Carol Kauffman & David Noble: Real-Time Leadership

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. And boy, is this a timely conversation, especially for me. It's about real-time leadership with David Noble and Carol Kaufman. Now, both of these individuals are extremely accomplished coaches. David himself has more than two decades of global experience advising CEOs, and also he was named by Thinkers50 as one of the world's top coaches. And Carol, same thing. She's known internationally as a leader in the field of coaching. Marshall Goldsmith named her the number one leadership coach, and Thinkers50 ranked her among the top eight coaches in the world.

So we had this conversation, and as you all know, I use this kind of as an open therapy session for myself because real-time leadership is real for me right now. There's a lot of challenges going in the marketplace of what's happening out there and how leaders respond to it makes a difference. And so I'm always introspective about my leadership skills, and I use this as an opportunity to get some coaching myself. We went through how leaders react in times of change and all the three pillars of leadership that they get into and how optimism could be a blind spot in many cases. We talk about willpower versus way power, which was really interesting. And then they have this very specific approach to really structure your thought process when going into critical times called move, which is be mindful, generate options, validate your vantage point, and engage an effective change.

So that formula right there is one that we can all use because we're all leaders. This isn't just executives out there. We are all leaders in our own right, and we all face crises, whether it's in our personal lives or professional lives. So I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did and get as much value out of it as I did. Let's make it happen. What's happening, make it happen, family? Big shout out to our partners today, Gong, Vidyard, and Chili Piper. Gong's data is more than valuable. It's cornerstone in any organization looking to collect the data that's going to tell them where they can improve and where they need to spend their time making changes. Vidyard makes it easy for people to use videos anywhere.

No matter whether you're sending videos in email or on social media, posting them somewhere or sending them in a DM, Vidyard has got you covered. Our friends at Chili Piper are so much fun to be around. They make it easy for people to get on your calendar. And every sales rep has got to have this function locked in. It's one of the most important things we can do as a seller. How can I get you on my calendar easily? Chili Piper can make that happen for you. Be sure that you're checking out all these great tools. And now let's pass it over to John to find out who's joining him today. See you soon, everybody. David and Carol, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us today. Great to be here.

Thanks, John. Yep. And I'm actually excited that this is a very timely conversation. You know, for everybody listening, we're going to be talking about leadership right now and specifically leadership in challenging times, which for me right now is very relevant because I have found myself in this industry of SaaS and tech, and we've made quite a good living off of SaaS and tech over the past 10 years. And now SaaS and tech is starting to have some challenges. And, you know, I went through COVID and that was kind of some wartime stuff that we had to do to figure out how to get through it. And this is a little different for me personally, just because it's not necessarily we're all in type of thing.

It's our industry, what we're doing. And so I would love to dive into, you know, the new book is coming out again, coming up in February, right? Yes, February 21st. Right. It's perfect. And it's real-time leadership. So let's dive in. Well, first of all, let's get some background, right? So just to give some context here for each of you, for the listeners, where you're coming from, kind of where you've studied and all that other stuff, and then what brought you to this point. So Carol, you want to kick us off with a little bit of background here? Sure. Well, one of the great things about our partnership is David and I come from completely different vectors. And what's amazing is when we work with people, they will also say, David said the same thing.

And it comes from such a different world. So my world is I started out as a clinical psychologist, specialized in trauma, then went over to peak performance, and then to leadership coaching really exclusively for the last 15 years. But in 2009, I was given a $2 million gift to start something called the Institute of Coaching at Harvard, which is where I've been teaching for 25 plus years. So I come from that background, you know, any type of psychological theory, etc., and applying that in real time. And on the other side, I have at this point, 40,000 hours of experience with clients. So lots of pattern recognition. And I love it. I absolutely love it. I coach with a lot of CEOs and leaders.

And I love it now as much as when I was in my 40th hour. Nice. Very good. That's important, right? Like a lot of times we get into it. And then after, we're like, I can't wait to get out of this. But if you're still passionate about it, still enjoying the conversation, it ends up being a pretty fulfilling life and career. So good for you. Awesome. David, where are you coming from? So John, what you opened with in terms of all the disruption and uncertainty and change that's happened, that's been with me for a long time. And that's one of the reasons why Carol and I build our framework after dealing with leaders for so long. So my very first job, which was quite some time ago, was as a speechwriter.

And I remember writing at that time, the world is going through unprecedented change and volatility. And I've been hearing that ever since. And I'm kind of tired of it. So that's one of the reasons why we wanted to address this with our work. But I started out as an operating executive and I was in financial services. And my organization had actually a great philosophy, which was to create what they call general athletes and to move you around into radically different jobs and just to see how well you did. So one day you'd be in Hong Kong working on strategy. The next day you'd be running the first digital bank in the world. And so that was actually a great proving ground and a ground where I got used to dealing with like wildly different things.

I did that for a long time. And then I very impulsively, which is a trend that you'll see impulse matters a lot to me. I decided I had enough of that and I wanted to be a strategist. So I moved into strategy, which is exactly the wrong sequence for most leaders. Most leaders start in a strategy firm and then they go into an operating role. I did it the other way around. Don't recommend it, but still I had a really good time. And then I did that for a number of years and I really got tired of the bigger, more faster, better, stronger. And I took a break. I wanted to be a coach. Just that was my another impulse. And I did a lot of work on myself. And then while doing that, I thought maybe there's something here that could be useful and in service to others.

So I started working on leadership development about 12 years ago. And then Carol and I connected as partners and writing partners, business partners and writing partners seven or eight years ago. I love it. I love it. I want to get to that impulse thing because that's a big part of reaction from a leadership standpoint. So, but let's start here with kind of how you would define leadership and and separated from coaching, um, like a good coach, a good manager and a good leader, right? Because they're not all the same by any stretch of the imagination. And, and I think a lot of people have attributes of each, um, but have more strengths than others. And so I'm curious from your perspective, what, what the difference is between, and how you would define leadership.

And again, I want to take this out of the realm of any individual at the top of the company leader type of thing and macro this out to, we can all be leaders, but what are those characteristics? Because in one more piece of context here, I feel like I'm a, I'm a good leader. I'm a really bad manager. Um, because I, I like accountability is hard for me holding people, you know, those types of things. And I'm a good coach, but it's like, I'll give you an example. I, I'll sit down with your forecast all day long and strategize you about deals and coming up with creative ways to do it. But when you miss your forecast, I'm like, oh shit, do we have to have this conversation? I'm like, I really don't even like, I, I avoid it.

I actually like, so, so let's, let's talk about leadership here in context and how it relates to those other components. What's the, what would you say defines it, Carol? Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is what John Carter talks about, which is, um, management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things and how you can kind of work on them. And we see that, um, so if leadership is the umbrella and then kind of being able to, uh, be a good manager or get good managers working for you is one piece of that. Being good with coaching skills is another piece of that. So I see leadership as the bigger umbrella. And one definition, um, or experience of leadership is that I think of, so let's take this out of organization is basically, okay, are you a leader?

Okay. Do you want to have a positive impact on people? Okay. That is sort of the heart of leadership. And the other one is, do you have impact or direct control over somebody's resources, whether they get money, whether they get access to access to things? If so, you are a leader to them and you are always a leader and later, perhaps later, I'll tell you the story of the gorilla. Okay. Can we, you said leaders, what was that first part about leaders about like those care about people? Managers do things right. Is that what you mean? No, I mean the, the one about that first characteristics of leadership, as far as like, they want to see other people be successful. Is that what you said? Yeah.

Then you want other people, you want to have a positive impact on other people. And what does that mean? That means sort of empowering them, helping them be more successful, satisfied. And as leader, um, as David and I talk about actually in the very last chapter of our book, it's how to be extraordinary, like as a person. Yeah. So I'm going to stop on that for a second before I get to you, David. Um, cause I'm curious here. I've always been frustrated that it feels like you have to be a raging asshole to get really quote unquote successful, right? Like if we look at all the, like what, what society would say is successful. I don't think this is successful, but what society would say is that like these uber rich, you know, I won't name any names, but whatever, you know what I mean?

And they just possibly imagined. Right. But, but, well, all right, let's call it what is this? Cause he's timely like Elon. Like I I'm, I'm a fan of Elon because of, I think he's one of the most innovative, like, I think he's quite frankly, an alien, but that's okay. But you know, he does too. Yeah. But leadership, I look at him as he's from the front, he's, you know, and he's doing all these things, but he doesn't seem to care about at least the people that he doesn't care about. You know what I mean? Like he doesn't, that, that function, that's why I wanted to pause on that Carol, because there are those lead, like Steve jobs, like all these people that basically smash people into submission, but become great.

So how do you balance that from a leader standpoint, knowing that, you know, the guy who stood, you know, and I forget his name, but the Uber kid, you know what I mean? We work. Uh, there's example after example, after example of these people who, in my opinion, were insanely selfish, insanely selfish, but yet rose to the highest levels of their profession. And yeah, there, some of them crashed down and, and, and it came, you know, universe kind of came back to them and all, but can you help me reconcile that? Yes. Now it just so happens that I have coached, um, two C-level leaders of very significant companies who left, you know, and so I know a lot about what he was like on the, on the inside.

And, you know, there are certain people where their business model and where they are just transcends everything and they are brilliant, but they're lucky. Now, the other thing is what is success, um, and success in different levels. So David may pick up on this, but we talk a lot about three-dimensional leadership. Uh huh. To be a true leader, you need to be aware of, you know, what you need to do. Okay. Then who you need to be and how you need to relate. And I would say that Elon and some, Elon in particular was a fabulous one-dimensional leader, you know, and even we don't talk about Bill Gates, but a friend of mine wrote a book on Bill and he'd, and he'd be there a number of times, to be able to just stand on his desk and scream people.

Yeah. Now they did have other balancing factors in terms of the uniqueness of their vision and how really what it was that was exciting about what they did transcended who they were and they were kind of, he put up with them. But now imagine, if, imagine if Musk or Steve Jobs was all of that and was self-aware and was aware of how they related to people, I think they would have been much more successful than they were and certainly happier and more satisfied. What do you think on that, David? Cause I, I, I, I might, I might debate that a little bit, right? That's why we're here. Yeah. Because I, I look at it and I think that sometimes, for instance, you know, I feel like I'm a pretty decent three-dimensional leader.

I'm very, I try to be very empathetic, but a lot of times that gets in my way of making the hard decisions. You know what I mean? So, so if Elon was nice, would he have gone in there and fired half of Twitter and you know what I mean? And done what, you know, probably should have been done, even though he did it really horribly and in a really draconian way. Like, I don't know if he was really nice. So David, what do you think on, on that, as far as that attribute, if you will? Cause it just feels it, quite frankly, it just feels like assholes win here. You're not alone in that thought. And you know, we've got ample examples of assholes winning. Um, I do think what Carol said is right. That, um, in some sense, their vision and their capability just transcends everything.

And frankly, I wouldn't put them up any of them successful or not successful as role models, because what we've seen and, you know, we collaborated with a retired four star U S general, who's a amazing human, uh, leadership theorist. And he's seen lots of combat. And, uh, one of the things that just stuck with us, it's laser burn in our memories is that he feels that the greatest leaders, no matter what conditions they're facing have a deep reservoir of kindness, that that's the thing that wins, um, out eventually in the end. And I think this, this idea of three dimensional leadership is it's being very clear on your goals and setting great goals. Uh, it's being very clear on who you want to be as a human and the things that you want to cultivate.

Like we all have an opportunity to grow, whether it's our listening skills, our perspective, our compassion, whatever it is, and then how we get better at, at relating to people. And if you got one person, um, there's many, many leaders who are not famous, who are results oriented and they, they crush their people. And then there's other leaders who are wonderful. What we could call servant leaders who believe in the potential and want to unlock everyone, but they really find it hard to hold them accountable. And then we know these great individual contributors who are subject matter experts who, uh, really find it hard to relate to other humans in any kind of systematic way. Right? So those are all one D leaders and you've got to have some kind of minimum content across all three dimensions.

I think to be successful, we've got so many examples of really great leaders that truly are three dimensional leaders. And of course there are exceptions to every rule. Sure. Um, but the other thing is I, um, I've been working with a mature Stephen jobs as it were. I mean, you run into these people and they are of a differing order. I mean, there's those of us who are smart results and there's other people who are just way out there. And it was fascinating because he was really headed in that direction. And so I remember one conversation where he's going, carrying on in that brilliant way is like, they don't understand this, they don't understand that, you know, they need to do this. And I just imagined him getting on the desk to which I said to him, um, let's pause a moment.

Okay. We want to make space, right? Let's, let's pause a moment. What if nobody understanding you is your fault and not theirs? Can we look at that? And he stopped with a, with a jolt actually, because nothing like that had entered his event horizon. And, um, I could see the beginning of the pivot. Um, and I think that it, so for some of these people, if they'd had really good, you know, people who cared about them and were happy confronting them early on in their careers might have been useful and they would have been even more successful, all that determination, but more self responsibility and self-awareness. So how do you cultivate that within an organization? Because I remember when I was younger, um, and I was a leader, you know, VP of sales at the ripe old age of 23 years old, which is a joke.

Um, but you know, I had, I had six or seven reps reporting to me and I would say to them, I need you to challenge me. I need you to push back. Right. And this was me just being like ignorant, basically. Come on. Like I like, but because I am such a, you know, kind of, I have, I'm very opinionated. Let's put it that way. Right. And my opinions come across pretty strong. And obviously people who are not that opinionated tend to get scared by that approach in a lot of ways. And so I would always say, no, I want you to challenge me. I want you to disagree with me. I'm begging for you to, but they never would. So, so what, so that that's the wrong way to approach it. Like just saying, look, I want you to, you know, I'm going to force you to, you know, you know, push me like, that's not going to happen.

That's the bad leadership. Cause I'm come, I'm coming and pushing down on that. So how do you cultivate with a personality, somebody like an Elon and I'm, you know, and I'm not putting myself in his level in any way, shape or form, but somebody like me, it was a high D on the disc scale. Right. And, and I come in with my, right. And I come in very, very opinionated, but it's funny because as soon as somebody points out something that I'm wrong about, I'll be the first one to stop the conversation and be like, oh, you know, it's like my, I drive my wife crazy because we'll be arguing. And then all of a sudden she'll make a better point than me. And I'll be like, damn, you're right. Okay. And, and she'll be like, wait, you know, want to argue?

And I'm like, no, actually you're right. Like this is over. Right. So, so how do you build that trust within the organization to feel confident that, that the people that you're leading can challenge you and can push you and ask those questions that you might not be seeing? How do you cultivate that type of environment? Well, a couple of things I think one is, and Carol can speak at length about this is, um, there's a concept on psychological safety, which is how do you make people feel really comfortable and safe to, to bring themselves entirely to work and also to say what's on their mind and not fear, um, any risk of a blowback from that. So, you know, that's a, that's a process and, uh, having points of view and having conviction is, is a great thing.

Uh, it's just that when you're relating to others, the ones who will relate best to you or are into that, right? They're like, yeah, let's, let's get into a rumble and let's really talk about this. But the problem is you're just leaving out potentially all these other opinions who are too quiet to speak up or, or maybe a little bit afraid. And so you're leaving stuff on the table. So you want to expand that set of information. So for us, it's, um, we would call it having agility around this interpersonal relationship. So it's being able to relate to others in the way they want a need to be related to. So you might've had a bunch of sales reps, a couple of them could, could engage with you and the way you want them to engage with you.

And maybe a couple is more just to encourage them, right? It's like, Hey, I got your back. I really believe in this stuff. I'm having trouble here. I need your thoughts around this. It's just different ways of engaging with different people based on what they need from you. How do you figure that out though? Like, is this a, is this a test thing? Is this, do I, do I need to take one of those personality tests to learn how to relate better to you than me? Is it an innate ability? Is there a structure to put in place to, to, to drive this? All of the above. So a couple of things come to my mind. First of all, as you've got to get that it is in your leadership role, it is your responsibility to create high quality relationships.

And that's not just about being nice. The Jane Duck, a lot of people at university of Michigan business school, look at high quality relationships at work and find that it increases performance dramatically. So if you're actually really interested in the bottom line for real, like you will get this under your belt, because the people lead to profit, lead to performance, lead to, you know, and it's a positive cycle. So what's one way to do that? Because, um, John, you, me and David, David's much more elegant, actually. Um, he, he's head can be exploding and you can't tell my head explodes and you can really tell. Um, and he's from Canada and you're from Boston, right? So there you go. I'm, I'm Boston too.

All right. Let's have puppy. Um, it is your, one of the things I do and I do this all the time. So one of the questions we talk about, um, in the three dimensions of leadership, one is of course, what do you need to do? The other one is who you need to be. And so there you are, there's your sales reps under new, they're not moving fast enough. And you're about to go, Hey guys, who do I want to be right now? Who do I want to be right now? How do I need you right now? Because what matters to me is that first dimension of change, but those things are going to get you there. So that's one thing is just getting people equal profit, learn that man or woman. The other thing, and this is something I have to do all the time.

And everybody does, which is balance your brand. So, I mean, I've, I've had a first sessions with CEOs of companies that, you know, are amazing. And I feel like, well, I don't fly around me on jet. And these guys in the first time of meeting, you will thank me for meeting with them and say, they're scared of me. And I'm like, really? Anyway, that's not how I see myself, but we have very powerful brands. So I balance my brand all the time because people think, okay, she's been teaching at Barber. She's gotten all these awards. She's number one coach in the world. So what are they? They were afraid of me. And then no matter what I do, I sound like I know what I'm talking about. And David knows, and I don't.

And so I have to say to them, you know, so constantly, I'm either being funny or really affirming them, but you got to know your brand and balance it. And then you can get psychological safety. Yeah. And I, I think the, the challenge is, you know, I remember my sister, so I'll give you an example. Um, my sister is nine years older than me and my parents were fantastic, but they never argued ever. Okay. So one time my sister was in high school and my parents had a blowout, right? They just, they just argued. And my sister was so devastated because she had never heard my parents really argue before. So let's balance the personal side of this high quality relationship. You talk about Carol with, with the sometimes tough decisions you have to make.

And, and, and I think that's like, cause I, I, I really do my entire career. I've cared not just about the employee, but the person, you know, about their home life, like what they're doing, those types of things. But that puts you in a very difficult position as a leader, when you have to make adjustments, when you have to make changes, when you, unfortunately, in some cases might have to let people go that type of thing. Like, where's the line of that quality relationship, if you will, that, that sometimes might become too personal and therefore puts you in a position where, you know, you're, you're now, you don't know how to act because now, if you act the way that from a business standpoint, you need to do that, that, that conflicts directly with the person you want to be.

Well, I think that's, you know, we're often put in those kind of situations. And I think the first thing to go back to is just our core humanity. Um, and to ask that question that Carol asked, which is, who do you want to be in this mudlet? And I think a lot of those things, whether it's just the human angle or the business perspective, a lot of those, um, character strengths and values, um, resonate when you're dealing with people and hard things. So that would be fairness, um, integrity, some compassion. And then when you do have to have these tough conversations, like you're talking about really, really leaning in, but there's so many different ways to lean in. Um, many people just aren't equipped to do that because it's like, I can't do this.

This is too personal. It's my friend. And they have to see the larger picture about, um, is this going to be good for the organization? Will this ultimately be good for the person overall? Um, do I have any choice around this? And then how am I going to act? So am I going to lean in like a tank commander and basically just say, like, it's over, get out? Or am I going to lean in with that perspective, um, compassion, caring, and, and real integrity? So I think you've got, you've got different options. I thought we'd just speak up about that. Um, and this is what's so great about me and David is, um, we're so similar to what we think and how we get there. So I want to talk about as a different part of the book, one of the, so in, in the book, we have sort of this basic MOV model, which is really fabulous.

It's a series of frameworks, blah, blah, blah. And then the second part of the book, we have something about stepping into first really big role. And then what do you do in 10 X disruption? One of the big things about the identity shift you have to make as a leader to the large organization is something I call entity identity. So there's you, there's you, John, and there's you, John, you know, CEO of X, and you have to honor that identity more than you honor your individual identity, which is by the way, leadership completely sucks. Um, but one example is, so I'm working with a CEO now who, um, took over from one of these famous rock star people and he's becoming a rock star. You know who he is.

And he's, you know, he's, the board loves him and he loves the team. He's like, great. And I knew I'm going to switch out half the team. And I've got to switch out my best friend. Um, and, and so he said, yeah, I feel like I could just pull back. I said, well, in six months, do you want to let him go based on six months of your being kind of avoidant of him? Or do you want to let it go on basis of six months of continuing great relationship? Question one. Question two, he's like, well, you know, how do I say this to him? And I say, okay, what does the one question need to ask? One question need to ask is, is this person's presence in the best interest of the company or not? And it's entity thinking.

And so what we've got to with him is just what he could say to someone is, this is what it is, you know, and right now your presence is not in the best interest of this company. And the moment I look in the mirror and I'm not in the best interest of this company, I will leave, I will fire myself. So that kind of gets rid of the hierarchy. So it's, you know, but stepping into your entity identity is, it's very painful. Well, and this is also something like Jack Welsh, I worked for Jack Welsh for a couple of months, getting his online MBA program off the ground before he passed, but, um, him and Susie. And, um, it was interesting to me, you know, he's got this top grading and that everybody always gave him shit for it.

Right. Always, you know, cutting the top, the bottom 10%. But what people didn't understand was, and I had a conversation with him about this because I thought it was, it was actually a far more humane way, uh, than, than the alternative, because his, his approach was say, you have somebody who's an average performer and you're just not, you're just not willing to have the hard conversation with them. Right. So every time they have a performance review, you give them a mediocre performance review. It's like, oh, you're doing good and you could do be better, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you give them this false sense of security that they're actually pretty good at their job. And so year after year, this happens now, all of a sudden the shit hits the fan and the economy goes in the tank and we got to do layoffs.

And all of a sudden you obviously start from the bottom up. Right. And he's like, when you lay that off that, that person off, he's like, that's actually pretty mean in my opinion, because you've put, you've given this person a false sense of security over the past two, three, however many years that they're okay. And now they're looking at themselves saying, wait a minute. I'm apparently, I'm not really good at my job. Like, so now I have this crisis of conscience here. Whereas he's, what he says is, look, you don't suck. You just suck here. I'm going to rip this bandaid off so you can go find out what you're great at. Right. It's like the beautiful up in the air quote. I don't know. You ever seen the movie up in the air with George Clooney.

So at the, when, when he's doing the, the guy from, um, the state farm commercials, not the state farm, but you know, whatever the, like that guy, he's firing him and he's like, Hey, how much did they first pay you to give up on your dreams? And he's like, $34,000 a year. He's like, this is an opportunity for you to go. So, so how do you like. Sounded just like George Clooney there. Very good. Wow. He's really good. So that's that, but that's that balance, right? Of being kind. You don't necessarily like, and I think there's a difference between being kind and being nice. Totally. I think nice gets taken advantage of. Kind gets appreciated. As harsh as it might be. Well, um, I had somebody once who was really, really nice.

And I said to him, you're really nice all the time. He goes, yes, I am. I said, can you, do you have the capacity to not be nice? And he said, I don't think so. I said, so you've never been nice. You've just always been afraid. Mm-hmm. And he was nice like 80% of the time, but it's like, it's not a choice. It's not a choice. And in real time leadership is about choices in the moment under fire. So if your default is nice, okay, which we would say leaning with, you know, I want to nurture you. I want to lead you. But if you can't also lean in with a challenging conversation, lean back and do rational leader, you're not a three-dimensional leader and you don't have the options that you need. And you can build those muscles.

Um, David and I were teaching over at Egg & Sender, um, where we're senior advisors. And, and frankly, David was like, just brilliant about really bringing in how these things can be based on micro behavior. Some huge chefs are possible. What's up everybody. I know you're enjoying this conversation. John does a great job with genuine curiosity on these episodes and our guests consistently bring the heap. We want to take a moment here and let you know that you've got an opportunity, an opportunity to become better than you were yesterday. And you can do so by gaining access to all of JB sales content, all of their training tips, techniques, tactics, and takeaways can be yours for $1 a day. $365 for the year, gets you annual access to everything, including our private Slack channel for members only, which you get access to all of us directly a hundred percent of the time, 24 hours a day.

And then at the same time, you're going to get access to our biweekly ask me anything sessions where you can bring real deals to the table and get the help that you need where you need it. This is very, very important. Sales reps that invest in themselves are often found at the tops of their leaderboards. Join us today and get the help you need to become the seller that you deserve to be. That URL one more time is joinjbsales.com. Let's get back to the show with JB and our guest for this week. David, I want to kind of chime in because this leads to to the impulse conversation, you know, you are who you are, but look, some of us react in ways under stressful situations that isn't real. I mean, sometimes it does uncover who a person really is in really stressful and because they react in a way that like, oh, wait a minute, you were nice, but now you're a total raging asshole when things are getting tough.

So I think you're actually a raging asshole now. You're not, to your point, Carol, you weren't being nice. You just were never having a hard conversation. You were boiling that all down and now it's erupting because, you know, now you're stressed out. So, so I think that's one of the biggest things I've seen from a leadership standpoint is, is reaction is, is, is how somebody reacts in the moment. Example, when COVID hit for us, I mean, 90% of our revenue disappeared overnight. I mean, 90%, well, all of our training was onsite training. We'd fly around. We had an APAC, EMEA in the U S and we literally watched the dominoes fall. And I watched money go, see you later. Even contracts we had signed, they were not going to get paid because we weren't going to do that training.

And there was a, there was panic, you know what I mean? It, but, but I, I wish I had almost, you know, documented and recorded our reaction from a leadership standpoint. I mean, because we basically just said, all right, like, what do we do here? Like we're like, that's, that ship has sailed. What do we have to offer now? Like, what can we figure out? How can we go to market and help this community that's getting crushed right now, but also get, you know, find some way of making some money so we can retain everybody's employment. Cause that, that became my goal. It stopped being, I want to hit a revenue number. And it, and it started being, I want to make sure that everybody on my team actually can pay their bills and stay employed.

So it, and even we can micro this down into like short-term stressful things. You know what I mean? Where, where you react to somebody who asks you a question or whatever it is. And it's like, ah, how can I, how can I not react? How can I not be impulsive, David? And I'm going to come to you because you've said you've been impulsive in your career at making decisions. But I think a lot of times that gut, which is what a lot of leaders use to get to where they are, isn't always the right thing to use from a reaction standpoint in the moment. Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's take the business side first and then let's take the, the more emotional reaction second. So from a business perspective, um, what we found is that leaders tend to rely on their pattern recognition and they built that pattern recognition, not over a number of years.

So when they see things like a happening and then they see B happening, they kind of reflex and instinctively know that C is the right answer. So that all works well day to day. Um, but you're not actually getting any better as a leader when you're relying on your reflexes, you're just relying on your reflexes. And then it's not helpful at all when we see something wild and disruptive come up like COVID or the resurgence of inflation or supply chain problems or changing nature of work or whatever. So the first thing that we would say you need to do is like recognize reality for what it is and not what you hope or fear it would be because a lot of people, instead of doing what you did, which was to kind of pivot in the moment and see that reality, it changed and try and make the most of it would be just keep playing their old playbook because it's going to soothe their anxiety.

It's like, well, I better still keep trying to get that new conference schedules. Right. So, so that's the first thing, seeing your vantage point in a new way. And then, um, really figuring out like how do you get ahead of this? Um, and you get ahead of it by doing a bunch of stuff that we've been looking at, which is that three dimensions of leadership, like being very clear on what your goals are now. And then really importantly, when you're in disruptive environments is, um, a lot of leaders, not everybody, but a lot of leaders figure out a way to win, right? Here's my goal. I've got a path forward to win a few leaders, particularly if it's mission critical, if there's lives at stake, um, or FDA approvals or whatever, you got a backup plan.

But today, because there's so many obstacles and curve balls that can be thrown at you, you need backups to your backups. So you need so many different ways to win and the more ways you win, have to win, the more successful you're likely to be. So there's a lot of stuff that we do about thinking through this stuff in advance or in the moment. So you've got all these different pathways to kind of react to that. I'd like to hype up on something. Yeah, sure. Two of the best chapters in our book, and I will say they're the best chapters in the book. Actually, David wrote them completely. I like, oh, edited, but you could use this and this. Um, they're really, really, really good. So anyone here who is in fact facing disruption or wants to create disruption, to read the two chapters on 10x leadership.

Um, and David's created something called operating in the tails. Um, David, if you want to say a minute about that, because that's like one of the highlights of the book in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's around this idea of creating more options for yourself. So when we look at things like we got a big goal, it might be a revenue goal. It might be a profit goal. It might be a customer goal or whatever. Um, we think that that's like a single point out in the future, but we all know there's a probability distribution around that. And sometimes it's going to be better in terms of the actual outcome and sometimes worse. So a few leaders will sort of look out and go like, well, here's a, here's a high case and here's a low case, but they actually don't do anything with that.

It's just, you just kind of noted, but there's no plans for like, well, what happens if the conditions are in place for the high case to make the most of it? Well, what happens if conditions show up for the low case to kind of mitigate that? And almost nobody looks at the tails of the distribution, which is like, what's the thing that could kill me kind of on the left side of the probability distribution, very, very low probability, but it could kill me. And then what are the things on the right side that could give me success beyond my wildest dreams, like 10 X or a hundred X success, spend time thinking about that because that's also going to just, it might raise your sights in terms of how you want to play, what goals you want to set, but it's also going to think, make you think a little bit more about options or pathways to get there.

Yeah. It's kind of the difference between smart goals and dumb goals. I don't know if you guys heard the dumb goal thing, right? Like where it's like you, you blow out your, like smart goals, like Elon Musk is not a smart goal setter. You know what I mean? Going to Mars is not exactly smart, right? Realistic. But let's go back to this backup plan here because I want to challenge you on the, on this a little bit because it relates to focus, right? Right. Um, I used to say, Hey, make sure you have a plan B, right? Cause, cause if you plan it, but, but then there's the debate of, well, does that plan B distract from your plan A? Like, you know, going all in on, on option one so that you have everybody running in the same direction, all on the same path and whatever, and having a plan B, a plan C, a plan D, a plan, you know, kind of gives you an out saying, well, if this doesn't work, I can immediately shift to this.

And if that doesn't work, so doesn't having multiple plans distract you from the plan that you might think is the one that you should go all in on? I think you'd be, um, very few people in, in this world right now would place, you know, all the chips on, on one kind of strategy. I do think that's okay at the beginning. It's like, here's our best shot that making this work and let's all head down this path. And then the only reason you change that and try a different pathway is if the assumptions that you made turn out different. And that's like, that's quite likely to happen because, you know, plans don't really survive contact with reality that much. So I think absolutely you should like have everybody heading in the same direction until conditions change.

But just a quick example of why this would have been helpful, let's say in COVID. Um, now nobody knew that COVID itself was coming, but, um, many organizations have business continuity plans, um, and they don't pay a lot of attention to them. So I was working with the CEO of this huge, um, retail organization, which, uh, manufactured its own goods, but also had thousands of retail stores. Now they were caught really flat footed when the pandemic hit. And if they had really known their business continuity plan, like if they'd had a rapid way to shut down their stores, to safeguard their employees, to be able to shift online so that customers could still get their goods to have curbside delivery, all those things, no reason why they couldn't have sorted that out in advance.

It wasn't COVID specific. It was a disruption specific. So that would be a real opportunity for value creation and they could have gained market share instead of losing market share. Yeah. I think that's, you know, I think the, you brought up the word earlier about agility, you know, my, my mentality these days is that you have a plan, you go all in on that plan, but then you look at the data as fast as you possibly can to make adjustments. So my plan Bs, for instance, are data driven plan Bs. It's like, okay, we need to, like, I'm, I'm definitely in this mode of fail fast, like put a, put some metrics in place, test it, fail fast. Like that's what literally we're doing that right now. You know what I mean?

Because our industry got eviscerated and we sell 20, 30, $40,000 training operations and that's just not closing right now. So we're shifting back to here's the offering. It's nice and easy. You can put it on your credit card. Let's go. And I have, you know, as of Monday, the entire company is going to be pushing in that direction, but then we're going to be looking at data and saying, okay, what are these meetings? How much are the conversion ratios and that type of stuff? And if those assumptions are off, we're going to have to pivot, but I don't have a necessarily plan B, C and D in front of me. So is that a, is that a, is that a risk from your perspective based on what you've seen out there?

I think you do have it. Actually, I bet you do have a plan B, C and D because I bet you know exactly how you pivot if things don't show up. So maybe you're not articulating it, but I think it's there, John. I think it's there. Fair. But, but, um, there's, there's something called, you know, no willpower, but there's also way power. So it may not be that you spell it all out, but there's sort of four stances that you can take to any challenge, whether it's a business challenge, whether it is, how do I grow myself challenge or how do I relate better to my people challenge? Okay. So there's four stances cause we all have our reflexes. So the main reflexes are, you know, fight, flight, freeze and befriend.

So fight and we all tend to have a core one. So, you know, a lot of us like immediately go to the, to the sort of the fight model, we engage, you know, others are more like, I'd rather not do that. Let, you know, others go, oh my God, can't do anything. And others are like, how do I take care of our people? So we translate these into lean in, which David has used a couple of times and, and that's sort of in the world now, but there's lean in, but if you lean in too far, by the way, you fall over. So you have to also know how to lean back, which you just referred to without having our language for it, which is you're in an intense situation. You can lean in and truly engage again, as David said, like a rugby player or ballerina, or you can lean back.

Like, let's just look at the data here. One is actually, as you said, rational. What is the data telling us? And let's take that in. You can lean with, which is sort of people first and take care of those issues. Or the big one is, can I just have the discipline and fortitude to not lean at all and just pause and create the aha experience? Because aha is when your subconscious goes, bang, throws you an idea. Well, you can't do that if you don't give it space. So it's kind of having the spirit of these, because if you think about them, they all can go into strategy really, but to sort of have that sense of, you can go forge steam ahead, look back at the data, people first, stop and think. So that subconscious is important, right?

Because it does punch you every once in a while, but it only punches you when you're, when you do take that step back. That's why most of your good ideas come in the shower. That's when it, so can like, how can you, can you force that? Can you force the subconscious to punch you, um, in a, in a, without just randomly taking a shower and sitting in there for too long? Let me tell you one very annoying story. Um, I'll give first a little bit of context. It's sort of like the Harry's window, but there's, you know, things that we know that we know, things that we know. Oh, I don't know that. Then there's the scary one, which is, I don't even know that. I don't know that. But then there's the really interesting window, which is things I know, but I don't realize I know that.

Okay. And so there's a very- Unconsciously competent, right? Yeah. What? Unconsciously competent, right? Yeah. But, but also just, um, yeah, it's just, it's not there. And so that's where good coaching comes in. Because a lot of times that we do is we keep, so what did you do right here? And blah, blah, blah. And then there's this one question, uh, which was started by, um, Sir John Whitmore, who started coaching in the UK business coaching, you know, just a former risk archiver. And at some point in time, he decided to be my coach. I had like no idea why. Um, but he has this question that sounds so annoying. And I've always made fun of it, which is you'll talk to something and he'll go, so John, if you knew the answer, what would it be?

And what's really interesting is he asked me that once and I really did not know the answer. And it was just like, imagine there's a, imagine my brain is a little sphere and, and, and, and some little part of me had this like wet rag and went whap. And I could just feel in my brain going, oh, it would be. Okay. So you can create those often through good coaching questions, um, as well as stare off the window and give yourself time to breathe. I mean, I think that, that, you know, that's meditation. Those are things that, you know, most people find later in life that, okay, I actually, this is, this is beneficial. This isn't me just taking a half an hour to, you know, to calm down a little bit.

This is actually getting my brain to move in a different direction. And, you know, quite frankly, I mean, in my audience knows this, it's one of the reasons I smoke weed. I mean, to be quite direct, like it's because it shifts my brain into a different zone that allows me to open up and create versus the day to day being hyper-focused on results and trying to get things done and that type of stuff. Like it's a, it's an actual shift for me. And it's, it's a hell and my opinion, it's a healthy shift because a lot of my best ideas have come in a, in a, in a forced different mindset, if you will. Yeah. It's called state dependent learning. So you enter in a different state. There's many different ways for that state.

For example, listening to music. Yep. Um, what I often do when one of my drugs of choice actually is reading historical models, but it just like takes me out. And the other thing is you mentioned 30 minutes of meditation. Um, three minutes. There's some incredible research about learning a task. And so a short modern task and, and people, people, people do it. Okay. Then this, you either just sort of do it for 30 minutes or you do it like 30 seconds and you take a 10 second break, or you do two minutes and they take a 10 second break. And what happens is you do a neurological reset. So even literally between your emails, 10 seconds, because the book is all about how do we find space to make choices and literally at 10 seconds space.

And what they find is, particularly in water tasks, those who take those short breaks perform better. So something happens in the default nervous system of the brain that actually ups your performance if you take these tiny breaks. So when I say to my leaders, you know, how do you, you know, you just say like, Oh, why don't you take a five minute break? You're like, that's for our wimps. Um, so instead you say, listen, take a three minute break for neurological optimization and then they do it. And I need to do it more as well. So this leads in, why don't we kind of wrap up with, with this move framework? Cause that's that first part, right? So, uh, when you talk, being talk about being mindfully alert, so could you walk us through this framework, um, that to, to help leaders make better decisions in specifically panic times right now?

Could you just walk us through that MOVE, uh, approach and kind of each one of those sections and maybe a little takeaway from each? Sure. Let's do it quickly. So real-time leadership is, is really all about how to make the most of every moment that we've got. And that's whether you're making a split second decision or that you're working on something this fiscal quarter, or maybe it's a lifetime goal that you're working towards, but we just, we don't have a moment to waste. And so the way to create space for yourself to make the most of it and the way to step into peak performance is an acronym that we've called MOVE. So M O V E. So M stands for being mindfully alert, um, and it's mindfully alert to something.

So it's for us, the three dimensions of leadership. So it's being really crystal clear on what you want to get done. And that's easier said than done, because a lot of times we're actually heading off to goals that really aren't that important. So, you know, what's the most important thing that we need to do? Then internally, like, who do we want to be as humans, as leaders? So what do we want to cultivate in ourselves in terms of character strengths, like perspective or listening or fairness? And then how can we best relate to others so that, um, it's not about how we want to relate, it's how others want us to relate to them so that we can unlock their potential and achieve goals together. So once you're really clear on what you want to get done, who you want to be, and how you need to relate, then how are you going to do that?

So that's O for options generation. And that's like creating more than one pathway forward. As Carol said, it's not just willpower, it's way power. So we want you to have multiple ways to achieve each of those goals that you've got, what you want to get done, who you want to be and how you need to relate. And then V is check your vantage point. So you can go through this whole process and then go like, oh my gosh, like I'm actually not seeing reality for what it is. I'm seeing it for what I hope or fear it would be, or I'm completely missing the flight because I got a blind spot. So it's consciously asking yourself like, where am I kind of exaggerating or discounting threats or opportunities that I see?

Am I really just ignoring some stuff or not seeing it correctly or am I missing something? And you can ask other people to help you sort of identify your blind spots. And then the last part E is how do you wrap all this stuff together, taking your goals, the ways forward, making sure that you've seen reality for what it is, and then engage in effect change at scale as a leader or as an individual contributor, it was influencing a bunch of other folks. And that's really how you send the right leadership signals to people. So are the signals that you're sending the signals that they're actually receiving or not? And to your point, as things change over time, how are you learning about that and changing the signals that you're sending to make sure that they're reflecting reality and in alignment with your goals?

So those four things together are basically what we call an operating system to help you tackle like new types of crises or new types of big opportunities. Carol, final question. Is optimism a blind spot? Just so happens HBR once did a study on it and found that 75% of business failures are the result of over optimism. So yes. That's because that was mine, quite frankly. Most very highly determined, action-oriented, successful people. That's where you go. And in the vantage point, one of the things we ask is, are you wearing rose-colored or charcoal-colored glasses? So you were saying, yeah, we're wearing rose-colored glasses. And we all have that challenge. Well, I mean, it was one of those things where it was the end of last year, right?

We missed our target, but I was like, whatever, we're going to power through this. We're going to sell through this. We can do this, that type of thing. And then all of a sudden the layoff started happening and I was like, yeah, whatever. And I'm like, we keep, and, but then it, it absolutely impact, you know, and I'm like, shit. And, and now I had to adjust. Now I had to restructure things and start to get a little bit more maniacal as what we're trading, you know, tracking and all those other things. So I think it to a certain degree, I don't know. I don't know how I would have seen it otherwise. Um, you know, maybe, you know, other people, but you know, I, I was testing with other people around me, the people that I respected.

Um, but for some reason, I don't want to say it stuck up on me, this one COVID snuck up on us, right? Cause I was like a holy shit, you know, whatever. But, but because I think the macro economic economy, um, was still doing okay. And the tech industry was taking a little bit of a hit. I, I think I was just like, Oh, we're fine. But all of a sudden I kind of woke up. I'm like, wait a minute. Our pipeline is not where it needs to be. We're not, we're not at the level we need. And we're, we're closer to, you know, danger than we've ever been. And now it's like almost, it's not panic. It's, and I think that this is the other thing I just lied with the last question. Um, what's the, what's the difference between, um, urgency and panic?

Cause I think there's a fine line. Self-regulation. Explain. Um, basically if, if something that happens that's, you know, there's an explosion, you know, et cetera, there's a sense of, I need, I need to do this. Uh, panic is when your amygdala is hijacked and your ability to process information is taken away from you. And what is the antidote to that is something called what we think about as the five C's. How in a situation can you get yourself to calm, clear, curious, compassionate, and courageous. And I think our job as leaders, one thing I say is leaders need, particularly at the top of the house, Olympic levels of self-regulation. That's what you need. Or they'd be in panic all the time.

Yeah. I mean, I've, I've definitely noticed, you know, when I get that stressed or when I have so many things going on that I tend to react sometimes in ways that I know I shouldn't, you know, that I can regulate myself in normal times with, but, and I'm talking with customers, for instance, like I have this innate three strikes in your out rule and it's just, I've said it before, but I, but it's, it's truly embedded in me where if you screw up once, whatever, we're going to have a conversation about it. You know, if you screw up twice, okay. You know, if you screw up three times, I tend to just figure some, you know, move in a different direction. And so like with a client, for instance, when this happened, literally I'm, I'm running around, I'm doing trainings, I'm, I'm selling, I'm closing, you know, I'm working with my reps and, and a client who, you know, I should have first least path of resistance money.

He was, he had money to spend and wanted me to spend it. We had negotiated and, you know, and I'm a little bit more flexible now than I, than I obviously have been in a while from a negotiation standpoint. And I gave him, I didn't drop the price, but I gave extra stuff. So I gave my time, I gave some licenses. And so that's strike one, strike two. And then we were right there at the end to close this thing. And he fires me off. Hey, can we, you know, can we get better payment terms? And I lost, and I, and I reacted like a child. I sent him a text. I was like, oh, in addition to the additional time, in addition to the additional resources, you want, you, you know what I mean? And it, and if I really looked at the, the email that he had sent that what he was asking for was absolutely no problem.

It actually benefited me because he was going to pay half earlier and half, you know, at the same time. But I reacted because I, because I was, you know, I was on my phone and I'm, you know, trying to catch an Uber and I'm trying to get prepared for this training. So, so I try not to react, but it's, it's really hard in a moment when so many stimuli are coming at you and there's so many outside influences to take that step back and go through the five C's, figure out how you want to be as a person, you know, how you want to interact with people. So is there like one final thing that you could say that, that like in times of chaos that, uh, even if it's just, you know, I'm a, I'm a big sticky note person all over my desk, like John, shut the fuck up, you know, stop talking shit, whatever it is.

Like, and I have it visually there for me to remind myself, but is there something that you all do or coach people on doing to take that breath before they react? I think the fastest and easiest thing to do is, is to build your awareness of when you're in that kind of high stakes, high stress situation. So when you're in that, what you say and what you do, um, is going to impact the outcome of that, that interaction. So set an intention. So it's like, I'm going into a difficult conversation with someone, or I'm about to take a phone call and I've got five other things going on. I'm on red alert by that point in time that I've got to be really careful about what I say and do in that moment. So set your intention, try it.

Um, you will fail. Uh, but there will be a time where it's going to work. It'll be a flash of insight and you're going to keep practicing. It'll be much more who you are over time. As soon as, as soon as I sent that, uh, email, like my immediate email afterwards was like, I'm really sorry. I'm like, I am moving way too fast right now. Why do you? And I, and I just asked the simple question of why do you want those payment terms? Like, is it because you know, this or that? And he explained it. I was like, that makes sense. And that's, that's actually to get back tactical. I think that's my technique, even though I forget it every once in a while, um, is to just ask the question, right? I, we call it, you know, in sales training, it's layering question.

Well, tell me more about that. Could you give me an example of that type of thing? What that does is that automatically lets you calm down a little bit. And it's, and it's the, and by the, you know, from a data standpoint, it's the number one way that the best reps handle objections. Like there's some data from Gong that, that, that they reference where they talk about what the best reps do versus what average reps do. And they say, when given an objection from a client, best reps 54% of the time answer with a question, whereas average reps answer a 31% of the time with a question. Average reps will jump right on the objection and say, Oh yeah. And that comes across as defensive that, you know what I mean?

Whereas the best reps, unless it's an obvious answer to whatever it is, they'll say, well, what do you mean by that? Give me an example of, and just that part alone, because usually the way the person rephrases, whatever it is, that's the actual objection. And now you can actually listen and calm down a little bit before you react. So I, mine is just to pause and ask a question like, why is this important to you? Why does this matter? And I, I, you know, 80% of the time, I think I'm doing that right. That's, that's a great point. That's self-regulation right there. And it's leading to a much better outcome. Awesome. Well, look, um, I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I keep going, but you know, in the interest of keeping this under the hour here for everybody else, um, talk to us a little bit about, you got the book coming out, where, where can people find out more information about either one of you?

Um, and where do you want to send people here to, to learn more about this leadership? Um, again, real-time leadership, which is, I think what a lot of people, uh, need to figure out right now, because it's not, it's not getting less weird. Let's put it that way. Like this, that we are moving into a world where Pandora's box has been opened and all the variables are going to come at us faster than we've ever seen before. So talk to us a little bit about where you can find out more information about you. Thanks, John. So we, yeah, go ahead. No, go ahead. Let's just say right now, if you Google real-time leadership, just Google real-time leadership, um, you will be able to get links to get the book and to pre-order the book in hardback, believe you, Charlie, grateful.

They'll give you our first part, show up in your pets. Perfect. David, any, uh, any direction you want to send people? Uh, we've also got a landing page for the book. So there's more information about us, our bios, how to get in touch with us. So that is, um, www.rtl, for real-time leadership, institute, rtlinstitute.com. And you can get everything there, including a link to, to ordering the book as well. So we'd love it if people go there. Yes, indeed. Thank you. Thank you, John. This has been great. Thank you, John. Thank you both for coming on. And just to, just to, for people listening, it's David Noble, N-O-B-L-E and Carol Kaufman, K-A-U-F-F-M-A-N. And again, the book is real-time leadership.

Google it, get it. It's coming out. Gotta be a New York Times bestseller. Promise you this will help hopefully a little bit. Um, but again, thank you so much for the conversation. I hope the audience enjoyed it as much as I did here. Thank you, John. Thanks, John. For everybody listening. Um, like I always say at the end of all these, look, go out there and make somebody smile today. Cause no matter how bad your day went, or you think it's going, you go out there and make somebody smile today. And you know, you had a good day in the world needs a lot more of that right now. So thank you all very much for listening and I'll see you on the other side. Thank you so much for your time today and listening to the podcast.

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