Dec. 9, 2025

Leading with Excellence: The Power of Continuous Honing in Tumultuous Times

Leading with Excellence: The Power of Continuous Honing in Tumultuous Times
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Excellence today is not achieved through one-off transformations, but through the ongoing discipline of honing. Leaders who champion this mindset foster a culture of precision, resilience, and elevated performance. By continuously refining their approach and making constant micro-adjustments, they not only meet challenges head-on but also inspire their organizations to perform at the highest level. Continuous honing is the true path to enduring excellence in uncertain times.

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WEBVTT

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The topics and opinions express in the following show are

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solely those of the hosts and their guests and not

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those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We

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make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,

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Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments

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should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for

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choosing W FOURCY Radio.

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What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the

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answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose

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at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their

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lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization

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that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their

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highest potential. Business can be such a force for good

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in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide

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guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we

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all want working on Purpose. Now, here's your host, doctor

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Elise Cortez.

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Welcome back to the Working in Purpose program, which has

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been brought to you with passionate pride since February of

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twenty fifteen. Thanks for tuning in again this week. Great

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to have you. I'm your host, Doctor Release Cortes. If

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we've not met before and you don't know me, I'm

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a workforce advisor, organizational psychologist, management consultant, logo therapist, speaker

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and author. My team and I at gusto Now help

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companies to enliven and fortify their operations by building a dynamic,

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high performance culture, inspirational leadership, and nurturing managers activated by

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meaning and purpose. You can learn more about us about

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us now. We can work together at gustodashnow dot com

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or my personal site at last Coortes dot com. Getting

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into today's program we had with us today two dynamic

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men from Deloitte, Jeff Tuff and Steven Goldbach. Jeff Toff

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is a principal at Deloitte and holds various positions across

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the firm's sustainability, innovation and strategy practices. Those include leadership

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of the US Hydrogen Practice and all sectors excuse me,

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and all sectors related to energy. Jeff's work centers on

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helping clients transform their businesses to grow and compete in

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non traditional ways. Also with US is Stephen Goldbach. Goldbach

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who leads deloitte Sustainability business in the US, which serves

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the complex and novel challenges their clients face across issues

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such as climate adaptation and other challenges associated with creating

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a more sustainable future. Previously, he served as Deloitte's US

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Chief Strategy Officer for eight years. They have written three

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books together. Today we're talking about their latest, hon How

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Purposeful Leaders Defy Drift. Gentlemen, welcome back to Working on Purpose.

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Thanks great to be here.

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Yeah, thanks for having us again.

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You guys are crazy and amazing at the same time, right,

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Can we just start with that? Can we level set

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that you're both crazy and amazing? Can we agree on that?

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Well, I thought you were going to call one of

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us crazy and one of us amazing and then just

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leave it, leave it out there that figure out which

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one is.

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With for us for you to choose.

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No, no, no, no, I'm giving you both both of

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these labels here. So you know, as I was thinking

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about this and I was reading your book, let's just

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lasses for people who haven't ready yet, It's just gorgeous.

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I was just thinking to myself, you know, I know

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you know what goes on at Deloitte. You guys are

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really really busy humans, and so here you are. You've

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unplanned and accidentally written a trilogy of books here. So

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let's just start with how how in the world, first

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do you do you find time to do that? What's

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the inspiration? I know a little something about this, but

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our listeners and viewers don't craziness explained, please.

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Well, I'll say it has been an interesting journey, and

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I'm sure Steve has his own version of the journey

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as well. Over the course of the I guess it's eight,

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maybe even close to nine years now that Steve and

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I have been writing books together, and we've learned a

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lot about each other over time. And one of the

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things we've learned is that we're actually very different writers

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in terms of how we approach it, the times that

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we try to take it on, the joy or lack

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of joy that we get from it at certain points

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in time, and so we you know, we each have

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our own style. I will say for myself, finding the

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time i'm is hard, but when I find it, I

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can really concentrate a lot of effort and bang out

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a lot of content all at once, which I'm not

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saying is the same for Steve necessarily. But the good

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news here is that the stuff we write about is

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entirely consistent with what we experience in our work lives.

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It's not like two different lives here that we're somehow

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trying to live. We're actually taking lessons that we take

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from our client work day in day out, and then

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trying to generalize them in a way that helps others

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that may be struggling with some of the same issues.

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Awesome, anything to add Steve.

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Look, it's just I think it takes. One of the

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things that's forced me to do is I love writing,

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and I love engaging with people about the ideas even more.

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That's the thing that I kind of enjoy about this process.

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And the writing process for me is about getting the

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best and most concise version of what we're seeing onto

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a piece of paper, and that makes our ideas crisper

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and easier to easier to understand when we work with clients.

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So I think that that's sort of the synergistic aspect

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of it to our work, and so I don't find

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it a burden. It's one of those things where you

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just have to make the time to write and I

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find having a good outline makes the writing process a

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little easier. I'm not as natural a writer as Jeff.

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Jeff had the benefit of a upbringing and writing and

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I've kind of new to this over time.

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I forget which one of you had the idea first

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of just maybe doing an article, then the other one said, no, no, no,

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I've got bigger aspirations. Let's do a book. Which way

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did it go?

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That's a good memory telling the story.

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I do read your books, guys.

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Yeah, So I had been writing for some time, As

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Steve said, I have a history in writing. I actually

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way back when I studied to be a creative writing

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that was my major in college. And I had always

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dabbled with trying to get thoughts out down on ear

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in a variety of different formats, from plays to poetry

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to fiction to what have you.

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But I did.

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I guess my serious business writing career really started about

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fifteen or twenty years ago, when I started writing articles

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for the likes of Harvard Business Review and other magazines,

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which were thankfully well received and became reasonably well circulated.

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And you know, Steve and I had worked together at

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the same firm for some time then we ran in

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the same circles, and it was it was after that

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firm actually joined up with Deloitte and we both came

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to Deloitte. We were at a session together and Steve said, hey,

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you know, I've read some of your stuff, and actually

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Steve had published some pieces as well. One I was

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just telling him two days ago that one has stuck

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in my head ever since it came out about the

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difference between hockey and football applied to business, which I'll

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leave that out to Linger. And he said, hey, you know,

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we should do some writing together at some point, and

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I made what I thought was a very gracious offer

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to come and be a guest blogger on the blog

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that I was writing for a huff Post at the time.

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And Steve had bigger aspirations than that, didn't you, Steve.

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But it was, but my aspirations was not a book.

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So the aspiration was we could write something together in

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HBr or something like that. And then it was Jeff

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that said, well, actually, you know this book publisher Wiley's

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been chasing us for a follow up to The Ten

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Types of Innovation, and that was the origin story for Debtonate.

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And then it just flourished from there.

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Well, let's talk about that briefly. So, since you have

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now written the Accidental trilogy, you say unplanned, but I

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like the idea of calling it accidental. Let's just if

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we can sketch the ideas from meach you have deton first,

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and then Provoke, which we talked about in the last

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conversation we had together. And now, of course tone give

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us a little understanding of how maybe the ideas stitch together.

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For those three maybe I'll give us a head start

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and Jeff can add so I think debtonate if we're

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giving the users sort of the behind the scenes story

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at NATE was we had an observation or several observations

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about the world that there was just a bunch of

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things that businesses did in the name of best practices

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that when you take a jaundiced eye a skeptics eye,

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to have made no sense and we needed to change

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those supposed best practices. And then Provoke is really about

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how you you know, how you shape the future to

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your advantage early by identifying trends that are a matter

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of when they'll come to fruition rather than a matter

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of if we tend to wait as managers far too long.

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And then hone is really about how do you on

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a more ongoing basis manage the system to your advantage.

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If I'm going back and saying, like, what's the common

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threat and how would I explain it today? Not necessarily

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like when we say unplanned or accidental, I think that's

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because we didn't set out with this. I think part

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of this is a recognition that you don't usually know

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the future. You've got to manage companies more from a

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perspective of first principles, i e. Satisfying customer needs. You know,

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changing human behavior is the most basic some atomic particle

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in business, Really constantly looking to the future for what's

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coming next, and then trying to shape your surroundings towards that.

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But then being vigilant is really where we get to,

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and hone being vigilant about not just believing that you're

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good once you said it. You have to be carefully

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managing your environment because it's constantly changing, whether it's competition

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or technology. And that's where we get to with Home.

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But I'm sure Jeff would add to that, as I

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see him chopping at the bit.

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I didn't know it was that obvious after eight years together, Steve.

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But I think that's a good summary. We can obviously

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go a lot deeper on each book, but I will

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say that we have taken pay age from our own

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quote unquote teachings or writings over time. And one of

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the themes that we come back to time and again

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in all all three books is, and this is an

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overstatement for effect, but things are always better if you

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pay really keen attention to the markets you serve and

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the quote unquote customers or users you serve. And I

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will say that we've found after each book that we

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did leave our readers wanting a little bit more, not

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necessarily of our writing, but of the kind of what

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comes next. So Detonate was about blowing up the playbooks,

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and after you've blown up the playbooks, and you know,

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we did suggest at that point some principles of how

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managers can work effectively or lead effectively in an age

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of uncertainty, but it wasn't really the okay, so what's next?

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So provoke then was the logical follow up to that

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after you've blown up the playbooks, to say, how do

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you actually create the future in which you have advantage

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when you actually need to start rebuilding things, and hone

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again was a logical follow up to provoke because we

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create the future, but then how do you manage differently

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than you have in the past once you're once you

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start to approach that future. And so, even though it

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has been accidental, I am proud at how all three

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of the books hold together, and at this point actually

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do feel somewhat complete.

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Delightful. Now, speaking of delightful, I really love it since

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I do read a book every single week for this

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for this podcast, cover two cover, and I take the

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notes and everything else that's my research. I get delighted

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when authors do something a little bit different and compelling.

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And so in your case, of course, you have helped

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us learn from four distinct artisans in your book about

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this idea of honing, and I think it's just delightful.

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So will you introduce us briefly to your four artisans

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that give us inspiration and direction in the book.

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Yeah?

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Why don't we do it in rough order of their

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appearance in the book? Steve, So, what do you lead

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us off with Flannery?

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Yeah, I'll take Flannery, you take On, I'll take Sam,

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you take our lady Peace. So this is a good

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example lease of where you know, we have to come

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up with creative ways to tell stories. We're we're in

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a business where we're not able to divulge any of

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the work we do with clients, and so part of

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it is we look for stories that would share the

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same benefit that are you know, wonderful to share with

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the world. And flannery story is has been sort of

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We made it the centerpiece of chapter one because it

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was a conversation with her that led us to the

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title of hon And it basically is, you know, she's

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a wonderful chef. She works in people's homes. She doesn't

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have a restaurant, and she comes over and she'll do special,

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special gigs and parties and things like that. And we

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had the benefit of knowing her for the last fifteen

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years and I noticed that she's just always I thought

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she was sharpening her knives before every gig. And I said, like, Flannery,

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what do you what do you? What do you? Why

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do you do that every time? And She's like, I'm

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not sharpening them, Steve. She's got this, she's got this

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you know, crazy uh, you know way to talk. She's like,

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I'm not sharpening them I'm honing them. There's a big difference. Honing,

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you know, doesn't Honing doesn't take away any of the steel.

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Sharpening actually takes steel off the blade. You're actually thinning

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the blade, You're making it more brittle, and honing is

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realigning the steel that exists to make it cut the

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way it was originally intended to the last time it

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was sharpened. And she was saying, this is just keeping

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the knives sharp the way I want them to be, because

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a sharp knife is actually a safer knife inside the kitchen.

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And but then the thing she said also was honing

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is a maintenance and a meditation, and so it was

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also not just about maintaining the knives. It was also

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about reminding her herself right before an event. But this

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is what I'm trying to do. It's like a way

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to focus ourselves. So we thought that was a great

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metaphor for keeping an organization sharp the last time they

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made you made made your changes to making sure it's

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doing what you're wanting it to do, but also reminding

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you to focus on the things that are super important

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your customers, your employees, what what's your elemental purpose in business?

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And how do how do you do that. So that's

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the lessons we took away from from Flannery.

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And then the second artisan we profiled on A Vonda

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Wall is actually best known out in the world as

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probably one of the most, if not the most prolific

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and well known marine photographers. So he's he's become famous

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shooting shooting photos of sailboats and sail races and what

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have you. But he's got a really interesting life story

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about and it was born in born in South Africa,

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grew up around boats, But most of what he has

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learned over time and that he's been able to apply

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to his photography is came from him tinkering in first

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a machine shop and then on boats. He's a world

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class sailor himself. He's actually had a number of different

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He's had a number of different documentaries made about him

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that ultimately come back to him rebuilding some old boats

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from scratch. And what fascinated us about on A as

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we got into it was not just the way he

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constructed the pictures he makes, but what he did in

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his off time and the fact that he is ultimately

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the consummate tinkerer, and what we're trying to teach business

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executives is to be consummate tinkerers at aircraft.

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Love it you guys. Okay, let's go ahead and get

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the last two and then we'll go and break.

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Sam Pollard So Sam is a film editor and a

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documentary filmmaker himself. He is famous as an editor for

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editing a number of Spike Lee's films in the nineteen nineties.

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He is a an Oscar nominated filmmaker. He's won a

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number of other awards. He's made a number of amazing

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documentaries as well, some together with Spike and some on

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his own. He is just what I found compelling about

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his evolution is he has to some extent softened his

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approach over the years, and now what he really just

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focuses on is making his subjects in his interviews feel

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super comfortable, feel super at ease, so that they are

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sharing his stories. He feels like his job is to

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get the story out into the world, and he wants

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to put as little between the documentary subject and the

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camera as possible, so he looks to make them super comfortable.

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Whereas before, as an editor and an early director, he

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you know, was trying to almost too hard too in

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his words, to to sort of force a vision onto

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his team and to the subjects. And now he's become,

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you know, a little bit more relaxed over the years

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and realizes the way to bring a subject to life

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is just sort of let it paint itself. And so

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he's honed his own craft over the over the years

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and his his work is amazing.

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And then the fourth Artisans.

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Anyone that knows me would not be surprised that I

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somehow figured out a way to get a rock band

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in the book. But Our Lady Piece is a very

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well known Canadian rock band. We are both Canadian gentlemen

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of a certain age who grew up listening to Canadian

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indie rock, well, indie rock from everywhere, but Canadian indie

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rock in particular. Our Lady Piece was always one of

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the standout acts at that time, and.

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We had the.

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We had the great benefit of speaking with two of

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the members of Our Lady Peace to the original members,

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rain Mata, who is the lead singer, and Duncan Coots,

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who has been a longtime bass player, and there was

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just a there was a fascinating metaphor for business all

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through Our Lady Piece's story. They've been around for over

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thirty years. At this point, they think of Rain and

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duncan think of themselves as the CEO and COO, respectively

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of the band. Rain has got a very successful side

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gig as a tech entrepreneur, and he's brought a lot

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of what he's learned about business over time into the

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music business and the way that they've grown the band.

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But actually it's been just all the disruptions to the

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music industry over time and the way that they as

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individuals and the band itself have had to shift and

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hone themselves to stay relevant over that course of that

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thirty years that we found to be a great way

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to learn some lessons from what would otherwise be a

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pretty strange couple of folks to profile in a business book.

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Well again, I really appreciate that it made for a

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very interesting read, and I get delighted whenever we can

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take ideas and lessons from one very different area into another.

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So love it, guys, let's grab our first break. I'm

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your host, doctor e Release Cortes. We got an air

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with Jeff Tuff and Stephen Goldbach of Deloitte, who each

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have long spanning careers as principles and sustainability innovation and strategy.

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We've been talking a bit about their first there are

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three books in total. How they weave together the opportunity

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for us to learn from some of these artisans about

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how to hone. After the break, we're going to talk

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about our over reliant focus on transformation in the world

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of business. We'll be right back.

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Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning

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and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies

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visioneer for a greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose

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inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance,

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and commit within the workforce. To learn more or to

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invite Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her

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00:20:05.759 --> 00:20:09.000
at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get

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your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose

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with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or

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to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to

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Elise A. L Se at eliscortes dot com. Now back

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to working on Purpose.

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Thanksteresting with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose.

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I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. If you are just

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joining us. My guests are Jeff Tuff and Stephen Goldbach,

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the authors of hone, How Purposeful Leaders Defy Drift. So

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one of the benning delightful things that I get out

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of your books, all of your books actually, but this

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one in particular, was this notion of we have this

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tendency to over rely on transformation in business. And I

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think if anybody's listening to this, they might find that

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a little bit surprising. I know I did. Now I know,

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for what you guys do on a day day basis,

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it's not surprising. But lead us in help us understand

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why do we over rely on transformation?

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So, Steve, I think you got to go first.

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I'm I'm loving the way that you've further crafted your

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metaphor around working out, So why don't you set.

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Up the whole notion of transmission using that?

393
00:21:22.759 --> 00:21:28.039
Alise, have you ever made a New Year's resolution to

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work out more frequently?

395
00:21:30.440 --> 00:21:31.240
Yes? I have?

396
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Oka So I mean that means you're a human being,

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because I figure that almost every human being has done

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that at least once in their lives. And you know

399
00:21:40.519 --> 00:21:42.039
you see that all the time. I go to the

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gym pretty regularly and January is just a you know

401
00:21:45.640 --> 00:21:48.480
what show. You can't get you can't get a machine,

402
00:21:48.519 --> 00:21:50.480
you can't get a squad rack, you can't get on

403
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a treadmill because it's littered with everybody trying to get

404
00:21:53.640 --> 00:21:57.880
back in shape. But then it's pretty quick, you know,

405
00:21:58.000 --> 00:22:01.039
into towards the end of January, where where the gym

406
00:22:01.119 --> 00:22:05.920
starts to you know, become pretty uh pretty empty again.

407
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And I think that transformation is basically the same. It's

408
00:22:10.200 --> 00:22:13.799
really hard to change a lot of behaviors at once.

409
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You can't go from being you know, sedentary to all

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of a sudden training like an Olympic athlete overnight. But

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that's sort of what transformation asks of organizations. And that's

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just really hard. And because it's really hard, it fails frequently.

413
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Is it's expensive, and it just do it doesn't It

414
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doesn't work out in the way that it's intended to.

415
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Now Jeff and I are not anti transformation. We just

416
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would say like transformation should be used when it's really needed,

417
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and that's when there's a major competitive disruction, disruption, you know,

418
00:22:52.319 --> 00:22:56.759
something external, there's a really important new technology that you

419
00:22:56.880 --> 00:23:00.559
only have moments to uh implement that there is a

420
00:23:00.680 --> 00:23:05.160
really competitive disruption, a merger in your industry, then perhaps

421
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that's that's a good reason. But what tends to happen

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is that we rely on transformation because we've been sedentary,

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we haven't been reacting over time, and our so our

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view on hone is that we don't ever want that

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to be the reason for transformation. And so we're saying,

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you've got to be honing because there are going to

427
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be times where you might need to use transformation. And

428
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so we've got to be paying attention day over you know,

429
00:23:32.039 --> 00:23:35.519
day over day, month over month to what the world

430
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is evolving towards so that we can be making minimally

431
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viable moves in order to address the change in surroundings.

432
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And then the only thing I'd add to that, Steve, is,

433
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you know, the big, the big danger in the transformation myth,

434
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the transformation myth being that it works and it's not

435
00:23:50.480 --> 00:23:52.079
expensive what have you, is that.

436
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It feeds upon itself.

437
00:23:55.680 --> 00:23:59.559
So if if you believe that it's okay to not

438
00:23:59.559 --> 00:24:01.680
make too much changes, because somewhere down the line, we're

439
00:24:01.680 --> 00:24:04.920
going to be able to transform and take care of

440
00:24:04.960 --> 00:24:07.599
all the you know, the stuff that's accumulated over time,

441
00:24:07.640 --> 00:24:10.079
and and and the bad behaviors and the drifting off course,

442
00:24:10.160 --> 00:24:12.559
which is obviously one of the central metaphors that.

443
00:24:12.559 --> 00:24:13.640
We use in the book.

444
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Then you are going to wait for that transformation, and

445
00:24:17.160 --> 00:24:20.079
you're going to when you actually go try to execute

446
00:24:20.119 --> 00:24:22.119
the transformation, you're going to find out that it's too late,

447
00:24:22.160 --> 00:24:24.920
which just leads to even more herculean efforts to try

448
00:24:24.920 --> 00:24:27.920
to get the metaphorical ship back on track.

449
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And so we probably.

450
00:24:32.480 --> 00:24:36.119
Come across in the book as being more overtly against

451
00:24:36.200 --> 00:24:39.319
transformation than we actually are practically speaking when we're working

452
00:24:39.319 --> 00:24:41.839
with our clients, because we understand sometimes it's necessary, but

453
00:24:42.240 --> 00:24:46.480
that sort of overstatement is I think necessary to combat

454
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the conventional wisdom right now out in the out in

455
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the world.

456
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That it's all about transformation.

457
00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:53.319
Yeah, I mean, I don't think you can go a

458
00:24:53.400 --> 00:24:56.599
day without hearing the word transformation, and it's it's everywhere.

459
00:24:56.680 --> 00:24:59.160
So so a couple of things really quick. I want

460
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to situate for our listener and viewers who haven't read

461
00:25:00.880 --> 00:25:02.880
the book yet that I have, like I have, you

462
00:25:02.920 --> 00:25:05.279
say that the book is a call for action for

463
00:25:05.359 --> 00:25:08.920
leaders to build a capability and mindset to hone their organizations,

464
00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:12.440
minimizing but not eliminating, as you say, the need for transformation.

465
00:25:12.519 --> 00:25:15.440
And so really, when you talk about honing, for listeners

466
00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:17.279
and viewers are like, how do I stitch all this together,

467
00:25:17.319 --> 00:25:20.160
the artisans and everything else. Just I want to give

468
00:25:20.160 --> 00:25:22.640
a quick definition, and if you want to add to

469
00:25:22.680 --> 00:25:24.279
it as well. But what you say in the book

470
00:25:24.279 --> 00:25:27.799
about what honing really is, it's the idea of making

471
00:25:28.160 --> 00:25:32.039
conscious micro changes consistently over time to keep the organization

472
00:25:32.160 --> 00:25:34.920
on track. Is there more to it than that that

473
00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:36.319
we would define honing?

474
00:25:37.319 --> 00:25:40.240
No, I think it sounds brilliant to us at these

475
00:25:40.240 --> 00:25:41.480
If it came out of the book, it must be

476
00:25:41.559 --> 00:25:41.839
right on.

477
00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:45.000
But I told you guys were brilliant already.

478
00:25:45.039 --> 00:25:48.480
We're good at using many words to describe something much

479
00:25:48.559 --> 00:25:51.319
more simple than are needed. But that one I think

480
00:25:51.400 --> 00:25:54.759
is actually pretty succinct. But you know, as I mentioned before,

481
00:25:54.839 --> 00:25:57.119
the central metaphor, one of the central metaphors we use

482
00:25:57.160 --> 00:25:58.839
in the book is the whole notion of drift, and

483
00:25:59.119 --> 00:26:01.880
it comes from i'd like to think both of our

484
00:26:02.440 --> 00:26:04.160
love for being out on boats in the ocean. It

485
00:26:04.160 --> 00:26:05.839
may have been born more with me than it was

486
00:26:05.880 --> 00:26:08.640
with Steve, but I'm trying to help him learn the

487
00:26:08.720 --> 00:26:11.599
joy as well. And the metaphor is, you know, if

488
00:26:11.640 --> 00:26:14.559
you've got a fixed point you're trying to head to,

489
00:26:14.680 --> 00:26:16.519
whether it's something you can see on the horizon, or

490
00:26:16.559 --> 00:26:19.160
it's a it's a it's a location you're trying to

491
00:26:19.160 --> 00:26:21.200
get to the plan that you've charted a course to.

492
00:26:22.839 --> 00:26:22.920
You.

493
00:26:23.880 --> 00:26:26.359
Inevitably, if you're on the water, you're going to drift

494
00:26:26.400 --> 00:26:28.559
off that course because of the wind or the waves

495
00:26:28.559 --> 00:26:31.039
of the current or tide or what have you. But

496
00:26:31.680 --> 00:26:35.319
in boating and sailing, you have the mechanisms to recognize

497
00:26:35.319 --> 00:26:38.039
when you're off course and make slight adjustments to counteract

498
00:26:38.039 --> 00:26:40.480
the forces that are hitting you, and so most of

499
00:26:40.480 --> 00:26:42.400
the time you are able to stay on course. In business,

500
00:26:42.400 --> 00:26:44.200
that's not the case. There are things coming at you

501
00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:47.400
every single day. You have to respond to a competitive threat,

502
00:26:47.440 --> 00:26:51.079
you have to do something about a new regular regulation,

503
00:26:51.319 --> 00:26:53.880
you need to take advantage of some sort of technology.

504
00:26:54.400 --> 00:26:57.240
And there is no fixed point on the horizon that

505
00:26:57.279 --> 00:26:58.960
you know you're heading towards. And so you can be

506
00:26:59.039 --> 00:27:01.799
dealing with all these data today pressures and not actually

507
00:27:01.799 --> 00:27:05.720
realize that you've drifted off your path towards what Steve

508
00:27:05.759 --> 00:27:08.160
and I call your elemental purpose, what you're trying to achieve,

509
00:27:08.640 --> 00:27:12.799
and so what those micro adjustments are do that you

510
00:27:12.839 --> 00:27:14.960
talked about before, is not only help you stay on track,

511
00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:16.759
but they force you to always be looking for the

512
00:27:16.759 --> 00:27:18.599
ways in which you might have drifted. If you know

513
00:27:18.680 --> 00:27:21.319
that that's your central job to make those micro adjustments.

514
00:27:22.519 --> 00:27:25.359
Mm hm, so so important. So since drift is part

515
00:27:25.359 --> 00:27:27.000
of your subtitle, I wanted to make sure that you

516
00:27:27.079 --> 00:27:29.880
hit that, So thank you. Now, another thing that I

517
00:27:29.920 --> 00:27:32.680
applaud about your book and really also align with is

518
00:27:32.720 --> 00:27:34.759
you have a strong focus on the idea of systems

519
00:27:34.799 --> 00:27:37.759
and that's how I was as educated was in the

520
00:27:37.799 --> 00:27:41.599
world of thinking about things and systems. And then specifically

521
00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:45.000
you're talking about management systems in the book, but you

522
00:27:45.039 --> 00:27:47.640
also situate that the CEO needs to be the chief

523
00:27:47.720 --> 00:27:50.119
system designer. Can you say a bit more about that?

524
00:27:51.000 --> 00:27:53.160
Well, why don't I? Why don't I start with what

525
00:27:53.319 --> 00:27:54.680
is a management system?

526
00:27:54.880 --> 00:27:55.279
Okay?

527
00:27:55.839 --> 00:28:01.039
And then because I don't think that's an obvious it's

528
00:28:01.079 --> 00:28:04.839
not a word that has a shared definition, and then

529
00:28:04.920 --> 00:28:08.799
Jeff can talk about why the CEO needs to play

530
00:28:08.839 --> 00:28:12.440
the role of chief system designer. So a management system

531
00:28:12.599 --> 00:28:19.039
is the collection of formal and informal processes, decision rights,

532
00:28:20.039 --> 00:28:24.359
infrastructure in an organization that motivates human behavior. So think

533
00:28:24.400 --> 00:28:31.359
about things like formal performance evaluation or formal organization design,

534
00:28:33.440 --> 00:28:38.240
or budgets or those are like example, those are examples

535
00:28:38.359 --> 00:28:43.039
of formal elements that motivate how people behave. So for example,

536
00:28:43.559 --> 00:28:48.160
you've got a performance evaluation, a set of key performance indicators.

537
00:28:48.519 --> 00:28:53.079
Those are the things that your organization is telling you

538
00:28:53.440 --> 00:28:57.240
this is what success looks like. But there's also informal

539
00:28:57.279 --> 00:29:01.680
management systems. And informal management systems are things like the

540
00:29:01.799 --> 00:29:06.119
questions that a key leader asks in meetings. Oftentimes that

541
00:29:06.200 --> 00:29:09.400
leads to a response. There's a famous story about j

542
00:29:09.640 --> 00:29:14.680
Edgar Hoover who got a memo and then wrote in

543
00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:18.440
the margins of the memo watched the borders, and his

544
00:29:18.720 --> 00:29:23.400
underlings took that to mean we should be deploying, you know,

545
00:29:23.799 --> 00:29:26.400
troops to the borders to make to check the borders.

546
00:29:26.400 --> 00:29:28.720
And really what he meant was like, your margins in

547
00:29:28.759 --> 00:29:31.920
the in the memo are too large, and so people

548
00:29:31.960 --> 00:29:35.559
you know, the little questions that people ask that people

549
00:29:35.599 --> 00:29:39.880
ask our management systems in and by themselves, or just

550
00:29:39.960 --> 00:29:44.599
what people perceive gets people promoted. So those are management

551
00:29:44.640 --> 00:29:48.599
systems and collectively they shape and motivate all the behavior

552
00:29:49.160 --> 00:29:53.440
that all the behavior that takes place in an organization. Now,

553
00:29:53.480 --> 00:29:57.079
if you want to be honing, those are your tools

554
00:29:57.119 --> 00:30:01.039
for how to, you know, change ever so slightly what

555
00:30:01.200 --> 00:30:04.400
your people are doing so that your organization can do

556
00:30:04.519 --> 00:30:07.599
slightly different things over time. But those are the tools

557
00:30:07.599 --> 00:30:10.440
that you use. It's not inspirational posters on a wall

558
00:30:10.720 --> 00:30:16.079
talking about culture. It's actual changing what people succeed. And

559
00:30:16.119 --> 00:30:18.440
the reason we say, and I'll set Jeff up here

560
00:30:19.079 --> 00:30:22.559
the CEO needs to do it is because they like

561
00:30:22.799 --> 00:30:25.160
they're the only one that can see the whole see

562
00:30:25.200 --> 00:30:27.680
the whole system. But Jeff, why don't you expand on that? Well?

563
00:30:27.720 --> 00:30:29.720
Yeah, and I feel like it may be helpful to

564
00:30:29.880 --> 00:30:34.480
just anchor this and one of the core beliefs and

565
00:30:34.799 --> 00:30:37.160
Steve and I have about strategy, one of the core methodologies.

566
00:30:37.200 --> 00:30:38.640
It actually seems to pop up in all of our

567
00:30:38.640 --> 00:30:42.640
books something called the strategy choice cascade. This is actually

568
00:30:42.640 --> 00:30:46.519
something that was developed by Roger Martin and a number

569
00:30:46.519 --> 00:30:46.920
of our.

570
00:30:46.799 --> 00:30:49.400
Colleagues at Monitored Group and a number of years ago.

571
00:30:49.480 --> 00:30:51.960
Is popularized in Roger's book with ag Lafley call playing

572
00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:54.039
to Win and I won't take you into all the

573
00:30:54.039 --> 00:30:57.440
detail of it, but it stipulates that, amongst other things,

574
00:30:57.960 --> 00:31:01.440
good strategy doesn't happen unless you've made choices. And there

575
00:31:01.480 --> 00:31:05.160
are five broad clusters of choices that are that are

576
00:31:05.559 --> 00:31:09.039
that are all interlinked, that make up a sound strategy.

577
00:31:09.119 --> 00:31:11.519
You need to make choices around your goals and aspirations,

578
00:31:11.599 --> 00:31:13.960
around where you're going to play in the market, around

579
00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:16.200
how you're going to win in those markets via your

580
00:31:16.200 --> 00:31:19.440
business models, around the capabilities you need to run those

581
00:31:19.480 --> 00:31:22.160
business models, and then the management systems you need to

582
00:31:22.200 --> 00:31:25.480
have in place to support those capabilities. And there's all

583
00:31:25.519 --> 00:31:28.240
sorts of as I said before, inter relationship and laddering

584
00:31:28.279 --> 00:31:30.960
up and laddering down and what have you. And one

585
00:31:30.960 --> 00:31:33.720
of the observations that actually led to hone and I

586
00:31:33.759 --> 00:31:36.160
will say, this is an obsession of Steve's and he

587
00:31:36.480 --> 00:31:39.240
would call the management systems cluster of those choices to

588
00:31:39.279 --> 00:31:42.200
be the pinky toe of the choice cascade. It was.

589
00:31:42.440 --> 00:31:45.559
It's the thing that is always assumed to actually not

590
00:31:45.640 --> 00:31:48.559
matter that much that but that actually provides balance to

591
00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:52.839
the entire system. And so our observation is that most

592
00:31:52.920 --> 00:31:56.680
senior executives, most CEOs conceive of their job as being

593
00:31:56.880 --> 00:31:59.359
in those first few buckets. It's their job to lay

594
00:31:59.400 --> 00:32:01.680
out the goals now aspirations. It's their job to set

595
00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:03.799
out the bold vision around where to plan, how to win,

596
00:32:04.279 --> 00:32:07.359
and then it's everyone else's job to execute. But the

597
00:32:07.440 --> 00:32:09.720
challenge to that is if you believe like we do,

598
00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:12.799
that management systems ultimately are the things that will that

599
00:32:12.839 --> 00:32:16.559
will that will determine whether you either succeed or fail

600
00:32:16.599 --> 00:32:19.279
at executing your strategy. Those should be the things that

601
00:32:19.359 --> 00:32:21.319
get the vast majority of the tension of the people

602
00:32:21.319 --> 00:32:24.599
who actually control what happens in companies. So we're trying

603
00:32:24.640 --> 00:32:26.799
to flip this orthodoxy on its head a little bit

604
00:32:27.680 --> 00:32:30.200
that that CEOs are about setting the vision but not

605
00:32:30.240 --> 00:32:33.079
necessarily executing it, and we're saying, actually, yeah, you can

606
00:32:33.119 --> 00:32:35.400
set the vision, but you absolutely have to be involved

607
00:32:35.400 --> 00:32:38.400
in the execution because if you're not, then it's not

608
00:32:38.440 --> 00:32:40.440
going to happen. And that does not mean, by the way,

609
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:45.319
that the CEOs need to personally take responsibility for working

610
00:32:45.359 --> 00:32:47.759
on every single management system, but they do need to

611
00:32:47.880 --> 00:32:52.720
understand the breadth of them that are at the company's disposal,

612
00:32:53.200 --> 00:32:55.960
the ones that matter most because they are so related

613
00:32:55.960 --> 00:32:58.119
to the behaviors that will drive towards the objectives that

614
00:32:58.200 --> 00:33:01.279
the company has, and then they need to be able

615
00:33:01.279 --> 00:33:03.880
to empower those that control those management systems to work

616
00:33:03.920 --> 00:33:06.720
on them relentlessly, to execute in the way that they

617
00:33:06.759 --> 00:33:10.400
need to to achieve the strategy. And that's as I said,

618
00:33:10.440 --> 00:33:13.200
it sounds like, yeah, that sounds pretty logical, but it's

619
00:33:13.359 --> 00:33:15.000
it's not the way that many companies run.

620
00:33:15.079 --> 00:33:17.480
It's not the way that many senior executives think.

621
00:33:17.839 --> 00:33:20.519
Right, And this show is very much educational and inspirational

622
00:33:20.599 --> 00:33:22.960
that people listen to the show to become better leaders,

623
00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:26.200
to become better at running their companies. So that's tremendous

624
00:33:26.240 --> 00:33:28.440
contribution right there. And I don't know that I would

625
00:33:28.440 --> 00:33:30.559
have distinguished that even from having read your book. So

626
00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:33.880
I'll take it. Let's grab our last break. I'm your host,

627
00:33:33.960 --> 00:33:36.119
doctor a Leasee Cortez. We've went on air with Jeff

628
00:33:36.160 --> 00:33:39.240
Tuff and Stephen Goldbach from Deloitte, who each have long

629
00:33:39.240 --> 00:33:42.960
spending careers as principles and sustainability, innovation and strategy. We've

630
00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:45.400
been talking a bit about the importance of not hyper

631
00:33:45.400 --> 00:33:49.400
focusing on transformation, but the opportunity for honing. After the break,

632
00:33:49.440 --> 00:33:52.359
We're going to talk about overcoming the systemic imbalance and

633
00:33:52.440 --> 00:33:55.440
share the shareholder focus to start, We'll be right back.

634
00:34:10.679 --> 00:34:14.280
Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning

635
00:34:14.320 --> 00:34:18.119
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies

636
00:34:18.199 --> 00:34:22.000
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired

637
00:34:22.079 --> 00:34:26.039
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and

638
00:34:26.119 --> 00:34:29.360
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite

639
00:34:29.360 --> 00:34:32.360
Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at

640
00:34:32.360 --> 00:34:35.599
elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your

641
00:34:35.639 --> 00:34:44.440
employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with

642
00:34:44.559 --> 00:34:47.760
doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to

643
00:34:47.800 --> 00:34:50.880
open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Alise

644
00:34:51.199 --> 00:34:56.519
A Lise at elisecortes dot com. Now back to working

645
00:34:56.559 --> 00:34:57.280
on Purpose.

646
00:35:02.639 --> 00:35:04.880
Thankteresting with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose.

647
00:35:04.880 --> 00:35:07.920
I'm your host, doctor Releie Cortes. If you're just joining us,

648
00:35:07.960 --> 00:35:10.599
My guests are Jeff Tuff and Stephen Goldbach, the authors

649
00:35:10.639 --> 00:35:15.599
of hone, How Purposeful Leaders Defy Drift. So as somebody

650
00:35:15.599 --> 00:35:18.280
who has spent a good portion of time as a

651
00:35:18.320 --> 00:35:21.519
conscious capitalist and certainly studying stakeholder capitalism or other things

652
00:35:21.559 --> 00:35:24.800
like that. I understand the need not to focus on

653
00:35:25.159 --> 00:35:28.159
just solely the shareholders in terms of an organizational operation.

654
00:35:28.760 --> 00:35:30.760
But when you add in the element with what the

655
00:35:30.800 --> 00:35:33.280
two of you about just really thinking about that, when

656
00:35:33.320 --> 00:35:36.800
you do that, that creates a systemic imbalance for the

657
00:35:36.920 --> 00:35:39.280
organization That is very very interesting. Can you share a

658
00:35:39.320 --> 00:35:40.559
bit more about that perspective.

659
00:35:41.280 --> 00:35:44.079
Well, I'd love to take this one and then and

660
00:35:44.119 --> 00:35:45.360
see if Jeff wants to add.

661
00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:45.599
So.

662
00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:49.960
I think part of it is, let's recognize where most

663
00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:56.840
shareholder value comes from in a commercial for profit organization.

664
00:35:57.360 --> 00:36:01.480
So most of the value comes from being around a

665
00:36:01.519 --> 00:36:06.679
long time. The so called terminal value of a free

666
00:36:06.719 --> 00:36:10.239
cash flow valuation, right, it comes from that assumption that

667
00:36:10.280 --> 00:36:13.760
the company is going to be generating profits for a

668
00:36:13.800 --> 00:36:18.280
long time. If you do any kind of a valuation exercise,

669
00:36:18.760 --> 00:36:20.880
at the end of a five or seven year or

670
00:36:20.880 --> 00:36:23.480
ten year forecast, you make this assumption that we're going

671
00:36:23.559 --> 00:36:28.840
to freeze the business in in laminate for at that moment,

672
00:36:28.920 --> 00:36:32.599
and then we apply a multiple to that. That's a

673
00:36:32.639 --> 00:36:37.039
really important assumption. And it's and and and when you

674
00:36:37.079 --> 00:36:41.440
think about it, the only way that companies can survive

675
00:36:41.840 --> 00:36:47.199
forever is by also being relevant to other stakeholders. You

676
00:36:47.280 --> 00:36:50.760
won't have an organization that is relevant if you're not

677
00:36:50.840 --> 00:36:53.159
serving customers well, if you're not taking care of them,

678
00:36:53.199 --> 00:36:56.360
if you're cutting costs out of the product, out of

679
00:36:56.639 --> 00:36:59.920
your product that that that could be better put into

680
00:37:00.239 --> 00:37:03.440
continue to create customer loyalty, you will not be able

681
00:37:03.480 --> 00:37:06.440
to serve your customer as well. If you don't attract

682
00:37:06.559 --> 00:37:09.320
great employees, you will not be able to serve your

683
00:37:09.320 --> 00:37:12.360
customer as well. If you're not investing in technology, if

684
00:37:12.360 --> 00:37:18.000
you're not engaging with your local communities and being relevant.

685
00:37:17.800 --> 00:37:22.079
That is just what is good for broader stakeholders. Usually

686
00:37:22.159 --> 00:37:25.320
makes a company more resilient and leads to more shareholder

687
00:37:25.400 --> 00:37:29.840
value over the long run. Usually the notion of being

688
00:37:30.119 --> 00:37:34.199
shareholder focused tends to come with things where we're maximizing

689
00:37:34.280 --> 00:37:38.159
profit in the short run, which usually comes with trading

690
00:37:38.199 --> 00:37:41.559
off long term competitive position. It's not always the case,

691
00:37:41.920 --> 00:37:44.840
but it is the case that you can maximize shareholder

692
00:37:44.920 --> 00:37:49.400
value by simply making sure that you're a durable entity

693
00:37:50.559 --> 00:37:51.760
over time.

694
00:37:53.480 --> 00:37:56.480
Yeah, and I think again, we try to be somewhat

695
00:37:56.480 --> 00:37:59.920
consistent through our books and this principle in somebody ties

696
00:38:00.199 --> 00:38:01.920
to some of what we talked about and provoked that

697
00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:05.039
the only way to manage in a world in which

698
00:38:05.719 --> 00:38:08.519
uncertainty is increasing, and we both fundamentally believe it is,

699
00:38:08.559 --> 00:38:12.480
whether that's due for technological reasons or other reasons, is

700
00:38:12.559 --> 00:38:15.159
by widening the aperture in terms of what you pay

701
00:38:15.199 --> 00:38:18.599
attention to. And by definition, if you only pay attention

702
00:38:18.719 --> 00:38:21.920
to a subset of your stakeholders i e. Your shareholders

703
00:38:21.920 --> 00:38:24.039
when you're trying to think about how to drive performance,

704
00:38:24.320 --> 00:38:27.840
then you are by definition narrowing the aperture. But there's

705
00:38:27.840 --> 00:38:34.440
nothing in what we're suggesting that in keeping consideration of

706
00:38:34.480 --> 00:38:37.480
all stakeholders in the decisions you make day and doubt,

707
00:38:37.480 --> 00:38:41.320
there's nothing in that that is fundamentally value destroying or

708
00:38:41.320 --> 00:38:43.639
intended to be value destroying. In fact, we believe that

709
00:38:43.960 --> 00:38:46.320
in the face of all this uncertainty, taking the long view,

710
00:38:46.320 --> 00:38:48.920
taking the wide aperture is going to lead to both

711
00:38:49.039 --> 00:38:51.400
long term value but more short term value as well,

712
00:38:51.480 --> 00:38:53.679
especially as cycles accelerate.

713
00:38:55.280 --> 00:38:58.360
Beautifully said thank you. One of the other things that

714
00:38:58.400 --> 00:39:00.760
I found delightful about your book that I did not

715
00:39:00.920 --> 00:39:03.639
know at all was the history of how the Big

716
00:39:03.679 --> 00:39:05.800
Four came to be. I didn't know that. I know

717
00:39:05.920 --> 00:39:08.239
I have so many friends and people connected to the

718
00:39:08.239 --> 00:39:10.199
Big Four, but I didn't realize how they were born.

719
00:39:10.599 --> 00:39:13.599
Can you share that history?

720
00:39:13.760 --> 00:39:16.400
Well, you should do this one. You're more of a history.

721
00:39:16.800 --> 00:39:19.039
You're more of a history buff, I am. Yeah.

722
00:39:19.079 --> 00:39:23.400
Well, the Big Four generally have been the product of

723
00:39:23.440 --> 00:39:27.599
lots of mergers and acquisitions over the over the years.

724
00:39:28.159 --> 00:39:31.840
Deloitte was was born nearly one hundred and eighty years ago,

725
00:39:33.320 --> 00:39:36.559
and you know, just there was a challenge in the

726
00:39:36.719 --> 00:39:41.840
railroad industry and William Walsh Deloitte was our founder and

727
00:39:41.880 --> 00:39:44.920
then But the I think you might be referring to

728
00:39:44.960 --> 00:39:48.559
the idea that many of our businesses have been local

729
00:39:48.599 --> 00:39:50.719
accounting firms that have been built up over the years

730
00:39:50.719 --> 00:39:51.039
at least.

731
00:39:51.119 --> 00:39:54.039
Is that that which, yes, I'm where I was riveting on.

732
00:39:54.119 --> 00:39:58.079
It was just an ocean after Starbin Oxley active two

733
00:39:58.119 --> 00:40:00.880
thousand and two when they you had to separate your

734
00:40:00.880 --> 00:40:03.159
account your accounting audits from your consulting.

735
00:40:04.039 --> 00:40:08.079
Well that that actually so the Big Four had existed

736
00:40:08.119 --> 00:40:12.960
before then, and they were there were they were the

737
00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:16.760
Big eight, the Big Seven in different different ways. What

738
00:40:16.920 --> 00:40:21.960
ended up happening around the Sarbanes Oxley was for in

739
00:40:22.199 --> 00:40:24.679
later and I won't get into the specifics is basically

740
00:40:24.679 --> 00:40:27.239
it said there needs to be a separation between the

741
00:40:28.039 --> 00:40:33.199
business of providing attestation services or audit services and the

742
00:40:33.239 --> 00:40:37.559
business of also providing consulting services to those companies. Many

743
00:40:37.679 --> 00:40:41.039
of the companies that were in the auditing business around

744
00:40:41.039 --> 00:40:46.679
that time all decided to jettison their consulting practices. For

745
00:40:46.719 --> 00:40:52.559
the most part, Deloitte did not. Deloitte chose not to

746
00:40:52.599 --> 00:40:57.400
do that, and instead we followed the regulation and we

747
00:40:57.480 --> 00:41:00.679
said there are certain things that we can do for

748
00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:03.440
our audit clients, and we will serve them as our

749
00:41:03.519 --> 00:41:05.480
audit clients, and then there are other clients that we

750
00:41:05.480 --> 00:41:10.280
will serve in a consulting capacity. Interestingly, the industry has

751
00:41:10.960 --> 00:41:14.880
come back and sort of rebuilt itself around a model

752
00:41:14.920 --> 00:41:20.280
that is more consistent with the model that the model

753
00:41:20.320 --> 00:41:22.480
that we've chosen, and the thing that we feel like

754
00:41:22.519 --> 00:41:26.480
it's advantaged us over the years is that we are

755
00:41:26.559 --> 00:41:30.480
able to having a broad breadth of services bring lots

756
00:41:30.519 --> 00:41:34.119
of different capabilities to a set of clients that have

757
00:41:34.599 --> 00:41:38.119
complex and novel needs, and those needs don't neatly fit

758
00:41:38.239 --> 00:41:42.320
into boxes that are on our org charts. It's about

759
00:41:42.360 --> 00:41:45.679
the deployment of multiple of those capabilities, in particular to

760
00:41:45.719 --> 00:41:47.519
the world that Jeff and I now sit in, which

761
00:41:47.559 --> 00:41:53.400
is sustainability and infrastructure, where it's hard to imagine how

762
00:41:53.440 --> 00:41:55.880
you might do a project like Jeff does in the

763
00:41:55.880 --> 00:41:59.719
world in the world of energy without having you risk

764
00:41:59.880 --> 00:42:04.840
x spurts, without having financial advisory experts, without having regulatory expertise,

765
00:42:04.880 --> 00:42:09.159
without having tax expertise. And so we've been blessed by

766
00:42:09.239 --> 00:42:14.079
not having in some respects made the choice that others

767
00:42:14.119 --> 00:42:17.480
made back at the turn of the two thousands.

768
00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:21.840
So for any listeners and viewers who also are kind

769
00:42:21.840 --> 00:42:25.239
of rivetted on this, I want to just situate what

770
00:42:25.440 --> 00:42:27.440
the names that I learned to associate here from your books.

771
00:42:27.440 --> 00:42:28.639
So I'm going to say them, and you tell me

772
00:42:28.679 --> 00:42:31.559
if I have these right. But so Deloitte remained, it

773
00:42:32.280 --> 00:42:35.559
stayed if all the regulation kept itself as a consultant

774
00:42:35.559 --> 00:42:39.119
consulting arm as well as the audience services. But Ey,

775
00:42:40.400 --> 00:42:45.960
you say, became cap Gemini and KPMG spun out its

776
00:42:46.000 --> 00:42:48.880
consulting business into an IPO which eventually went by the

777
00:42:48.960 --> 00:42:50.840
name of Bearing Point, which of course we all know

778
00:42:50.960 --> 00:42:54.639
these names in PwC sold it's consulting business to IBM,

779
00:42:55.079 --> 00:42:58.000
creating IBM business consulting services. Do I have this right?

780
00:42:58.519 --> 00:42:58.760
Yep?

781
00:42:58.960 --> 00:43:01.719
Okay, So I think that's interesting because we all know

782
00:43:01.840 --> 00:43:05.639
these names, but I didn't understand their their their forefathers,

783
00:43:05.679 --> 00:43:06.199
if you will.

784
00:43:06.960 --> 00:43:11.039
Yeah, it was that was the that was the consequence

785
00:43:11.079 --> 00:43:15.000
of the Sarbanes Oxley or the some of it was

786
00:43:15.239 --> 00:43:17.639
part of that at that at that time, in and

787
00:43:17.679 --> 00:43:21.079
around the two thousands, as folks started to, you know,

788
00:43:21.159 --> 00:43:24.039
deal with the consequences of the change regulation.

789
00:43:24.800 --> 00:43:27.199
But now, of course everything and everything's getting mixed back

790
00:43:27.239 --> 00:43:30.159
together again, and different brands are parts of different companies.

791
00:43:30.199 --> 00:43:31.920
And I don't blame you at least for not being

792
00:43:31.960 --> 00:43:35.559
able to keep track, but it certainly is a dynamic space.

793
00:43:35.960 --> 00:43:38.280
Well it's it's just really helpful to understand since I'm

794
00:43:38.280 --> 00:43:40.239
in the consulting world too. I'm not in that space

795
00:43:40.280 --> 00:43:41.840
at all what you guys are doing. But this is

796
00:43:42.039 --> 00:43:45.519
this is important history to know, I think. So. Okay,

797
00:43:45.559 --> 00:43:47.760
so you already been talking a bit about the idea

798
00:43:47.800 --> 00:43:52.880
of the minimally viable thoughts toward honing. So the minimum

799
00:43:52.960 --> 00:43:55.400
viable thought toward honing for the future, I don't know

800
00:43:55.440 --> 00:43:57.239
if you want to say more about that. I think

801
00:43:57.360 --> 00:43:59.320
in the bit of time that we have together here,

802
00:43:59.360 --> 00:44:01.519
I would love for each of you maybe just to

803
00:44:01.599 --> 00:44:04.800
share a couple of key takeaways that you've learned from

804
00:44:04.840 --> 00:44:07.159
your years of working with these large companies to help

805
00:44:07.159 --> 00:44:10.400
them navigate complex problems. If there's any patterns or key

806
00:44:10.480 --> 00:44:13.119
insights that you've been noticing beyond what we've already talked

807
00:44:13.159 --> 00:44:15.440
about today. WOULD definitely love to hear from both of

808
00:44:15.480 --> 00:44:17.039
you on that before we have to close.

809
00:44:18.280 --> 00:44:20.480
Sure, why why don't we trade off a little bit here? Steve,

810
00:44:20.519 --> 00:44:22.119
I'll do one, you do one, and then and then

811
00:44:22.199 --> 00:44:23.840
we'll go till we run out of steam, which may

812
00:44:23.880 --> 00:44:29.400
actually take several more shows. But the one one inside

813
00:44:29.519 --> 00:44:31.760
and I you know it was we got it early

814
00:44:31.800 --> 00:44:36.519
in exploring Detonate and it's carried through HUD to hone

815
00:44:36.519 --> 00:44:41.199
as well, is that you have to strike balance and

816
00:44:41.559 --> 00:44:44.800
you know the I think there's an over interpretation sometimes

817
00:44:44.800 --> 00:44:46.599
of what Steve and I write about to assume that

818
00:44:46.599 --> 00:44:48.800
we're when we talk about, for example, blowing up the playbooks,

819
00:44:48.840 --> 00:44:50.840
that it means blowing up the entire company, or when

820
00:44:50.840 --> 00:44:54.400
we talk about, you know, provoking the future in which

821
00:44:54.400 --> 00:44:56.400
you have advantage. It means turning away from the path

822
00:44:56.440 --> 00:44:58.280
that you're on right now, and that's that that has

823
00:44:58.320 --> 00:45:01.679
not been our tent from the beginning. It's really what

824
00:45:01.719 --> 00:45:05.400
we're trying to have people do is redeploy their capital

825
00:45:05.440 --> 00:45:09.280
in a way where they take more ambitious bets in

826
00:45:09.360 --> 00:45:11.320
shifting the way things have been done in the past.

827
00:45:11.480 --> 00:45:16.800
And what we're finding, I think, especially as technology in

828
00:45:16.840 --> 00:45:19.679
particular and even more particularly AI these days, as it

829
00:45:19.800 --> 00:45:24.079
accelerates the pace of change and creates an ever more

830
00:45:24.159 --> 00:45:27.000
uncertain world. Again, another theme I'd come back to is

831
00:45:27.039 --> 00:45:30.239
that the balance, the shift in the balance, is changing,

832
00:45:30.280 --> 00:45:32.559
and we're finding that. And actually, one of the things

833
00:45:32.639 --> 00:45:34.760
we often say when we talk about the books is that,

834
00:45:35.239 --> 00:45:36.800
you know, it used to be, even at the beginning

835
00:45:36.840 --> 00:45:40.239
of writing Deadnate, it used to be that the status

836
00:45:40.320 --> 00:45:44.960
quo felt quite safe and change felt quite risky. And

837
00:45:45.119 --> 00:45:47.800
now actually we're finding that in many circumstances it's flipped

838
00:45:47.800 --> 00:45:50.840
where the safe thing to do is actually go try

839
00:45:50.880 --> 00:45:52.880
to change something, and the risky thing is to remain

840
00:45:52.920 --> 00:45:54.800
with the status quot. But it always is a matter

841
00:45:54.880 --> 00:45:58.039
of balance, and whether you get that balance right will

842
00:45:58.079 --> 00:46:00.280
depend a lot on the nature of this face in

843
00:46:00.280 --> 00:46:02.599
which you play what you're trying to achieve, et cetera.

844
00:46:02.639 --> 00:46:05.039
But that that is definitely one key theme that I've

845
00:46:05.039 --> 00:46:06.840
taken away and I hope our readers have taken away

846
00:46:06.840 --> 00:46:07.199
as well.

847
00:46:08.559 --> 00:46:12.960
Yeah, and I'll build on that and share my own

848
00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:16.039
and we'll probably uh, this will probably take us to

849
00:46:16.079 --> 00:46:19.679
the end. I'm guessing the it's it's one A in

850
00:46:19.679 --> 00:46:23.400
one B so one as human beings have this capacity

851
00:46:23.639 --> 00:46:28.440
to fundamentally believe that the future, the future is going

852
00:46:28.480 --> 00:46:31.719
to be continued from the from the past, and in particular,

853
00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:35.880
an assumption that is terrible in business is that you know,

854
00:46:35.960 --> 00:46:39.280
you even see it happening. Now with AI, we're saying,

855
00:46:39.400 --> 00:46:42.760
will we get the return from our investments in AI?

856
00:46:43.519 --> 00:46:47.880
And it kind of fails the smell test because if

857
00:46:47.880 --> 00:46:51.639
we don't invest in AI, the likelihood that your business

858
00:46:51.719 --> 00:46:53.880
is going to be competitive in the future is almost

859
00:46:53.920 --> 00:46:57.880
a probability of zero, right, if you choose not to

860
00:46:57.960 --> 00:47:01.039
invest in AI. And so when people people say, you know,

861
00:47:01.079 --> 00:47:03.280
I can't generate a return on AI, it's like you

862
00:47:03.360 --> 00:47:07.320
have to compare it to the alternative, right, and not

863
00:47:07.320 --> 00:47:10.920
not what you've got today that is done? Right, You

864
00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:13.000
either have a choice now I can invest or not

865
00:47:13.159 --> 00:47:16.360
invest in. The not investment path doesn't look very good.

866
00:47:17.000 --> 00:47:21.519
And so if you're investing to avoid a downside, that's

867
00:47:21.559 --> 00:47:25.079
as good of a return as investing to create an

868
00:47:25.159 --> 00:47:28.519
upside from today. But people have this innate capacity to

869
00:47:28.639 --> 00:47:32.000
just presume that we're safe in whatever we have today,

870
00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:35.719
which is so not the case. And that's why I

871
00:47:35.719 --> 00:47:38.440
think the thing that I've learned the most is the

872
00:47:38.480 --> 00:47:43.119
importance of always going back to first principles and whenever

873
00:47:43.159 --> 00:47:47.079
you're doing something like making an incremental management decision, it's

874
00:47:47.159 --> 00:47:50.440
not about just extending the past. It's about what's the

875
00:47:50.480 --> 00:47:52.760
investment choice of, like do I do it or do

876
00:47:52.800 --> 00:47:54.960
I not do it? And you have to then think

877
00:47:54.960 --> 00:47:58.320
about what the consequences of not doing it are. We're

878
00:47:58.360 --> 00:48:01.199
just not very we're just not very good at that

879
00:48:01.320 --> 00:48:04.599
more generally, more generally than we are.

880
00:48:05.760 --> 00:48:07.760
Very helpful gentlemen. Yes, you're right, we have come to

881
00:48:07.800 --> 00:48:09.719
the close here. However, we do enough time for each

882
00:48:09.719 --> 00:48:12.840
of you to say, maybe fifteen seconds each, what would

883
00:48:12.880 --> 00:48:14.559
you like to leave our listeners and viewers with around

884
00:48:14.599 --> 00:48:14.960
the world.

885
00:48:16.840 --> 00:48:19.519
Move before you think you have to, or said differently,

886
00:48:19.599 --> 00:48:20.360
don't overthink it.

887
00:48:21.480 --> 00:48:26.559
Yeah, go check out our book hone The Book dot com.

888
00:48:26.639 --> 00:48:28.840
We'd love to hear what you think. Catch us both

889
00:48:28.880 --> 00:48:32.800
on LinkedIn. The nicest thing that an author can have

890
00:48:32.960 --> 00:48:35.519
is engagement with their ideas, so we love to engage

891
00:48:35.519 --> 00:48:36.800
and hit us up.

892
00:48:38.280 --> 00:48:40.639
Delightful. I'm so happy to know both of you. You're

893
00:48:40.679 --> 00:48:43.440
both inspiring, you both teach me a lot, and you're

894
00:48:43.440 --> 00:48:45.719
delightful to engage with. Thanks for coming back on Working

895
00:48:45.719 --> 00:48:46.199
on Purpose.

896
00:48:46.960 --> 00:48:48.840
Thanks for having us. It was fun having us again.

897
00:48:49.320 --> 00:48:52.480
Absolutely, listeners and viewers you want to you're gonna learn

898
00:48:52.559 --> 00:48:54.920
more about these guys in their books. The best way

899
00:48:54.960 --> 00:48:57.480
to start is to find them both on LinkedIn and

900
00:48:57.519 --> 00:49:00.239
then also check out their book at hone the book

901
00:49:00.400 --> 00:49:03.559
dot com. So h O n E thebook dot com.

902
00:49:04.239 --> 00:49:05.719
Last week, if you missed the live show, you can

903
00:49:05.719 --> 00:49:08.320
always catch it via recorded podcast. See you next week

904
00:49:08.320 --> 00:49:11.760
for another nourishing and elevating conversation together. Let's lean in

905
00:49:11.840 --> 00:49:14.360
and learn how to make workplaces that work for everyone

906
00:49:14.559 --> 00:49:16.400
and find way to do business that betters the world.

907
00:49:16.599 --> 00:49:17.800
Let's work on Purpose.

908
00:49:20.920 --> 00:49:23.599
We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to

909
00:49:23.599 --> 00:49:26.679
tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host doctor Elise

910
00:49:26.719 --> 00:49:30.639
Cortes each week on W four CY. Together, we'll create

911
00:49:30.639 --> 00:49:34.760
a world where business operates conscientiously. Leadership inspires and passion

912
00:49:34.840 --> 00:49:37.880
performance and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the

913
00:49:37.960 --> 00:49:41.280
meaning and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work

914
00:49:41.360 --> 00:49:42.079
on purpose.