← The Digital Executive
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome to Coruscant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive podcast. Do you work in emerging tech? Working on something innovative? Maybe an entrepreneur? Apply to be a guest at www.corazon.com brand welcome to the Digital Executive. Today's guest is Don Weber. Don Weber is a global communication strategist, human intelligence or HUMINT expert and executive coach whose life tells a story of survival, reinvention and mastery. For over 15 years he worked in international intelligence operations across 90 plus countries, operating under multiple identities and navigating environments where one wrong move could have cost his life. During his years as a U.S. government field operative under George Bush administration, Don gathered intelligence across South America, Africa and Europe, working with organized crime figures, foreign agents and volatile political networks. Well, good afternoon Don. Welcome to the show.
- [01:06]
B
Hey, thanks for having me on.
- [01:08]
A
Absolutely, my friend. I appreciate it and making the time. I know traversing time zones, I'm in Kansas City, you're in San Luis Obispo can be quite challenging and I just appreciate that, really, really do so thank you. If you don't mind, don't jump right into your first question. You spent more than 15 years operating in international intelligence across 90 plus countries under multiple identities. How did those high risk environments shape the way you understand human behavior and trust?
- [01:34]
B
In a lot of ways, I mean one of the big things I learned is trust but verify. And initially I was always very paranoid with people, but not in a bad way just to make sure one, I'm not going to get hurt, the obvious kind of thing. The other thing is whatever information I'm getting is real and I was trying to verify that information. One of the weird things about me was that in that work I became such a good liar. It was, it was amazing. It was, it just became like automatic. I don't know how I pulled it off to be honest, for over the years. But I didn't do like operations in 90 countries. I just traveled over 90 countries during those years because maybe I had to get meet with somebody in a particular country that had some knew something that I wanted to know for that was going on in another country. I guess I could share something with you that wouldn't be too catchy. But for example, I was very busy or I had a lot of things going on in Colombia, South America and the drug dealers used to launder their money a lot through Antwerp, through diamonds. It's not a secret. And that market started drying up. So what they would do is they have their drug money in Europe, they'd send it to Antwerp, buy diamonds and Smuggle the diamonds from Antwerp to Colombia or to South America, sell those diamonds at a small discount at their Colombian pesos or whatever, invest that money back in the drug, pick up, pack up another shipment back to Europe. And that was a cycle. After a few years, that became more and more difficult for them because of the Kimberly process, which was a process they put in place to stop blood diamonds. Supposed to believe it. There's other things that went along with that. And it didn't have to do with money laundering, it had to do with monopolies. But it got that business became more difficult for the Colombian drug dealers and things. So what they started doing is sending the money to China. So I became very interested in what was going on with the money. And I wasn't really interested in the Chinese. I was in China. I actually could care less about the Chinese, but I was interested what the Colombians were doing in. In China. And we've discovered this in the early 2000s, it was quite new. There have been a few other people maybe in other agencies, other parts of the government that we're aware of it, but very few. So that would give you a real life example.
- [03:35]
A
That's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think it's important. What I took away is trust the verify or trust and verify. And it sounds very similar or kind of synonymous to what I do in technology. Not as a podcast host necessarily, but been a lot of years in technology. And that trust verify is really big in cybersecurity, as you know. But I appreciate you explaining what you have to go through to track criminals down in that criminal network. I know that's very, very daunting work and I appreciate what you did for our country and also sharing. So I'm going to jump right into your next question, Don. You emphasize authentic communication rather than scripted leadership. What does authenticity matter or why does authenticity matter more now than ever in a world of constant pressure, performance and perception management?
- [04:24]
B
Genuine being genuine with people, what's happening now, especially with all the social media and everybody can pretend to be what they're not, you see a lot of that going on. So there's a lack of authenticity, there's lack of genuineness. Also curiosity about your other fellow human being. And I don't know if you remember Dale Carnegie, but he had a. You know, being curious about other people, but for not just out of a self from a selfish standpoint, but actually being interested in other people. And if you're going to be a leader, you're going to. You're Going to manage people. You want people to feel important, significant, they're part of a team, but for real. Not that you're just using them as a cog in a machinery or something like that. So people feel that you actually value them, that you're actually interested in them, maybe in their personal life or their hobbies or whatever it is, or in the challenges that they're facing within that project and that you had to take a genuine interest in them. You're going to get a far better response most of the time than you are if you're just trying to fake it and you're just, oh, this is what we're supposed to do. This is the playbook. I went to a leadership class and they told me I have to do this and then this and then this and then this and all that stuff is great. Knowing when to do it, when to apply those skills or those techniques and doing it in a real way, genuine way.
- [05:35]
A
Thank you, I appreciate that. And absolutely I would agree with you. Working with many people over the years, leadership. I like how you talked about being genuine, authentic, being empathetic, really caring about the other person in a conversation I think goes a thousand miles. And again, I do appreciate that. Don, in intelligence work, reading people correctly can be the difference between success and disaster. What signals, verbal or non verbal, do most executives consistently miss in high stakes conversations?
- [06:06]
B
Well, they may not be aware that people there are, they're going to be around some people that are very, that observe and they observe the little things. When you talk about like non verbal communication, people come up with this thing, oh, well, they cut your nose or lying or they do this, that means that or they do the other thing, it means the other thing. Depending the context, the person. There's a thing called baselining, that's the normal behavior of that person. Each person has their own baseline or their normal behavior. Then you're looking for deviations. We can go into a whole course here on non verbal communication that takes a few hours, but I'll try to keep it really simple. So the idea is basically comfort, discomfort, non verbal communication can, well, you can identify it pretty easily. So if I'm an executive and I'm communicating a message to my team, right, And I don't, let's say really particularly like the message I have to communicate. But my higher ups only have to do it as part of the strategy from the CEO or whatever the situation is and that leaks through. Some people will pick up on it, some more than others. Usually this is a little, little thing to Be aware of typically women, because of biology and millennia of development, right. They're much more apt at picking up those little nuances and those little details. And these things can be simply the way the eyes move. It could be tick in the bottom eyelid. It could be hand gesture, an odd hot hand gesture, facial expression, breathing. It could be the pulse rate. Up here, you start seeing the pulse going quicker. Depends on the person. Again, it's baselining how the person normally behaves. If they're behaving different, kind of think of going to more or something more on that. But so I think it's important that if you believe what you're communicating. When I worked in the intelligence world, and I lied a lot in that work, I used to psychologically put myself that I believed that I was who I said I was, that I lived the life I said I lived thinking the way and even doing things that that person would do. It's kind of like being an actor and method acting in a way, but really like living it.
- [08:07]
A
Great. Okay, we're going to continue. So the last question of the day, Don, as we look ahead, what skills will define the next generation of effective leaders, especially as geopolitical tension, un uncertainty and human complexity continue to rise?
- [08:23]
B
That's a great question, and I find it a little bit humorous because we think that we're living in some like, super strange period of history. And if we crack some history books and we look through history in the past, I mean, there's been a lot of excitement over the last 6,000, I mean, Romans, the Greeks, Babylonians, the Persians, Nazi Germany, Napoleon, William of Orange when he went into the uk, there's been a lot of excitement over the years. Right. The thing that makes it different is technology. Right? So information flies a lot faster, disinformation goes a lot quicker. And that's kind of the, the element there, that's the wild card. But for me, for people in the future, if they want to be successful, I think the fundamentals don't really change that much. And it comes down to being able to communicate with other people, treating other people with respect, with dignity. There's the old thing, you know, treat others the way you'd like to be treated. It's the golden rule. And it's a lot. Things are a lot more simple then coming up with all kinds of rules and regulations, and we got to follow this ESG concept and this other DEI thing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just treat other people the way you'd like to be treated. End up, if you Just do that. It's that simple. Life would be almost like paradise on Earth. Unfortunately, it's too simple for most people. A lot of people to follow. Truth, most, but for a lot of people to follow. But I think future leaders, they need to work on their communication skills. People are too tied up with their phones, texting, all that kind of stuff. These are great tools, but I think people are far too reliant on those tools and not enough with interpersonal contact, interacting with people especially. We're social creatures. Unless you change our DNA, that's going to stay that way.
- [09:57]
A
No, I totally agree and I appreciate that. And it's funny, we talk a lot about emerging technologies on the podcast here, along with entrepreneurs and different guests like yourself. But at the end of the day, it's those soft skills. And this is really what we like to highlight, especially we have a lot of leaders that come on founders, et cetera, and the soft skills are so important in this world of AI. The last gosh, two years has just been. Everything's been. We're inundated with AI and those conversations, but we need to get back to the basics. The tools are great, as you mentioned, they're there as a convenience, sometimes a crutch. But we do need to get back to communicating, interacting, treating people with respect, and getting back to the basics. Then we wouldn't have to have all these new things that come up that we have to follow nowadays in our country. So I really do appreciate that. Don, it was such a pleasure having you on today, and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
- [10:51]
B
Right, well, thank you so much for your time, Brian, and I look forward to seeing you and speaking with you in the near future as well.
- [10:56]
A
Thank you. Bye for now.