that it resonates with lab managers, and I think that helps make all of our products better and more successful.   Michael Hingson ** 43:31 So was it hard? Well, I guess best way to put it is that, was it really hard to switch from being a scientist to being a lab manager and then going into being a subject matter expert and really out of the laboratory. So   Scott Hanton ** 43:48 people ask me all the time, Scott, don't you miss being in the lab and doing experiments? And my answer is, I miss being in the lab. And I do miss being in the lab. You know, on very stressful days at Intertech, I'd go in the lab and I'd do an experiment, yeah, because it was fun, and I had more control over the how the experiment was run and what I would learn from it than I did running a business. But the flip side of that is, I do experiments all the time. What I learned as the general manager of a business was the scientific method works. Let's data hypothesis. Let's figure out how to test it. Let's gather data, and let's see if the hypothesis stands or falls. And we ran a business that way, I think, pretty successfully. And even now, in in media and publishing, we still run experiments all the time. And it's kind of funny that most of my editorial colleagues that I work with, they think my favorite word is experiment. My favorite word is still why, but we talk all the time now about doing experiments, and that was a new thing for them, but now we can do continual improvement more in a more dedicated way, and we do it a lot faster. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 45:00 yeah. So what's the hardest thing you think about being a lab manager?   Scott Hanton ** 45:06 I think the hardest thing about let me answer that with two. I'm not going to be able to narrow it down to one, so I'll give you two. The first one is you transform, maybe one day to the next, from really being in control of your science and working with whether it's animals or rocks or electrons or chemicals, whatever you're working with, having a great degree of knowledge and a lot of control, and the next day, you're hurting cats. And so it's about that transition from having control over your destiny to influencing people to get the work done, and working with people instead of working with experiments, that's really hard. The second is, as a lab manager, there's endless decisions, and so combating decision fatigue is a big deal, and everybody in the lab depends upon you for the decisions you make. And it's not that every decision has to be perfect, you know, that's just a different failure mode if you try to make perfect decisions, but every decision needs to be made promptly. And as a scientist, I could always make more data in order to make a better decision, but as a lab manager, I would often only have maybe 40 or 50% of the data I wanted, and a decision had to be made. And getting comfortable making decisions in the face of uncertainty is really hard.   Michael Hingson ** 46:29 So certainly, being a lab manager or Well, dealing with managers in the way we're talking about it here, has to be very stressful. How do you how do you cope with the stress?   Scott Hanton ** 46:42 So I think ways to cope with the stress successfully is, first of all, you've got to take care of yourself. You know, we've all flown on airplanes, and what is the safety person in the aisle or on the video? Do oxygen masks will fall from the ceiling, and what do we do with them? We put them on before we help somebody else, right? We all know that. But in the workplace, especially as a manager, it's hard to remember that as we care for our team and try and take care of our team, there might not be enough time or energy or capacity left to take care of ourselves, but if we don't fill that gas tank every day doing something, then we can't help our team. And so one way to deal with the stress is to make sure that you take care of yourself. So   Michael Hingson ** 47:28 what do you do? How do you deal with that? So   Scott Hanton ** 47:31 for me, ways that I can reinvigorate is one. I like being outside and get my hands dirty. So I'm not really a gardener, but I call myself a yard dinner. So I grow grass and I grow flowers, and I trim trees, and I want to go outside, and I want to see immediate return on my effort, and I want it to be better than when I started. And it's good if I have to clean from under my fingernails when I'm doing it. Another thing I like to do is I play all kinds of games I'm happy to play, sorry, with little kids, or I'll play complicated strategy games with people who want to sit at a table for three or four hours at a time. Yeah? And that allows my brain to spin and to work but on something completely different. Yeah. And another thing that's been important for me, especially when I was a lab manager is to be involved in youth coaching, so I coached kids soccer and basketball and baseball teams, and it's just beautiful to be out there on a field with a ball, with kids. And you know, the worries of the world just aren't there. The kids don't know anything about them. And it's fun to work with the ones who are really good, but it's equally fun to work with the ones who have never seen the ball before, and to help them do even the most basic things. And that kind of giving back and paying it forward, that sort of stuff fills my tank.   Michael Hingson ** 48:51 Yeah, I empathize a lot with with that. For me, I like to read. I've never been much of a gardener, but I also collect, as I mentioned before, old radio shows, and I do that because I'm fascinated by the history and all the things I learned from what people did in the 2030s, 40s and 50s, being on radio, much Less getting the opportunity to learn about the technical aspects of how they did it, because today it's so different in terms of how one edits, how one processes and deals with sounds and so on, but it's but it's fun to do something just totally different than way maybe what your normal Job would be, and and I do love to interact with with people. I love to play games, too. I don't get to do nearly as much of it as I'd like, but playing games is, is a lot of fun,   Scott Hanton ** 49:52 and I agree, and it it's fun, it's diverting, it's it helps me get into a flow so that I'm focused on. Me on one thing, and I have no idea how much time has gone by, and I don't really care. You know, people who play games with me might question this. I don't really care if I win or lose. Certainly I want to win, but it's more important to me that I play well, and if somebody plays better, good for   Michael Hingson ** 50:14 them, great. You'll learn from it. Exactly. Do you play   Scott Hanton ** 50:18 chess? I have played chess. I've played a lot of chess. What I've learned with chess is that I'm not an excellent I'm a good player, but not an excellent player. And when I run into excellent players, they will beat me without even breaking a sweat.   Michael Hingson ** 50:34 And again, in theory, you learn something from that.   Scott Hanton ** 50:37 What I found is that I don't really want to work that hard and yeah. And so by adding an element of chance or probability to the game, the people who focus on chess, where there are known answers and known situations, they get thrown off by the uncertainty of the of the flip the card or roll the dice. And my brain loves that uncertainty, so I tend to thrive. Maybe it's from my time in the lab with elements of uncertainty, where the chess players wilt under elements of uncertainty, and it's again, it's back to our strengths, right? That's something that I'm good at, so I'm gonna go do it. I've   Michael Hingson ** 51:20 always loved Trivial Pursuit. That's always been a fun game that I enjoy playing. I   Scott Hanton ** 51:25 do love Trivial Pursuit. I watch Jeopardy regularly. A funny story, when we moved into our new house in Pennsylvania, it was a great neighborhood. Loved the neighbors there. When we first moved in, they invited my wife and I to a game night. Excellent. We love games. We're going to play Trivial Pursuit. Awesome like Trivial Pursuit. We're going to play as couples. Bad idea, right? Let's play boys against the girls, or, let's say, random draws. No, we're playing as couples. Okay, so we played as couples. Helen and I won every game by a large margin. We were never invited back for game night. Yeah, invited back for lots of other things, but not game night.   Michael Hingson ** 52:06 One of the things that, and I've talked about it with people on this podcast before, is that all too often, when somebody reads a question from a trivial pursuit card, an answer pops in your head, then you went, Oh, that was too easy. That can't be the right answer. So you think about it, and you answer with something else, but invariably, that first answer was always the correct answer.   Scott Hanton ** 52:32 Yes, I'm I have learned to trust my intuition. Yeah. I learned, as a research scientist, that especially in talking to some of my peers, who are very dogmatic, very step by step scientists. And they lay out the 20 steps to that they felt would be successful. And they would do one at a time, one through 20. And that made them happy for me, I do one and two, and then I'd predict where that data led me, and I do experiment number seven, and if it worked, I'm off to eight. And so I they would do what, one step at a time, one to 20, and I'd sort of do 127, 1420, yeah. And that I learned that that intuition was powerful and valuable, and I've learned to trust it. And in my lab career, it served me really well. But also as a manager, it has served me well to trust my intuition, and at least to listen to it. And if I need to analyze it, I can do that, but I'm going to listen to it,   Michael Hingson ** 53:31 and that's the important thing, because invariably, it's going to give you useful information, and it may be telling you not what to do, but still trusting it and listening to it is so important, I've found that a lot over the years,   Scott Hanton ** 53:47 Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called Blink, where he talks about the power of the subconscious, and his claim is that the subconscious is 100,000 times smarter than our conscious brain, and I think when we are trusting our intuition, we're tapping into that super computer that's in our skulls. If you want to learn more, read blank. It's a great story.   Michael Hingson ** 54:10 I hear you. I agree. How can people learn to be better leaders and managers?   Scott Hanton ** 54:18 So I think it's there's really three normal ways that people do this. One is the power of experiment, right? And I did plenty of that, and I made tons of errors. It's painful. It's irritating, trial and error, but I used to tell people at Intertech that I was the general manager because I'd made the most mistakes, which gave me the most opportunity to learn. It was also partly because a lot of my peers wanted nothing to do with the job. You know, they wanted to be scientists. Another way is we, we get coached and mentored by people around us, and that is awesome if you have good supervisors, and it's tragic if you have bad supervisors, because you don't know any better and you take for granted. That the way it's been done is the way it needs to be done, and that prevents us from being generative leaders and questioning the status quo. So there's problems there, too. And I had both good and bad supervisors during my career. I had some awful, toxic human beings who were my supervisors, who did damage to me, and then I had some brilliant, caring, empathetic people who raised me up and helped me become the leader that I am today. So it's a bit of a crap shoot. The third way is go out and learn it from somebody who's done it right, and that's why we generated the lab manager Academy to try to codify all the mistakes I made and what are the learnings from them? And when I'm talking with learners who are in the program, it's we have a huge positive result feedback on our courses. And what I talk to people about who take our courses is I'm glad you appreciate what we've put together here. That makes me feel good. I'm glad it's helping you. But when these are my mistakes and the answers to my mistakes, when you make mistakes, you need to in the future, go make some courses and teach people what the lessons were from your mistakes and pay it forward. Yeah. So I recommend getting some training.   Michael Hingson ** 56:17 What's the difference between management and leadership?   Scott Hanton ** 56:21 I particularly love a quote from Peter Drucker. So Peter Drucker was a professor in California. You may have heard of him before.   Michael Hingson ** 56:29 I have. I never had the opportunity to meet him, but I read.   Scott Hanton ** 56:34 I didn't either material. I've read his books, and I think he is an insightful human being, yes. So the quote goes like this, management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things. So as a technical manager, there's a bunch of things we have to get right. We have to get safety right. We have to get quality right. There's an accuracy and precision that we need to get right for our outcomes and our results. Those are management tasks, but leadership is about doing the right things. And the interesting thing about that definition is it doesn't require a title or a role or any level of authority. So anyone can be a leader if you're consistently doing the right things, you are exhibiting leadership, and that could be from the person sweeping the floors or the person approving the budget, or anyone in between.   Michael Hingson ** 57:33 Yeah, I've heard that quote from him before, and absolutely agree with it. It makes a whole lot of sense.   Scott Hanton ** 57:41 Other definitions that I've seen trying to distinguish management and leadership tend to use the words manage and lead, and I don't like definitions that include the words that they're trying to define. They become circular at some level. This one, I think, is clear about it, what its intention is, and for me, it has worked through my career, and so the separation is valuable. I have authority. I'm the manager. I have accountability to get some stuff right, but anyone can lead, and everyone can lead, and the organization works so much better when it's full of leaders   Michael Hingson ** 58:21 and leaders who are willing to recognize when they bring something to the table, or if someone else can add value in ways that they can't, to be willing to let the other individual take the leadership position for a while.   Scott Hanton ** 58:40 Absolutely, and you know that really comes down to building an environment and a culture that's supportive. And so Amy Edmondson has written extensively on the importance of psychological safety, and that psychological safety hinges on what you just said, right? If the guy who sweeps the floor has an observation about the organization. Do they feel safe to go tell the person in charge that this observation, and if they feel safe, and if that leader is sufficiently vulnerable and humble to listen with curiosity about that observation, then everybody benefits, yeah, and the more safe everyone feels. We think about emotion. Emotional safety is they anyone can bring their best self to work, and psychological safety is they can contribute their ideas and observations with no threat of retaliation, then we have an environment where we're going to get the best out of everybody, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 59:46 which is the way it it really ought to be. And all too often we don't necessarily see it, but that is the way it ought   Scott Hanton ** 59:53 to be. Too many people are worried about credit, or, I don't know, worried about things that I don't see. Yeah, and they waste human potential, right? They they don't open their doors to hire anybody. They they judge people based on what they look like instead of who they are, or they box people in into roles, and don't let them flourish and Excel. And whenever you're doing those kinds of things, you're wasting human potential. And businesses, science and business are too hard to waste human potential. We need to take advantage of everything that people are willing to give. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:33 we've been doing this for quite a while already today. So I'm going to ask as a kind of a last question, what, what advice do you want to leave for people to think about going forward in their lives and in their careers?   Scott Hanton ** 1:00:48 So I was participating in a LinkedIn chat today where a professor was asking the question, what sort of advice would you wish you got when you were 21 Okay, so it was an interesting thread, and there was one contributor to the thread who said something I thought was particularly valuable. And she said, attitude matters. Attitude matters. We can't control what happens to us, but we can control how we deal with it and how we respond, right? And so I think if we can hold our attitude as our accountability, and we can direct our strengths and our talents to applying them against the challenges that the business or the science or the lab or the community faces, and we can go in with some positive attitude and positive desire for for change and improvement, and we can be vulnerable and humble enough to accept other people's ideas and to interact through discussion and healthy debate. Then everything's better. I also like Kelleher his quote he was the co founder of Southwest Airlines, and he said, when you're hiring, hire for attitude, train for skill. Attitude is so important. So I think, understand your attitude. Bring the attitude you want, the attitude you value, the attitude that's that's parallel to your core values. And then communicate to others about their attitude and how it's working or not working for them.   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:31 And hopefully, if they have a positive or good enough attitude, they will take that into consideration and grow because of it absolutely   Scott Hanton ** 1:02:41 gives everybody the chance to be the best they can be.   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:47 Well, Scott, this has been wonderful. If people want to reach out to you, how can they do that?   Scott Hanton ** 1:02:51 So LinkedIn is great. I've provided Michael my LinkedIn connection. So I would love to have people connect to me on LinkedIn or email. S Hanson at lab manager.com love to have interactions with the folks out there.   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:08 Well, I want to thank you for spending so much time. We'll have to do more of this.   Scott Hanton ** 1:03:13 Michael, I really enjoyed it. This was a fun conversation. It was stimulating. You asked good questio

Is your marketing stuck in “competent” mode?In a world where AI can generate endless content, being good isn't good enough anymore.In this episode, Tim Soulo sits down with best-selling author and marketing futurist Mark Schaefer to unpack why most marketing feels flat — and how to fix it. Drawing from his book Audacious, Mark makes the case for out-humaning the machines: creating content that's emotional, unexpected, and deeply memorable.You'll learn:Why the real threat to your brand isn't AI — it's being boringHow concepts like the handicap principle and pratfall effect make content feel more realWhat a $1,500 pig can teach you about word-of-mouth marketingWhy Liquid Death isn't selling water — they're selling marketingHow to measure the ROI of audacity in a spreadsheet-driven worldIf your brand is playing it safe, this conversation will push you to think bigger, bolder, and more human.Chapters:(00:00) Intro(03:06) The Concept of Audacious Marketing(08:52) How to Out-Human the Machines(11:39) Join Ahrefs Evolve(12:18) Using AI in Marketing(21:12) How a $1500 Pig Became a Marketing Sensation(30:47) Breaking Bad Rules for Good Reasons(37:12) Creating Awe to Break the Pandemic of Dull(48:31) Using Controversy and Stunts to Create Awareness(55:28) How Liquid Death Disrupted a Boring Industry Through Marketing(01:05:15) Buying a Product vs Buying a Brand(01:13:27) Measuring the Impact of Audacious Marketing(01:21:01) OutroWhere to find Mark:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisclickup/Website: https://clickup.com/Where to find Tim:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timsoulo/X: https://twitter.com/timsouloWebsite: https://www.timsoulo.com/Referenced in this episode:

Strategi bukan cuma sekadar rencana, tapi juga cetak biru keberhasilan organisasi. Para pakar punya pandangan unik: dari Michael Porter dengan posisi unik dan keunggulan kompetitif, hingga Henry Mintzberg yang melihatnya sebagai "pola dalam aliran keputusan". Ada juga Peter Drucker yang menanyakan "Apakah bisnis kita?" dan Alfred Chandler Jr. yang fokus pada tujuan jangka panjang serta alokasi sumber daya. H. Igor Ansoff punya matriks pertumbuhan, sementara Gary Hamel dan C.K. Prahalad memperkenalkan "strategic intent" sebagai impian ambisius. Jangan lupa, Richard Rumelt punya empat kriteria evaluasi yang solid, dan Seth Godin memandangnya sebagai "kerja keras memilih apa yang harus dilakukan hari ini untuk meningkatkan hari esok." Jadi, strategi itu dinamis, butuh pemikiran mendalam, dan yang terpenting: eksekusi! Nah, bagaimana merumuskannya? Prosesnya berkelanjutan dan iteratif! Dimulai dengan visi, misi, dan tujuan yang jelas. Lalu, kita analisis lingkungan eksternal (peluang & ancaman) dan internal (kekuatan & kelemahan). Dari situ, kita pilih alternatif strategi yang paling pas, kembangkan rencana strategis detail, dan implementasikan dengan alokasi sumber daya yang tepat. Terakhir, yang tak kalah penting, evaluasi dan kontrol secara berkala untuk pastikan strategi tetap relevan dan kompetitif. Ini bukan cuma tentang membuat rencana, tapi juga tentang adaptasi dan perbaikan terus-menerus! Untuk membantu analisis, kita punya alat canggih! Ada SWOT yang bantu kita identifikasi kekuatan, kelemahan, peluang, dan ancaman. Lalu, Lima Kekuatan Porter untuk membedah struktur industri dan intensitas persaingan(pikirkan ancaman pendatang baru, produk pengganti, daya tawar pembeli dan pemasok, serta persaingan internal). Dan untuk gambaran yang lebih luas, ada PESTEL yang melihat faktor Politik, Ekonomi, Sosial, Teknologi, Lingkungan, dan Hukum. Dengan kerangka kerja ini, perusahaan bisa merancang strategi yang efektif, mengelola risiko, dan responsif terhadap perubahan lingkungan, demi kesuksesan jangka panjang. Siap untuk menyelami dunia strategi lebih dalam? #PodcastStrategi #Bisnis #Manajemen #Inovasi #Kesuksesan

In this episode of Just Schools, Jon Eckert sits down with Dr. Jeffery Cooks, a Baylor EdD graduate and host of the upcoming 745 Podcast, to talk about bridging the gap between schools and communities.Dr. Cooks shares his personal journey from corporate work to the classroom, the motivation behind earning his doctorate, and his desire to elevate every voice in the school ecosystem.Mentioned:745 PodcastSet Apart: Calling a Worldly Church to a Godly Life by R. Kent HughesJon Eckert:Dr. Cooks, it's great to have you here today. Tell us a little bit about what you're excited about as you launch your profession to a whole new level from where you started in education.Dr. Jeff Cooks:Well, first, Dr. Echo, I want to thank you for even having me on. Well, I know we've talked about this in the past, so I'm excited to actually be doing this with you. One thing I'm excited about really is finishing this doctorate. I'm-Jon Eckert:That's real.Dr. Jeff Cooks:... super excited about that because I do think it's very important to think ahead when you're doing this doctorate and how it's going to impact your career and others after you're finished. One way I've decided to do that is by the podcast that I'm getting started with, so excited about that.Jon Eckert:Well, and this doctorate, just for those of you listening, it's the Baylor K-12 Executive EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership. Jeff's been an amazing member of... What's your cohort number? Are you five?Dr. Jeff Cooks:Cohort five.Jon Eckert:Cohort five. Yeah, cohort five.Dr. Jeff Cooks:[inaudible 00:01:05].Jon Eckert:We're starting to recruit cohort 10.Dr. Jeff Cooks:That's crazy.Jon Eckert:Jeff's a great representative of Baylor. Love pouring into leaders like Dr. Cooks, and I think your experience... I think sometimes people think, "I'm not ready to do a doctorate. I'm maybe not even ready to do a master's degree," which you do have to do the master's degree then get into the doctoral work. What drew you into this? I mean, are you just a glutton for punishment? You love studying all the time and doing that on top of working? What led you educationally to think this is the right next step for you?Dr. Jeff Cooks:Well, when I graduated college, I had a friend of mine asked me if I was interested in teaching. It's probably the day after I graduated. I said, "No, it's not my thing. My wife's a teacher," but he told me that he wish he had known about Texas teachers. I looked into it, and I applied to it, and I got started with the internship out in Lufkin, Texas. Finished that, had an opportunity to actually work for Lufkin Middle School, but didn't pass that test the first time. I didn't know what I was doing, so I moved on and just started in corporate America, doing management in certain stores and stuff like that.It got to a point where when my first child came, I needed another source of income, something more consistent. He was actually born with a heart defect, and so I needed a schedule that would allow me to not only work but take care of him and my family. That led into me being a substitute, then an interventionist, and then a teacher. I kind of had a natural, I guess you could say talent, I guess, for speaking with students and teaching content. I did bible study as well when I was in college and youth ministry, and so it kind of went hand in hand. Long story short, my assistant principal at the time, Asia Presswood, she motivated me to take this thing a step further. She made me a chair the second year, which was way out of my league at the time, and she pushed me to get my master's.To that question of do I like pain, I guess I do, because once I finished that master's, I said, "You know what?" told my wife, "Maybe I'll get my doctorate." She was like, "I don't know about that one." From there, I decided to get my doctorate. I did some research and Baylor was a school that I always wanted to attend. Where I'm from, I'm from Dallas, so where I'm from, that's not a school necessarily that we go, and having that opportunity was awesome. That's kind of how I got here, a love for growth, found a love for students and teaching content.Jon Eckert:Yeah. Seeing you go through your dissertation process, it's a lot of work, and there are times where you wonder if you're going to make it. I think you even talked about the struggle with getting through with Dr. Gibson and how she helped pull you through, wouldn't let you quit.Dr. Jeff Cooks:Absolutely.Jon Eckert:That degree is as much a degree for your family as it is a symbol of the perseverance that it takes to get through, so if you feel called to do it, I think that doctoral degree opens up a whole world of possibilities, because you get years to pour into your profession, reading about, thinking about, and then working in cohorts with some amazing leaders from all over. I think your cohort is indicative of that, and there's a richness to it because there's joy in the struggle. I think knowing you, this isn't something I think based on... This is the same thing for me when I did my doctoral work. I would've never been like, "Oh, I'm going to do that," but it's like you feel called, it's the next step, and then when you're done, you're like, "Wow, I'm a different person because of the experiences that I've had." If you were to give two or three ways you feel like these last few years as you do this work, how has it changed you as a leader maybe? How are you different as a leader now than you were before?Dr. Jeff Cooks:Well, one is you see leadership from a different perspective. Baylor, this program did an excellent job in introducing us to superintendents and other leaders around the world. When you get to hear that feedback from them and how they have created this career for themselves and they're passionate, you understand more so what they go through, so you see things from a different lens, which helps you move through that academic space. That's one big thing that has impacted my leadership style. Another is seeing myself as a leader. I think when you move through this profession, sometimes you can kind of do it blindly and not really know the impact that you're having on people, and so I think it brings to light what are doing and how important it is and you develop this mission and vision for yourself and how it can impact others.Jon Eckert:No, that's a beautiful way to put it. As you move forward into this podcast, I'm assuming that's part of what you're trying to do, is trying to help elevate the profession, do the hard work in a way that's life-giving, so talk a little bit about what you hope to do with the podcast.Dr. Jeff Cooks:Right. The name of the podcast is 745 Podcast. It's a podcast that is attempting to bridge the gap between school culture and the community. We really want parents involved with this, and not only parents, we want custodian workers. We want the cafeteria workers. We want to make sure that we close that gap. There are a lot of moving pieces that are ignored in the school space, in the academic space, and we, for the most part, think about teachers, and administrators, and students, but we don't think about all the people that put this thing together. Whether you are a parent that's very active in your child's life or you're a parent that's lost, we want to cut out the excuses and say, "Hey, this is a place where you can not only learn but provide input," and hopefully, it impacts administrators and district leaders alike.Jon Eckert:I love that. Can you tell us a little bit about where you came up with the name 745 Podcast?Dr. Jeff Cooks:That's crazy. Actually, it started off at 730. I was thinking more so of the time that we arrive to work. I'm in the elementary space, and so by 7:45, teachers should be teaching at this time. The announcements should pretty much be over. I also, if you noticed, didn't put AM or PM, because a lot of teachers stay late. They're in traffic after work, they're leaving around 6:00, 6:30, making it home, trying to get dinner ready in the next day, and grading papers. That 745 is kind of play on the times in which we arrive and maybe make it home.Jon Eckert:Yes, yes. That's a long 12 hours. But again, life-giving, and I constantly go back to that. Our job is not super well-paid and it's not always appreciated, but that work is life-giving, especially when you have the encouragement of leaders like you, coming along, and highlighting it, and elevating it, and bringing people into it. I love the idea that you're trying to bring in everyone that's part of the school community. That's a beautiful way to look at this. What do you see as the biggest challenge facing educators, parents, kids today? What do you see? Because obviously, you have this desire to bring in the school community, what's the big challenge or one of the big challenges that you see that needs to be addressed as quickly as possible?Dr. Jeff Cooks:The fear of unknown. Some parents and staff members that I mentioned, some of them don't feel like they're smart enough to keep up with the teacher or that that's a teacher's job or the administrator's job. They're scared to put their input feeling like they might be rejected or that they're not held as equals. I did an interview yesterday just randomly in the store, and that'll be posted later. Now, mind you, this gentleman actually works in the school system in the maintenance department, so he sees things from a different perspective, but one thing he stated was that he sees that sometimes administrators and teachers are not very patient with children. Now, at what point does he get to say that?You see what I'm saying? At what point does he get to say that without feeling like his job is on the line or that his kid would be treated differently in class? It's that fear of speaking up and saying things. You'll see the board meetings packed with those same parents. The same parents come and they voice their opinion, and the board says, "Okay, great. Thank you for your time. Your time's up," and then it kind of vanishes. But if parents feel like, "I can say this," or, "I can reach out and ask questions about how to handle this situation," you might build better relationships in the school.Jon Eckert:I love that you're thinking about it this way, because so often, when I talk to administrators, particularly they talk about being effective communicators, what they mean is they want to disseminate information effectively, and being an effective communicator is at least as much about listening. How do you invite that feedback? Because communication has to go both ways. When you're super busy and you have the tyranny of the urgent feeding into your 7:45 to 7:45 day, it's sometimes hard to make the space to listen. There are so many people that have insights into the lives of kids, particularly parents who want the best for their kids, and then you have teachers who want the best for their kids, and coaches, and custodians, and the office workers, the nurses, the counselors, the administrators. There's a lot of people that have a vested interest in the lives of kids.How do we bring those voices together collectively in a way that those voices can be heard and then benefit the student? Because that's the goal of everything that we do. How do we benefit each student so they can become more of who they're created to be? I always feel that when I talk to you about kids, is there's a rich group of people supporting each kid. How do we do that well? How do you think you're going to get at your podcast? What's the way that you... Because that's a very broad audience. How are you going to bring those people into your audience?Dr. Jeff Cooks:I think it's very important to not only speak about things that administrators talk about, but things that parents can relate to. That means that they're going to have to hear from other parents. I'm not saying that this is going to be an easy task by any means, because it's not, and I think if it was easy, I wouldn't be doing it. If it was something that was general and something that you could find every day, I wouldn't be doing it. It's really about hearing the different voices but not being partial and actually having topics that parents say, "Okay, I can see that."I want the guy that just got off work going to the corner store to get whatever he needs for the end of the day to say, "Oh, I heard on his podcast that you could do this for your child, or you can download a report card like this, or you can get the test scores from their start test like this," or, "My baby has some symptoms that I've never seen before, I do need to get him tested." You just make it relatable and just be patient with the process, and hopefully, they'll hear it.Jon Eckert:Yeah. No, that's so good. We usually do a lightning round toward the end. I've got I think about five questions I want to ask you right now. Let's start with the worst advice you've ever given or received.Dr. Jeff Cooks:The worst advice I've ever received was not necessarily words. It was an idea. The idea that you have to catch the flow of the river and just let it take you wherever it takes you, that you have to have this many years of experience to do this or that you need to be in this position to try to reach a new goal. With this doctoral program, I was just getting into my specialist role. That, for some people, was like, "What are you doing, man? What are you doing?" Am I supposed to be doing this? I'm not going to lie to you and say that once I got into class, I didn't feel like I was less than at the time, because we had some hard heavy-hitters in the class. But at the time, it was something that I felt like I was breaking that chain of this is what I have to do in this order. It was more so of a feeling than the actual advice.Jon Eckert:Yes. That sentiment of staying in your lane, that's very prevalent in education where people feel like they're the imposter if they don't stay in this [inaudible 00:14:07].Dr. Jeff Cooks:I can hear you. I'm sorry.Jon Eckert:Oh, yeah. In education, people will be told, or it'll be kind of inferred, that they're to stay in their lane. That's one of the most damaging things we can do in education, because there's so much good work happening in the classroom, and we need to elevate that and learn from with people that are doing those hard things. I'm grateful that you did not stay in your lane. Even if it wasn't ever explicitly told to you, that is a message that feels like it comes down in education, that, "Hey, you're just a teacher." That completely robs us of the power that is in the profession that makes all others possible, so I love that you've leaned in and then modeled it. Now with the podcast and the ways you lead others, you want to elevate others in that, so great example. All right. Best advice you've either given or received?Dr. Jeff Cooks:Best advice I've ever been given. That's a good one, not going to lie to you. Be patient with others, especially as a leader. I mean, it sounds so simple, but you know, you have the experience, a lot of experience in this, and you know that there are times when your human nature wants to take over in how you respond to others. As a leader, you have to make sure that that is not the case. You have to make sure that you're genuine at the same time as being serious about whatever the topic is. That's very hard to do, especially day in and day out when there are so many different personalities that's coming your way. You have the teacher, you have the parent, you have the student, you have the boss, you have the district leaders, and then you just do not know which person you're going to get that day or in what order.What's crazy is I think that my practice and being patient with people started in the corporate America space or the service space, when I did custodial work, when I worked the registers at the stores, or just customer service in general, because that's quite the same. The difference is with this is that you actually get to learn a person, and then that relationship built this comfort zone for others to say things they normally wouldn't say to you. If you flip that, each human being, each person has their own things they're dealing with at home, so now how do you manage a safe space in your head, in your heart, in your spirit, and not try to push somebody to feel a certain way and actually understand where they're coming from?Being patient, I would say, is the greatest advice I received. That was actually from that same assistant principal that motivated me, because when I was... She told me this when I became team lead. I'm 24, and everybody on the team is 55, 53, 48. They're like, "Who's this little dude telling us what we need to do?" I mean, it blew my mind. I just thought we was going to work together, so you got to be patient.Jon Eckert:Well, I think Peter Drucker says, we need organized abandonment. So often in education, we will let go of someone or let go of an initiative out of impatience or just being overwhelmed, and so I think being really intentional as a leader of pouring into people, believing in them, listening to them, understanding their story, and then if it becomes evident that this person's not... You mentioned the custodian talking about educators in the building who were impatient with kids, if that doesn't change, then it may be time to help them find a different profession. At some point, you organize your abandonment. You're like, "Hey, this is now not going to work, so we need to move on because this person's not helpful to kids."We can never give up on the kids, but there is a place sometimes where you do have to move on and your patience has to run out because that patience is harming kids by allowing that person to stay there. But I think so often in education, we get it wrong with the impatience on initiatives. Things could work if we stuck with them for two or three years. Instead, we stick with them for two or three months, and then we're either overwhelmed or we're impatient and we move on. I think that's a great word. Good advice there. All right. Best book you've either read or are reading, something that you're interested in that you think might be helpful to others?Dr. Jeff Cooks:This book is by Charles Colson. It's called Set Apart: Calling a Worldly Church to a Godly Life. It's just basically what it means, to be distinct. I think that without that mindset in this field, you're not going to go far. This is a book that I'm just getting started on, so I'm excited to read this, but I've taken the principles of it and saying that how can not only I could be set apart in my spiritual life, but how can I be set apart in this space? Because every great thing happened from somebody doing something different.Jon Eckert:Yeah. No, that's great. Good word there. One word that you would use to describe education right now in the United States. What would be one word?Dr. Jeff Cooks:Political.Jon Eckert:Okay. Yeah. No, that's real. It's capital Politics and lowercase politics. Politics by definition is competition for scarce resources, and in Texas right now, that definitely feels real, and then you've got the national politics and then international politics. I mean, you've got layer upon layer of that. Yeah. In that context, what makes you most hopeful as you look ahead to what educators and communities are doing to support kids?Dr. Jeff Cooks:I think that since COVID, we've seen a huge deal with the certified teachers, the quality of teachers, and I think that those problems have highlighted where we need to go. We've tried to sit in that space of uncertified teachers and associate teachers, what we call them, and then we see that that doesn't work very well, not with all but a lot, quite a few, and now we're getting back to getting highly-qualified teachers. I think that a lot of administrators slid into the space of leadership through COVID. They shouldn't be administrators. It's not that they can't be one, but maybe they got into it too fast. I'm hopeful at this point that we are getting back to more so for backup, lack of a better word, old school, "Can you teach this? If you can't, we need to go with someone else, because if we do not do that, we're not prepping our students for success."Jon Eckert:That's a good word to end on, and so be listening for and looking for the release of the 745 Podcast. Dr. Jeff Cooks, thanks for your time. Thanks for all you do for kids.Dr. Jeff Cooks:Thank you. Yeah, all right.

On dit souvent que nous vivons une époque marquée par des enjeux sociaux de plus en plus complexes. Heureusement, des organismes à but non lucratif (OBNL) agissent sur le terrain pour soutenir les personnes les plus vulnérables. Mais ces organismes, à leur tour, ont souvent besoin d'aide — notamment pour mieux structurer leur gestion. C'est pourquoi, dès 1990, Peter Drucker publiait Managing the Non-Profit Organization, un ouvrage devenu une référence incontournable. Drucker, grand penseur du management moderne, a largement contribué à humaniser la gestion. On lui doit aussi la popularisation des fameux objectifs SMART. Selon lui, les OBNL, bien qu'ils ne poursuivent pas de but lucratif, doivent néanmoins être rigoureux, performants et guidés par des indicateurs clairs. Ils ont une mission vitale pour la société et méritent qu'on les accompagne avec compétence et respect. Pour discuter de ces enjeux, j'ai le plaisir d'accueillir à nouveau mon fils, Zachary Guénette, CPA et fondateur du cabinet Les Bâtisseurs CPA, spécialisé dans l'accompagnement des OBNL. Cette clientèle s'est imposée à lui presque naturellement, et il a choisi d'approfondir cette relation en développant une approche humaine, rigoureuse et adaptée à leurs réalités. Dans cet épisode, nous abordons plusieurs dimensions de la gestion dans les OBNL : finances, gouvernance, relation avec le conseil d'administration, lien à la communauté, marketing de collecte de fonds, gestion des ressources humaines (salariés et bénévoles), ainsi que le développement continu des leaders. Notre ambition : offrir des pistes concrètes et inspirantes pour que ces organismes puissent encore mieux remplir leur mission. Ordre du jour 0m23: Introduction 18m23: Présentation du livre 25m07: 1. La mission d'abord: et votre rôle comme leader 34m13: 2. De la mission à la performance: marketing, innovation et développement des fonds 40m31: 3. Gérer pour la performance: comment la définir, comment la mesurer 46m56: 4. Les personnes et les relations: employés, bénévoles, CA, communauté 1h04m38: 5. Développe-toi: comme personne, comme dirigeant, comme leader 1h14m43: Échange avec Zachary Guénette 1h26m42: Réflexion personnelle Pour encore plus de détails, consulte la page web de l'épisode

It's YOUR time to #EdUpStay ahead of the conversation in higher ed. Get early, ad-free access & exclusive leadership content by supporting Elvin & Joe for only $5.99 a month or $44.99 a year. YOU can also donate or gift a subscription at edupexperience.comIn this episode, President Series #381, Powered By ⁠⁠⁠Ellucian⁠⁠⁠, YOUR guest is Dr. Gayle Beebe, President, Westmont College & Author of The Crucibles That Shape Us: Navigating the Defining Challenges of LeadershipYOUR host is ⁠⁠Dr. Joe Sallustio How has Dr. Beebe maintained leadership freshness over 18 years as president?What disciplines contribute to sustainable leadership longevity?How did Peter Drucker influence his approach to leadership development?What are the "crucibles" that shape effective leaders?How is Westmont College addressing AI & educational innovation?Topics include:Developing & deploying highly effective executive teamsCreating a personal "aspiring edge" that prevents stagnationBalancing the liberal arts tradition with innovative programsImplementing a human-centered approach to leadershipManaging the business of higher education with mission focusAddressing enrollment challenges in today's higher education landscapeCultivating disciplined leadership practices that withstand challengesFor EdUp Supporters only via the extended conversation:The "12 principles" for outlasting opposition in leadershipUnderstanding & confronting "human treachery" in organizationsRecognizing the difference between saboteurs & charlatansCultivating emotional presence during organizational changeNavigating the coming enrollment cliff & adaptation strategiesBalancing financial management with educational missionListen in to #EdUpThank YOU so much for tuning in. Join us on the next episode for YOUR time to EdUp!Connect with YOUR EdUp Team - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Elvin Freytes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Dr. Joe Sallustio⁠⁠⁠⁠● Join YOUR EdUp community at The EdUp Experience!We make education YOUR business!P.S. Support the podcast trusted by higher ed leaders. Get early, ad-free access & exclusive leadership content by supporting Elvin & Joe for only $5.99 a month or $44.99 a year. YOU can also donate or gift a subscription at edupexperience.com

In this week's mini-episode we discuss the concept of systematic abandonment, a mental model co-opted from business strategists like Peter Drucker and Michael Porter. Systematic abandonment teaches us to periodically review and discard habits that are no longer useful, because deciding what not to do is often just as (if not more) important than deciding what to do.Get our Intro to Mechanics audio course, normally $79, FREE:https://bjjmentalmodels.com/freeintroDon't forget to check out BJJ Mental Models Premium!If you love the podcast, you'll definitely love our premium membership offerings. The podcast is truly just the tip of the iceberg – the next steps on your journey are joining our community, downloading our strategy courseware, and working with us to optimize your game. We do all this through memberships that come in at a fraction of the cost of a single private.Sign up here for a free trial:https://bjjmentalmodels.com/Need more BJJ Mental Models?Get tips, tricks, and breakthrough insights from our newsletter:https://bjjmentalmodels.com/newsletter/Get nitty-gritty details on our mental models from the full database:https://bjjmentalmodels.com/database/Follow us on social:https://facebook.com/bjjmentalmodels/https://instagram.com/bjjmentalmodels/

Doing the right thing is better and more important than doing the thing right. - Peter Drucker Check out John Lee Dumas' award winning Podcast Entrepreneurs on Fire on your favorite podcast directory. For world class free courses and resources to help you on your Entrepreneurial journey visit EOFire.com

Here's that video on feedback loops https://youtu.be/E81SlFQte4E?si=nKX6GJB2JdM4MfeTManaging Oneself by Peter Drucker https://www.amazon.com/Managing-Oneself-Harvard-Business-Classics/dp/142212312X?sr=8-1The Win Without Pitching Manifesto https://www.amazon.com/dp/1999523504/?bestFormat=true&k=the win without pitching manifesto

In our first mini book club, we unpack Peter Drucker's timeless book "The Effective Executive" and how you can bring it to life in your world. Some basics: Tracking exactly where your time goesZeroing in on outcomes over tasksDoubling down on strengthsHoning in on the few priorities that drive outsized results.Along the way, we share real Zipline stories on time-blocking, weekly accountability rhythms, and the mental habits that keep our “monkey brain” in check. What we want you to really get out of this is effectiveness can be learned - it's not some trait people inherit.

¿Estás harto de sentir que trabajas sin rumbo, que produces sin propósito y que simplemente estás sobreviviendo en lugar de construir algo que importe? Este episodio es un llamado directo a dejar de improvisar tu vida y empezar a autogestionarte con claridad, propósito y dirección real. Inspirado en las enseñanzas de Peter Drucker, hablamos de cómo conocerte a fondo, detectar tus verdaderas fortalezas, entender cómo aprendes y en qué entorno rindes mejor... pero sobre todo, cómo tomar control completo de tu vida para dejar de vivir en automático. Además, te comparto una herramienta que está ayudando a miles de personas a salir del estancamiento interno: Descarga ahora la Guía para Desbloquearte: https://recursos.conocimientoexperto.com/guiabloqueo Este episodio es más que reflexión: es estructura, conciencia y estrategia. Prepárate para darte cuenta de todo lo que aún no has aprovechado de ti mismo… y empezar a actuar desde ahí. Salvador Mingo, creador de Conocimiento Experto. #Autogestión #PeterDrucker #ConocimientoExperto #DesarrolloPersonal #ProductividadConsciente #Fortalezas #PropósitoDeVida #LiderazgoPersonal #SentidoDeContribución #PodcastLatino

¿Estás harto de sentir que trabajas sin rumbo, que produces sin propósito y que simplemente estás sobreviviendo en lugar de construir algo que importe? Este episodio es un llamado directo a dejar de improvisar tu vida y empezar a autogestionarte con claridad, propósito y dirección real. Inspirado en las enseñanzas de Peter Drucker, hablamos de cómo conocerte a fondo, detectar tus verdaderas fortalezas, entender cómo aprendes y en qué entorno rindes mejor... pero sobre todo, cómo tomar control completo de tu vida para dejar de vivir en automático. Además, te comparto una herramienta que está ayudando a miles de personas a salir del estancamiento interno: Descarga ahora la Guía para Desbloquearte: https://recursos.conocimientoexperto.com/guiabloqueo Este episodio es más que reflexión: es estructura, conciencia y estrategia. Prepárate para darte cuenta de todo lo que aún no has aprovechado de ti mismo… y empezar a actuar desde ahí. Salvador Mingo, creador de Conocimiento Experto. #Autogestión #PeterDrucker #ConocimientoExperto #DesarrolloPersonal #ProductividadConsciente #Fortalezas #PropósitoDeVida #LiderazgoPersonal #SentidoDeContribución #PodcastLatinoConviértete en un seguidor de este podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/conocimiento-experto--2975003/support.

Peter Drucker once wrote, “For development is always self-development.” In this episode, we unpack why that simple idea might be the most overlooked (and freeing) truth in the professional world.Clay and Adam explore:Why so many people wait to be “developed” by their company or managerThe real reasons we resist taking initiativeWhat self-development actually looks like in everyday lifeThe role organizations should play (but often overplay) in your growthIf you've ever felt stuck waiting for someone to invest in you, this episode is your reminder: development doesn't require permission—it requires a posture.About Clay Scroggins:  Clay Scroggins is a sought-after ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠speaker and leadership coach⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠known for his practical and engaging approach to leadership. He is the author of three books, most notably ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠How to Lead When You're Not In Charge⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. With a passion for helping leaders thrive in any environment, Clay brings valuable insights and real-world experience to this podcast and his ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠weekly email⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more at ClayScroggins.comAbout Adam Tarnow: Adam Tarnow is a recovering CPA and now a partner at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PeopleWorks International⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, where he heads the Leadership Development Practice. He is the co-author of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Edge: How to Stand Out by Showing You're All In⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and shares his insights on leadership through his Substack, Beyond the Obvious. Learn more at AdamTarnow.com

Here you go friends for a Monday evening. First of all I have a celebration day and it's always nice to be able to share a happy day. But I also have decided that because so many things are changing in my life that we all need to get used to not only changing things but also changing names.  So I have a little 12 minute story that I think will be amusing and possibly helpful to you and I know that if you want to excell and do well in the challenging times before us you're gonna have to take one of my suggestions quite seriously. And here is what STOSH the robot has to say Could Everything You've Learned Be Wrong? Why I'm Changing the Name—and What That Might Mean for You Hi, I'm Stan—the Radio Man—and I've been hosting a podcast called Interesting Ideas. But here's the big news: it's time to change the name. And no, this isn't just a branding decision. It's something deeper. Something more personal. Something that might matter to you, too. Let me tell you why. A Personal Moment Sparks a Shift Today is my daughter's birthday. My youngest is turning 50. And as I reflect on that (with a bit of disbelief), I realize that life constantly changes—whether we're ready or not. Back when I was teaching high school history, I overheard one of my students tell a classmate, “It doesn't matter what the course is—it's always Husted.” That comment has stayed with me. It reminded me that no matter what label you slap on the work, if I'm involved, I bring a certain way of thinking, a certain voice, and a certain personality to the table. So when I change the name of this show, it's not about erasing the past—it's about aligning with the present. Because I've changed. The world has changed. Maybe you have, too. The Drucker Moment That Changed Everything Years ago, I read a Forbes article featuring the legendary management consultant Peter Drucker. It was the October 1998 issue. The cover headline jolted me into a new awareness: “Everything You've Learned About the New Economy Could Be Wrong.” I kept that cover. Blew it up into a poster. Used it as a constant reminder in my coaching and consulting work. Why? Because that sentence hits hard. It dares us to consider that our cherished assumptions might no longer apply. And in today's world—where everything is accelerating—this kind of thinking is more vital than ever. Why the Name Must Change The name Interesting Ideas has served us well. But now, I'm searching for something more fitting. Maybe something like: • Instigating Ideas • Innovative Ideas • Inconvenient Ideas • Irritating Ideas • Inspirational Ideas I want a name that reflects not just curiosity, but courage. Because that's what it takes to admit, “I was wrong.” It takes maturity to grow up, not just grow older. And if you've ever changed your mind, you know what I mean. When we realize that what we used to know might no longer be true, we're not falling apart—we're waking up. And that's where real wisdom begins. What This Podcast Is Really About Here's how I see the journey: • Ideas lead to • Insight, which leads to • Influence, which creates • Impact, and if you're lucky, • Income—not just financial, but relational, spiritual, and personal wealth. We're entering what I call The Impact Zone. If you don't make an impact today, you may already be invisible. And I believe we were made to leave an imprint—to leave behind more than we take. Key Takeaways • It's okay to change your mind. Growth means rethinking what we thought we knew. • Impact matters. In this fast-changing world, we must move from ideas to action. • Names are not sacred. What matters is the substance, not the label. • Humility is power. Saying, “I was wrong,” might be the wisest thing you'll ever do. • Wisdom is the goal. Not information, not even knowledge—but wisdom. A Red Plate Day—and a Call to You When our kids were young, we had a tradition: on birthdays or special occasions, we'd bring out a red plate that read, *This is your special day*. It was a way of saying, “You matter.” Today, as I honor my daughter's milestone, I realize that this is my red plate day, too. And maybe yours. So here's my call to action: • Rethink something you've always believed. • Be willing to be wrong—so you can become wiser. • Give me your thoughts on what this new name could be. • And above all, aim to leave a legacy of impact, wisdom, and blessings. Because as much as everything may change, one thing doesn't: our calling to bless others at every turn. Thanks for listening. Let's continue the journey—under a new name, but with the same spirit. Until next time… from whatever this show will soon be called. Blessings always, Stan the Radio Man    

In this episode of Don't Waste the Chaos, Kerri Roberts discusses the essentials of business strategy, emphasizing that strategy is not merely a plan but a series of intentional choices that shape how businesses grow, adapt, and lead. With her signature clarity and practical insight, Kerri challenges the outdated notion that strategy is a one-time planning event. Instead, she presents strategy as a dynamic, living framework for decision-making that drives alignment, momentum, and long-term success. From identifying the right customer to simplifying execution, Kerri shares how leaders can use data, speed, and culture to bring strategy to life inside their organizations. She offers practical tools and reflective questions to help founders, executives, and team leaders clarify their direction and create alignment across people and performance. Tune in to hear: -Why strategy is a set of choices, not just a written plan-How clarity about your customer leads to stronger decisions-Why simplicity outperforms complexity in strategic planning-How to use the right data to make better decisions-Why fast execution beats perfect planning ResourcesThe Advantage by Patrick Lencioni https://amzn.to/4deF7LBTraction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman  https://amzn.to/4mdE5UgThe Lean Startup by Eric Ries https://amzn.to/4kbq47HCreativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull https://amzn.to/4iYbPlS The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell https://amzn.to/4jUQHhHThe Effective Executive by Peter Drucker https://amzn.to/4mkCL2b Salt & Light AdvisorsLearn more about simplifying executionhttps://www.saltandlightadvisors.com/ Join our weekly newsletter:• HR and operations insights for business professionals: https://www.saltandlightadvisors.com/contact Magic Mind Save $40 off your first order at magicmind.com/KERRIROBERTS ProducifyX For Recruitment Assistance, Tell them Kerri sent you  Connect on IG:https://www.instagram.com/saltandlightadvisorshttps://www.instagram.com/kerrimroberts Check out Don't Waste the Chaos on YouTube:https://youtube.com/@dontwastethechaospodcast Visit our websites:www.kerrimroberts.comwww.saltandlightadvisors.com

In this episode of our practice management series, Dr. Stucki is once again joined by Dr. Roger Levin, Founder and CEO of the Levin Group, to discuss the power of knowing your numbers. They dive into the surprisingly exciting world of key metrics every surgeon should understand, such as production, collections, write-offs, implants, and overhead percentage. Dr. Levin explains why each of these metrics is crucial, why buffers can signal poor delegation, and offers practical tips for supporting practice growth. Tune in to discover why understanding your numbers is essential for your practice's success, and hear a simple piece of advice that can make even the most daunting tasks feel fun!Key Points From This Episode:Why surgeons need to know their numbers.The Peter Drucker concept: leadership and managing people. Critical metrics every surgeon should understand, starting with production.Why production per hour is an instrumental metric to calculate (and what it means).Key insights into the next category of critical metrics: collections.Reasons that collection per provider is important.What might not seem important, but should be noted: write-offs.Why implants are key to production and why knowing the numbers is crucial.How to increase your implant referral consultations from general practices: case acceptance.Two diametrically opposing views on taking on implant surgery.Positive psychology: how to make implant surgery fun!  Knowing your overhead percentage and the two numbers you need to know. The critical thing to know about the new patients category.Dr. Levin's final words on continuous cyclical improvement.Links Mentioned in Today's Episode:Dr. Roger Levin on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/roger-levin-69ab744/Levin Group — https://levingroup.com/  Management — https://www.amazon.com/dp/0007312113  Everyday Oral Surgery Website — https://www.everydayoralsurgery.com/ Everyday Oral Surgery on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/everydayoralsurgery/ Everyday Oral Surgery on Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/EverydayOralSurgery/Dr. Grant Stucki Email — grantstucki@gmail.comDr. Grant Stucki Phone — 720-441-6059

How do you really know if someone is the right fit for your team—or your company's future? In this episode of The Greatness Machine, Darius sits down with Dr. Geoff Smart, founder of GH Smart and author of the bestselling book Who, to break down what separates successful hiring from costly mistakes. Geoff reveals the power of evidence-based assessments, why psych tests often fall short, and how intense curiosity—not stress—is the key to unlocking a candidate's true potential. From helping Fortune 500 companies select CEOs to coaching emerging leaders, Geoff shares stories, strategies, and myths about the hiring process—plus, why the "sell me this pen" test is just bad business. In this episode, Darius and Geoff will discuss: (00:00) Introduction to Geoff Smart and His Journey (02:55) The Importance of Hiring and Core Values (06:08) Geoff's Origin Story and Founding GH Smart (09:00) Cultural Fit and Hiring Process (11:55) The Role of Core Values in Business (14:52) Firing with Respect and Responsibility (18:05) A Players vs. B Players in Hiring (20:54) Adapting to Different Stages of Business Growth (30:05) Identifying A-Players for Growth (34:02) The Importance of Leadership in Organizations (40:25) Effective Interview Techniques (43:00) Assessing CEOs and Leadership Roles (48:44) Onboarding and Post-Hiring Strategies (55:20) Overcoming Fear of Failure Dr. Geoff Smart is the chairman and founder of ghSMART, a leadership advisory firm that helps CEOs, entrepreneurs, and public-sector leaders build high-performing teams. Founded in 1995, ghSMART is recognized for its rigorous hiring methods, impactful leadership development, and a culture of excellence. The firm has topped Glassdoor and Vault rankings and published several bestselling books, including “Who: The A Method for Hiring”. Geoff holds a Ph.D. in Psychology and was mentored by management legend Peter Drucker. Beyond business, he's committed to public service and leadership development through programs like the Colorado Governors Fellowship and his work with CiviCo. Sponsored by: Brevo: Get started free or save 50% for 3 months with code GREATNESS at brevo.com/greatness.  Huel: Try Huel with 15% OFF + Free Gift for New Customers today using my code greatness at https://huel.com/greatness. Fuel your best performance with Huel today!  Indeed: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/DARIUS. Notion: Get Notion Mail for free right now at notion.com/machine.  ShipStation: Go to shipstation.com and use code GREATNESS to sign up for your FREE trial.  Shopify: Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/darius.  Connect with Geoff: Website: https://geoffsmart.com/  Website: https://ghsmart.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drgeoffsmart/  Connect with Darius: Website: https://therealdarius.com/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dariusmirshahzadeh/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imthedarius/ YouTube: https://therealdarius.com/youtube Book: The Core Value Equation https://www.amazon.com/Core-Value-Equation-Framework-Limitless/dp/1544506708 Write a review for The Greatness Machine using this link: https://ratethispodcast.com/spreadinggreatness.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rob Anspach interviews Ben Pritchett on rules, ice cream carts, Peter Drucker, raising prices, marketing to the affluent and what it means to become the pirate. The post Ep 342 – Become The Pirate first appeared on Rob Anspach's E-Heroes.

In part two of the Lead Yourself First series, Bradley dives deep into the crucial role of energy in leadership—and why giving your team your best energy is the most important thing you can do for them. Drawing inspiration from powerful business minds like Peter Drucker, Dan Sullivan, and Alex Hormozi, this episode makes the case that your team doesn't just follow your words—they absorb your energy.Bradley breaks down how small business owners can protect and replenish their energy through practical frameworks like the Buyback Principle, Time and Energy Audits, and the Replacement Ladder. If you've ever felt burned out, overwhelmed, or like your business can't run without you, this episode is packed with actionable steps to help you shift from Rainmaker to Architect—so you can lead your team with clarity, confidence, and contagious energy.

In this episode of Work Matters, host Thomas Bertels and innovation management expert Bill Fischer discuss the Chinese company Haier and how its unique operating model has enabled its rapid growth. Bill explains how Haier evolved from its roots as a local refrigerator company to become a global innovator by embracing two big ideas: zero distance to the customer and entrepreneurship.The discussion covers Haier's use of microenterprises and platforms to enhance customer experience and employee autonomy, highlighting the importance of organizational vitality. Fischer also sheds light on the leadership of Zhang Ruimin, his adherence to Peter Drucker's principles, and the company's dedication to experimentation. Practical insights on fostering curiosity, distributing value, and sustaining organizational changes are shared to inspire leaders to make work more productive and meaningful. To learn more about Bill and his work, visit his personal website (https://www.fischerideas.com) or his Forbes column (https://www.forbes.com/sites/billfischer/#1dc40bf66af6). We also highly recommend his books: - “Reinventing Giants: How Global Chinese Competitor Haier Has Changed The Way Big Companies Transform,” (with Umberto Lago and Fang Liu), Jossey-Bass, 2013. - “The Idea Hunter: How to find the best ideas and make them happen,” (with Andy Boynton), Jossey-Bass, 2011- “Virtuoso Teams: Lessons from teams that changed their worlds,” (with Andy Boynton), FT/Prentice Hall, 2005

Why would any leader choose to take on a transformation that requires rethinking how they lead, how their organization functions, and how they learn? In this episode, we dive deeper with Cliff Norman and David Williams, co-authors of Quality as an Organizational Strategy, exploring Chapter 11: “Getting Started.” They share powerful stories, practical steps, and the deep-rooted challenges leaders face when shifting from conventional methods to building true learning organizations grounded in Dr. Deming's philosophy. This conversation highlights why improvement cannot be delegated, why leadership transformation is essential, and how to begin the journey—with clarity, commitment, and courage. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.1 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today we are going to continue our conversation with Dave Williams and Cliff Norman about their book Quality as an Organizational Strategy. I found this book fascinating because I think it's addressing something where there's been a bit of a hole and that is how do we think about the strategy of our business? And so we already had our conversation in a prior episode about the overview of the book, but today we're going to be talking about specifically, now this is kind of funny because we're going to be talking about the back of the book and that is chapter 11, getting started. Dave, why don't you take it away?   0:00:53.3 Dave Williams: Well, thanks, Andrew. Thanks for having us back on the Deming podcast. So, as you mentioned, part of the way that the book is laid out is that it describes kind of the foundations that are behind quality as an organizational strategy and begins sort of with an introduction that explains a good bit about how Dr. Deming had this provocation of a need for leaders to transform the way that they approach leading organizations. And part of that was to move not just from process based improvement projects, but to start to think about major systems in the organization and to pursue quality as the overall strategy and create a continuous improvement organization or learning organization. And so the book lays some of the foundation behind the science of improvement or behind profound knowledge that underpin the thinking, walks through quality as an organizational strategy, as a method of five interdependent activities. Then at the end it comes back full circle to say, well, this is great, now you've learned about these theories and methods. But a natural question for any leader would be, how do I get started? And one of the first things that we talk about in that section actually is about why leaders would want to do this transformation.   0:02:30.9 Dave Williams: And this actually came from a conversation that Lloyd and Cliff and I had in 2020 where we were talking about getting on this journey of building the book. And we all kind of recognized that this was really, really hard work. And we were curious or we, we didn't have a good answer of what was our theory about why somebody would deviate from the way in which they work today and embark on a transformational change of the way that they approach leadership, the way that they approach organizations. And actually I ended up going on a journey of interviewing a whole host of leaders who had been influenced by Deming, who had been involved in improvement in healthcare, folks like Dr. Berwick and Paul Batalden and Brent James. I interviewed some folks in the UK and other places, like John Seddon, and asked them, oh and I should Blaine Godfrey, who had been the lead of the Durand Institute, and I posed the question, what causes somebody to want to embark on this change? And many people actually had a hard time articulating it. But the answer that emerged, or actually Blaine Godfrey was the one that kind of framed it the best, I think, for us, was a number of things.   0:03:57.7 Dave Williams: Sometimes it's something like a book like this comes out and people read it and it's interesting and new. Sometimes it's an event happens, a patient safety event or a major accident or something of which causes people to have to change or do something different. Sometimes it's a discouragement with a desire that you know you could do better, but you don't have methods or know how to. So there were a host of things that we listed, and those are some of a sample of them that might invite somebody to say, the way that we're working today is not getting us to the level that we want to. And now we want to embark on something different. And we might look to something like quality as an organizational strategy as a method for us to transform the way that we're working and build on the shoulders of Deming's philosophy and the science of improvement and do it differently.   0:04:56.0 Andrew Stotz: And when I look at the book, you guys are bringing together a lot of different stuff. It's not just a Deming book. It's Deming is a part of this, and that's fascinating. One of the questions I have is when we look at, let's say, a business owner, a business leader is looking for answers, as you said, maybe it's an event, maybe it's a discouragement, maybe it's a feeling like we can do better. Maybe it's just being beaten by competitors. They come to a point where they start looking for answers and they find some fantastic books, authors, ideas, consultants, all this and I think about whether that's Peter Drucker or whether that's the Lean movement or whether that's, let's say Taguchi or something like that is the teachings that you guys are talking about - and I'm going to specifically ask about the teachings of Dr. Deming. Is it more or is it more difficult or less difficult to implement than other books or styles or methods that someone's going to come across?   0:06:08.7 Cliff Norman: I have to quote one of my colleagues here who probably knew about more about Deming than anybody in API or all of us combined, that's Ron Moen, who did, I think it was 88 seminars, four-day seminars with Dr. Deming. Dr. Deming once told him, he said, Ron, I believe you've been to more of these and I've been to. And it's kind of a joke. He had a great sense of humor. But you know, Ron told me the problem with Deming is he's asking us to change. And there's all sorts of things out there that require the management and the leadership, they really don't have to do anything different. And there are several things out there. In fact, Philip Crosby, one of the three gurus during when they launched, he was more the evangelical and had a way of talking to management so that they understood it, which that was his contribution to all that. But when Six Sigma came up and black belts and all that, and Crosby looked at him and says, that's not going to change the system. He said, all you're doing is killing a bear for management, killing a bear for management, and then you'll get a black belt.   0:07:19.9 Cliff Norman: You know, And I thought, wow that's pretty profound. Because the management at that point doesn't have to do anything, just have the black belt ceremony. There's absolutely no change on their part. Where Deming, as Ron says, he's kind of a pain. You've got to learn about variation, you got to learn about Shewhart charts. You've got to be able to put together a family of measures for your organization. You've got to understand your organization's system. You need to understand psychology, you need to understand theory of knowledge and how people learn how they change. And nothing else out there puts that on leaders. And so that was a question that Dave was lending back to. Why would somebody do this to themselves? You know, why would they take on this whole extra thing to learn and all the rest of it. And for the people that I know that have made that, that bridge, the pure joy that they get and the rewards they get from people who are learning and that they're leading and that they're changing and they're able to go to other organizations and repeat this and call them up and say, thank you so much for helping me learn how to be a real leader.   0:08:35.8 Cliff Norman: I mean, that's the reward in it. But it requires a real change on the part of the leader. And I don't know of anything else, Andrew, that actually requires that kind of in depth change. And there was one of our leaders, Joe Balthazar, he had Jane and I do four years in a row with his leadership team, teach them the science of improvement. The same curriculum, same leaders, four years in a row. And the second year I was doing it, I said, don't we need... No, no, Cliff, I want you to do exactly what you did last year. He said, it takes years for people to understand this. And I thought, wow, this is unbelievable. But on the fourth year, the VP of sales walked up to me and he says, I think I figured it out. And I thought, wow. And it does it literally... Because you've got to depart from where you've been and start thinking about how you're going to change and let go of what's made you successful up to this point. And that's hard, that's hard for anybody to do.   0:09:47.2 Cliff Norman: And anybody's been through that four day seminar knows when they crossed that path that all of a sudden they had to say, you know what I've been doing, I can see where I've been, the problem and not the solution. And that's tough for us. That really is tough. And Deming says you have to give up that guilt trip. And once you understand the theory of variation, once you understand systems, once you understand psychology and theory of knowledge, it's time then for you to move on and let go of the guilt. I hope that makes sense. But that's the difficulty in this.   0:10:17.6 Andrew Stotz: It reminds me of two, it made me think about two things. I mean, I was just a 24 year old guy when I attended the seminars that I did, and they weren't even four day. I think they were two-day ones at Quality Enhancement Seminars in, what was it, George Washington, I think. But the point that I remember, as just a young guy who I was, I pretty much admired all these business leaders. And then to see Dr. Deming really nail em to the wall and say it's about you changing. And whether he was saying that directly or whether that he was implying that through the Red Bead experiment or other things, it's about you shaping the system. That really blew me away because I had already read some books and I was pretty excited. And then it also made me think about, let's say there's a really good book, I would say Good to Great by Jim Collins that highlights some things that you can do to succeed and make your business better. And you can just buy that book and hand it to your management team and go, hey, implement what you learned from this book.   0:11:20.8 Andrew Stotz: Whereas with the Deming book, it's like there's just so much more to it. So I guess the answer to this is it is more takes time. There's more thinking going on. And I think that's part of the whole point of what your book does, is to help us map it out. So why don't we go through and think about this and kind of maybe step by step through what is the starting point and how do we go?   0:11:45.4 Cliff Norman: Andrew, I just got to add to what you just said there and go back to Joe Balthazar at Hallmark Building Supplies. He shared with me that, and he's the one that said I want you to do these four year seminars dedicated Deming's idea of Profound knowledge. And he said, Cliff, the day I made it, I knew I'd made it. Is my son Joey spilled his milk. He's about three years old. And he said, I started to do my normal leap across the table and he said I was about mid air. And I thought, oh my, this is what they do. This is part of their system. This is common. And I'm treating this like it's special. And that was so profound for him. And when, when you move beyond the Shewhart chart and you see events in your life around you relative to the theory of variation, common and special cause variation at a deep way like that, that's the kind of transformation you want to see in a leader. And Joe will tell you he's forever grateful for Deming and everything he's learned, and I think that's the reward. But people need to be willing to go on that journey, as Dave was saying.   0:12:53.0 Andrew Stotz: So Dave, why don't you walk us through a little bit of what you guys are teaching in that chapter.   0:13:00.3 Dave Williams: Sure. Well, one of the next steps obviously is if somebody, if a leadership team thinks that they want to go on this journey, there's some considerations they got to think about. As we've already sort of alluded to or touched on, this is a leadership responsibility and a leadership change. And so there's got to be will amongst the leadership team in order to say we want to work together and work hard to do this work. That this is not something that, similar to Cliff's example of say, having black belts, that we can just hand it off, somebody else will do it, and we can just keep going about our business and hope. It's important that leaders spend time recognizing and thinking about the fact that this is going to involve them doing work, doing effort, changing the way that they think, changing the way that they practice. And I like to say it's good hard work. I mean it's going to be something that's deeply rewarding. But it does require them to have that will. And with will then it's going to come time and energy, right? They've got to make the space, they've got to create regular routines and opportunities for them to learn just in terms of content, learn in terms of practice or application and learn in the process of doing the improvement work and doing the change to the way that they work in the organization.   0:14:38.0 Dave Williams: So there's going to be a need to build in that ability. And then a third thing is to ask whether you think this is something that you can do on your own or whether it might be useful to have help. And help may be an internal, a consultant, but likely not to promote consulting it but, but there's a good chance that you're going to need somebody that has both experience in improvement and helping people do results-driven improvement as well as somebody who has experience doing system wide change through a lens like QOS. And, and the advantage of that often is it it gives you as a leadership team to focus in on your job of thinking and looking and learning and allow somebody else to be an external intervener, somebody who comes in and creates some of the support, some of the context, some of the ways that can make it easier for you to step back and look at your organization in a different way. And so many times those are some of the things that should be considered as teams working through it. Cliff, what would you add or improve upon.   0:16:07.3 Cliff Norman: The idea of external help. Deming was pretty black and white about that. I was kind of surprised. I went back and read one of his quotes. He said, "I should mention also the costly fallacy held by many people in management that a consultant must know all about a process in order to work on it. All evidence is exactly the contrary. Competent men in every position, from top management to the humblest worker know all there is to know about their work except how to improve it. Help towards improvement can come only from outside knowledge." And I was reflecting on that today with Jane who's been involved in this for 40 plus years also. I said Jane, when he said that, I think it was accurate because at that time she and I were going to Duran seminars. There's only two books out there with methods. One was Ishikawa's book on Guide to Quality Control. And the other was Feigenbaum's book. And then of course you had Duran's book on The Quality Handbook, which was a nice doorstop. But there wasn't that much knowledge about improvement. And the worst part where Deming was really getting to was there's very few people you'd run into that actually under the Shewhart methods and charts and understand the difference between special and common cause variation.   0:17:27.0 Cliff Norman: And so you had to bring that kind of knowledge in from the outside. And frankly, we've had people go off the rails here. You know, Dr. Deming in the teaching of statistics has identified analytic studies which is focused on looking at data over time and trying to understand that and simple methods and approaches and then what he calls enumerative statistics, which is use of T tests, F tests and all the rest of it, which assumes that under the IDD principle that data is independent and identically distributed. Well, if you have any special causes in the data set, it blows up both of those assumptions and the use of those methods doesn't offer any help in prediction. And as Dr. Deming often said, prediction is the problem. And then go back to Shewhart. And Shewhart said, things in nature are inherently stable, but man-made processes are inherently unstable. So when Dave and I first do a Shewhart chart for a client, we don't expect for it to be stable. We expect for to have special causes. And as Dr. Deming said and also Dr. Juran, that when you get a stable system, that in and of itself is an achievement, that means nobody's messing around with the system anymore.   0:18:43.0 Cliff Norman: And you see this in the simplest things, like in an office, somebody will walk in and they think that their body is the standard for what the internal temperature should be for that room. So then they walk up and they start tampering with the thermostat. And by the end of the day everybody's irritated because we've had so many bodies up there with their standard. Moving the funnel on us here, and just leaving it alone would probably all be better off. But you have to learn that. And I think that's what Dr. Deming was saying, is that that kind of knowledge is going to come from the outside. Now the good news is is that since he wrote that in 1986, we've got a lot of people out there and some of them are in organizations that do understand the Shewhart methods and can understand the difference between common and special cause variation. They do understand the difference between a new and analytic studies and statistics and they can be of help. So the Deming Institute has a room full of these people show up, but they're at their gatherings annually. So we're a lot further along than we were in 1986.   0:19:45.2 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. So let's go through that for just a second. Some considerations you've talked about. You know that it's a leadership change. Right. And you gotta ask yourself, are we ready to work on this? And you know, this is not a hands-off thing. The second thing you talked about is time and energy. Are we ready to make the space for this? We have to have regular meetings. You know, we've gotta really... There's some work involved here. And then the third part you've talked about is outside help. And you mentioned about this story of Joe Balthazar and how he asked you to do the same topic over and over for four years. And imagine if he was telling his team, let's meet and try to implement some of this stuff on our own. Everybody dig into a book and then let's try. It would be very difficult to make that kind of progress compared to bringing an outside person. Which also brings me to the last thing that you said, Cliff, which was the idea that Dr. Deming had mentioned, that you need an outside person to truly change something. Everybody's got the expertise on the inside.   0:20:44.5 Cliff Norman: I appreciate you summarizing that because my job and working with Joe and leadership team, I was meeting with him every month. But what the four years that Jane and I spent were the next levels of his leadership. You know, it wasn't the leadership team. And I'm glad you brought that up because it was the very next level that he wanted exposed to this and the VP of sales that came in, he was new, so he had to be part of this group because he wasn't there originally. And so there was that ongoing... He wanted that next generation that was going to take over for him and the others to really understand this. So I'm glad you summarized that for me to help.   0:21:30.5 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. And I think one of the starting points too, I mean, the body of work, not just this book, but the other books that you guys have been involved in and produced provide a lot of the starting points for this. So there's a lot there. Dave, where do we go after these considerations? And the people say, okay, yeah, leadership says, we want to make this change. We're ready to make some time for it. We're willing to get outside support and help. Where do we go next.   0:21:57.7 Dave Williams: Right. Well, one thing that we typically invite a leadership team to do is to take kind of a self assessment of where they sort of see their baseline in relation to the methods and activities of QOS. So in chapter one of the book, there's actually a table that is 10 different categories. And then each leader takes it independently and they rate their level of agreement with different definitions from 0 to 10. 0 being this really isn't present, and 10 is, I'm very, very far along on this journey that in the book that's out now, there's a summarized table, it's on a page. But actually in the QOS field guide that we're working on publishing this year, there's a much more detailed version that we use in practice that has deeper definitions, but basically it works its way through purpose and leadership and systems thinking and measurement and all the things that are tied into QOS and what... And as I mentioned, we have each individual member of the leadership team take it independently and then we bring those scores together to learn together.   0:23:32.5 Dave Williams: And there's different ways in which you can display it. In the book, we show an example of a leadership team's scatter plot where it shows the rating and then it also shows the standard deviation amongst that exists between the leadership team. It's very, very common for leaders to not be in agreement in terms of their score in each of the different areas. You know what I said, It's a 0 to 10 scale. Typically, in my experience using the tool, people tend to be between a 2 and a 6 and hovering around a 2 or a 4. But it sort of looks like a buckshot or shotgun blast where there's a very... If you were to put dots where everybody scores, where there's variation that exists. And that's good because it's useful for the team to pause and think about why they assess the organization the way that they did. Looking at it through this new lens, where are the places that there's agreement and also where are the places that there's variation? And that helps them to be able to think about the fact that through this process, they're likely to both improve their assessment of the organization, but also increase their agreement about where they are and what they need to do to move forward and what they need to do to improve.   0:25:05.2 Dave Williams: And so that's a useful starting point, gets everybody kind of on the same page, and it's something that we can use at intervals as one of the ways to continually come back and evaluate progress towards the destination of pursuing quality as an organizational strategy.   0:25:23.7 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, I mean, I imagine that self assessment, it helps you too when you work with companies to be able to really understand, okay, here are starting point with this company is really, they just really don't know much about all of this stuff, whereas you'll have some other clients that basically, wow, okay, there's a lot of knowledge here about it, but how's the implementation and all that? So are we ready to change? Are we prepared to devote the time and energy? Are we going to get outside help? And where are we now? What's our starting point that's great to help us understand exactly how you step through it. What comes next?   0:26:03.5 Cliff Norman: Well, in that very first milestone, in that table, is it table three, Dave? Anyway, the very first milestone is to establish formal improvement efforts. And the reason for that is that unless people experience what it takes to develop, test and implement changes in the organizations, they really can't appreciate the structure that comes with quality as an organizational strategy. Because it's very difficult for many organizations to launch three or four improvement efforts and then bring them to fruition. And there's all sorts of stuff that happens. And then you find out very quickly whether you have managers or leaders, and organizations they've brought me in, they say, let's do some leadership training. I said, no, let's just do some improvement and then we'll find out if we have leaders or not. And one group, I won't mention who it was, but they had five people on their leadership team and they had to replace two of them because they found out they couldn't actually manage an improvement effort. And then the CEO was wondering how they actually manage their organization, which they weren't either. And so it's a rather, it's an important test in the front.   0:27:22.2 Cliff Norman: But as Dr. Juran says, it's real important to develop the habit of improvement. And if you don't know what that is, if you've never experienced it, then it's hard to say to people, gee, I need a purpose that aligns my improvement efforts. I need to understand my system so I know where those improvements are going on. I need to build an information system, get information from customers outside, people inside. I need to put together a strategic plan that actually makes improvements on purpose. That's a lot of work. And once you understand how complicated it can get in terms of just doing three or four improvement efforts and then all of a sudden you got a portfolio of 30 to do your strategic plan. Now that needs some structure, that needs some guidance and all the rest of it. But I'll just go back one step further. My own journey. I was sent by Halliburton at Otis Engineering to go see Dr. Deming 1982 in February. And coming back, I had an audience with the president of our organization, Purvis Thrash. And I went on and on about Dr. Deming. He said, Cliff, you know what I'd like to have? I said, what's up, Mr. Thrash?   0:28:27.5 Cliff Norman: He says, if you'll take this 50 million dollar raw material problem and solve this for me, I'll be a happy man and I'll give you all the quality you want. But go take care of that problem for me first and then come back to me and talk about Deming and Juran and anything else you want to talk about. So I put together four or five people and over about three months we solved his 50 million dollar raw material problem. And then he had a meeting of all executives and I was sitting with the managers in the back row and he called me to the front and he says, Cliff, will you sign this card right here? And I says, well Mr. Thrash, what is this? He says, well, I'm giving you authority to sign $50,000 anytime you need it to get all the quality we can stand here at Otis Engineering. One of the vice presidents said, well, I don't have that authority. He said, you didn't save me $50 million. You know, but once that happens, Andrew, once you do that, then you've got people that are willing to help you. And then once that takes place, I can't tell you how important, it allowed me then to bring in Lloyd Provost to help me.   0:29:36.2 Cliff Norman: And they weren't about to pay out money. They didn't like consultants, in fact, they were anti-consultant. But you saved us $50 million. I gave you $50,000. And Lloyd doesn't make that much. So get him in here, do whatever you need to go do. And I just think it's so critical that we have that demonstration project that people understand at the leadership level what we're talking about when we talk about design and redesign of the system.   0:30:00.0 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. I mean, I appreciate in the book you're talking about this concept. I'm not going to call it quick wins, but the idea is we need to get results. You know, this isn't just about talking about stuff so that's one thing that as you just illustrated, that's one point. The second thing you mentioned, is this person a leader or a manager? You know, and I think for the listeners or viewers out there, they're probably... When they heard you say that, they're probably thinking. Okay, wait a minute. Are my team managers or leaders? How do I know? What would you say? What differentiates the two?   0:30:37.2 Cliff Norman: I was fortunate to hang around Dr. Maccabee, as Deming did, and I asked Dr. Maccabee that question. He said, Cliff it's actually pretty easy. He said leaders have followers, and if you have followers, you can be anywhere in the organization, be a leader, but if you don't have followers, you're not a leader. You might be a manager with authority. You're not a leader.   0:31:02.7 Andrew Stotz: Can I ask a little bit more on that? So I'm thinking about my own business, which is a coffee factory, and I have people that are running the business, but I also have people that are running departments like the roasting department. And that area when they're overseeing this and they're doing a very good job and they're keeping things up and all that. How do I understand in a sense you could say, are they followers? Well, not really. They're people working for them and they have a good time and so do I view that person as not necessarily a leader, but more of a manager, or how do I look at it in my own company?   0:31:35.5 Cliff Norman: It could be a manager, which is essential to the organization. And that's another big difference. You see, the leader can't delegate their relationship with the people who are followers. You can't do that any more than a teacher can dedicate her class to a substitute teacher. Anybody that's ever watched that knows that chaos is getting ready to break out here because that teacher has a relationship with those students. She knows them all in a big way. And when the substitute comes in is game time in most classrooms and so forth, the managers have skills and things that they're applying and they can actually delegate those. Like when I was a foreman, I could have somebody come in and take over my department and I say assign all my people tomorrow. And they could do that. Now, in terms of the people that I was leading that saw me as a leader in that department, they didn't have that relationship.   0:32:30.2 Cliff Norman: But management or skills and necessary things to make the organization run like you're talking about, the coffee is not going to get out the door unless I have people with subject matter knowledge and competent managers to make sure that the T's are getting crossed, the I's dotted and the rest of it. But the leadership of the organization that has followers, that's a whole different person. And I think it's important. That could be anywhere in the organization. Like I had at Halliburton, I had a VP of engineering. Everybody went to him, everybody. He had 110 patents. You know, he built that system. He built the whole organization. So the CEO did not have the followers that the VP of engineering had. And it was well earned. It's always earned, too.   0:33:16.7 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. Okay, that's great. Leaders have followers. Leaders cannot delegate their authority. They have a different relationship.   0:33:24.0 Cliff Norman: They can't delegate the relationship.   0:33:25.8 Andrew Stotz: The relationship. Okay.   0:33:27.4 Cliff Norman: Yeah. Very important.   0:33:34.3 Andrew Stotz: So now let's go back to what, where we were. So we were saying some of the considerations. Are we ready to change? Are we prepared to devote the time and energy? Are we ready to get outside help and where are we now? And that self assessment that you talked about helps us to understand what's our starting point. I always tell a joke with my students about this when I talk about. I'd say, imagine you go to London and you're going to go visit your friend and you call your friend up, you say, I've arrived and I'm calling from a phone booth and just tell me how to get there. And the friend says, well, where are you? And you say, I'm not really sure. Well, do you see anything around you? Yeah, well, there's lots of buildings, but I don't really, you know. Well, do you see any names of any streets? No, I don't really see anything. But just tell me how to get there. There's something missing. If we don't know where we are, it's very difficult to get to where we're going. So now we understand where we are. We got that scatter plot that you guys have that you've talked about. Dave, where do we go next?   0:34:26.6 Dave Williams: Well, so Cliff already mentioned one of the fundamentals. And sometimes I think this is something that people struggle with because they want to jump into something new. But one of the best starting points is to focus in on improvement. And there's a number of different reasons for that. So one is that I don't know about you all, but in my experience, if I ask people, like, hey, I want to create some improvement projects and get started on improvement, I always tell people, like, if you remember the old Stephen Covey exercise where he put the rocks and the stones and the sand into a jar and poured water. And like you would do it in different orders. And I'm fascinated that people will stare at the big rocks or the things that are right in front of them, or the things that are on their agenda, or the things that are part of their strategy. And then they'll look to the side and grab some rare event or some extra thing that isn't related to that, but they've always wanted to work on. And where we try to focus people's attention is one, what are you already working on? Can you look through your and ask around, what are the things that are currently in play, projects that exist? And sometimes we won't ask, what improvement projects do you have? Because if you do that, you get a short list.   0:35:51.4 Dave Williams: Those are the things that people defined as an improvement effort, or maybe use some kind of framing to decide it was an improvement project. It may be better to in the beginning of the book, in the first chapter, we talk about different ways that you improve. And there's designing and redesigning a process. There's designing and redesigning a service or a product. There's changing a whole system. And so it can be useful to say, well, what are we doing in these areas? And that may actually create a bigger list of the various things where people are working on something that's about change to the system that may lend itself to be better activated through firing it up as an improvement project. And then, of course, there's a good chance that any organization, especially if they've done some kind of strategic planning, have some strategic objectives or some strategic priorities which they've committed to or already said, these are the things we're going to work on. So kind of crowdsourcing or bringing those together helps us to potentially find the early portfolio of projects without having to look much further, without having to say, what else do you want to work on.   0:37:07.0 Dave Williams: And then if we've got that, if we've got that list, a second thing that we can do is invite people to use the three questions of the model for improvement and reflect on can you answer these three questions? Do you know what you're trying to accomplish? Do you know how a change will result in improvement? Do you know what changes you'll make? What's your theory about how you'll get to improvement? And so having a list of the things that are already present or existing may be one first step. Another second step in the firing up a portfolio of improvement projects is asking the three questions for the model for improvement. And then a third one, if it's an active project is we have a project progress scale that you might use that can help you gauge. So I've got a project where is it on its journey towards achieving its aim or getting results? Those three can help us to sort of get a sense of the work that is at hand and that has already been sort of started in some fashion that is already in progress and maybe to get a sense of the level of definition and the progress that exists.   0:38:22.3 Dave Williams: They may not be the right projects, but that's a good place to start before trying to create new ones. And I'll hand it to you, Andrew.   0:38:30.4 Andrew Stotz: I find that interesting. Both the story that you told Cliff about fix my raw material problem and then, Dave, what you're talking about is as you talk in the book, focus first on improvement. What are we already working on? What's an improvement project we've got? What's a problem we've got? Because a lot of times, let's say in the teachings of Dr. Deming, it's like, no, get your mind right, read this stuff, read this, figure this out, think about this, go to a seminar, talk to other people before you do anything. I feel like that is oftentimes where people get caught is they get caught up in, I need a year to think about this. And can you explain a little bit more about why once we've done our self assessment and we're ready to go, that you focus on improvement rather than the thinking process?   0:39:21.7 Dave Williams: Well, because we want to... Well, one, we know that in order to get results or to get a different result than what we want, we got to change the system that we got. Right. So in order to do that, we've got to do improvement. The other thing is that there's already energy that's being expended here.   0:39:41.4 Andrew Stotz: That's a good point.   0:39:42.7 Dave Williams: The risk that often I find people run into is that they then add other projects that are not strategic into that bucket and take up more energy. I'll tell you an example. I was working with the health system here in the States and we crowdsource just the things that they were calling improvement projects. The health system had 25 active teams that were just the ones that were called out as improvement projects. When we looked at those 25 teams, the vast majority of them were not actually... They had been meeting for months and doing things for quite some time, but they actually weren't doing any changes and, or they've been testing changes for quite some time. So, now just this exercise alone by only asking, what improvement projects do you have? You realize you've got 25 teams that have been resourced or are spending energy or going to meetings or focused on something. They may not be the strategic thing that matters, but that's irrelevant right now. We just know that we already have invested some interest here. The second thing is these folks have been on this journey for quite some time and are not making progress.   0:41:01.7 Dave Williams: So that tells me something about maybe the way that they framed it. Did they charter it well? Did they have the right people in the room or the right team? Did they have the right tools and methods to be able to break down the problem and then figure out what to test and learn? So there may be some difficulty...   0:41:19.4 Andrew Stotz: Or did they even just dissipate their efforts across 25 projects too? Right in their resources, yeah.   0:41:26.1 Dave Williams: Yeah. Or there are overlaps? So there's a number of different factors. There's actually a paper that was published by a health system in the United Kingdom, and it was really interesting. They spent a lot of attention on generating will through training and getting people in the classroom and teaching them about improvement methods. And they fired up all this energy. They had a massive explosion of the number of projects that were started or where somebody went into their software. They had a software platform. Anybody could go and start a project. Well, something like 50% of those projects never actually got to PDSA testing where they changed anything. And then there were a slew of them that were stuck in PDSA testing but never saw any movement in their process measures or their outcome measures. And only a small number actually progressed in achieving their aim. And I asked the Chief Quality Officer about this, and and he admittedly said that it was very exciting that we we're generating will and getting things going, but that alone was only getting them to maybe some early design and some thinking, but they weren't getting them to results.                                                                         0:42:34.8 Dave Williams: And I said, well, what about the ones that were getting results? And he said, well, those are actually ones where we've got an improvement advisor who's got some skills and ability and improvement. There are things that are resourced, there are things that were prioritized. And man, when we did all those things, they moved from planning and organizing and thinking to testing changes and moving in a direction of goodness and getting at least results in their process measures, if not their outcome measures. And so in my mind, I was like, I appreciate you're trying to build this sort of culture, but it felt like a lot of burnt energy at the front end with all these teams getting into training and firing up their software and more energy might have been strategic in copying what was getting to results. And I think that's part of what we're trying to get to, is helping people learn. You've got if you don't have a method to figure out strategic projects, let's look at the ones you got. How are they going? Where are people at? And how effective is the capability that you have within your system right now? And the leaders want to be part of that, and they can learn within that to go, oh, wow, this is our current state.   0:43:47.2 Dave Williams: And so maybe we're going to agree to continue on with these projects. Maybe we're going to sunset some of them, but we're going to learn together about how do we get better at getting better, and how do we learn how to move projects forward and not to have them take two years. Let's try to get them down to four or six months, whether that's through scope or execution. But let's get better at getting better. And then as we're building... Developing the early activities of QOS, we'll eventually get to a point where we'll also be able to identify more strategic projects that are going to move us towards our aim or towards our purpose better. And this will help us as we're trying to build the capability to get there.   0:44:32.7 Cliff Norman: You know, Andrew, early on, when Dave went down this path, he said that we got to make sure that somebody's working on improvement. They're actually making changes. And Jane and I were working with a group, and the CEO said they've been meeting a long time. Could you down there and see what they're doing? Because nothing's happening. And we started looking through their agendas and they had everything well documented, and it was all about getting ready to get ready. And then they'd assign the dessert. Who's going to bring the dessert to the next meeting. And Jane looked at him and says this reminds me of something, Cliff. I said, what's that? Can I share my screen?   0:45:10.9 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. Yep, go ahead.   0:45:13.7 Cliff Norman: I may send this to. You may know about it, but this is Dr. Deming's Diary of a Cat. And everyday...   0:45:20.6 Andrew Stotz: It hasn't come up yet. Hold on one second. Hopefully you've got permission now.   0:45:28.6 Cliff Norman: Let me go back and check here.   0:45:33.9 Andrew Stotz: Okay. It looks like it's coming up. One second.   0:45:38.4 Cliff Norman: It said every day is today. There's no theory days of the week. But today I got up some food in a bowl, it was great. Slept some too. Play with yarn, got some food in a bowl, had a good nap, slept, food, yarn, fun. Play with a shoelace. There's a big change right there. Went from yarn to a shoelace. Some people call that a job shop. And ate, slept, had a good day, slept, ate some food, yarn, so forth. So, and the team meeting looked just like that. But there's really no changes going on relative to improvement. So Dr. Deming would often share this into four days seminar to make sure that we weren't involved in the Diary of the Cat, but we were actually doing something useful in terms of making changes in the organization.   0:46:24.4 Andrew Stotz: That's a great one. And it helps us to understand that we could be busy all day long and not improve anything.   0:46:31.8 Cliff Norman: You know, or actually confuse that with improvement. In fact, we have an operational API that my team, we were embarrassed in our first, wait a second, our first improvement guide we wrote. And Dr. Adamir Pente, who's a professor at the university in Brazil, he sent us a note and he said, I know you guys and he said you're real big on operational definitions, but you've written this book on improvement and nowhere have you, you've defined what you mean by improvement. And then he put together a three part definition that there's a design and redesign system, there's system measures and the change is sustainable and lasting and so we put that definition in the second edition. But I was confronted at a university, I won't mention which one it was, but they had 30 Keystone projects for a advanced degree program for nursing and they were convinced they were doing improvement. And when I had them apply that definition, they came up out of the thirty. They only could find two projects out of the 30 where they were actually designing and redesigning the system, which, that's the first thing Dave said are we designing and redesigning and making real changes? And people think just showing up and going through motions and all the rest of it is improvement. No, it means...   0:48:07.8 Dave Williams: Looks like we've lost...   0:48:11.9 Andrew Stotz: We lost you at the last, the last statement you just made. People are going through all this stuff and thinking that they're improving, but they're...   0:48:22.8 Cliff Norman: Yeah, it's showing up and going through motions and you know, having the meetings and making sure we assign who's bringing dessert. But we're not really designing and changing the system. We're not getting measurable changes of improvement. In other words, we haven't tracked the data over time and we can't say that the changes that we've made are going to in fact be sustainable because we haven't known what we've done to the system to deserve a sustainable change.   0:48:51.4 Andrew Stotz: By the way, what a buzzword these days, sustainability, sustainable and all that. And you just think do people really think about how we're building something that's really lasting and sustainable?   0:49:04.8 Cliff Norman: Well, we have a checklist and actually Jane designed it for the first edition and it literally lays out what changes did you make, which processes did you change, what's going to change in the documentation, whose role statements have been changed in the organization because of this change. And once all that's answered on that checklist, which is in the book, then we can... But we're pretty certain that we've created the structure to make it easy for people to do the right thing and hard to do the wrong thing. But unless that structure's changed, probably not much going to happen.   0:49:40.8 Andrew Stotz: Just for the sake of time, because I think we want to wrap up in just a bit. But there's so many stuff, so much stuff that we've been through. But I know there's even more in this chapter, but how would you start to bring this together for the person who is a leader, himself or herself, and they're listening to this and they're thinking, okay, I'm ready to make a change and I'm prepared to devote the time and energy because I see the outcome and I'm open to help, whether that's through the book and other books, whether that's through a consultant, whatever that is. And I can even do a self assessment to some extent and know where our level is, which is very low. We don't know much about this type of stuff and that type of thing. We talked about the first focus on improvement. How do they pull this all together and start moving on it?   0:50:35.0 Dave Williams: There's three things that follow the self assessment. The first one is this focus on doing improvement work and setting up a portfolio of projects. And we just kind of talked about many of the different methods that go into that. And like I said, sometimes that when you say that out loud, leaders don't initially get excited by it because they think they have it. But actually it's a powerful opportunity for you to learn about what's currently going on in the organization and about where this opportunity is to reduce a lot of the noise and a lot of the friction that's getting in the way from you getting to results. The second thing that often happens in parallel is that the leaders need to build a learning system where they're going to be able to learn together both about these projects and what these projects are telling them about their organization, about their culture, about their people, and about their capacity to get results, but also that they can start to be learning about the science of improvement and profound knowledge and the activities of QOS that are going to be part of what they're going to work on developing over the course of the first year or two.   0:51:50.6 Dave Williams: And so that typically is, that's making that space and energy. It's a blend of book learning and application and practical. Trying and looking at things within the organization. It's a very applied approach, but it's an ongoing piece of their discovery. And I often argue that this is a real opportunity for leadership because they're going to be able to see their organization in a way that they haven't seen it before. And when we talk about profound knowledge, they're going to gain this profound understanding and expertise about what they're charged with and what they own and what they want to change in a way that they haven't been able to have it before. And so it's a hard work, but rewarding work. And then third is that typically where the, where we invite people to start is to focus in on the first activity, which is to develop or establish or develop their purpose. When this work was initially framed, not everybody was as... Not everybody had a mission, vision and value statement or a purpose statement that wasn't as common, but today people do. But the difference here, and you'll see this in the chapter on purpose, is that organizations that are pursuing quality as an organizational strategy are organizations that are systems that are built to constantly be trying to match a need that exists out in the world.   0:53:34.7 Dave Williams: And so often a learning for people is to step back and have to reflect on, well, what is the need in which we are creating these products and services to match? And if we're creating these things to match the need, how do we understand what's important, what are the quality characteristics that matter? And then how do we define what our mission is in that context? And being able to say, here's why we exist and the need that we're trying to serve, and in what way? And how do we set a vision for where we want to get into the future and what are the tenants or the practical values that exist in our organization, that we want to define how we work together in terms of building in that way. And so purpose is a big focus. It's that clarity of the need, the clarity of the quality characteristics that it takes to match that need. Understanding what are the products and services that we have. I know that sounds a little trivial, but you'd be stunned how hard it is, especially in service organizations, for people to actually describe what it is that they do, what are the actual services.   0:54:54.3 Dave Williams: They might have the name of the service or the class or the whatever, but to actually say this is what we deliver, and then really think about how do I use this as our organization's sort of North Star, our aim, so that everything else that follows is going to be about building a system that produces the results that we want and produces the services that match that need. So going forward, that's going to be very, very important in instructing the direction and instructing the way in which we're going to work as a community of professional people together.   0:55:30.8 Andrew Stotz: So after self assessment, we're talking about focusing on improvement. We're talking about building a learning system, and we're talking about revisiting or establishing or developing our purpose?   0:55:43.3 Cliff Norman: Yeah, I'll just add to what you just said there, Andrew. There's three basic things that have to happen when we start working. Number one is create the habit of improvement. Start improvement right away. Second thing, Dave just went through some detail on building a system of improvement. And Dave called that a learning system, which I thought was interesting because that's what Dr. Maccabee called it when he saw the five activities. Said, these are really methods for building a learning organization. And he said, I've never really seen them before, but this is what will come out of this, which is the essence of what you want. You want people continually learning, as Dr. Deming said, so they can continually improve. But the third thing that has to happen is we have to develop internal capability for them to carry this on, because we're not going to be around with them. We've never advertised. We don't advertise for clients, and we only get word of mouth. And we're only in there to do those three things, get them started on the habit of improvement, start building the system improvement so they can take it over.   0:56:43.4 Cliff Norman: And the third thing, start developing internal capability so they can continue it on into the future. So those three things basically take off on day one. And depending on the organization, I think this is critical. Dave, you asked this question the other day, if the context is such they've got things in front of them are so bad and so challenging that they just need to work on improvement. That's where we're going to be focused. But now if they can chew gum and walk at the same time, we're going to start building the system of improvement. And the first people I want on those initial teams, I want people on there who are going to be future improvement advisors. And more importantly, they perceive them as future leaders in the organization. I don't want a cadre of a whole bunch of improvement advisors. I want leaders in the future who actually understand the science of improvement, understand these methods, so when they go to the next department, the next organization, they can carry this on. So those three things start improving, start building a system of improvement. And the third thing, start developing internal capability. Those have got to take off almost simultaneously, depending on the situation, of course.   0:57:49.8 Andrew Stotz: Well, on that note, that's quite a discussion. I'm so happy that we can have this to go in a little bit deeper into the work that you guys have done. Again, the book is Quality As an Organizational Strategy. I got mine on Amazon and it sent it to me. But I wonder if you have any last words that you'd like to share about what we've talked about today in relation to getting started.   0:58:18.3 Cliff Norman: So, Dave, why don't you talk a little bit about. Because I think this is critical. We've just finished Andrew, the book that's going to be for the people who actually have to build this system. So Dave, just say a few things about that if you would, because you.   0:58:32.0 Dave Williams: About the field guide?   0:58:33.8 Cliff Norman: Yeah.   0:58:35.5 Dave Williams: Yeah. Well, so when this body of work was first created, there was the content of which you see in this book. And then there were also a lot of exercises and methods and applications and examples that existed as well. And it was a pretty thick binder. We have created two volumes. One, the book that you have, which is the description of the theory and the method and gives you some of the tools. And we're now in the process of pulling together what we call the QOS Field Guide, which is a guide that is supporting people that are going down this journey. It follows the same structure as the book, with the exception of the, the Getting started chapter that we had at the end is now at the beginning. And it walks through in great detail various ways in which you leaders and practitioners can approach getting started and building the capacity and then working through each of the activities. And it's equal in size, I mean, it's about the same thickness. But what we tried to do is to give people really pragmatic things to do.   1:00:01.1 Dave Williams: So there are exercises where people are simulating an idea or a concept or a particular piece. There are what we call QOS applications, which are where you're actually taking the theory or the method and applying it to your own organization. There are case studies and things that have been built that might allow you to practice. There's wonderful examples of just about everything from all, from people that we have worked with over the years across multiple different fields, from my background in emergency services and healthcare to education to manufacturing to elevator companies, all kinds of great stuff. And so that will be helpful as people are trying to think about pursuing this journey and working through that first phase of developing QOS and moving into using it. And we're in the stages of having it done to be available later this year.   1:01:08.6 Andrew Stotz: Exciting.   1:01:09.2 Cliff Norman: We've tried to make it useful, Andrew, that the people have to stay overnight with the management and actually get something done and build it without being run off. That everything is there for them to make sure that they make it successfully. That's the thing we kept in mind as we kept writing this second volume.   1:01:25.2 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, I mean, I would say my experience with your guys's writing is that it's applicable.   1:01:34.1 Dave Williams: Well, Andrew, one thing I was going to add on you mentioned a lot of different examples. There are a lot of books in which people tell you a theory, but they don't tell you how to do it. Or they tell you about their own experience, but they don't actually convey the theory. The Quality as an Organizational Strategy book is laying out the theory and the methods of this approach built on the foundations of the science of improvement and profound knowledge and the Deming philosophy. The QOS Field Guide adds to that by giving you the methods and the tools and the things. It doesn't mean that that by itself you can't just go through like it's some kind of self guided tour and all of a sudden magic happens. There's a lot of work and learning and things that have to go into going through that process. But between these two volumes, a leadership team has the tools and methods that put them in position to be able to make this journey.   1:02:41.4 Andrew Stotz: Right. Well, let's wrap it up there. On behalf of everyone, I appreciate Dave and Cliff. All that you're doing and you're sharing with us and taking the time to do that. So from everyone at the Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for joining this and bringing your discussion on these topics. And for listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. And you can find this book, Quality as an Organizational Strategy at Amazon and other booksellers. Are there even booksellers these days? I don't even know. They're mainly online these days. So this is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'm going to leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming, which is "people are entitled to joy in work."  

Abbie and Adrian talk about bridging the gap between what can be measured and what truly matters in communications and public relations. They discuss how the phrase "what gets measured gets managed"—often wrongly attributed to Peter Drucker—can be misleading since not everything that truly matters can be quantified and counted. Abbie shares her experiences from earlier in her career, reminiscing about the era of clip books, where the success of PR campaigns was measured by the volume of media coverage, rather than the content or its impact. They conclude that while measurement tools and technology have certainly advanced, the core challenge remains: identifying the right metrics that resonate with the client's goals and demonstrate the value of a campaign in achieving business success. Read the transcript and notes for this episode on our website. Key Takeaways Effective PR measurement requires aligning communications strategy with overarching business goals to accurately assess impact and success. Modern tools and analytics enable the measurement of various aspects of PR campaigns, but there is still a challenge in capturing intangible impacts like brand awareness. PR & communications professionals must align their measurement strategies with the actual business objectives to demonstrate real value to clients. Misalignment between client expectations and PR outcomes can result from failure to ask the right questions at the start of a campaign. Continuous dialogue between PR agencies and clients is crucial for demonstrating value and securing long-term partnerships. Follow the podcastIf you enjoyed this episode, please follow Copper State of Mind in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast app. We publish new episodes every other Friday. Just pick your preferred podcast player from this link, open the app, and click the button to “Follow” the show: https://www.copperstateofmind.show/listen Need to hire a PR firm? We demystify the process and give you some helpful advice in Episode 19: "How to Hire a Public Relations Agency in Arizona: Insider Tips for Executives and Marketing Directors" CreditsCopper State of Mind, hosted by Abbie Fink and Dr. Adrian McIntyre, is a project of HMA Public Relations, a full-service public relations and marketing communications firm in Phoenix. The show is recorded and produced by the team at Speed of Story, a B2B communications firm, and distributed by PHX.fm, the leading independent B2B podcast network in Arizona. If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like the PRGN Presents podcast, hosted by Abbie Fink, featuring conversations about PR, marketing, and communications with members of the Public Relations Global Network, "the world's local public relations agency.”

In this episode of Partnering Leadership, Mahan Tavakoli speaks with Mark Schaefer, a renowned bestselling author of popular marketing books. The conversation focuses on Mark Schaefer's latest book, Belonging to the Brand: Why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy.During the discussion, Mark Schaefer shares valuable insights on personal branding, courageous leadership, and the power of humility. Emphasizing the significance of community in marketing, he explores how organizations can successfully build and nurture thriving communities. Mark also discusses the shift from traditional advertising to social media and how creating a sense of community among audiences leads to stronger emotional connections.The conversation includes compelling examples of companies effectively engaging their customers through community-building initiatives. Mahan and Mark explore the psychological bonds within a community and how these connections translate to heightened brand loyalty. Discover the leadership insights of the legendary Peter Drucker and how his ability to distill complexity can transform your approach to management.Uncover the power of community in marketing and how it can drive revenue, heal, and create a sense of purpose.Learn from real-life examples of big and small companies that have successfully built communities and generated massive success.Explore the challenges of leading a community while maintaining alignment and discover the breakthrough ideas and innovation that can arise from a thriving community.Understand how the pandemic has highlighted the importance of community in marketing and how it can serve as a powerful healing force in society.Gain insights into the importance of purpose in building a community and how involving customers or fans can create a better world together.Learn how to build a personal brand in the digital age, leveraging the power of the internet to attract a supportive audience.Understand the importance of community and purpose in building thriving communities and how they can engage loyal customers and build on each other.Gain insights into building a community and personal brand, focusing on trust and collaboration.Explore the power of creating meaningful moments and connections within a community and how it can lead to stronger emotional relationships with your audience.Uncover the overlooked value of community in brand marketing and the power of user-generated content and brand advocacy.Connect with Mark SchaeferMark Schaefer Website Mark Schaefer on LinkedIn Belonging to the Brand: Why Community Is the Last Great Marketing Strategy on Amazon Connect with Mahan Tavakoli: Mahan Tavakoli Website Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn Partnering Leadership Website

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we start by discussing the unpredictable nature of Toronto's weather and its amusing impact on the city's spring arrival. We explore the evolution of Formula One pit stops, highlighting the remarkable advancements in efficiency over the decades. This sets the stage for a conversation with our guest, Chris Collins, who shares his insights on balancing fame and wealth below the need for personal security. Next, we delve into the intricacies of the VCR formula—proposition, proof, protocol, and property. I share my experiences from recent workshops, emphasizing the importance of transforming ideas into intellectual property. We explore cultural differences between Canada and the U.S. in securing property rights, highlighting the entrepreneurial spirit needed to protect one's innovations. We then examine the role of AI in government efficiency, with Elon Musk's technologies revealing inefficiencies in civil services. The discussion covers the political and economic implications of misallocated funds and how the market's growing intolerance for waste pushes productivity and accountability to the forefront. Finally, we reflect on the transformative power of technological advancements, drawing parallels to historical innovations like the printing press. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We discussed the VCR formula—proposition, proof, protocol, and property—designed to enhance communication skills and protect innovations. This formula is aimed at helping entrepreneurs turn their unique abilities into valuable assets. We touch on the unpredictable weather of Toronto and the humor associated with the arrival of spring were topics of discussion, offering a light-hearted start to the episode. Dan and I share insights on the evolution of Formula One pit stops, showcasing human innovation and efficiency over time. We examined the challenges faced by entrepreneurs in protecting their intellectual property and explored cultural contrasts between Canada and the U.S. regarding intellectual property rights. The episode delved into the implications of AI in improving government efficiency, highlighting how technologies reveal civil service inefficiencies and drive accountability. We reflected on the transformative power of historical innovations such as the printing press and electricity, drawing parallels to modern technological advancements. The conversation concluded with reflections on personal growth, including insights from notable figures like Thomas Edison and Peter Drucker, and a preview of future discussions on aging and life experiences. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan. Dan: That feels better. Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia, yes. Dan: Yes indeed. Dean: Well, where in the world? Dan: are you? Dean: today, toronto. Oh, you're in Toronto. Okay, yeah, where are you? Yeah? Dan: where are you? Dean: I am in the courtyard at the Four Seasons Valhalla in my comfy white couch. In perfect, I would give it 73 degree weather right now. Dan: Yes, well, we're right at that crossover between middle winter and late winter. Dean: You never know what you're going to get. It could snow or it could be. You may need your bikini, your Speedo or something. Dan: I think spring in Toronto happens, I think somewhere around May 23rd, I think somewhere around. May 23rd, and it's the night when the city workers put all the leaves on the trees. Dean: You never know what you're going to get. Until then, right, it just might snow, and they're stealthy. Dan: They're stealthy and you know, I think they rehearse. You know, starting in February, march, april, they start rehearsing. You know how fast can we get all the leaves on the trees and they do it all in one night they do it and all. I mean they're faster than Santa Claus. I mean they're. Dean: Have you seen, Dan? There's a wonderful video on YouTube that is a comparison of a Formula One pit stop from the 1950s versus the 2013 Formula One in Melbourne, and it was so funny to show. Dan: It would be even faster today. Dean: It would be even faster today. Oh yeah, 57 seconds it took for the pit stop in the 50s and it was 2.7 seconds at Melbourne it was just amazing to see. Dan: Yeah, mark young talks about that because he's he's not formula one, but he's at the yeah, he's at the level below formula one right, every, uh, every minute counts, every second counts oh, yeah, yeah, and uh, yeah, he said they practice and practice and practice. You know it's, it's, if it can be measured. You know that there's always somebody who's going to do it faster. And yeah, yeah, it's really, really interesting what humans do. Dean: Really interesting what humans do. I read something interesting or saw a video and I've been looking into it. Basically, someone was saying you know, our brains are not equipped for omniscience, that we're not supposed to have omniscient knowledge of everything going on in the world all at once. where our brains are made to be in a local environment with 150 people around us, and that's what our brain is equipped for managing. But all this has been foisted on us, that we have this impending. No wonder our mental health is suffering in that we have this impending when you say our, who are you referring to? Society. I think you know that's what they're. Dan: Yeah, that's what they're saying like across the board. Dean: Who are they? Yes, that's a great question. Dan: You know I hear this, but I don't experience any of it. I don't feel foisted upon. I don't feel overwhelmed. Dean: You know what I? Dan: think it is. I think it is that people who feel foisted upon have a tendency to talk about it to a lot of other people. Dean: But people who don't feel foisted upon. Dan: Don't mention it to anybody. Dean: It's very interesting. Do you know Chris Collins? Do you know Chris Collins? Dan: He wrote the really great book collection called I Am Leader. Dean: It's really something. He's a new genius. He's a new Genius Network member. Dan: Oh, Chris, oh yeah, oh yeah, chris, yeah, does he have repair shops? His main business is auto Auto. Dean: Yeah, oh yeah, chris, yeah, he does. He have repair shops His main business is auto, auto, auto dealership. Dan: He does auto dealerships. Dean: Yeah, that's right. Dan: Yeah, chris was in. Chris was in the program way back with 10 times around the same time when you came 10 times. He was in for about two years oh okay, interesting. Yeah and yeah, he was at the last Genius you know, and he's got a big, monstrous book that costs about $300. Dean: Yes, I was just going to talk about that. Yeah. Dan: We got one, but I didn't have room in my bags, you know. Dean: I budget. Dan: You know how much. Dean: I'm going to take and how much I'm going to bring back, and that was just too, much so, yeah, so yeah, yeah. He's very bothered. Oh, is he? Okay, yeah, I don't know him, I just I saw him. Dan: I got that what he talked about was this massive conspiracy. You know that they are doing it to them or they're doing it to us interesting interesting I don't experience that. What I experience is mostly nobody knows who I am. Dean: That's the best place to be right. Dan: They only know of you. Somebody was saying a very famous person showed up at a clinic in Costa Rica and he had eight bodyguards, eight bodyguards and I said yes, why is that expensive? That must be really expensive, having all those bodyguards. I mean, probably the least thing that was costly for one is having is having himself transformed by medical miracles. But having the bodyguards was the real expense. So I had a thought and I talked to somebody about this yesterday. Actually, I said my goal is to be as wealthy and famous just to the point where I would need a bodyguard. But not need the bodyguard just below where I would need a bodyguard, but not need the bodyguard Just below, where I would need a bodyguard, and I think that would be an excellent level of fame and wealth. Not only do you not have a bodyguard, but you don't think you would ever need one. That's the big thing, yeah. Dean: I love that. Dan: That that's good yeah that's a good aspiration yeah, yeah, so far I've succeeded yes, so far you are on the uh. Dean: Yeah, on the cusp of 81 six weeks seven weeks to go yeah, getting close. That's so good. Yeah, yeah, this. How is the new book coming? Dan: Yeah, good, well, I've got several because I have a quarterly book. Dean: Yeah, I'm at the big casting, not hiring. Dan: Yeah, really good. Each of us is delivering now a chapter per week, so it's really coming along. Great, yeah, and so we'll. Our date is may 26th for the everything in um before their editing can start, so they will have our, our draft will be in on may 26th and then it's over to the publisher and you know there'll be back and forth. But Jeff and I are pretty, jeff Madoff and I are pretty complete writers, you know. So you know it doesn't need normal. You know kind of looking at spelling and grammar. Dean: Right, right, right. Is that how you? Are you writing as one voice or you're writing One voice? One voice, one voice. Dan: Yeah, but we're writing actually in the second person, singular voice, so we're writing to the reader. So we're talking about you this and you this, and you this and you this, and that's the best way to do it, because if you can maintain the same voice all the way through, that's really good. I mean, jeff, we have a different style, but since we're talking to the reader all the way through, it actually works really well so far, and then we'll have you know, there'll be some shuffling and rearranging at the end. Dean: That's what I wondered. Are you essentially writing your separate, are you writing alternate chapters or you're writing your thoughts about one chapter? Dan: We have four parts and the first three parts are the whole concept of businesses that have gone theatrical, that have gone theatrical and we use examples like Ralph Lauren, Four Seasons. Hotel Apple. You know who have done Starbucks, who have done a really great job, and Jeff is writing all that because he's done a lot of work on that. He's, you know, he's been a professor at one of the New York universities and he has whole classes on how small companies started them by using a theatrical approach. They differentiated themselves extraordinarily in the marketplace, and he goes through all these examples. Plus he talks about what it's like to be actually in theater, which he knows a great deal about because he's a playwright and a producer. The fourth part is on the four by four casting tool and that's got five sections to it and where I'm taking people, the reader, who is an entrepreneur, a successful, talented, ambitious entrepreneur who wants to transform their company into a theatrical-like enterprise with everybody playing unique roles. So, that's how I've done it, so he's got the bigger writing job than I do but, mine is more directive. This is what you can do with the knowledge in this book. So we're writing it separately, and we're going to let the editor at the publishing house sort out any what goes where. Dean: Put it all together. Dan: Yeah, and we're doing the design on it, so we're pretty steadily into design projects you know, producing a new book. So we've got my entire team my team's doing all the backstage arrangements. Jeff is interviewing a lot of really great people in the theater world and you know anything having to do with casting. So he's got about. You know probably to do with casting. So he's got about probably about 12 major, 12 major interviews that he'll pull quotes from and my team is doing all the setup and the recording for him so so. Jeff. Jeff showed up as Jeff and I showed up as a team. That's great. Oh, that's great, that's awesome yeah, yeah, in comes, but not without six others, right, right with your. Dean: You know, I had a friend who used to refer to that as your utility belt. Right that you show up and you've got strapped on behind you. Dan: You've got your design, got it writing got it video, got it your whole. Yeah, strapped on behind you, you've got your design Got it Right. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan: And capability crew. Yeah, and to a certain extent I'm role modeling the, the point of the book, you know, and the way we're going about this and and you know, and more and more so, I find probably every quarter my actual doing um of production and that gets less and less and I'm actually finding um, I'm actually finding my work with perplexity very useful because it's getting me better at prompting my team members yes yeah, with perplexity, if you don't give it the right prompt, you don't get the right outcome. You know, yeah, and more and more I'm noticing I'm getting better at giving really, really, really great prompts to my artists, to the writers who are working with me, the interviewers, everything so, um, yeah, so it's been very, very helpful. I I find uh, just in a year of perplexity, I've gotten much more uh precise about exactly what I want. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah, defining right. I mean that's pretty. Yeah, yeah, that's really great. And knowing that, a lot of it, so much of that prompting, that's the language that's been adopted for interfacing with AI, chat, gpt and perplexity. Dan: The prompts that you give are the things. Dean: But there's so much of that. That's true about team as well, right? Oh yeah, being a better AI prompter is a better team prompter. Yeah yeah, being a better AI prompter is a better team prompter. Dan: Yeah, yeah, and you know I have a book coming out Now that I'm talking to you about it it may be the next book that would start in June and it's called Technology Coaching Teamwork and it has like three upward arrows that are, uh, you know, in unison with each other. There are three and I said that I think in the 21st century all businesses really have three tracks to them. They have a technology track, they have a teamwork track and they have a coaching track in the middle and that um in the 20th century, we considered management to be the basis. You know, management is the basis for business but. I think management has actually been um superseded, um by um superseded by electronics, you know actually it's the electronics are now the management, the algorithms are now the management and then you have the people who are constantly, you know, creating new technology, and you have human teamwork that's creating new things, because it's ultimately humans that are knocking off everything you know right. And then in the middle is coaching, and coaching goes back and forth between the teamwork and the technology. Technology will always do a really shitty job of coaching yes, I bet that's true, and teams will always do a sort of shitty job of uh knowing how to use technology and there has to be an interface in the middle, that's a human interface and it's a coaching, because coaching takes in a lot of factors, not just action factors or planning factors, but it takes in aspirational factors. It takes in learning factors. It takes in, you know, all sorts of transformational factors and that's a, that's a mid role. Yeah. Dean: Yes, yeah. Dan: And if you look at what you do best, it's probably coaching. Dean: Yeah, I wonder. I mean that's kind of. Dan: Joe Polish. It was Joe Polish, where he probably does best. He's probably a great coach. Dean: Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah, I think that's true. I've really been getting a lot of insight around going through and defining the VCR formula. You know proposition, proof, protocol and property. That's a. I see the clarity that. You know. There's a different level of communication and intention between. Where my I really shine is between is propositions and proof, like getting something knowing, guessing. You know we were. I was going to talk today too about guessing and betting. I've been really thinking about that. That was a great exercise that we did in our workshop. But this idea that's really what this is is guessing. I seem to have this superpower for propositions, like knowing what would be the thing to do and then proving that. That's true. But then taking that proof and creating a protocol that can be packaged and become property is a. That's a different skill set altogether and it's not as much. It's not as much. My unique ability, my superpower zone, is taking, you know, making propositions and proving them. I'm a really good guesser. Dan: That's my strength yeah. Yeah, I think the what I'm doing because it's, um, I'm really thinking a lot about it based on the last, um, uh, free zone workshop, which I did on monday and, uh, you know, monday of the week before last in toronto, where you were yeah, and and then I did it on Thursday again and I reversed the whole day oh really I reversed the whole day. I started off with guessing and betting and then indecision versus bad decision. And then the afternoon I did the second company secret and it worked a lot better. The flow was a lot better. Company secret and it worked a lot better. The flow was a lot better. But the big thing is that people say well, how do I? Um, I I just don't know how I you know that. Um, I'm telling them and they're asking me. So I'm telling them every time you take your unique ability and help someone transform their DOS issues, you're actually creating perspective. Intellectual property. And they said, well, I don't see quite how that works. I don't see how that works, so I've been, you know, and I'm taking them seriously. They don't see how that works. So I said, well, the impact filter is actually the solution. Okay, because you do the DOS question with them. You know, if we were having this discussion a year from now and you were looking back over the year, what has to have happened for you to feel happy with your progress? Okay, and specifically, what dangers do you have that need to be eliminated, what opportunities do you have that need to be captured, and what strengths do you have that need to be maximized? And there's a lot of very interesting answers that are going to come out of that, and the answers actually their answers to your question actually are the raw material for creating intellectual property the reason being is that what they're saying is unique and how you're listening to it is unique because of your unique ability so the best thing is do it, do an impact filter on what your solution is. So the best solution is best result solution is this. Worst result solution is this. And then here are the five success criteria, the eight success criteria that we have to go through to achieve the best result and that is the basis for intellectual property. Dean: What you write in that thing. Dan: So that's where I'm going next, because I think if we can get a lot of people over that hump, you're going to see a lot more confidence about what they're creating as solutions and understanding that these solutions are property. Dean: Yes. Dan: That's what I'm saying, that's what I'm thinking. Dean: Yeah, that's your guessing and betting yeah yes I agree and I think that that uh you know, I mean, I've had that to me going through this exercise of thinking, through that vision, column you know that the ultimate outcome is property, and once you have that property, it becomes it's a capability. Dan: It's a capability. Now right, that's something that you have. If it's not property, it's an opportunity for somebody to steal something ah right exactly. Yeah, I just think there's an inhibition on the part of entrepreneurs that if they have a really neat solution but it's not named and packaged and protected, um, it isn't going to really do them any good because they're going to be afraid. Look, if I say this, I'm in a conference somewhere and I say this, somebody's going to steal it. Then they're going to use it, then I I can't stop them from doing that. So the way I'm going to stop people from stealing my creativity is not to tell people what I'm creating. Right, it's just, it's just going to be me in my basement. Dean: Yeah, I bet no. Dan: I bet the vast majority of creative entrepreneurs they're the only ones who know they're creative because they're afraid of sharing their creativity, because it's not distinct enough that they can name it and package it and project it, getting the government to give you a hand in doing that Right yeah. Yeah, and I don't know maybe it's just not a goal of theirs to have intellectual property. Maybe it's you know it's a goal of mine to have everything be intellectual property, but maybe it's just not the goal of a lot of other people. Dean: What do? Dan: you think. Dean: I think that once you start to understand what the practical you know value, the asset value of having intellectual property, I think that makes a big difference. I think that's where you're, I mean you're. It's interesting that you are certainly leading the way, you know. I found it fascinating when you mentioned that if you were, you know, were measured as a Canadian company, that it would be the ninth or something like that. Dan: Yeah, during a 12-month period 23 to 24,. Based on the research that the Globe and Mail Toronto paper did, that the biggest was one of the big banks. They had the most intellectual property and if our US patents counted in Canada because I think they were just, they were just counting Canadian government patents that we would have been number nine and we're. you know, we're a tiny little speck on the windshield, I mean we're not a big company, but what I notice when I look at Canada very little originality is coming out of Canada and, for example, the biggest Canadian company with patents during that 12-month period was TD Bank. Yeah, and they had 240. 240, I mean that might be how many Google send in in a week. You know that might be the number of patents. That wouldn't be necessarily a big week at Google or Amazon or any of the other big American, because Americans are really into Americans are really, really into property. That's why they want Greenland. Dean: And Panama. Dan: And Alberta. Dean: Panama, alberta and Greenland. Dan: And the Gulf of America, yeah, the Gulf of America and property. Dean: Even if it's not actual. They want titular property. Dan: Yes. Dean: Yeah, yeah. Dan: And I haven't seen any complaints from Mexico. I mean, I haven't seen any complaints. Maybe there have been complaints, but we just haven't seen them. No, no, from now on it's the Gulf of America, which I think is rather important, and when Google just switches, I mean, google hasn't been a very big Trump fan and yet they took it seriously. Yeah, now all the tech's official. It's interesting talking to people and they say what's happening? What's happening? We don't know what's happening. I say, well, it's like the end of a Monopoly game. One of the things you have to do when you end one Monopoly game is all the pieces have to go back in the box, like Scrabble. You play Scrabble, all the pieces go back in the box at the end of a game. And I said, this is the first time since the end of the Second World War that a game is ending and all the pieces are going back into the box, except when you get to the next step. It's a bigger box, it's a different game board, there's more pieces and different rules. So this is what's happening right now. It's a new game the old game is over, new game is starting and, um, if you just watch what donald trump's doing, you're getting an idea what the new game is. Yeah, I think you're right, and one of the new game is intellectual property. Intellectual property I think this is one of the new parts of the new game. And the other thing is it's all going to be one-to-one deals. I don't think there's going to be any more multi-party deals. You know, like the North American Free Trade Act, supposedly is the United States, canada and Mexico In Europe. If you look at it, it's Canada and Mexico, it's Mexico and the United States and it's the United States and Canada. These are separate deals. They're all separate deals. That's what I think is happening. States, Canada and these are separate deals. They're all separate deals. Oh, interesting, yeah, and that's what I think is happening. It's just one-to-one. No more multilateral stuff it's all one-to-one. For example, the US ambassador is in London this week and they're working out a deal between the UK and the United States, so no tariffs apply to British, british products oh interesting yeah and you'll see it like the European Union. I was saying the European Union wants to have a deal and I said European Union, where is the European Union? You know where is? That anyway, yeah yeah, I mean, if you look at the United Nations, there's no European Union. If you look at NATO, there's no European Union. If you look at the G20 of countries, there's no European Union. There's France, there's Germany. You know, there's countries we recognize. And I think the US is just saying if you don't have a national border and you don't have a capital, and you don't have a government, we don't think it exists. We just don't think it exists. And Trump often talks about that 28 acres on the east side of Manhattan. He says boy, boy. What we could do with that right, oh, what we could do with that. You know they should. Just, you know who can do that. Who can do? United Nations, switzerland, send it to Switzerland. You know that'd be a nice place for the send it to there, you know like that and it just shows you that that was all. All those institutions were really a result of the Second World War and the Cold War, which was just a continuation of the Second World War. So I think that's one of the really big things that's happening in the world right now. And the other thing I want to talk to you about is Doge. I think Doge is one of the most phenomenally big breakthroughs in world history. What's happening with Elon Musk and his team. Dean: Yeah, I know you've been really following that with great interest. Tell me what's the latest. Dan: It's the first time in human history that you can audit government, bureauc, audit government, bureaucratic government, the part of government. You don't see Millions and millions of people who are doing things but you don't know what they're doing. There's no way of checking what they're doing. There's no way for them. And it was proven because Musk, about four weeks ago, sent out a letter to every federal employee, said last week, tell me five things that you did. And the results were not good. Dean: Well, I think the same thing is happening when people are questioned about their at-home working accomplishments too. Yeah, but that's the Well, lamar Lark, you know. Dan: Lamar. I don't think you've ever met Lamar. He's in the number one Chicago Free Zone workshops, so we have two and a quarter and he's in the first one. And he has all sorts of interesting things. He's got Chick-fil-A franchises and other things like that, okay, and he created his own church, which is a very I have met Lamar yeah, which is a very American activity. Dean: It creates your own church, you know yes yes, yeah. Dan: That's why Americans are so religious is because America is the first country that turned religion into an entrepreneurial activity. Got yourself a hall. You could do it right there in the courtyard of the Valhalla. How many chairs could you? If you really pushed it, how many chairs could you get into the courtyard? Let's see One, two three, four, five, not like the chair you're sitting on. No, I'm kidding. Dean: I'm just envisioning it. I could probably get 50 chairs in here. Dan: You got yourself, you know and set it up right, Get a good tax description yeah, you got yourself a religion there. That's great. And you're kind of tending in that direction with the word Valhalla, that's exactly right. Dean: Yes, would you. Dan: I'd pay to spend an hour or two on Sunday with you. Dean: But here's the big question, Dan Would you be committed enough to tithe? Dan: Oh yes, oh yes. Dean: Then we'd really be on to something you know. We could just count on you for your tithe to the church. That would be. Dan: That would really get us on our feet, but anyway, I was telling this story about Lamar. So he and his wife have a friend, a woman, who works for the federal government in Chicago, and so they were just talking over dinner to the person and they said, well, what's your day work, what's your day you know when do you go into the? office. When do you go into the office? When do you go into the office? And she says, oh, I haven't been to the office since before COVID. No, I know we are the office. And so they said, well, how does your home day work? And she says, well, at 830, you got to. You got to check in at 830. You check in at 830, you go online and then you put your j in at 8.30. Dean: You check in at 8.30, you go online and then you put your jiggler on Jiggler, exactly I've heard about this and they said what's the jiggler? Dan: Well, the jiggler moves. Your mouse keeps checking into different. It keeps switching to different files, positions, yeah, yeah, files. And that's the only thing that they can record from the actual office is that you're busy moving from one file to the other. And he says, well, what are you doing while that's happening? She said, well, I do a lot of shopping, you know I go out shopping and we have you know, and they come back and it goes from. You know it'll stop because there's coffee time, so we'll stop for 10 minutes for coffee and then it'll stop for lunch and stop for afternoon coffee. And then I checked out and I always check in five minutes early and I always check five minutes late, that's amazing, isn't it? that's what that's what elon Elon Musk is discovering, because Elon Musk's AI can actually discover what they did, and then it's hard for the person to answer what were the five things you did last week? You know, and the truth is that I think I'm not saying that all civil servants are worthless. I'm not saying that at all. You have it right now. It's recorded here. Your mechanism is recording that. I'm not saying that all civil servants are worthless but I do think it's harder and harder for civil servants to prove their value, because you may have gone to five important meetings, but I bet those meetings didn't produce any result. It's hard for any civil servant and you can say what you did last week. I can say what I did last week, but you were basically just meeting with yourself. Yeah, that's I saw somebody and you produce something and you made a decision and something got created and that's easy to prove. But I don't think it's easy in the civil service to prove the value of what you did the greatest raw resource in America for taking money that's being spent one way taking that money away and spending on something else. I think this is the greatest source of financial transformation going forward, because about 15 states all of them Republican states have gotten in touch with Elon Musk and say whatever you're doing in Washington, we want to do here, and I just he believes, according to his comments, that every year there's $3 trillion that's being badly spent $3 trillion you know, I got my little finger up to my mouth. $3 trillion, you know, this is that's a lot of you know, I'm at the point where I think a million is still a big deal. You know, trillion is uh, yeah, uh. Dean: I saw that somebody had invented a uh algorithm reader. They detected an algorithm in the like a fingerprint in the jiggler software. Oh that, yeah, so that you can overlay this thing and it would be able to identify that that's a jiggler that's a jiggler. Dan: That's a jiggler yeah, you got to because behind the jiggler is the prompter. Dean: The jiggler busters. Dan: Yes, exactly, he was on. He was interviewed, he and six members of his Doge team, you know, and how they're talking about them being 19 and 20 year olds, about them being 19 and 20 year olds. These were part. These were powerful people who had stepped away from their companies and their jobs just for the chance to work with the Elon. One guy had five companies. He's from Houston, he had five companies and he's taken leave from his company for a year. Just to work on the doge project. Yeah, and so that guy was talking and he said you know what we discovered? The small business administration, he said, last year gave 300 million dollars in loans to children under 11 years old wow to their to that a person who had their social security number, their social insurance number. Right, and during that same year, we gave $300 million in loans to people who were over 120 years old. Dean: Wow. Dan: That's $600 million. That's $600 million, that's almost a billion. Anyway, that's happening over and over. They're just discovering these and those checks are arriving somewhere and somebody's cashing those checks, but it's not appropriate. So I think this is the biggest deal. I think this changes everything, and I've noticed that the Democratic Party is in a tailspin, and has been especially since they started the Doge project, because the people doing the jiggling and the people who where the checks are going to the run I bet 90% of them are Democrats the money's going to democratic organizations, since going to democratic individuals and they're going to be cash strapped. You know that they've been. This isn't last year, this goes back 80 years. This has been going on since the New Deal, when the Democrats really took over Washington. And I bet this I bet they can track all the checks that went back 80 years. Dean: I mean, this is that's really something, isn't it? I was just thinking about yeah, this kind of transparency is really like. I think, when you really get down to it, we're getting to a point where there's the market does not support inefficiency anymore. It's not baked in. If you have workers for instance, most of the time you have salaried workers your real expectation is that they're going to be productive. I don't know what the actual stats are, do you know? But let's say that they're going to be actually productive for 50% of the time. But you look at now just the ability to, especially on task-related things or AI type of things um, collins, chris no, chris johnson's um, um, oh yeah um uh, you know the the ai dialers there, of being able, there's zero. Dan: They were doing, um, you know they were doing. Maybe you know the dialers were doing. You know, because some of the sometimes the other, the person at the other end they answered and they'd have a you know five minute call or something like that. So in a day in a day, like they have an eight hour thing they might do you know. 50, 50 call outs 50 or 60 calls yeah, his. Ai does 25,000 calls a minute. Dean: Exactly that's. What I mean is that those things are just that everything is compressed. Now there's no, because it's taken out all the air, all the fluff around it. What humans come with. You're right what you said earlier about all the pieces going back in the box and we're totally reset. Yeah, I think we're definitely that you know yeah and the thing thing about this. Dan: What I found interesting is that the request coming in from the states that they moved the doge you know the process department of government efficiency that I. I think he's putting together a vast system that can be applied to any government you know, it could be, and, uh, and, but the all the requests came in from republican states, not from Democratic states, waste and abuse and waste and fraud. probably for the over last 80 years, has been the party in the United States which was most invested in the bureaucracy of the government you know. And yeah, I mean, do you know anybody who works for the government? I mean actually, I mean you may have met the person, but I mean, do you know anybody who works for the government? I mean actually, I mean you may have met the person but I mean, I don't know. Do you do, do you know anybody who works for the government? I don't believe, I do, really, and I do, and I don't either right, I don't I don't, I don't, neither you know I mean, I mean everybody I know is an entrepreneur everybody I know is entrepreneurial. And yeah, the people who aren't entrepreneurial are the families. You know they would be family connections of the entrepreneurs. I just don't know anybody who works for the government. You know, I've been 50 years and I can't say I know anybody who works for the government but, there's lots of them. Yeah, yeah so they don't they. They're not involved in entrepreneurial circles, that's for sure. Dean: It's Ontario Hydro or Ontario Power Generation. Is that the government? No, that's the government, then I do. I know one person. I know one person that works for the government. Dan: All right, Send him an email and say what are five things you did last week? Yeah, what? Dean: did you do last week? Dan: Oh my goodness, that's so funny, impress me. Dean: Yes. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I think it's a stage in technological development, I think it's a state, just where it has to do with the ability to measure, and this has been a vast dark space government that you can't really, yeah, and in fairness to them, they couldn't measure themselves. In other words, that they didn't have the ability, even if they were honest and forthright and they were committed and they were productive, they themselves did not have the ability to measure their own activities until now. And I think, and I think now they will, and I think now they will, and, but but anyway, I just think this is a major, major event. This is this is equal to the printing press. You know this is equal to to electricity. You can measure what government does electricity. You can measure what government does In the history of human beings. This is a major breakthrough. That's amazing. Dean: So great Look around. You don't want a time to be alive. Dan: Yeah, I mean depending on where you work I guess that's absolutely true. Dean: I've been listening to, uh I was just listening, uh just started actually a podcast about uh, thomas edison, uh this is a really great podcast, one of my great, one of my great heroes. Yes, exactly, the podcast is called Founders. Dan: Founders yeah. Dean: Founders. Yeah, david Sunra, I think, is the guy's name and all he does is he reads biographies and then he gives his insights on the biographies. It's just a single voice podcast. It's not like guests or anything, it's just him breaking down his lessons and notes from reading certain reading these biographies and it's really well done. But he had what turned me on he did. I first heard a podcast he did about Albert Lasker, who was the guy, the great advertising guy, the man who sold America and yeah, so I've been listening through and very interesting. But the Thomas Edison thing I'm at the point where he was talking about his first things. He sold some telegraph patent that he had an idea that he had created for $40,000, which was like you know a huge amount of money back then and that allowed him to set up Menlo Park. And then at the time Menlo Park was kind of out in the middle of nowhere and you know they asked why would you set up out there? And no distractions. And he created a whole you know a whole environment of where people were undistracted and able to invent and what you know. If they get bored, what are they going to do? They're going to invent something, just creating this whole environment. Dan: Well, he wasn't distractible because he was largely deaf. He had childhood injury, yeah, so he wasn't distracted by other people talking because he couldn't really make out. So you know, he had to focus where he could focus. And yeah, there is actually in my hometown, which his hometown is called Milan, ohio. I grew up two miles. I grew up I wasn't born there, but when I was two years old, we moved to a farm there. It was two miles from Edison. His home is there. It's a museum. Dean: Milan. Dan: Ohio and that was 1830s, somewhere 1838, something like that. I'm not quite sure. But there's a business in Norwalk, Ohio, where we moved from the farm when I was 11 years old Ohio, where we moved from the farm when I was 11 years old, and there's a business in there that started off as a dynamo company. Dynamo was sort of like an electric generator. Dean: Yeah, and we had dynamo in Georgetown. Dan: on the river, yeah, and that business continues since the mid-1800s, that business continues, and everything like that. My sense is that Edison put everything together that constitutes the modern scientific technological laboratory. In other words that Menlo Park is the first time you've really put everything together. That includes, you know, the science, the technology, the experimentation the creation of patents, the packaging of the new ideas, getting investment from Wall Street and everything. He created the entire gateway for the modern technological corporation, I think. Dean: I think that's amazing, very nice. I like to look at the. I like to trace the timelines of something right, like when you realize it's very interesting when you think and you hear about the lore and you look at the accomplishments of someone like Thomas Edison or Leonardo da Vinci or anybody, you look at the total of what you know about what they were able to accomplish, but when you granularly get down to the timeline of it, you don't, like you realize how. I think I remember reading about da vinci. I think he spent like seven years doing just this one uh, one period of projects. That was uh, um. So he puts it in perspective right of a of the, the whole of a career, that it really breaks down to the, the individual, uh chapters, that that make it up, you know, yeah, and it's funny, I've written about somebody, Jim Collins the good to great author. I heard him. His kind of hero was Peter Drucker and he remembers going to Peter Drucker and he had a bookshelf with all of his books. I think he had like 90 books or something that he had written, Peter Drucker, and he had them. Jim Collins set them up on his bookshelf and he would move a piece of tape that shows his current age against the age that Peter Drucker was when he had written those things and he realized that at you know, 50 years old, something like you know, 75% of Peter Drucker's work was after that age and even into his 80s or whatever. Dan: Yeah, most of my work is after 70. I was just going to say yeah, exactly, I look at that. You look at all of the things and then at 70, yeah, yeah, the actual stuff I've created is really yeah, that's when I really started to produce a lot after 70. Dean: Mm-hmm. Dan: Yeah, a lot of R&D. I did a lot of R&D. Dean: Right. Dan: Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, my goal is that 80 to 90 will be much more productive than 70 to 80. Yeah, I was talking to someone today interesting, very interesting physical fitness guy here in Toronto and he's a really great chiropractor so he's working. So I have I'm making great progress with the structural repair of my left knee. But there's all sorts of functional stuff that has to come along with it and he's my main man for doing this. But he was talking, he's 50, and he said you know, my goal is that 60 to 70 is going to be my most active part of my life, you know, from mountain climbing to all these different really high endurance athletics and sports, and so we got talking and I just shared with him the idea that the real goal you should have or which covers a lot of other areas is that, if you're like my goal for 90, I'm just going on 81, my goal for 90 is that I'm more ambitious at 90 than I am at the present. Dean: And. Dan: I said that's what that almost seems impossible, impossible well, well it is if you're just looking at yourself as a single individual yeah but if you're looking at yourself as someone who has an expand team, it's actually very possible. Dean: Yeah, yeah yeah, you're mine are those potato chips no, it's a piece of cellophane wrapped around something. That was the word right Retired. And they've been retired for about five years or so and I hadn't seen them in a couple of years. But it's really interesting to, at 72, the uh, you know the, just the level you can tell just physically and everything mentally, everything about them. They're on the, the decline phase of the thing they're not ramping up. You know, like just physically they are, um, you know they're, they're big, um cruisers. You know they've been going on cruises now every every six weeks or so, but, um, but yeah, no, no, uh, no more golf, no more. Like you see, they're intentionally kind of winding things down, resigning to the yeah. Dan: Yeah, it's very interesting. I don't know if you caught it in the news. It was, I think, right at the end of January. But you know the name Daniel Kahneman. Dean: I know the name. Yeah, thinking fast and slow. Dan: Fast thinking slow yeah, he committed suicide in Switzerland. Dean: I did not know that. When was that he? Dan: was 90 years old, I think it was January 28th. Dean: And it was all planned out. Dan: It was all planned out and he went to Switzerland to do it, because they have the legal framework where you can do that and everything else. And I found it so interesting that I did a whole bunch of perplexity searches and I said, because he was very influential, I never read his book, because I read the first five or 10 pages and it just didn't seem that interesting to me and it seemed like he had. You know that he's famous for that book and he's famous for it, and it seemed to be that he's kind of like a one trick pony. You know, he's got a great book that really changed things. And then I started looking. I said, well, what else did he do besides that one book? And it's not too much. And he did that, you know, 40 years ago. It was sort of something he did 40 years ago. Dean: Wow. Dan: And I just said gee, I wonder if he, you know, he just hasn't been real productive. Wonder if he, you know, he just hasn't been real productive, not not starting in january, but he hadn't been real productive over the last 20 or 30 years and he did that. Dean: Uh, and anyway, you know, I don't know. I don't know that I've been living under a rock or whatever. I didn't even realize that this was a real thing. I have a good friend in Canada whose grandfather is tomorrow scheduled for assisted. It's a big thing in Canada. Dan: Canada is the most leading country in incidents of people being assisted in committing suicide. Dean: Yeah, and. Dan: I have my suspicions. It's a way for the government to cut checks to old people. You know like assist them to leave. You know I mean it's just. What a confusing set of emotions that must bring up for someone you love. Confusing and disturbing about his committing suicide and it's really a big topic, you know, because he was saying you can always get on top of whatever you're experiencing and get useful lessons from it, right? Dean: and I said. Dan: I said, well, you must have reached an empty week or something. You know I I don't know what, what happened I, you know I mean right and uh, cause I I'm finding um the experience of being 80, the experience of being 70 and 80, very, very fruitful for coming up with new thoughts and coming up with new ideas right, you know and what, what is still important when you're uh, you know, still important when you're. you know what is even more important and what is even more clear when you're 80. That wasn't clear when you were 50 or 60. I think that's a useful thought. You know that's a useful thought, yeah, but it's really interesting. I never find suicide is understandable. Dean: I know, yeah, I get it. I see that you think about that too. I've had that. I've had some other people, my cousin, years and years ago was the first person kind of close to me that had committed suicide, and you know. But you always think it's just like you, I can't imagine that like I. I can imagine, uh, just completely like disappearing or whatever you know starting off somewhere else, like complete, you know, reset, but not something that that final, you know. Dan: You know, I can understand just extreme, intolerable pain you know, I mean. I can, I can, I can totally get that. Dean: Yeah, yeah. Dan: Yeah, I mean, it's just you. You just can't go through another day of it. I I just totally understand that but, where it's more of a psychological emotional you get a, got yourself in a corner and that, uh then, um, you know, I don't really, um, I don't really comprehend what's going on there. You know, I I obviously something's going on, but I you know, I, I obviously something's going on, but I, just from, I've never had a suicidal thought. I mean, you know, I've had some low points, I've had some, but even on my low points I had something that was fun that day you know Right Right, right Right. Or I had an interesting thought. Yeah, right. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. Dan: Well, I'm glad we hit on that topic because I said, you may think I know that the person doing it has a completely logical reason for doing it. It's just not a logic that can be explained easily to other people yeah, when you're not in that spot. I get it, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah anyway this was a good one. This was a good one. Yeah, now okay, wait actually yeah, I'll be calling from chicago next week. Dean: Okay, perfect I'll be here, yeah, um, yeah, I want to. I'd love to, um, if we remember, and if we don't, that's fine too, but if we remember, you brought up something the I would love to see and maybe talk about the difference between uh, you know, between 60, 70, 80, your thoughts of those things. Yeah, you're getting to that point I'm 22 years behind you, so I'm just turning 59 right before you turn 81. Dan: So that'd be something I'll put some thought to it. I love it. Dean: Okay. Dan: Perfect, thanks, dan. All right, okay, thanks, bye.

Most founders wait too long to adapt. Ray Deck says that's a mistake—and shows how to scale smarter using the tools you already have.What if the biggest leverage in your business isn't new funding or a bigger team—but the knowledge and trust you've already built?This week, I'm joined by Ray Deck, founder of State Change, to break down how AI, no-code, and personal reputation are changing the game for founders ready to scale—without burning out.Ray's seen it all—from the dot-com bust to the rise of SaaS—and now he's helping entrepreneurs build smarter by tapping into tools that amplify what they already know.We get into:

This week we speak to getting results—it's what we all want, right? But what if the secret isn't just about working harder but working smarter? In this episode, I'm diving into the strategy of reverse engineering success, breaking down how to set clear goals, anticipate obstacles, and make real progress. We'll talk about the mindset shifts that make all the difference and the science-backed methods that help you lose weight and keep it off.Because here's the truth—your future isn't something you wait for; it's something you create. And that's why I love this week's quote: "The best way to predict the future is to create it." – Peter Drucker. So, let's create it - let's get to work.Citations:National Institutes of Health, 2020Sonnentag, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 2003Harvard Business Review, 2017Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 2019The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2021Locke & Latham, American Psychological Association, 2002Gollwitzer & Sheeran, Harvard Business Review, 2006Wing & Phelan, National Weight Control Registry, 2005Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. Avery.Let's go, let's get it done. Get more information at: http://projectweightloss.org

Mark Schaefer is a digital marketing consultant, a globally recognized keynote speaker, a futurist, a university educator, a renowned expert in marketing and personal branding, and the bestselling author of many books, including "Belonging to the Brand," "Marketing Rebellion," "Known," and "Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World". His blog, {grow} is hailed as one of the top marketing blogs in the world and he is also the host of The Marketing Companion, one of the top 10 marketing podcasts on iTunes. He has also appeared on many national television shows and periodicals including the Wall Street Journal, Wired, The New York Times, CNN, National Public Radio (NPR), CNBC, the BBC, and CBS News, and he is a regular contributing columnist to The Harvard Business Review. Connect with Mark Schaeffer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markwschaefer/ Buy the book, “Belonging to the Brand”: https://www.amazon.com/Belonging-Brand-Community-Marketing-Strategy-ebook/dp/B0BQCRN6JQ Blog: https://businessesgrow.com/ Podcast: The Marketing Companion Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-IKcl_my7vQ What if you could build a community around your brand or business? What if I told you that you can cultivate an engaged, supportive community of fans around your business where people clamor to buy anything you offer and never leave because your community is such an important part of their lives and identities? My guest, Mark Schaefer is the author of Belonging to the Brand, Why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy.  In an age of AI and automation where even many global brands are losing market share and relevance, Mark believes that community is the last refuge for preserving our humanity and ensuring brands, businesses, and non-profits stand out. As Mark explains in his book, and as we discussed in this episode, building a community goes way beyond simply amassing a following. Social media followers and casual readers or viewers are a weak relational link. According to Mark Schaefer, the real magic happens when you're able to bring people together so they connect to one another and find a sense of belonging within your brand community. Once you create a community, your organization becomes a home for your audience – a place where they find meaning. And, a sense of meaning is often what is missing from many people's lives today. For all of our technological advancements and social progress, many people feel lonely or socially isolated. As Mark says in his book, we humans are “wired for community,” which can be hard to find in a world that is so virtual and where remote work is common. The demand for community has, perhaps, never been greater than at any time in human history. If you can help fulfill your audience's need for belonging and community, then you will acquire a tribe of loyal supporters and repeat customers. According to Mark's thesis, which I believe is correct, building a community is how organizations can make the greatest impact and drive the biggest outcomes if they're willing to put in the time and work into making their community grow. Creating a community requires long-term thinking and an investment of time and energy, but it will pay off for those who commit to it, as Mark explains on the podcast and in his book.  In this conversation, Mark and I spoke about the importance of community from both a marketing and a sociological perspective. He also shared interesting case studies of people who found success by building communities around their brands. From a business and marketing standpoint, having your own community on an owned channel also strengthens your brand long-term, dramatically increases customer loyalty and retention, and lessens your reliance on the whims of social media algorithms and changing markets.  In this episode, we discussed his “Belonging to the Brand,” published in 2022, but you should also check out his new book that just came out, "Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World." Connect with Mark Schaefer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markwschaefer/ Buy the book, Belonging to the Brand: https://www.amazon.com/Belonging-Brand-Community-Marketing-Strategy-ebook/dp/B0BQCRN6JQ  Learn more: https://businessesgrow.com/ Buy his new book, Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World: https://www.amazon.com/Audacious-How-Humans-Marketing-World/dp/B0DSHRN3PC#:~:text=Mark%20Schaefer's%20%22Audacious%22%20is%20a,AI%20by%20a%20million%20watts.  Mark Schaefer is a globally recognized keynote speaker, educator, business consultant, and author. His blog {grow} is hailed as one of the top marketing blogs in the world. Mark has worked in global sales, PR, and marketing positions for more than 30 years and provides consulting services as Executive Director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. Mark has advanced degrees in marketing and organizational development, holds seven patents, and is a faculty member of the graduate studies program at Rutgers University. For three years, Mark studied under the late Peter Drucker (a world-renowned consultant and author known as the founder of modern management). He is one of the world's most popular business-related keynote speakers, taking the stage at some of the largest industry and corporate conferences including SXSW, Dell World, the American Bar Association Annual Conference, and many others. He has spoken in 35 different countries. Mark is also well-known for developing corporate marketing strategies and marketing workshops. His clients range from successful start-ups to global brands such as Adidas, Johnson & Johnson, GE Life Sciences, Pfizer, The U.S. Air Force, and the UK Government. Mark is the bestselling author of ten other books: Belonging to the Brand: Why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy: This book was number one in both marketing and advertising categories and provides a spellbinding view of the future of marketing. Cumulative Advantage: How to Build Momentum for your Ideas, Business, and Life Against All Odds — This book explores the art and science of momentum Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins — Some reviewers note this might be the most influential marketing book of the decade. KNOWN: How to Build and Unleash Your Personal Brand in the Digital Age — World's number one book on personal branding. The Content Code — Named one of the top five marketing books of the year by INC Magazine. Social Media Explained — Essential primer on social media marketing. Return on Influence — First book ever written on influencer marketing. Named to the elite list of top academic titles of the year by the American Library Association, which declared it an “essential” and “pathfinding” book. Born to Blog — All-time bestselling book on blogging! LESSONS — Collection of essential essays on embracing chaos. The Tao of Twitter – Best-selling book on Twitter in the world. Mark's books have been used as textbooks at more than 70 universities, have been translated into 15 languages, and can be found in more than 750 libraries worldwide. He is the founder and co-host of The Marketing Companion, one of the top 10 marketing podcasts on iTunes. The show has been downloaded more than 1.5 million times. Mark is also a popular and entertaining commentator and has appeared on many national television shows and periodicals including the Wall Street Journal, Wired, The New York Times, CNN, National Public Radio, CNBC, the BBC, and CBS News. He is a regular contributing columnist to The Harvard Business Review. Learn more: https://businessesgrow.com/  

Peter Drucker said: "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." I actually see it a bit differently.

Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn   https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com We all know the quote from Peter Drucker, "If you can measure it, you can manage it."   It's pretty easy to apply when throwing a javelin but difficult when measuring success in complex software development projects. Today, we sat down with Jeff Gallimore, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer and founder of Excella. He brings with him decades of experience collaborating with teams on successful federal projects. We start by noting the fallacy of using one metric to measure success. While completing the initiative on time might make an agency administrator happy, that will change rapidly if compliance is not achieved, and scaling will break the system into pieces. Jeff has seen breakthroughs using a framework called DORA, DevOps Research and Assessment). The key metrics are deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate, and failed deployment recovery time.  These metrics, now part of Google, are research-based and predictive of IT and organizational outcomes. They emphasize the importance of a holistic approach, avoiding single-metric focus, and the role of leadership and culture in fostering high-performing teams

The legal industry is facing its “Netflix vs. Blockbuster” moment. AI, automation, and alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) are rapidly reshaping how legal services are delivered, and the biggest question is: Who will adapt—and who will be left behind? Roger Pilc leads a $600M+ division at Epiq, bringing experience from McKinsey, Booz Allen, CA Technologies, and Pitney Bowes. With insights from Satya Nadella's vision on AI, Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma, and leadership lessons from Peter Drucker, Adam Grant(Author of Think Again), and Daniel Pink(Author of Drive), Roger explains how ALSPs are positioned to disrupt legal in ways law firms and Big Four consultancies cannot. In this episode, we explore how Legal Service Management mirrors IT's digital transformation, why Zach Posner at TLTF is betting on AI-driven legal platforms, and how Nicole Giantonio and the team at Epiq are investing in tech that's changing legal service delivery. Key Takeaways You Can Use Today: Legal is facing a “Simultaneous Equation Problem.” GCs must manage rising litigation, regulatory complexity, and shrinking budgets—but traditional models no longer work. AI & ALSPs Are Changing Everything. Like Netflix disrupting Blockbuster, AI-powered legal service models are creating massive efficiencies for corporate legal teams. The 30% Rule: Leadership is Talent Spotting. Echoing Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Jack Welch, Roger spends 30% of his time recruiting and developing top talent—a critical strategy for legal leaders.

En este episodio de #PodcastLaTrinchera, regresa Carlos Sagardía, quién estuvo en La Trinchera en el episodio 7 y episodio 43, para discutir su regreso a la discusión pública y las redes, cómo su vida ha cambiado desde que se convirtió en papá, el desarrollo del PNP desde que él y yo comenzamos en la política y sus retos y oportunidades en su tercer cuatrienio, los ataques políticos a la función judicial y el rol de los jueces en la política.Por favor suscribirse a La Trinchera con Christian Sobrino en su plataforma favorita de podcasts y compartan este episodio con sus amistades.Para contactar a Christian Sobrino y #PodcastLaTrinchera, nada mejor que mediante las siguientes plataformas:Facebook: @PodcastLaTrincheraTwitter: @zobrinovichInstagram: zobrinovichThreads: @zobrinovichBluesky Social: zobrinovich.bsky.socialYouTube: @PodcastLaTrinchera "La mejor manera de predecir el futuro es crearlo." - Peter Drucker

The best time for college retreats seemed to be at the beginning of Christmas break and return from that trip the day before Christmas. Was it successful yes... for several years. Was it worth it? For the students yes.... for my family who was very gracious to me? No. Why? Because all things in Jesus name are not necessarily the best thing to do. That sounds wild right? We did eventually move these trips to fall during spring breaks, but you have to use at least 2 different spring break weeks to cover a lot of the students since they were not always at the same time. The beauty of the Rocky mountains was always amazing! But... I had not yet learned the one rule, in which I will repeat over and over again for your sakes as leaders... and for you and your families health. ”You MUST say NO to something BEFORE you say YES to something else." FYI... That NO should be to some other equal project, ministry, or hobby that takes time from your family and health. All around health is important! Peter Drucker, the Father of  Modern Business and mentor taught Pastor Rick Warren that specific truth. He would always say, “Rick... Tell me what you gave up before you tell me what you are doing next." A few things... It was the best time to get college students enthused and signed up. It was a beautiful time of the year to hit the slopes. Students came from all over the United States and that enthused the local students. The Gospel was shared and souls were saved. What would I do differently now? I would never go at Christmas time. That time should have been reserved for my wife, children, and their memories. I would have moved it to every other year and not every year. _______________________________ Looking for a new student ministry resource? You can read my book “Burn Up Not Out: A Student Ministry Fire Builder's Guidebook” here: https://amzn.to/3PtBTIy Listen to more episodes from the Youth Worker On Fire Podcast here: https://bit.ly/3saDyYq _______________________________ EPISODE CREDITS Email us at: youthworkeronfire@gmail.com Hosted by: Doug Edwards Theme Song: "The One and Only" by The 808 : Listen to more at https://bit.ly/3FTYIAJ Intro/Outro Voiceover: Michael Helms : https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelTheSoundGuy  Edited by: Secret Roots Music House

We've all heard Peter Drucker's famous quote, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." But what does it really take to build a workplace culture that drives both people and performance? In this episode of Mission First People Always, Dr. Mike Patterson sits down with culture expert Andrea Wanerstrand to uncover the key elements of creating a thriving, human-centric workplace. Dr. Mike welcomes Andrea Wanerstrand, Founder & CEO of A3 CultureLab, a leadership speaker, coach, and consultant who helps organizations—from startups to Fortune 500 companies—design extraordinary workplace cultures. With a background in global performance management at companies like Microsoft and T-Mobile, Andrea shares insights on fostering a workplace where people feel valued, autonomous, and accountable. Andrea breaks down what it means to have a human-centric workplace, emphasizing the importance of how work gets done, how leaders make others feel, and how trust is built. She explains that culture isn't just about perks or policies—it's about how people interact, communicate, and show up every day. Throughout the conversation, Andrea offers practical advice for leaders, including how to balance empathy with authority, create autonomous teams, and encourage a culture of accountability without fear. She also shares details about her upcoming coaching program, Mindset Maven, designed to help high-achievers develop mental and physical resilience. Key Takeaways: Culture is about the "how," not just the "what"—how work is done, how people feel, and how trust is built. Human-centric leadership requires balancing empathy with authority to foster both people and performance. Autonomous teams thrive on accountability—leaders must set expectations, provide trust, and encourage transparency. Accountability isn't a bad word—it's about taking ownership, getting credit for success, and learning from setbacks. Your energy affects your leadership—Andrea recommends an energy audit to identify when you're at your best and schedule key conversations accordingly. Andrea Wanerstrand's insights remind us that leadership is about creating environments where people can thrive. Whether you're a new manager or a seasoned executive, understanding and shaping culture is key to long-term success. Hit play to hear the full episode and learn how to build a workplace culture that supports both people and performance! Links for This Episode: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawanerstrand Company Website: http://a3culturelab.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreawanerstrand Connect with Dr. Mike:  Website: https://www.drmikepatterson.com Book: https://www.missionfirstpeoplealwaysbook.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmichaellpatterson Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealdrmikepatterson Twitter: https://twitter.com/drmikepatterson Buy The Book!: Mission First People Always Episode Minute By Minute: 00:00 - Welcome and Introduction to the Episode 02:00 - Why Culture is the Driving Force Behind Organizational Success 04:02 - Defining Workplace Culture: The “How” Behind Every Organization 06:00 - Why Leaders Struggle to Build Healthy Cultures 08:06 - The Role of Emotional Awareness in Leadership 10:34 - The Shift from Individual Contributor to Leadership: What Changes? 12:48 - How to Build an Autonomous Team and Why It Matters 15:17 - Balancing Empathy and Authority as a Leader 18:00 - Overcoming Barriers to Authenticity at Work 21:09 - Why Accountability is Not a Negative Word (And How to Use It Effectively) 24:36 - The Importance of Psychological Safety in Workplace Culture 26:00 - What It Means to Have a Human-Centric Workplace 28:25 - Introducing Mindset Maven: Andrea's New Leadership Coaching Program 30:14 - Andrea's One Key Piece of Advice for Leaders 32:00 - Final Thoughts and How to Connect with Andrea

�️ 今天的播客：女性如何开始线上事业？� 格言（Quote）"The best way to predict the future is to create it."– Peter Drucker“预测未来最好的方式，就是亲手创造它。” —— 彼得·杜拉克女性可以经营的线上事业简介现在是创建线上事业的黄金时代，无论你是想要更多自由、时间弹性，还是希望通过网络创造收入，以下是几个适合女性经营的线上事业，以及可以帮助你起步的平台：1️⃣ 自媒体创作（Content Creation）通过博客、YouTube、播客或社交媒体分享内容，并通过广告、联盟营销或产品销售获利。� 推荐平台：博客： WordPress、MediumYouTube 创作者： YouTube播客主持人： Anchor、Buzzsprout社交媒体创作者： Instagram、TikTok2️⃣ 线上课程 & 教学（Online Courses & Coaching）如果你擅长某个领域，例如语言学习、健身、个人成长、财务规划等，可以通过线上课程或一对一指导赚钱。� 推荐平台：线上课程： Teachable、Thinkific语言教学： iTalki、Preply健身教练： Trainerize3️⃣ 电子商务 & 代购（E-commerce & Dropshipping）通过网络销售实体商品或数字产品，例如手工制品、艺术作品、线上模板等。也可以通过无库存代购（Dropshipping）模式经营电商。� 推荐平台：手工/艺术品销售： Etsy电商网站搭建： Shopify、WooCommerce代购（Dropshipping）： Oberlo4️⃣ 自由职业（Freelancing）提供专业技能服务，例如写作、设计、营销、编程、翻译等，通过自由接案赚取收入。� 推荐平台：写作/设计/编程接案： Upwork、Fiverr翻译： Gengo5️⃣ 远程助理 & 社群管理（Virtual Assistant & Social Media Management）帮助企业或个人管理日常工作，例如邮件管理、社群营销、行程安排、客户支持等。� 推荐平台：远程助理工作机会： Belay、Time Etc社群管理工作机会： PeoplePerHour6️⃣ 旅行与数字游牧规划（Travel Planning & Digital Nomad Consulting）如果你热爱旅行，可以帮助他人规划行程，或分享如何成为数字游牧族的攻略。� 推荐平台：旅游博客变现： Travelpayouts行程规划服务： TripAdvisor Experiences数字游牧资源： Nomad List� 想更进一步吗？� 参加「30 天突破舒适圈挑战」，学习如何开始自己的线上事业！� flywithlily.com �这个世界充满无限机会，现在就是你开始行动的最佳时机！�

I've personally been involved in at least seven business startups. In this series, let me share seven keys to success for aspiring entrepreneurs.   Legendary consultant, Peter Drucker, wrote, “There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all.”   In my opinion, the first key to success ... The post Seven Keys to Successful Startups: part I appeared first on Unconventional Business Network.

Back in high school, my social studies teacher—who was, of course, also the football coach—told my class that entrepreneurs were the heroes of American history. If we enjoyed a dynamic economy and good jobs, it was all thanks to their genius for innovation and risk-taking. And if we wanted to get ahead, he said, we'd need to foster the same sort of entrepreneurial spirit in ourselves. You are probably rolling your eyes right now. I certainly remember doing the same back in 10th grade. But Erik Baker's new book, Make Your Own Job How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America, revealed that my teacher was far from outlier: he was part of a century-long current of entrepreneurial boosterism. From Henry Ford to Marcus Garvey, Peter Drucker to Sam Walton, the War on Poverty to the shareholder value revolution, Baker shows how the entrepreneurial work ethic captivated thinkers in every corner of American life. And he reveals how for workers, it promised a way to transcend precarity and—just maybe—become the protagonist of one's own economic life. 

“Welcome to a brand new chapter. �这不仅是一个新的开始，更是一个机会，让我们启动内心深处尚未被点燃的潜力。This is your moment. This is your year. �欢迎来到《学英语环游世界》播客，我是主播Lily，今天邀请你和我一起，Activate Your New Year！”格言1:“The future depends on what you do today.” — Mahatma Gandhi“未来取决于你今天的行动。”格言2：“Don't let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” — Dalai Lama“不要让他人的行为破坏你的内在平静。”格言3：“In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.” — Albert Einstein“每个困境中都藏着机会。”格言4：“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” — Peter Drucker“预测未来最好的方法，就是亲手创造它。”格言5：“Your vibe attracts your tribe.”“你的能量，会吸引和你共鸣的人。”格言6：“It always seems impossible until it's done.” — Nelson Mandela“事情看似不可能，直到你完成它。”Call to Action（行动呼吁）：邀请你分享对新的一年的期待

Ville Reijonen: Overcoming Code Ownership Silos in Agile Teams Ville describes a team that had divided code ownership, where members were reluctant to share or modify each other's work. This fostered fear, mistrust, and a defensive approach to development. Ville explains how this pattern of component segregation led to silos and distrust. He outlines actionable steps for rebuilding trust, such as adopting robust testing practices, implementing an internal open-source model, and encouraging ensemble programming. By fostering a culture of shared ownership, teams can collaborate more effectively and develop higher-quality software. Self-reflection Question: How can testing and collaboration frameworks help build trust within your team? Featured Book of the Week: “Innovation and Entrepreneurship” by Peter Drucker Ville recommends Peter Drucker's Innovation and Entrepreneurship, a timeless classic that provides a comprehensive understanding of the purpose of business—creating and retaining customers. Ville shares how this book, which he encountered during a case-study-based innovation course, shaped his approach to thinking about innovation in the big picture. He emphasizes how important it is for Scrum Masters to view their work through a broader lens to support product and customer success. [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Ever wondered how cutting-edge technology is revolutionizing indoor farming? I've got the inside scoop on the latest innovations that are changing the game. In this episode of the Vertical Farming Podcast, host Harry Duran sits down with Per Lysaa, CTO and co-founder of Elevate Farms and founder of Intravision Group AS. With over two decades of experience in photobiology and LED technology, Per brings a wealth of knowledge to the conversation about controlled environment agriculture.Per shares his journey from architecture to pioneering LED applications in plant growth, discussing the development of Elevate Farms' patented gravity flow system. This innovative approach allows for highly automated, large-scale production of leafy greens at commodity pricing, potentially disrupting traditional farming methods.The conversation delves into the challenges of scaling vertical farming operations, the importance of partnerships in innovation, and the potential for machine learning and AI to further advance the industry. Per also touches on the global water crisis and its implications for future food production, highlighting the critical role vertical farming could play in addressing these challenges.If you're curious about the future of food production and how technology is shaping sustainable agriculture, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in to gain insights from one of the industry's leading innovators and discover the potential of vertical farming to address global food security challenges.Thanks to Our SponsorsBio520 Key Takeaways5:22 Early Work with LEDs and Photobiology10:09 Space Research and Plant Growth15:52 Cannabis Research and LED Advancements20:29 Founding Elevate and Business Strategy25:21 Balancing Roles in Two CompaniesTweetable Quotes"Plants have light receptors. So they are able to detect from far red through red, green, blue, up to the UV. And whenever they detect, the combination of spectrum and intensity sets off a chemical process in the plant that directly controls morphology and what we call primary and secondary metabolite processes.""I read Peter Drucker, the guy who invented management theory and quality management, and he said that the purpose of a business is the creation of customers. It's not about shareholder value or maximizing return on investment, it's about creation of customers.""We are facing a global water crisis which will greatly impact and disrupt how we make food on this planet. And 2030 and onwards, it's going to look bad. Countries in Asia, Africa, parts of Europe, parts of North America are really badly positioned."Resources MentionedWebsite - https://www.elevate.farm/ & https://www.intravisiongroup.com/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/per-aage-lysaa-9685592/Connect With UsVFP LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/verticalfarmingpodcastVFP Twitter - https://twitter.com/VerticalFarmPodVFP Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/direct/inbox/VFP Facebook -

Welcome to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different 2025! In this New Year's episode, we reflect on the past year and look forward to 2025, with a focus on significant career trends and the impact of AI on the workforce. With 60% of Americans considering job changes, the episode highlights the diminishing value of traditional knowledge work and the rise of "creative capitalists" who leverage AI for innovation. Our 2025 focus includes helping individuals identify their unique strengths, connect them to meaningful contributions, and achieve personal and financial fulfillment. Join us in embracing these transformative opportunities for a legendary year ahead. You're listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let's go.   Trends in Job Changes Recent surveys reveal a striking trend: approximately 60% of Americans are contemplating job or career changes in 2025. This statistic, reported by Gallup and corroborated by a résumé templates survey, indicates a widespread desire for new opportunities. Specifically, 56% of individuals are looking to pursue new jobs, with 27% actively searching. This data suggests that more than half of the workforce is seeking meaningful transitions in their careers.   The New Reality of AI As we navigate this new landscape, we must acknowledge the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI). We are no longer in a future where AI is a distant concept; it is now a present reality. The workforce will be divided into two categories: those who thrive in this new environment and those who struggle to adapt. For the past 70 years, the highest value work has been classified as "knowledge work," a term coined by the renowned Peter Drucker. Knowledge workers acquire valuable information and apply it to produce results. However, in an AI-driven world, the value of existing knowledge is diminishing daily. Tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini can provide insights and strategies that were once the exclusive domain of high-end knowledge workers.   The Rise of Creative Capitalists In this evolving landscape, the new high-value role is that of the "creative capitalist." These individuals are not just knowledge workers; they are innovators who generate new knowledge and ideas, leveraging AI to enhance their creativity and productivity. Those who can harness AI to create unique solutions and insights will find themselves at the forefront of success in 2025 and beyond. Conversely, those who cling to traditional knowledge work without adapting to the changes brought about by AI may face significant challenges. The tech industry has already seen substantial layoffs, with around 200,000 job losses reported in 2024. This serves as a stark reminder of the need to evolve and embrace new ways of working. To hear more about the new trends and what you need to adapt in this new year 2025, download and listen to this episode.   We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing 2025! In this New Year's episode, we reflect on the past year and look forward to 2025, with a focus on significant career trends and the impact of AI on the workforce. With 60% of Americans considering job changes, the episode highlights the diminishing value of traditional knowledge work and the rise of "creative capitalists" who leverage AI for innovation. Our 2025 focus includes helping individuals identify their unique strengths, connect them to meaningful contributions, and achieve personal and financial fulfillment. Join us in embracing these transformative opportunities for a legendary year ahead. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Trends in Job Changes Recent surveys reveal a striking trend: approximately 60% of Americans are contemplating job or career changes in 2025. This statistic, reported by Gallup and corroborated by a résumé templates survey, indicates a widespread desire for new opportunities. Specifically, 56% of individuals are looking to pursue new jobs, with 27% actively searching. This data suggests that more than half of the workforce is seeking meaningful transitions in their careers. The New Reality of AI As we navigate this new landscape, we must acknowledge the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI). We are no longer in a future where AI is a distant concept; it is now a present reality. The workforce will be divided into two categories: those who thrive in this new environment and those who struggle to adapt. For the past 70 years, the highest value work has been classified as "knowledge work," a term coined by the renowned Peter Drucker. Knowledge workers acquire valuable information and apply it to produce results. However, in an AI-driven world, the value of existing knowledge is diminishing daily. Tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini can provide insights and strategies that were once the exclusive domain of high-end knowledge workers. The Rise of Creative Capitalists In this evolving landscape, the new high-value role is that of the "creative capitalist." These individuals are not just knowledge workers; they are innovators who generate new knowledge and ideas, leveraging AI to enhance their creativity and productivity. Those who can harness AI to create unique solutions and insights will find themselves at the forefront of success in 2025 and beyond. Conversely, those who cling to traditional knowledge work without adapting to the changes brought about by AI may face significant challenges. The tech industry has already seen substantial layoffs, with around 200,000 job losses reported in 2024. This serves as a stark reminder of the need to evolve and embrace new ways of working. To hear more about the new trends and what you need to adapt in this new year 2025, download and listen to this episode.   We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

As Abe Lincoln once said—or possibly some guy named Peter Drucker, depends on who you ask—the best way to predict the future is to create it. But for a lot of us humans, that's a little too loosey-goosey. We're not big fans of the unknown, and we tend to seek out people who claim they can tell us what to expect from the future. Americans, for example, spend billions a year on psychics. A lot of these are legitimate businesspeople who genuinely want to provide counseling and comfort for their clients. But there's also a bustling trade in psychic fraud—run by people who have no qualms about taking advantage of you at your most vulnerable and desperate. Today we're gonna tell you about two of those cases. Case 1: The Mysterious Death of Seth Tobias. Case 2: Psychic Scammer Gina MarksSources:New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/business/04tobias.htmlABC News: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=4279324&page=1New York Magazine: https://nymag.com/news/features/43914/The Times: https://www.thetimes.com/article/hunt-for-tiger-the-go-go-boy-after-seth-tobiass-death-5n923qml8pfThe Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/12/bob-nygaard-private-investigator-psychic-fraudNBC: https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/maryland-psychic-sentenced-to-6-years-for-scamming-clients/155294/TV show "Pink Collar Crime," episode "The Psychic Didn't See Him Coming"Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: truecrimecampfirepod@gmail.comMERCH! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com

Seth Godin is a renowned author, entrepreneur, and thought leader in marketing and business. With over 20 published books, including bestsellers like "Purple Cow" and "Tribes," he has reshaped how we think about marketing strategies, leadership, and creative innovation. Known for his daily blog that reaches an extensive readership, Seth is a pivotal figure in modern management, often compared to legendary thinkers like Peter Drucker. Recently, he authored "This is Strategy" and is a seminal voice in understanding and navigating complex systems. Episode Summary: In this Part 2 episode, Greg is joined by the legendary Seth Godin, whose work in business literature and marketing has influenced millions globally. Godin and McKeown explore how viewing the world through a systems lens can empower anyone to take strategic, high-leverage actions that yield significant results. The discussion highlights the profound impact of naming and defining elements within systems to influence outcomes and decisions. Seth shares personal anecdotes, emphasizing the shift from passive observation to active engagement, using empathy as a strategic tool. The episode is rich with insights on navigating change, avoiding false proxies, and how companies and individuals can reinvent themselves by unearthing these vital, albeit often hidden, opportunities. Key Takeaways: Systems Thinking: The importance of understanding and navigating complex systems to take strategic, high-impact actions. Empathy as a Tool: Using empathy not merely for kindness but as a practical tool to serve and understand others' underlying motivations and goals. Changing Perspectives: Transitioning from passive observation to active engagement can unlock opportunities for personal and professional growth. Avoiding False Proxies: Identifying and rejecting false success metrics to focus on actions that truly matter. Curiosity's Power: Embracing curiosity to uncover underlying truths and leverage points in any interaction or system. Notable Quotes: Seth Godin: "I think that empathy sometimes gets put into the ghetto called kindness. And I'm in favor of kindness. But empathy is also a really practical tool." Greg McKeown: "Curious people just understood somehow that the system gets more interesting behind the surface." Seth Godin: "If we can just try to imagine what it is to be the node that they are, try to imagine what their internal system is like or what their deep goals are, we can serve them without manipulating them." Resources: Seth's Blog: Seth's Blog Seth's Book: This is Strategy Follow Seth on X, Instagram, and LinkedIn Affiliate links are used where appropriate. We earn from qualifying purchases, thank you for supporting Greg! Join my weekly newsletter. Learn more about my books and courses. Join The Essentialism Academy. Follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram, X, Facebook, and YouTube.

Seth Godin is a renowned author, entrepreneur, and thought leader in marketing and business. With over 20 published books, including bestsellers like "Purple Cow" and "Tribes," he has reshaped how we think about marketing strategies, leadership, and creative innovation. Known for his daily blog that reaches an extensive readership, Seth is a pivotal figure in modern management, often compared to legendary thinkers like Peter Drucker. Recently, he authored "This is Strategy" and is a seminal voice in understanding and navigating complex systems. Episode Summary: Greg is joined by marketing visionary Seth Godin to explore the intricacies of strategy and systems thinking. They explore the nuances between strategy and systems, set within a modern context. Godin emphasizes the fundamental difference between strategy—a philosophy of becoming—and tactics, as well as the pivotal role systems play in shaping human behavior and business landscapes. Godin articulates the invisible forces of systems that govern both individual and organizational outcomes. Using examples from history and personal narratives, the discussion centers on how recognizing and navigating these systems can drive meaningful change and innovation. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to refine their strategic thinking, whether in business, personal development, or broader societal contexts. Key Takeaways: Understanding Strategy and Systems: Strategy is a guiding philosophy, acting like a compass, whereas systems are the underlying forces shaping behaviors and outcomes. Invisible Systems' Influence: Identifying and understanding invisible systems can enable strategic action and transformation in various aspects of life and business. Triangular Relationships in Systems: Relationships, including familial and professional, often exist in a triadic format, incorporating you, others, and an influencing system. Empowerment through Systems Thinking: Recognition of systems provides a framework for empowerment and the potential to become a linchpin within an organization. Internal Systems Impact: Personal narratives and subconscious systems derived from family and schooling can profoundly affect individual potential and decision-making. Notable Quotes: "Strategy is a philosophy of becoming. It's your way of thinking about who you seek to serve and the change you seek to make." - Seth Godin "Systems don't like to change, and we are part of a system, but if we use the system, we can change the system." - Seth Godin "These stories that we engage in are well grooved and they become part of our inter system, the internal one." - Seth Godin Resources: Seth's Blog: Seth's Blog Seth's Book: This is Strategy Follow Seth on X, Instagram, and LinkedIn Affiliate links are used where appropriate. We earn from qualifying purchases, thank you for supporting Greg! Join my weekly newsletter. Learn more about my books and courses. Join The Essentialism Academy. Follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram, X, Facebook, and YouTube.