WEBVTT
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The topics and opinions expressed on 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 four WN Radio It's employees or affiliates.
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be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
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W four WN Radio.
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This is Beyond Confidence with your host, d W Park.
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Do you want to live a more fulfilling life? Do
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you want to live your legacy and achieve your personal, professional,
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and financial goals? Well? Coming up on dvoparks Beyond Confidence,
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you will hear real stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and achievers
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who have stepped into discomfort, shattered their status quo, and
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are living the life they want. You will learn how
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relationships are the key to achieving your aspirations and financial goals.
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Moving your career business forward does not have to happen
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at the expense of your personal or family life, or
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vice versa. Learn more www dots, Dvpark dot com and
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you can connect with vants contact dancedvpark dot com. This
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is beyond confidence and now here's your host, w Park.
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Good morning listeners. Today's Tuesday, and of course it is
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one of my favorite times of the week because I
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get to be with you and bring you stories that
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are powerful and that help you live your best life.
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So today I want to introduce you to a specially guest, Robert,
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who has served thirty plus years in our army. And Robert,
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you know I want to thank you for your services.
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So welcome.
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Thanks Devia.
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I'm glad to be here and proud who have been
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a soldier in the United States Army for thirty three years.
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It was an honor, absolutely it sits an honor to
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have you here because we wouldn't have the freedom that
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we all of us enjoy in our country without y'all.
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So thank you. So share with us a little bit
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about your journey as to how did you get into
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the leadership arena.
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Well as a as a young person growing up in
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Georgia and North Carolina, I found myself involved in activities
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in junior high and high school where I ended up
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being responsible for others and I found that to be
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something that I was okay with.
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You know.
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There was a little discomfort there, but I was okay
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with it, both in a school environment socially and then
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in athletics.
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And so.
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I became the quarterback of my football team, and I
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was with the student council of the high school. And
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one night I came home from a football game and
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there were two Army football coaches sitting in my living
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room talking to my father. Soon thereafter, I found myself
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on the plane the parade field at West Point along
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with about twelve hundred other young men in July of
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nineteen seventy, entering a crucible in my life that I
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had never really expected. I want to play college football.
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I really didn't want to be a soldier. But I
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ended up being a very mediocre football player, even though
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it was a dream of mine. But I was part
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of what was then the Band of Brothers, and it
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was all mail at that time. I was successful in
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navigating my way through a very very attrition based environment
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called the culture of compliance, and then found myself a
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lieutenant the United States Army in charge of a platoon
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of forty two soldiers patrolling the East West German border.
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In the spring of nineteen seventy five, and that's where
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my journey began. You know, it's taken me quite a
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way since then, but that's sort of how I ended
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up at the beginning of my leadership journey.
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Yeah, and you talk about the compliance leadership, So tell
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us your experience from back then and what did you
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learn from that and how did you build that community
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within the band we that you were working with.
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Yeah, we.
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Were brought up in an environment there at West Point
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which was very compliance based. You know, do what you're
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told when you're told to do it without question or hesitation,
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and we're not going to talk about the why. What
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we want you to do is learn to follow, in
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many cases unquestioning and comply with a very rigorous set
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of parameters that we have established over one hundred and
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fifty plus years and therefore it's proven to work and
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so we're not going to debate it or contest it.
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So what you had to choose, I was either going
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to go with it, or if I chose to object
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to it, then they simply told you to go away.
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You know, it was that's the way it was. He
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had the complied with the rules and regulations and the
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directives and the cultural environment which was oftentimes not very
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respectful of individuals, and the greater good was always always
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the priority, and I understood that. I mean, the mission
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comes first in the military, but they sought to mold
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us into a somewhat different person as a result of
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your experience as a cadet at West Point. And you know,
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it's interesting that, you know, we had a forty percent
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attrition rate in the in those four years at West Point.
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My younger son graduated from West Point in the class
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of twenty eleven.
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He had the same number.
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Of people that went in with him, you know, the
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twelve hundred plus men and women at that point in time,
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and their attrition rate was about eleven percent. Now, you know,
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what do you think happened there, Devian Well, I think
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the culture changed from a culture of compliance almost entirely,
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to a culture of commitment. And that culture of commitment
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is what I am a champion for now because I
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believe the buy in and the understanding of the why
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is essential to be an effective leader in the world
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that we're in now. But the journey for me was
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one of evolution, not revolution. As I progressed through the
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ranks of the army in a culture of compliance and
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learned as the army changed, I also changed my views
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about how important commitment was as a cultural standard.
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Yeah, commitment is such a beautiful word that can have
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such varying nuances and different layers. So when you think
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about commitment, what comes to your mind and how do
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you define it?
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I think commitment is defined by being all in now.
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Obviously that's the title my last two books. You know,
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it's a shameless book. Promotion wise, I'll talk about you know,
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We're all in and the power of being all in
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as my two stories about developing and nurturing a culture
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of commitment where people are all in. Now, how do
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you create that environment. It's not going to happen by
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OUs mosis typically, you know, you have to be deliberate
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as a leader in nurturing that culture of commitment where
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people are all in where they want to belong. I mean,
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we're basically pack animals by nature anyway, we want to belong.
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But in the world that we're in, in the world
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of chaos that we're in today, and I think we
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are in a world of chaos, belonging is much harder
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than it's probably ever been. It certainly is something that
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adaptive leaders have to work at every day in order
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to create that belonging in that by.
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It absolutely the world that we are in. What are
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some of the first steps that leaders can do? Because
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culture is designed by people, Culture is designed by what
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we are willing to commit, because commitment does take time,
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and sometimes we may have to go against what may
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be the norm or what may be expected to keep
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that sustainability. So what are some of the steps I.
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Think for the first person you have to lead is you,
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and you have to make a commitment to yourself.
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You have to decide, Okay.
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I am going to be committed to being an adaptive
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leader in an environment of chaos economically, politically, social, aid business,
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the chaos is there. I'm going to commit to being
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an adaptive leader to lead effectively through that chaos. So
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when I coach individuals and teams, I talk about building
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a personal leadership philosophy. That personal leadership philosophy is a
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statement of who am I and what do I represent?
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It starts with a personal mission statement and then followed
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with your values and then your way of doing things
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and your commitments and basically it's a charter where you
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sign it and date it. And in my latest book,
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I put a copy of my personal leadership philosophy in
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there so everybody can see it that I wouldn't ask
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other leaders to do something I hadn't done myself. The
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second that's the first component.
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You know.
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The first component is a commitment to yourself and you
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state that commitment and you put it out there in
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front of other people so they can hold you accountable
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to it.
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Ah, that is the keyword that you're making commitment laced
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with accountability because commitment can be you know, anybody can
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say anything that they want, but if you're not held accountable,
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or if you don't hold accountable other people or yourself,
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then that commitment has no value because promises without delivery
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are just empty promises. That's all. So now as we
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talk about that, after you left the army, you know,
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where did you go? And like, you know, what was
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your leadership journey?
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Like two weeks after I retired from the Army as
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a division commander, I went into a manufacturing company president
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of manufacturing company, and we went right into the Great
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Depression of two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine
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and there was some shock and awe involved in that process.
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I you know, I didn't have a lot of transition development.
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It was sort of like, oh, here you go. And
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that culture was also one of more compliance based than
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I think it was healthy for us at that point
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in time. And so I learned some hard lessons. I
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learned some hard lessons about culture. For example, I thought that,
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you know, people would emulate behaviors or positive behaviors automatically. Well,
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soon after I went in the company, someone sent me
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a picture of one of my employees sleeping on a
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palett at three o'clock in the morning, said, here's your
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culture in general. That was kind of a stunning revelation
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for me to realize that, you know, people weren't going
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to be all in just because we thought it was
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a good idea. They were going to be all in
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if they believed in what we were doing and why
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we were doing it, and we were willing to invest
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in them and underwrite some mistakes when people were making
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honest mistakes, and that was going to take time. It
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was not going to be you know, as we used
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to say, throw a hand grenades and the flash to
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bang time was about a second. Well, the flash to
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bang time of culture is not one second at all.
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In fact, it's months and even I think a couple
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of years to establish a culture of commitment in an organization.
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And some leaders aren't willing to invest in that. You know,
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in the corporate world, people tend to be more transactional
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than you know, investment oriented in the people because the
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return on is not obvious there returning investment of selling
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a product or service and doing a conversion from you know,
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candidate to client, that's very tangible in.
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The eyes of many business leaders.
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So you've got to work through that understanding in your
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organization to start to develop a culture of commitment. I
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learned that pretty quickly when I ended the corporate world
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that it was not going to happen quickly or easily.
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You're going to have to be dedicated to being an
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adaptive leader.
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Absolutely. And when you mentioned about that, oh, just because
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it was a good idea, we were not going to
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get the buy in. And there's so many initiatives that
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happen in any of the organizations, you know, so many
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organizations as we are talking about AI and a lot
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of people are thinking, oh, you know, we can just
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roll out AI it's not just about rolling it out,
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it's about building that psychological safety and connections. So when
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you started out with one idea, but when the next
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idea or next initiative came, what did you change and
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how did you get to buy it?
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I learned from some very smart people, and I think
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DVA certainly. One of my mentors that I've worked with
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was General Cole and Powell as Chairman of the Joint
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Chiefs of Staff, one of the most brilliant and capable
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Level five leaders I've ever known, and he he encouraged me,
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among other great mentors, that I was privileged to have
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to establish a framework for developing a culture that people
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could understand and adapt and keep it simple. So I
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developed six leadership principles, and those six principles were set
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the asimuth your cardinal direction. Listen with the intent to understand,
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trust and empower, do the right thing when no one's looking,