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- [00:00]
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But nobody was answering the question of how is AI going to impact the way we actually operate our businesses, how we lead our businesses, how it's going to change leadership and operations and all these things that actually impact all of us. It's where the jobs question comes from and all these things.
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Today I'm joined by David DeWolf. David's a visionary entrepreneur, speaker and business strategist who specializes in transforming organizations through innovation, leadership and a strong culture of execution. As the founder and CEO of KnownWell, he has built a reputation for helping companies scale by aligning strategy, technology and talent. With a background in software development and digital transformation, David had guided countless companies through challenges of growth, navigating disruption and implementing high impact business strategies.
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There is never one simple reason for a failure or a step back. Even if it feels obvious, even if we have data to prove it, you have to ask yourself the question, what is it about my leadership?
- [01:10]
B
Welcome to Beyond Blind Blaming. This is the place where we explore how easily hidden truths can hold us back, trapping us in cycles of frustration and blame, often without even realizing what's truly stopping us. Each week I'm joined by experts and professionals who share their journey of taking back control of their story, overcoming hidden challenges, and discover how to stop blind blaming from dictating their outcomes. The insights you're about to gain will help you see beyond your current limitations and find the courage to seek new perspectives and ultimately live a life that's both purposeful and powerful. So if you're ready to break free from blind blaming and discover what's possible, you'll definitely want to listen to my next guest. I'm your host, Kevin St. Clergy and today I'm joined by David DeWolf. David's a visionary entrepreneur, speaker and business strategist who specializes in transforming organizations through innovation, leadership and a strong culture of execution. As the founder and CEO of KnownWell, he has built a reputation for helping companies scale by aligning strategy, technology and talent. With a background in software development and digital transformation, David had guided countless companies through challenges of growth, navigating disruption and implementing high impact business strategies. He's known for his insightful approach to building high performance teams and his commitment to cultivating strong, purpose driven leaders. Beyond his professional success, David's passionate about faith, family and personal development. He believes in helping entrepreneurs and business leaders move past blind blaming and into strategic, actionable growth. David, welcome to the show.
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A
Thanks Kevin. It's great to be here. Really looking forward to the conversation.
- [02:42]
B
Well, let's start a little bit with your journey. What led you to found Known. Well, and what's the core mission behind it?
- [02:48]
A
Yeah, well, you know, I'm, I'm a serial entrepreneur. The first company that I built was a company called 3 Pillar Global and it was a. A digital product and professional services firm that was helping others build technology products. So media companies, information companies, that type of thing. And 16 years of just phenomenal growth year after year. Sold it a couple times to private equity. Just had a great run and loved it. And, and to your point, I learned so much through that process about myself. One of the things that I learned over again is as an entrepreneur, you just have to reinvent yourself. And I think the concept of blind blaming is a big part of being able to reinvent yourself as an entrepreneur as you're scaling to new different levels. So awesome first journey. I ended up stepping down and taking a break because I had two kids getting married and I wanted to be mentally present for their weddings in 2023. And after being able to do that, I realized in my heart of hearts, I'm an operator. There's no retirement for me. Board work, consulting, that type of thing was fun, but I was watching this AI world come about and watching AI kind of be democratized through our industry in a world where it was brand new and revolutionary. I saw this one massive area that wasn't being addressed and I just had to do something about it. And it was. People were talking about the technology, they were talking about productivity, but nobody was answering the question, question of how is AI going to impact the way we actually operate our businesses, how we lead our businesses, how is this going to change leadership and operations and all these things that actually impact all of us. It's, it's where the jobs question comes from and all these things. And there was a lot of fear, there was a lot of question, but nobody diving in and saying, here's the future. So that's how I started Known well was I have a passion for people for purpose and for business. And I love really diving into how can we make sure that technology elevates the dignity of the human worker instead of tearing it down. And so that is the purpose of Known well is I started knownwell in order to figure out and to build technology products that actually elevate the experience of the human worker with AI as opposed to just purely looking to replace workers.
- [05:08]
B
Well, I love that because you're taking that fear and you're making it a more positive approach. Sort of sounds like because there's uncertainty.
- [05:17]
A
That's right. We can either run away or we can push into it and shape the world that we want. Right. And so that has been my approach is how do we actually take this technology and apply it in a way that is positive versus allowing it to happen to us.
- [05:30]
B
I love it because I'm seeing a lot of leaders that are just putting their head in the sand and they're not addressing it, even though it's the elephant in the room with a lot of team members, like, am I going to have a job next year? I mean, everything you read about is X amount of people are going to replace this and you won't have a job or your position is going to be completely eliminated.
- [05:46]
A
That's exactly right. I couldn't agree more now. And getting a positive approach to that is such an important thing. And I think it's how we actually help shape society for tomorrow. Right. Is instead of just accidentally allowing it to happen, let's get ahead and let's push it. And I think when folks start to take that mindset, what they can begin to realize is there are ways where AI can become the Superman cape. It can help all of us to be able to do what only we can do, to double down on our strengths, on those things that make us truly human. Right. The aspects that, you know, relationship. Right. AI can't understand me. I can't. I can know you and be known by you, but AI can't. It can just regurgitate back different things that it's learned from looking through patterns. Right. There's no deep understanding and knowledge there. Well, when we think about business and how business actually happens, it's these types of deep relationships. It's the type of judgment that is new creativity, those types of things are often much more fulfilling work than some of the root of rudimentary things that we can now automate. And so our take is, hey, if we just stop just trying to replace people and instead say, how can we help individuals do what only they can do, what fulfills them the most and take away those things that are more rudimentary and they get weighed down by then all of us benefit. There's economic advantage. Absolutely. But there's also an elevated human experience that makes us all better.
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B
Well, it sounds like you're saying that leaders actually need to clearly communicate that to their team. What a concept.
- [07:29]
A
Yeah, I think that's true. And be intentional about driving it.
- [07:34]
B
I love that. Well, in your experience, what are some of the most common reasons businesses struggle to scale effectively?
- [07:42]
A
You know, when I, when I think about scale, I. I think Back to, as I was growing, three pillars. So in 16 years, we went from zero to 2,500 employees mentioned before the need to reinvent myself over and over throughout the journey. And I think one of the bases of scale is a leader that knows how to get through multiple inflection points. And I think it's important for that leader to have the humility to admit that they have to do that and the vulnerability to share when they're going through that and those types of things. One of the things that was the hardest for me at Three Pillar, we were a professional services organization and. And when we were a small boutique and everybody was in the same room, I could easily be in the middle of every single conversation. I had my pulse on our clients and how we were serving them. I could build those relationships with them. And through that, I was collecting all this information and I could connect dots that allowed me to operate the business. As you scale, you collect fewer and fewer dots because you're part of fewer and fewer conversations. And as you do that, it becomes harder and harder to lead an organization, to operate an organization. And when you think about your commercial relationships, it's the heart and the soul of every single business. One of the things that was a real struggle in professional services and I think applies to any B2B business, actually is actually having your pulse on those clients. So that's one of the things that. That's the primary thing that we're solving at KnownWell. Our technology product takes all of conversations that happen and digests all of this information to synthesize it into the types of signals that you have in your gut when you sit in the middle of it, to be able to measure the health of those conversations and then to drive execution against it and to service it, to then enable people to go out and do what they do best in terms of solving problems, being creative, consulting with organizations, building relationships, and those types of things. And so when I think about scale, that's what I think about. I think about the human aspects of it that are so difficult to get beyond.
- [09:56]
B
I love it. Well, I'm finding that many leaders are falling into the trap of blaming external factors, especially for things like churn or lack of sales, market conditions, competitors, and especially their team members. For business struggles. In your work, how often do you find that real reason is something internal, like leadership blind spots or misaligned culture or something else?
- [10:17]
A
Well, you know, I'm a big believer in the concept of extreme ownership. I love that book. If your listeners have ever read it, I Love it.
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B
Yeah, it's a great book.
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A
One of the concepts, Kevin, there that you know really, really well is this idea of asking the question, what is it about my leadership that led to this result? Even when you can quote easily see that it's something else. Right. And so I'm a big believer and I see all the time that there is never one simple reason for a failure or a step back, even if it feels obvious, even if we have data to prove it. You have to ask yourself the question, what is it about my leadership? And I think it's important that you don't ask the question, like, what percentage? How many times is it due to something? It's like, no, if you are struggling to grow in this economy and there are a lot of companies that are. I sit on several boards. In fact, I just got out of a board meeting yesterday. The companies that are excelling. This company is growing over 60% year over year. Scaled business, doing an exceptionally good job in a market that's not doing well. Do you know why? It's because that CEO, every time, there's never an excuse of, oh, all of my peers, they're only growing 7% year over year or they're on decline. There's never an excuse of, oh, clients aren't spending anymore. Right. All of the excuses are out the door and it is 100% what is in my control and how do I look at the data and really figure out what I can do to impact change and to get over the hump. And I find when people take that lens and they take that type of extreme ownership and they set the tone from the top, that that's how our culture works, that it just changes the game, it changes the trajectory.
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B
I love that. Well, in my opinion, when you take extreme ownership, there's two things you have to give up. Blaming and complaining. And it sounds like, you bet some leaders should do it.
- [12:13]
A
Couldn't. I could not agree more.
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B
We also say that the wrong data interferes with growth, which is very similar to some things I've said for years. I've always said, look, there's perceived problems and actual problems. And one of the first real problems that I see is lack of information to know what the next step should be. Talk to us about that.
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A
Yeah, you know, there was a research study done in early 24, I think it was, by Oracle, who was looking at this problem of data and information overload. And the finding were striking to me. 92% of leaders, executive leaders in organizations, said that they had so much data that it was actually sabotaging their decision making. At the same time, in the same survey, these same leaders said that 94% of them said that they didn't have the, quote, intelligence they needed to make good decisions. What's the difference? The difference is illusions, not just data. Right? It is. You can have KPIs, you get all sorts of things, but how do you consume it, boil it down and turn it into something actionable that's actually meaningful? That's actually what I'm really excited about with this AI revolution. All right. The transformation we're going through right now is going to allow us to take all this data that we've been collecting and even more turn it into actionable intelligence that means something and help us parse through it so we can get rid of the noise, focus on the execution.
- [13:49]
B
I love it. May I introduce you to the company that bought us a couple years ago?
- [13:54]
A
That's awesome.
- [13:55]
B
Can you share a time when business leader or company misdiagnosed their biggest problem and how discovering the real issue changed everything? I'm sure you see it in, in what you do almost every single customer. But any specific example that comes to.
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A
Mind, I'll give you a really, really concrete tactical story as I shared. The Nunwell platform serves up intelligence and metrics around the health of your commercial relationships. And we find these signals that are hidden within the organization nobody's aware of. To let you know, hey, this commercial relationship may be going off, off the rails, or maybe there's a growth signal here. A few weeks ago, got a phone call from one of our customers, CEO that is using the platform. He said, hey, I think we have a problem here. There was this signal that went off and it says that we have not been responsive to this one, one client. And it's caused, like, a real rat chase in the organization because the signal went off and we're not sure it's true. It turns out that the person in charge of that account is on pto and they've been out for, you know, a week of pto. So, yeah, they have been unresponsive for eight days. But. But it's nobody's fault. I said, hey, time out. The platform is intended to help you improve your commercial relationships. We're not trying to blame anybody here. We're trying to surface signals to improve the relationship. And so the conclusion that I shouldn't be firing off this signal is totally wrong. What you need is to step back and look and say, you know what? What did I do as a leader? Go back to extreme ownership to allow this to happen. You know what? I don't have a process in place when people go out on PTO that they need to have a backup so that we remain responsive to our clients. And it was like this game changing, eye opening experience for this person was like, oh my gosh, for me, this was. Everybody was thinking about this as a report card. Nobody's running around because they feel like they're being blamed. It's not about the blame. It's about how do we create a phenomenal customer experience in surfacing the signals. That's a really simple example. But I think it's the type of thing that's not just a data conclusion that leads us wrong. But this is so often intermingled with blaming and complaining.
- [16:12]
B
Yeah, you bet. I mean, we just had this happen. We have a very high end mastermind group with very large businesses. And we just met and it was nine of us or nine had 11 of us in the room, but nine of them were the part of the masterminds. And we used to call it backup buddy system.
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A
So.
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B
And I was a little shocked when we went through the process. I was like. Because somebody was complaining about people not following, like requesting time off in two weeks. And I'm like, guys, that's the wrong problem. Why don't we. It doesn't matter how much notice they give you, as long as they've covered their stuff. And do you have a backup buddy system? And my favorite answer is always, what do you mean? And so it's a great example because it just literally just happened to me last weekend in Utah when we were up at the really nice place, St. Regis.
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A
You know what that example points out to me, Kevin? I love that story because it points to the idea of root causes and first principles, right? Oftentimes the blaming and the complaining is at the surface level. It's the thing that annoys us, that is emotional. And it's really just covering up the root cause. And if as leaders we learn to step back and to really digest, decompose and think through strategically and using critical thinking, really look at what are the root causes here. Oftentimes we come up with much more sustainable answers that get us past. To your point, you don't really care if it's two weeks or not. What you care about is is something handled. And so it allows you to be a much more humane leader at that point in time. Because now you're actually looking at something that everybody can look at and say you're not just, you know, Weird. And that you require this amount of notice or you're not just being mean. There's actually a real root cause there and I need to be focused on being a good teammate and setting others up for success.
- [18:02]
B
Yeah, no, I love it. That's something we figured out years ago and it just worked really well for us. And the story for us was at the end of the year, we had everybody take off and Charlie and I weren't paying attention. And all of a sudden we started getting massive amounts of complaints from the support desk because nobody was there. And we were like, oh, crap. And we used to celebrate our biggest mistake of the week every week on our team meetings. Yeah. Oh, somebody called it. This is great. She called it fail a bration. Yesterday on a podcast I recorded I'm totally stealing that failibration. She's like, well, I can't take credit for it. I was like, I'll look it up, but fail a bration, I love that. And it worked really well. I was nervous about it at first, but people got. What it did was it opened us up for people to be more vulnerable and they weren't scared to come to us when they screwed up. And then the team took it even further where for a while they were sending around a Burger King crown and they would vote on who had the biggest screw up of the week and then they had to wear the crown and then they had to pick the winner the next week. So it turned into a fun thing. And it wasn't just like, hey, here's how I screwed up. It was, hey, here's what happened and here's what I'm going to do the next time to make sure it doesn't happen again.
- [19:03]
A
So what you just said there was all about creating culture, right? By celebrating what you celebrate, what you put out there, what you show is important to you, is what creates culture. And by demonstrating that failures are okay, right?
- [19:18]
B
You.
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A
You allow people to be authentic and real. And that vulnerability leads to trust in individuals. And when you have a trust filled environment, you can talk about real issues and get past blaming and complaining, right? Because now the real issues are on the table. So I love that example because it ties directly into that is the anecdote, that type of vulnerability, that type of risk taking is the anecdote that creates this culture of trust that allows us to get past and speed through the blaming and complaining and get to real issues.
- [19:51]
B
Well, it's. You must be psychic because that's kind of the next question that I had. Your work doesn't Focus a lot on company culture. So what do you think are some of the hidden cultural pitfalls that sabotage business success without leaders even realizing it?
- [20:03]
A
You know, it's funny what we're talking about right here. Like, I think so often fear drives so much of what we do to. You know, to me, the, the most fundamental principle that leaders need to keep in mind when they're running a business is that a business is made to serve the people, not the people to serve it. And that there is dignity in every single human person. And so even when you need to fire somebody, it's not the choice you're making, it's how you execute it that matters. And you can absolutely let somebody go, fire them in a way that upholds their dignity and helps them land on their feet and thrive. In fact, I've had people call me three days later and thank me for letting them go because I set them up for the success in the future. And so I think it's absolutely essential. The number one thing I would tell leaders is, remember, you are dealing with humanity, human people, and a human being has dignity for no other reason than they are a human being. And treat them that way and realize that that is one of your core responsibilities. And if you honor that, if you live by that, that will lead you to creating a culture that is healthy and allows your team to thrive.
- [21:34]
B
I love it. And I don't want to take away from your consulting and what you do for companies, but I want to stay there for just a second. Can you give the listeners two to three things, specific strategies that they can use to maintain that?
- [21:47]
A
Yeah, I'm a big follower of Pat Lincioni and his framework. If you've ever read the book the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and all his books are great, but that's the foundational one. It has the pyramid of how do you build a healthy, thriving organization. Right. We've already talked about a lot of those concepts. Right. But it starts with vulnerability based trust and creating that in your leadership team so it flows down.
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B
Right.
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A
And if you really dive into that model and get to the point where you have that trust so that you can have really healthy conflict and debate real issues, so that you can then have accountability, so that you can then have. Or commitment comes first and then accountability and then drive results, that pyramid drives more progress in an organization than anything else. And Pat says this all the time. I have lived it, I have seen it, I believe it a hundred percent. The healthy part of business everybody talks about, but nobody invests in It. But it matters so much more than great strategy or great marketing or. Those things are important. They're critical. We spend so much time on them. I think leaders fail to invest in their teams and nurturing them through that healthy pyramid. If you invest intentionally on that every single quarter, I have an off site with my direct reports, done this for the last nine years. And we spend a deliberate part of that off site talking about how are we performing as a team, the healthy part, how are we building trust? Do we know each other well? Are we building relationships where we can talk, talk about anything, where we can debate, where we can disagree, where we can wrestle with issues so that we can then have that commitment, have that accountability and drive those results. And if you prioritize that, to me that's the number one strategy.
- [23:43]
B
I used to. You're going to laugh. But years ago, when I first started coaching, this is probably 20, 20 years ago, whenever the. It was right after the book came out because I got it first and then actually based my first book on that, that Fable style.
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A
Oh, cool.
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B
And yeah, it was super cool. But we. I bought the training program for it. So I used to run around and teach it. And one of my favorite things to do still, sometimes companies will or clients will hire me to come into their organization and lead their first team retreat.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And that personal histories exercise is one of my favorite things to do. It just you learn so much and you get that. That trust. It's interesting because the one I did it for recently just came to me and said, you have no idea what that personal histories exercise did for us as an organization. I was like, well, look, I can'. Take credit for it. That's Patrick Lencioni, if I'm saying his name correctly.
- [24:32]
A
Well, I'm glad. That exercise, I love it. It's a great way to get started. I'll tell you the one that I love that doubles down on it is go around the room with your team and you go first as the leader and ask them what is the one thing that you do that sabotages the team and teach them and show them how to accept real constructive feedback and criticism and get your team to the point where they can openly just honestly say to you, you know what? You're not very good at this. And that doubles down on that personal exercise, the personal histories. And it just really takes it to the next level.
- [25:09]
B
Well, I love that because it shows vulnerability that you're a human being.
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A
Yeah, totally.
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B
And it's the first time we did that exercise as a company. I Remember, I had to tell the CEO. This is. I mean, I was young, but I had to tell the CEO the one thing that he was doing to sabotage the entire team. And he took it really well, to the point where I felt a lot more comfortable. But I was a nervous wreck. My voice was cracky. Everybody else was too. But after that meeting, things changed, and we really started to grow. I think we quadrupled in size in the next three years. And I really believe it was because of that one thing you said, the key point.
- [25:43]
A
So, number one, he listened and took it well. But number two, you said things started to change. Right. So as a leader. Yeah. It's about accepting it, owning it, hearing it. It's also about putting it into action and showing that you're changing. Right. And it's the combination of those two together.
- [26:00]
B
Well, what role do you think mindset plays in overcoming business plateaus? And how do you help leaders shift from blaming to problem solving?
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A
Yeah, I think all the research shows that mindset matters. Right. And so I think one of the really important things is for leaders to learn how to step back and get out of this, the day to noise that we live in. Right. It's so hectic, especially if you're on an entrepreneurial journey or you're. You're running a large business. There's so much pressure. There's so much responsibility. You know, for me personally, all of that starts with every single morning. I have a consistent morning routine. And the first thing I do in the morning is I go to prayer. And I have my prayer time. And for you, it may be meditation, whatever it is, but taking that time where the phone's not on yet, where I put everything aside and I'm grounding myself and I'm giving myself space, I find is so very important and gives you a ton of perspective and I think is a really, really critical thing. And to me, that's what shapes my. My mindset, which ultimately shapes my day more than anything else.
- [27:12]
B
I love it. And I found that I do the same thing. I actually take the first three hours of every morning with no phone calls or anything. And there's certain things that I try to get done during that time. Workout, meditate, focus on my day, three most important things for the day. And I do look at the three most important things for the week to make sure they're still scheduled, and I've still got to focus there. So I love that suggestion.
- [27:33]
A
We have, like, the exact same morning routine. That's awesome.
- [27:37]
B
Well, how do you think. How do you coach leaders to navigate failure and setbacks without getting stuck in what I call the blame loop, which I know I didn't. I didn't really expose you to yet, but I'll get you a copy of the book. I'd love to get your opinion on it.
- [27:49]
A
Yeah, I'd love to read it.
- [27:49]
B
The blame loop is just this nasty place where we just. Because of the way that we. Our experiences and the things that we've gone through, we have this behavioral bedrock that causes us to become invisible to solutions. It's. I mean, it used to be called paradigm paralysis. That's where your way of doing something becomes the only way to do something. And when you fail, sometimes it's just impossible for you to see a. A solution. This is why I've always. I've never been a big fan of root cause analysis, because a lot of times it's within the organization who are in the same sphere of influence as you. So what we developed in the book that you'll see is, is a way for them to actually go outside of their sphere of influence and hire someone like you or join a mastermind that's not tied down with the same things that they're going through so they can see a different way.
- [28:34]
A
I mean, I'm just curious.
- [28:36]
B
How do you.
- [28:37]
A
Yeah, that peer group is so important.
- [28:39]
B
Right?
- [28:39]
A
I'm glad you're doing that. Right. Because, you know, for me, throughout my journey, it's been always critical to have mentors, peers, and mentees. I think all three are important. Right. You've got to have people that you look up to, that you can learn from, that have been there, done that, that you can aspire to, be that you can ask questions. You also have to have people that are going through exactly what you're going through, and you can share the struggle together. You can talk about what's going on. You can get advice as it exists in the moment. But I think it's just as important that you spend time reflecting and passing those lessons on, because through that process of mentoring somebody else, you learn just as much and you see things from a different perspective. And so for me, that peer group is awesome that you're doing. I think the other two relationships are just as important. And I encourage leaders. To me, this is part of being vulnerable. It's about part of putting yourself out there. How do you develop relationships with people that are beyond you, people that maybe are coming behind you, and then people that are walking the same path with you?
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B
Well, I'm missing that. The mentees I Think that that's critical and that is not in my book, but that is a good for another edition.
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A
There you go. There's the next book.
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B
Yeah, yeah. I think when you lead other people and help them, I just. Yeah, because it was more about you getting the help you need. Because my favorite is actually my old business partner. When I found out he, he was my coach to begin with like 20 something years ago.
- [30:20]
A
It's awesome.
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B
When I first started, he ended up becoming my business partner and we did some great things together. But I remember he said, oh yeah, my coach told me this. I'm like, wait a minute, you have a coach? He's like, well Kevin, how many Olympic gold medalists do you know there without a coach and a team?
- [30:35]
A
Yep.
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B
And I never forgot that.
- [30:37]
A
Yeah, so true, so true.
- [30:39]
B
Well, knownwell seems to emphasize leadership development too. What are the key qualities that separate average leaders from truly transformational ones?
- [30:47]
A
I think it's a lot about what we just talked about. I think the reality of really not just focusing on the smart parts of business but on the healthy parts of business is a. Is a key aspect of that for me. We've actually at KnownWell put together for all of our leaders a leadership competency model and the leadership competency model walks through. What do we actually expect of our leaders? And it starts with, you've got to live by certain values. You can have certain characteristics that just are the basis of that human experience that you provide in the way you lead people. It's things like being courageous and being compassionate, facilitating collaboration, those types of competencies. The next then altitude of leadership is all about execution. If you want to be a great leader, you can't just sit in the ivory tower and bark commands and hope they happen. You have to actually show that you know how to build momentum and deliver results and get things done right. Those types of competencies. On top of that, then if you're going to be an even stronger leader, you've got to start to build operations. And this is all about systems and processes and how do you take things that you have learned and start to make it easier for others to do their job? How do you get them to build teams and work together? How do you create that organization that produces results so that one plus one equals three and we are more than the sum of our parts? Right. Then you've got to be able to create strategy. Strategy is all about how do you make trade off decisions and chart that path. How do you compete? And it's important to be able to collaborate, select Dots connect dots, see different alternatives, and to be able to make those choices. And then the final one is vision. You've got to be able to see that vision, paint that vision, communicate that vision. So our leadership competency models goes into the very specifics of what does that look like? And to me, the best leaders in the world are the ones that they're not a certain personality. They're not your typical charismatic person. They don't have to be this or that. What they have to do is have these different skills and capabilities that build on top of themselves. And for me, it all boils down to living values, driving execution, building operations, creating strategy, and then crafting that vision.
- [33:15]
B
I'm glad to bring up values because I. I find that when companies haven't clearly outlined their values, I hear this, and you'll love. I know you love this just as much as I do, Kevin. People just don't want to work anymore. These kids don't want to work anymore. And I'm like, well, is it perhaps that they just don't want to work for you?
- [33:32]
A
Totally. I mean, all the data shows that people leave organizations for their manager. Right? How many times have we heard that? But what you just said, people don't want to work anymore. How many times we've now seen a couple of new generations come into the workforce. And every time, I remember people saying this about my generation right now, everybody says the new generation is always so different. Obviously there are different generations that grew up with new technology or this or that, but humans are still human beings. And I think some of that is exactly what you just said. I think one of the most important traits of a leader, remember, a leader is somebody that people choose to follow. It's not about authority or a position. It's somebody that people choose to follow. I think one of the most important things there is care. Do you actually care about the other human being? And this goes back to what we were talking about earlier, about the dignity of the human worker, the dignity of the human being. If you really see people that way, you will genuinely care about them. And when you care about somebody, no matter what you have to do, no matter how hard the conversation, it's going to go a lot better. And so when we talk about the competency of showing compassion in our work, we talk a lot about the care we provide for the others that we're working with, whether it's a vendor, an employee, a client, a peer. Doesn't matter. Care about the other person.
- [35:09]
B
Yeah, I'm finding some strong leaders, very strong. Personalities. And we don't need the disc profile for this call, but we had one recently who was struggling with an employee and really struggling. The performance was down, suddenly was one of their top performers. And she was kind of hemming and hawing about what, how to have this conversation. How do we map out the conversation? I'm like, hey, why don't you just schedule a time and meet with her and ask her one question, are you okay? And it's just interesting to me how sometimes leaders get so focused on that they forget that they're human beings and then maybe there's something else going on. And it turns out their mother just passed away and they were embarrassed to tell anybody at work, but it was really affecting them. And then once we found that out, she gave her a couple of weeks off to deal with that and then came back, got her some, some counseling as well, because she was really very, very close with her mother. But I don't think if she would have asked that, I think she would have gone down the path to let her go.
- [36:03]
A
It's amazing what happens when you care.
- [36:06]
B
Yeah, but I just. That one, that one sentence was taught to me years ago. Well, my coach told me, well, just ask him if he's okay.
- [36:12]
A
You know, I love, I love that story. I'll give you the other side of it. One of the tools that I have found to be so helpful and successful in not only hiring people, but also in setting them up for success is before I hire anybody, I actually go through the interview process and then I actually create their first quote, performance review. And the performance review uses. We've created a framework that goes through everything from, you know, the, the leadership competency model we just talked to, to specific job expectations to the, the seniority levels and the expected amount of autonomy they're supposed to execute with all of these types of things. So it's very simple way to assess, but it gives us four different frames to assess an employee by. I create this performance review, and before I give them an offer, I sit down with my new direct report and say, hey, hey, I've probably gotten a lot of this wrong, but I want you to know from the get go that I care enough about you to tell you exactly how I'm thinking about your performance. And I've guessed this. We haven't worked together. I've just interviewed you. But I'm going into our employment relationship looking through this lens and I want to share it with you and I want to discuss it with you if I've gotten something wrong. I want you to tell me, and let's just have that open, transparent conversation. People are blown away because, number one, rarely do people actually get great performance feedback. Number two, it shows that I actually listened and got to know them through the process. And people are often astounded with how accurate it was despite it. And sometimes, by the way, I learned things of, oh my gosh, that's why you did that. I totally misrepresented that. I misunderstood it, you know, so great conversation comes in. It also sets up an expectation that they know what they're going to get from me. So three months in, when I sit down with them and say, let's do a 90 day review. How have things gone? And I get out the exact same template and I can say, you know what, I thought you were going to be weak here. You've turned out to be a lot stronger. You know what, I thought you were going to kill it here and hasn't gone so well. I've set the tone already that this is our relationship, it's safe, it's okay, and we're going to have real authentic conversation. And I think I love the question and it's such a good tool to go in, like, what's going on? Are you okay? I think the other side too is often the hardest one, which is do we give constructive feedback? Do we have those authentic conversations? I think one of the biggest disservices you can do to an employee is make them guess where they stand.
- [38:52]
B
Right.
- [38:53]
A
If you're ever letting anybody go in their surprise, that's your fault. It's not theirs.
- [38:58]
B
Yeah, well, I love it because you're giving them clarity. I'm curious how many people that you've done this. I just wrote down pre performance review because I love the idea. Totally give you 100% credit because it's an incredible, amazing idea that every listener should use. How many times do you have a really good high performer who brings that to the performance review? It's already filled it out for you.
- [39:20]
A
That's a great question. I don't have anybody that has actually filled it out out for me, but I definitely have people that remember it and will bring it up proactively for sure.
- [39:31]
B
Because I know in the past that we've done different organizations depending on who we're working with. We have had them fill out their own first and then we do the same thing to see where there's a gap.
- [39:41]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [39:42]
B
Sometimes people think they're doing a better job than they really are, but they're usually not paying Attention to the measurement that goes on.
- [39:47]
A
Oh, totally.
- [39:48]
B
Yeah, for sure.
- [39:49]
A
Yeah, totally.
- [39:50]
B
But I love it. I want to go back a little bit for that leadership competency model that you discuss. I love that because I have a few buddies who are in the military because we live pretty close to Cleen, which is a huge army base. So have some army buddies here that are pretty high up in leadership positions. But we've had a lot of discussions about the difference between the military and corporate America. And apparently in the military, before they promote somebody, they look at the qualities they have. They have them take a test. They actually train them how to be a better leader. What a concept. Then they promote them where in corporate America, a lot of times people just like the performance they're getting and then they promote them without training them or making sure they're the right fit. And one of my favorite books, I don't know if you've ever read this, but it's hilarious. And it's a, it's a short read, it's a big letter, short pages. But if you haven't read it yet, it's called the Leadership Secrets of Santa Claus.
- [40:42]
A
Huh? I haven't read it.
- [40:44]
B
You gotta get it. It's hilarious. If it's still available, it's, it's. I read it like 20 years ago, but it's about Rudolph wanting to retire. And then they figure since Donner's the biggest puller, he's obviously the best person for the leader position and they put him in a leadership position and all of a sudden all the reindeer start complaining about how they don't have enough time off and they're complaining how much they have to work and how long they have to work on Christmas day. And his dream of being a leader turns out to be a worse job than he had before and he just wants to go back and be a puller again.
- [41:10]
A
That's awesome.
- [41:11]
B
It's such a great book.
- [41:13]
A
Talk about simplifying the biggest challenge. I was just going to say in what you were talking about, about just promoting corporate world and how we do it. I couldn't agree with you more. We can learn a lot from the military. I actually was fortunate. I, I grew up in a military home and my, my father was actually a, a one star general in the Air Force. And I was able to see how they invested him in his leadership, but also just learned so much about leadership from my father and watching him as a kid. I, I'll never forget this one night at dinner when he was, at the time he was commanding the largest nuclear missile wing in America. The world, actually. And we had a secure telephone in the house that would ring every now and then. And one time it. It rang and he got up from dinner and took it. And, you know, we're sitting at the dinner table and kind of overhearing, and my dad was not a yeller, but he started to get pretty stern with his voice and. And you could hear his voice rising and that he was stressed out about something and. And was dealing with something serious. Got back to the dinner table and my mom, like. Like she always did, asked, like, what's going on and is everything okay? And he said it was the Pentagon that had actually called him. And the Pentagon had determined that there was somebody under his command who no longer met the physical fitness requirements that were required and that she needed to be discharged from there. My dad happened to know this and was. Was personally attuned to what was going on. And she, you know, unnoticed for some time and, and knew the situation. Situation well enough to know, say, this woman is just big bones and she is totally in shape. And my dad went to bat for her and stood up to his superior saying, there's no way you're doing that under my command. And fought for her. And that really struck me at dinner. But when it really struck me was two weeks later, we parked the car at the base exchange. We got out and we were walking in, and this young soldier came running up to my dad and gave him a big hug with tears in her eyes, said thank you because he had saved her career. Talk about for. I think I was 15, 16 at the time. Talk about a leadership lesson. Talk about caring for your people. My dad didn't have to do that. He had thousands of people that reported to him, and this was the Pentagon on the phone, and he stood up and said, no, it's not the right thing. Stink. I'm going to stand up because it's not right. He didn't take the easy way out. That's leadership. That's what we can learn from the military.
- [43:49]
B
I love it. Well, as we wrap up the call, which has been amazing, by the way. Thank you. One of my favorite questions and one of the last questions I always ask people is you've clearly invested in your growth over the years, and what do you feel are some of the most impactful investments you've made in yourself, whether it be coaching, masterminds, mentors, personal development, reading. What's your favorite way to grow yourself?
- [44:10]
A
It's a great question. You know, I think my favorite One, I've been really, really fortunate to have some awesome mentors in my life and to have people that I have been able to just get Ron real with that have been there, done that, and I can ask questions. I've been fortunate to be able to go seek out and find some phenomenal mentors that have taught me a lot. And I think of all of them, of all the different techniques, all the different things that I've done, I do a lot of reading, I've done the peer group thing, all of those types of things. Mentor relationships is probably the thing that I appreciate the most. And I think it takes a little bit of humility too sometimes to go and put yourself out there and say, hey, really respect you. I really look up to you and I'd love for to learn from you. Would you be willing to have breakfast every now and then and talk? And I've been so blown away by the that the types of people in the caliber of people who have been willing to say yes to that and offer me their time. And I'm so grateful for it.
- [45:14]
B
I love it. Well, David, I know you're busy and I know you flew in this morning. Thank you for taking the time and resetting after you get on a plane. I don't know how you did that. It would be tough for me, but thank you. The information was amazing. The interview was incredible. If people want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to get a hold of you?
- [45:31]
A
Yeah, check out Known. Well, you can go to knownwell.com or you can find me directly@daviddewolfe.com and look us up on LinkedIn wherever. And we also have a a podcast of our own called the AI Know how, so you can check that out as well if you're interested in more more thoughts just like these.
- [45:49]
B
Well, great. Well, I love it and thank you for being here and let's keep in touch.
- [45:53]
A
Hey, thanks so much, Kevin. I really appreciate it. It.