0:02

Eh , not what your country can

0:04

do for you and what you

0:06

can do for your country. You are like

0:09

an entree . One word, I

0:13

have a dream, but one thing, this

0:15

nature has

0:19

the chains or whatever it

0:21

turns.

0:26

So welcome to our podcast. We've got two

0:28

great guests here today, Dave banks

0:31

who has been a CEO for 32 years

0:33

at a variety of companies and you can

0:35

read more on our site about

0:38

, uh , Dave's bio , uh, and

0:40

he , uh, has been , uh, doing a

0:42

great deal of , uh, of coaching

0:44

and developing of leaders over that period

0:46

of time. Uh, and then Todd

0:48

Singleton , uh , who is currently the head of field

0:50

engineering for Saffron AI. He's

0:53

always good at Intel, which is always

0:55

good to have an AI person in here, especially considering

0:57

the fact that today we may talk about

0:59

, uh, Facebook and

1:01

Mark Zuckerberg a little bit and

1:03

he will have some interior knowledge

1:06

about what goes on there. Maybe , uh

1:08

, but Todd also played basketball

1:10

at Duke and he and I spent a lot

1:12

of time talking about that and being around coach

1:14

Shashefski. But again, you can look on the site. These

1:16

guys both have a , a tremendous resumes

1:19

and a lot more , uh, that you'll, you'll

1:21

maybe wanna get his background. Uh

1:23

, but this is the leading good podcast, changing

1:25

its name to leading different

1:28

, uh , we wanted to be able to get

1:30

a little bit more focus on what we

1:32

do. And so today our theme

1:35

is addressing the leadership crisis.

1:37

Now , uh, Todd has

1:39

had a great deal of influence on me. The

1:41

host, your host, Russ UIL and uh,

1:43

so is Dave banks. And so I brought them together

1:45

because I thought we could have a tremendous, at

1:48

least beginning conversation. Hopefully I'll convince

1:50

these guys to come back , uh , about

1:52

leadership. And one day, about

1:54

four to five weeks ago , uh, Todd and I were talking

1:57

and we were discussing probably the NBA

1:59

draft first, but then we were

2:01

discussing leadership and I was

2:03

making some comments and he said, well, I

2:05

feel like we're in a leadership crisis right now.

2:07

And so I wanted him to go ahead and tell us what, what

2:10

he, what he meant by that so that he can

2:12

begin the theme. And thesis of his

2:14

book, He'll be right . Yeah .

2:15

Yeah. Well, firstly, thanks

2:17

for being , um, it's good to be here, Russ. And

2:19

talking about this particular topic, it's a

2:21

topic that I follow quite a bit, but

2:24

in terms of why I said that a

2:26

few weeks ago, why is there a leadership crisis? I think a lot of it

2:28

has to do with how you see leadership [inaudible]

2:30

as to whether or not you believe there's a crisis or not.

2:32

Okay . So if I look at leadership in

2:35

terms of two things, one, my

2:38

philosophy towards leadership, and two

2:40

, what's the qualification of a good

2:42

leader? Okay. That influences

2:45

my perspective. Makes Sense. So

2:47

on the first point, if I think about leadership

2:49

and I look at that and I say, if

2:51

I lean towards the servant model

2:53

of leadership where a leader

2:55

is a servant of the people they serve. All

2:59

right. That's one view. The other far extreme

3:01

is a leader is to be served or more

3:03

authoritative or fastest type view. So

3:06

depending on how, you know, I lean more towards

3:08

the , the former. Yeah. And then secondly, how do I qualify

3:10

good leadership. Um, when

3:13

I'm hiring somebody or what , I'm just trying to grow

3:15

myself as a leader.

3:17

I look at three things. I look at competence.

3:20

Okay. I look at , um, character.

3:23

Yup . And I look at connection, relationship

3:26

building. I like those. And so in my opinion,

3:28

in terms of why I said there's a leadership crisis,

3:30

I think as it relates to character

3:33

as a qualifier, we

3:35

are certainly at a crossroads, right?

3:39

I think most people lean heavily on competence.

3:42

Can someone get something done? Can they move people from point

3:44

a to point B? And

3:46

then connections, you know,

3:48

certainly from relationship standpoint, are

3:51

you connected to power? Right? Um,

3:54

but what's often underplayed is, are you connected

3:56

to people who aren't in power? Right? And do you build

3:58

relationships in that way? But I really

4:01

think character is a qualifier is being

4:03

, uh , challenged quite a bit right now. Wow,

4:06

that's great. So, Dave, we're going to come

4:08

over to you. Todd just rolled

4:10

out. I had not heard these from you before. So

4:12

when I steal them and you hear them being

4:14

spoken as my ideas , you can appreciate

4:17

my ability to steal. But , uh, competence,

4:20

character connection, leadership crisis. What do

4:22

you think about Todd's thesis is getting US started

4:24

right here?

4:25

I would agree. So it's a good, a

4:28

good way to characterize it. For me, I

4:30

like to , um, I

4:33

live in a world where I like models.

4:36

I like to have examples of things. And

4:38

uh , the two

4:40

examples I look to that , um,

4:43

I don't think we see these days

4:46

on one's corporate and the other is political. The

4:48

corporate example was who a bill

4:50

and Dave, Bill Hewlett and Dave

4:52

Packard started Hewlett Packard. And

4:54

um, they , um, they

4:57

basically built the company around the HP

4:59

way, which was not like a mission statement

5:01

or some kind of a advertising

5:04

thing. It was really what they believed in, which

5:07

is we have trust and respect for individuals.

5:10

We focus on a high level of achievement

5:12

and contribution. We conduct

5:14

our business with uncompromising integrity.

5:17

We achieve our common objectives through teamwork.

5:20

We encourage flexibility and innovation.

5:23

Those were our words. You don't

5:25

hear very much today from corporate

5:28

executives. Yeah . The

5:30

second example, political example

5:32

is Winston Churchill envoy. And

5:35

I'm Kinda to keep it short. I'm a big fan

5:37

of his , um, all during

5:39

the 30s, he warned everybody

5:41

who had listened to him, which was not very many

5:43

people that Germany was rearming

5:45

and I'm going to be a big problem and nobody listened to it

5:48

. Right. And then finally, after

5:50

a lot of turmoil , uh , where the appeasers

5:52

got in trouble , uh, in,

5:54

in Britain , uh, he was made prime minister

5:56

and in 1940 and

5:59

he gave, you know, he, he communicated

6:02

well, gave speeches. He basically galvanized

6:04

the British populace to

6:07

, um, be ready for

6:09

war. But what

6:11

most people don't realize is from

6:13

1948, so almost the end of 1942,

6:17

he also ran the war. He led the war effort

6:19

and every single initiative in those

6:22

two years, he led, failed. It

6:24

was a, it was an f. He was defeated by Germany

6:27

time and time and time again. And yet the

6:30

people never, never

6:32

gave up on him or gave

6:34

up on believing that he , that , uh,

6:37

that basically he was going

6:40

to get them through it. Right. So , um,

6:44

Todd was talking about servant leadership. I mean, he,

6:47

he saw his responsibility to,

6:49

to galvanize, to lead, to keep the people

6:52

of Britain , uh , strong and

6:55

really being the only bulwark against

6:57

, uh , Nazi-ism in Europe if he had

6:59

not been there. Um, you

7:01

know, who knows what happened,

7:03

right? So those are two,

7:06

those are two kinds of models I look

7:08

at and I think about, and I

7:10

agree that we are , um,

7:13

we have a dearth of that kind of leadership both in the

7:15

corporate and the , uh , political level

7:17

now.

7:18

Wow. So as I'm listening

7:20

to you, and I love Churchill too , that

7:22

that whole documentation of his journey in

7:24

the Wilderness, William Manchester, the book

7:26

called alone. Well, I've read

7:28

all three of those volumes. Yeah, me too. And

7:31

I that the second one's my favorite because he's just

7:33

all alone. Completely alone. Never

7:35

gave up. Yeah. Now what ? Strike boy,

7:37

we have never talked about that before. We need

7:39

that . That's a podcast right there.

7:42

Todd , you're back. Dave. You're back. We're

7:44

going to do a Churchill Pike . So

7:47

here's the thing that strikes me about it too . You guys, you

7:49

both have a theory of leadership, like

7:51

you both have a view of what a leader ought to be

7:53

like. And I'm wondering,

7:55

do you think that's part of the crisis is

7:58

that a lot of people who are being

8:00

developed as leaders are becoming leaders? They

8:02

actually don't have a theory of leadership. They don't

8:05

to take your phrasing and frame

8:07

Todd , they don't have a sense of, okay, I know

8:09

here's the extreme on one end and

8:12

here's the extreme on the other. And having that philosophy

8:15

of leadership, I'm able to draw from that.

8:17

Having read history, I'm able to draw from that

8:19

to figure out what kind of leader I should be.

8:21

And when I get into good situations

8:24

I know how to behave because I've seen the

8:26

success of a leader or when I'm failing,

8:28

I know how to handle it. I don't

8:30

know. But do you think, unless you know, we look

8:32

at, okay, so I mentioned before we were on area

8:35

mark Zuckerberg and I think he's taking

8:38

a big, a lot

8:40

of hits for his company,

8:42

failing to protect the elections, which I'm not sure

8:44

that's his job, but, no, I

8:46

am sure it's not his job. But

8:49

I'm wondering if a lot of our young leaders

8:51

don't have a philosophy of leadership.

8:53

I'm wondering if they're not getting a of

8:55

leadership because it's not being taught and

8:57

our educational system and other places

9:00

do . So you guys have great definition of leadership.

9:02

Do you think that's a problem is people don't have a philosophy

9:05

or a definition of leadership? You didn't want to be?

9:07

I think the , I think the values

9:09

have, have changed as

9:11

technology has led to

9:14

, um, instant gratification

9:16

instead of delayed gratification. Okay

9:18

. I grew up in the 50s and most

9:20

men thought about working their entire life and

9:22

then retiring and having fun. You

9:25

know, that delay gratification, right? We

9:27

now are, we're now unhappy if we don't get

9:29

something delivered that we've ordered, you know,

9:32

two days guilty. Exactly.

9:34

Yeah. So I think, I think

9:36

part of this is a , um,

9:39

is a move a

9:42

movement towards kind of s

9:44

selfishness. Uh, you

9:46

know, you want things the way you want them and you

9:49

feel like if you don't look out for yourself,

9:51

there's nobody else that's gonna look out for you. I'm

9:53

not sure whether it's an educational failure

9:56

or whether we're just culturally, we've

9:58

culturally undergone a , a , a major

10:01

shift in the last 15 years where

10:03

, um, you know,

10:05

our values have changed.

10:06

Well, so I'll just keep riding on

10:08

that for a minute. Isn't culture a result

10:11

of where leaders lead us? So

10:13

if the culture is more selfish, would that not be indicative

10:15

of the fact that our leaders we have have led us to

10:18

greater self ? And it's , I'm not saying that's for sure, but I'm asking

10:20

you a question.

10:20

Yes and no. I think our

10:22

leaders , um, I

10:25

would put it differently. I would say our

10:27

leaders have not, have not

10:29

done enough to lead us toward the

10:31

, the servant end of the tod scale.

10:34

Their , their, their example has been

10:37

more about, you know, keeping the economy

10:39

strong. I mean it's a , it's

10:41

kind of good stuff. It to some

10:43

extent, but it,

10:46

it we're not , um, we're

10:50

not putting out people who are , um,

10:53

going to stick their necks out to

10:56

make sure that

10:58

the population or the , the group they are responsible

11:01

for are , are, are cared for.

11:03

Okay. All right . I love where we're going.

11:05

I see Todd over there thinking he looks like he's about to

11:07

lay one on us . Great

11:08

points. Um, so in terms

11:10

of your question , um,

11:13

do young people or do leaders today

11:15

have lacked a lack of definition

11:17

or personal conviction about what leadership is?

11:21

I'd say yes, but I want to, you know, there's

11:23

a caveat to that answer. Okay. In

11:25

that I don't think

11:27

that things

11:29

are getting worse as it relates to leadership,

11:32

which sounds like a bit of a contradiction

11:34

in that I said we were in a leadership crisis. If

11:37

I look back throughout history, I think

11:39

we have cycles. Yeah . And

11:41

I think there are several periods in American history where

11:43

I feel like there was certainly

11:45

a leadership crisis. Yeah. I

11:47

think we are in a similar period now.

11:50

And then there are periods in history

11:52

where I think,

11:54

you know, you could feel better about

11:56

leadership. And so

11:59

I thought that was a nuance where saying

12:01

, um, in terms, so

12:03

with that said, I don't

12:05

think there is a

12:09

historically significant lack of definition

12:11

or philosophy around leadership.

12:14

I think it comes and goes and

12:16

in a lot of ways, because as a culture,

12:19

we're not very deliberate about teaching leadership.

12:22

It's not institutionalized very well. So

12:25

we could, you could argue that these

12:27

cycles are somewhat random based

12:30

on what surface is . Yeah, I do think

12:32

there's a lack of conviction

12:34

and foe , a definition of leadership,

12:38

but a , I don't think it's historically

12:40

far worse than any other period in American

12:43

history. I just think it's,

12:45

it feels a bit more random. Yeah. So

12:48

you guys got so many questions are flying

12:50

through my mind as you're talking, and I'm going to jump to history.

12:53

So if you go back to the beginning of

12:55

the country, right, and you pick, one of my favorite

12:57

leaders is Alexander Hamilton. And this is before Hamilton

13:00

was written. I went to Alexander Hamilton elementary school. I

13:02

ran for treasurer when I was like in fourth grade

13:04

of Alexander Hamilton elementary school.

13:07

Um, when you go back at that time, say Thomas

13:10

Jefferson, who happens to be one of my favorites, but in , in

13:12

east in bad shape, you know, now because

13:14

people see the slavery, et Cetera, et cetera.

13:18

Uh, and in all that, but they saw

13:20

that then there were people who saw him keeping

13:22

slaves then and

13:24

didn't like it. And yet he was

13:26

able to be a leader. Um, there

13:29

were people, Alexander Hamilton, who I think

13:31

is his, his history is pretty well known. You know,

13:34

not coming from a two parent family

13:36

and , and maybe mixed and all

13:38

this stuff that would have been far worse

13:40

back then. You know, he , he was able

13:42

to serve as a leader. Um, um,

13:45

obviously George Washington was able to serve as leaders.

13:47

Several others were able to search the Benjamin

13:49

Franklin, you go through the list. Ray , all these guys

13:51

know some people out there and say, well, they were all white guys. Well,

13:53

that, that, that's where we were at the time. So

13:55

let's, let's, let's, that's correct for

13:58

time and say, do,

14:01

did have through history, through those

14:03

cycles, have people been

14:05

more forgiving of leaders flaws

14:07

than they are today? And is that part

14:09

of the crisis , which I want to

14:12

thread that needle. You were threading Todd , which is,

14:14

it's not that we're worse off now. I

14:16

would agree with that. We're not worse off now,

14:19

but we are shallower now. I

14:21

think we've got a shallower bench. It's not

14:23

like when you look at the next presidential

14:25

election or the next, even the governor's

14:27

elections that there's these, all these people

14:30

that are running that you're like, oh my gosh,

14:32

who do we pick? Right? It's not like that.

14:35

So I'm wondering if we

14:37

are, we have become more unforgiving

14:39

of, of leaders because leaders are going to make

14:41

mistakes. They're going to do things that

14:43

are wrong. And Churchill, right

14:45

? He's a perfect example of a guy who

14:47

had extraordinary run of success. And

14:50

then he, he did , uh , he made a number of

14:52

mistakes, some military , um,

14:55

and they, they drove him out and he was in

14:57

a desert. And yet in the 60s, he comes

14:59

back and leads and becomes probably

15:01

the most significant, if not most

15:03

important, leader of the 20th century.

15:05

So I'm wondering are we less forgiving because

15:08

right now Abraham Lincoln couldn't get elected because

15:10

people would say, well, at one time you were forced slavery. Now

15:13

you're, now you're kind of more understanding

15:15

of it. Uh , FDR wouldn't be elected

15:17

because we'd say, well, you're in a wheelchair and you're disabled.

15:19

And obviously the, you know , hid

15:21

some of that. But I just think, you know, Kennedy

15:24

couldn't get elected for, you know , the obvious reasons.

15:26

Martin Luther King probably couldn't be out

15:28

there speaking because people will be talking about his

15:30

things. So I , it, things

15:33

are so much more transparent today that

15:35

I'm wondering, is it possible for someone

15:37

to endure all that? Just a question.

15:39

The creek question, I , I don't think we're less forgiving.

15:41

I just think we know more. I think information

15:44

flows more freely and

15:46

200 years ago was way easier to

15:48

control the narrative. Right?

15:50

Or someone could have a

15:52

double life and hide it very

15:54

easily. Right. Um,

15:57

and I think , um,

16:01

in all errors, culture

16:04

affects leadership and leadership affects culture.

16:07

I do not think we are more shallow

16:09

today than we were then. Like

16:11

I don't think that at all. I just

16:14

think , um, yeah, there's just

16:16

a proliferation of information and

16:18

it's easier to get your flavor

16:20

of information right, than

16:22

it was before. Okay .

16:25

Dave, you're going to weigh in on that?

16:26

Yeah, I , uh, I'll come back to technology.

16:29

Uh, we can get anything, any

16:31

information we want almost instantly

16:34

and a lot of information we don't want. And

16:36

, and, and so , um,

16:40

I agree with, you know, Todd and

16:43

you, I mean, I don't know whether we're more accepting,

16:45

less accepting. I think we just know more and

16:47

we probably judge based on what we know

16:50

and , and you know, that leads to , um,

16:53

uh , more chaos as it

16:55

were. And , uh , that was more,

16:58

it felt like there was in the forties,

17:00

in the 50s, more respect toward leaders.

17:02

I mean, it was all, you know, with , from

17:04

Roosevelt and the media,

17:06

not , um, you know, photographing

17:09

him in a wheelchair and things like

17:11

that. But the other thing that I think has happened,

17:13

I began thinking about the topic. Uh , you

17:15

and I did not have a discussion five weeks ago about

17:18

it, but I noticing in the, in

17:20

the world of business, the education

17:22

of business people has

17:24

shifted way toward , um,

17:27

management and efficiency and

17:30

, um, analytics and

17:32

, uh, you know, the use of data

17:34

and things like that. And, and yet

17:36

if you look at the, if you look at the best

17:39

companies that we've come out, come

17:41

out with, you know, the

17:45

Fang Facebook , uh, you know, apple,

17:47

so forth and so on. The people who

17:49

have created those companies are

17:51

not, were not managers, they were

17:54

leaders. Great Point. And

17:56

Hewlett Packard were leaders. I mean, they were engineers,

17:58

they were leaders. They lead the company.

18:01

And when they, when they left, they had bright

18:03

and great managers. Things, you know, did not go well.

18:05

I think that the, from an education

18:08

perspective, the, the, the people

18:10

who are being trained to be business leaders

18:12

are being trained in everything but leadership

18:15

and , and, and they're , they're missing the fact

18:18

that, you know, Steve Jobs, Larry

18:20

and Sergei and all these people,

18:22

they were leaders. They wanted to build something great.

18:25

They had a, they had a vision of what they, what

18:27

it would do for people

18:29

who knew that these things would end up being this

18:32

way. And I think that from the

18:34

world and Todd and Todd, not that Todd's not

18:36

in business, but from, from my

18:38

world. I mean, when, when I was educated

18:40

and when I went to business school, we spent

18:42

quite a bit of time on , um,

18:45

what they used to call, you know, human behavior.

18:47

We spent a lot of time on how

18:49

to communicate on how to inspire

18:52

wasn't, they didn't use that word, but it

18:54

was, it was , uh, it was more a balanced,

18:56

it was not all numerically focused.

18:58

That's all.

18:59

That's funny because one, oh, go ahead Todd . Get in there . Well , I

19:01

just totally agree with what Dave is saying. Um,

19:04

and in a lot of ways I think our

19:06

corporations are set up to, to

19:08

be what you just described. Um,

19:11

in that , uh , young inspiring company must

19:13

be led in to start a new market. It must be

19:15

led to grow quickly. It must be

19:18

led to capture market share. It must be led. But

19:20

as soon as the business in my observation becomes

19:23

financially driven or

19:25

driven by the finance department, it

19:28

becomes managed. So

19:30

I'm at Intel Corporation and the

19:33

legacy of leadership of the core founders,

19:35

Robert Noyce and, and , and , and

19:37

more , I mean that legacy is alive and

19:40

well in terms of the leadership they provided.

19:42

That's interesting. But they are no longer there.

19:44

And you can see in the business where,

19:48

you know, great market share, great

19:50

reoccurring cash flow, right? And

19:53

you can tell it's financially driven now, right?

19:55

It's now an annuity in a lot of ways. And

19:58

so it has become a managed business,

20:00

right? As opposed to something that's being

20:02

led and such

20:05

businesses over time, you

20:08

know, fall away or it begin to erode

20:10

or it's hard to wrap up or get disrupted, right?

20:12

Like, and we see that with some of the great businesses throughout

20:15

American history. And so the

20:17

hard part about that though , if you look at the system that's

20:19

in place, I mean, if the definition of a corporation

20:22

is to benefit the shareholders, right? You will

20:24

eventually, if you're successful, get to that point

20:26

where the only thing you can do is manage it, right?

20:30

Because you have to money to your

20:32

shareholders, more money to your shareholders. It's

20:34

hard to continue to lead it. I'm

20:36

learning a lot as I'm listening to you. So I'm enjoying just

20:39

talking about this. So

20:41

let me push back a little bit. So if

20:44

I'm in a company that is primarily

20:47

focused on

20:47

the efficiency, I loved your definition. I'm going to go

20:49

back and listen to the podcast just to hear what you said day

20:52

. Um, that's focused on the finances,

20:54

focused on efficiency, focused on the data. I

20:57

remember when I was in college studying economics, right?

20:59

They came out with, it's how old I am. They came

21:01

out with and they were like, oh, there's a new branch of economics

21:03

called econometrics . And it began

21:05

to shift economics from focusing on

21:08

cause part of economics focused on the behavior

21:10

of people and we're getting back there with behavioral economics.

21:13

But at that time they were getting more toward data. Like

21:15

look at the numbers, let the numbers tell you what it's, what's

21:17

there. So I, I agree with you guys on

21:19

that. I'm pushing back on the unforgiving

21:21

part. So if I'm a person

21:24

who believes that I can make

21:26

mistakes, I can have

21:28

the, let's take Mark Zuckerberg, right? And

21:31

um, Mark Zuckerberg, his company gets

21:34

thrashed at , in the stock market

21:36

because they've not handled this whole

21:38

Facebook election thing. Well,

21:41

I'm simplifying the issue, but

21:43

that's what it is. Um, to

21:46

be able to handle that kind of failure, that

21:48

kind of criticism, you have

21:51

to have some sense that

21:53

somebody somewhere is

21:55

going to say, okay , I'm still behind you. Now

21:57

you said, Todd, that you think society's more forgiving.

22:00

But I think the record of how

22:02

easily we toss people out, whether

22:04

it's, whether it's college coaches, it CEO's

22:07

, it just seems like they're on a

22:09

short leash and if they blow anything,

22:11

Bam, they're gone. Because the company

22:13

is concerned that it's going to affect their brand

22:15

and then it's going to determine who gets who

22:17

was willing to buy their product. And so I

22:19

don't know that we are as forgiving. I don't, I don't think

22:21

the newspaper headlines

22:24

tell me that we are a country

22:26

that would put up with anything

22:28

much cause you can run out . And I think

22:30

that, I don't want to get too political because that's dangerous,

22:32

but I think you can even trace some

22:34

of Trump's success to people

22:37

loving the fact that he's doing

22:40

all the things you shouldn't do and

22:42

he's still president. And I think

22:44

there's a part of that that people love because

22:46

it's like he's defying

22:48

everybody. Now. I'm not saying that's good, but

22:51

I'm saying that a forgiving,

22:53

and I'm not saying it's to be forgiving at the highest level.

22:55

So maybe what it is is there

22:57

is a lot of forgiveness on the way up. But

22:59

it seems to me you can't make many mistakes today

23:02

if you're a leader. And that deters

23:04

people from making mistakes, lends

23:07

towards more focused on data and efficiency. That's

23:09

just what I'm thinking. But I may be wrong about that. I'm more

23:11

trying to get you guys tell me more about it.

23:13

I think there might be less

23:16

tolerance today for hypocrisy. But

23:18

again, I don't know if we're less graceful

23:20

as much as we just know more, but knowing

23:22

more or don't we have to become okay,

23:25

we know more, but our grace has not increased.

23:27

That's a fair relationship.

23:29

And what I'm saying is that I think, and I , I'm,

23:32

I'm out here in a ocean sailing

23:34

and I don't know where I'm going, but part of what

23:36

I think having led a lot and been in leadership

23:38

a lot, I think there , for me

23:40

it's been a process. And so if you go back

23:42

to my teen years and you go to my college years,

23:45

there's lessons learned , uh , right up till now,

23:47

you know, my plus 50 years, there's

23:49

lessons learned all along the way. And

23:52

I feel like the cultures that I was part

23:54

of, the people that were around me are as much a

23:56

reason that I've been able to become a leader

23:58

or be a leader. As before. I would say I started

24:01

out not the servant leader cause I did

24:03

. That wasn't my definition of leadership. I read history

24:05

books and I always liked the strong leader,

24:07

Leno , Napoleon, he's going to take it, you know,

24:09

and lead everything. And so it took me some

24:12

time to even understand there was another definition

24:14

and I had to make mistakes along [inaudible] .

24:16

The way to do that, you're

24:19

listening to the lead, different by triangle media.

24:21

You can find us on iTunes, stitcher, and soundcloud.

24:24

Make sure to subscribe for more content on leading

24:27

different. Now back to the show.

24:32

Well Zuckerberg is, it is my model. It's

24:35

a, here's a guy who's running a company

24:38

who's come up from his college dorm room. He's

24:40

2019 yeah,

24:43

he's going to do a lot. Ron before he's done.

24:46

And I, and I think he's holding up fine.

24:48

Seems to be holding up fine and it helps to be a billionaire, right?

24:51

But I look at that and I go, where

24:53

are the Zuckerberg running for president? They're

24:56

nowhere to be seen. Why? It's

24:58

too risky. You're going to have your kids drawn

25:00

out there. And, and you're going to have your marriage

25:02

drawn out there. You're going to have your, what

25:04

you said in second grade, what you tweeted

25:07

in in eighth grade. I

25:09

Dunno . I mean, I , I, I'm saying this more,

25:12

I think probably there's more crises of people

25:14

willing to lead in public.

25:16

Oh , that, that's what I wanted to get into

25:18

based on this. Um, the

25:20

effect of , uh, whether we're

25:22

more forgiving or not, the effect

25:25

of this , um, instant

25:28

information , um,

25:30

quick judgment , kind of a cycle

25:34

that we see all over the place, right? Is

25:37

that , um, Colin Powell didn't

25:39

run for president.

25:41

Oh , I ran for

25:42

president was he didn't want his family subjected.

25:45

Everybody has stuff in their background

25:47

that they're embarrassed by. Right. And

25:50

, um, through

25:52

, uh , an odd connection.

25:56

I won't go into, I'm

25:59

sure you read his book. Um, journey

26:01

to America. I did not read his book. Well,

26:03

anyway , uh , one of his top generals

26:06

when he was a joint chief , uh, head of the

26:08

Joint Chiefs of staff was a man , a general named Becton right.

26:11

And back then had a kid in college

26:14

with my daughter. And my

26:16

daughter's boyfriend. And so , um,

26:19

my daughter and her boyfriend

26:22

and back then went to Washington and they met Powell.

26:25

And it was around the time

26:27

that, you know, everybody was saying, you know, why

26:29

isn't this, why aren't you stepping up for running for president?

26:32

Right . And he basically told them , he said,

26:34

I, I , um , I've

26:36

served my country my whole life. I

26:39

would love to serve my country as

26:41

a chief executive, but not going

26:43

to say , submit my family to what

26:46

goes on in a presidential election. Right.

26:48

And this was like 20 more

26:52

than 20 years ago before all the, the instant

26:54

. Yeah . So I think the one

26:56

effect of the

26:59

way things are is people

27:02

who would maybe

27:04

in a past time want

27:06

to step up and lead, be it the

27:09

country or you know, in

27:11

any way, are cautious about

27:13

that. Yeah . Because you

27:16

know,

27:17

well , could that be an increase in cowardice?

27:20

It could be. Well, John Kennedy, Robert

27:22

Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm

27:24

x all took bullets in the head or bullets.

27:27

That is risky. Yup . No, I'll step out

27:29

and leave. And there's a cost. I'm not

27:31

denying that at all and my kids could lose their

27:34

father.

27:35

Right . And so if I take your thought to , to

27:37

the it's final conclusion, no one

27:39

wants a bullet in the head, therefore no one will lead

27:41

because no one does. And prior, neither

27:44

the day prior to their assassination,

27:46

how many assassinations like that took place? Two

27:50

presidents, plenty . Oh , Malcolm

27:52

x and Martin Luther King or black men in America. But you're

27:54

in this, you're still in the same area though , but for which

27:56

they were lynching less same. You're still in

27:58

the same era . Right? And there are plenty of

28:00

, previously, previously as a

28:03

president , they'll know , but historically, but historically as

28:05

black men who stepped out to speak, right ? But

28:07

I'm , I'm not talking about black men . I'm saying you're

28:10

pink [inaudible] era of history. And you're using that

28:12

era of history as a frame to say

28:15

you're coward if you won't take it.

28:16

Well, I'm not saying [inaudible] saying there

28:18

was a, there was a, in the sixties and fifth,

28:20

there seems to be a , probably an uptake

28:22

of courage. Okay, okay.

28:24

Not to condemn everyone who's not counting

28:26

that cost today. Right , right, right. I don't mean to say everyone,

28:29

but to lead requires

28:31

courage. Right? Right. And I

28:34

don't think there's ever a

28:36

time in history where you can, that requirements going to go

28:38

away. So that

28:40

that's, that's just the cost or leading.

28:43

But that, that, that's, so the interesting

28:45

thing about that, and I loved, I loved the discussion,

28:47

the issue, the thing about that is it's always

28:49

easy for people who are not leading to tell leaders they need

28:51

to be courageous. That's

28:54

the easiest thing to do, right. The , some

28:56

of the Roosevelt quote quote , right? Yeah

28:58

. Step in the arena. And absolutely. And so

29:00

I think, I think that what

29:03

I believe is there's , let's take, let's

29:05

go back to England and Churchill.

29:08

Yup . England was primed

29:11

to want a leader stronger

29:13

than they had had in decades.

29:16

Churchill was over the top. That's

29:18

why people got rid of them . I mean, that guy was, I

29:20

mean, there's a lot there. I love him. But there's a lot there

29:23

about his sense of dominance, his sense of elitism,

29:25

about being English being English

29:28

noble , et Cetera, et cetera. That was all there

29:31

and that's why he was pushed out. He was

29:33

only brought back because

29:35

Hitler was at the doorstep. That was the, and

29:37

the , even then when Chamberlain was going to

29:39

step down, they didn't him. They wanted,

29:41

I can't remember the guy's name, Halifax. They

29:43

wanted Halifax. They were like, yeah, let's give him

29:45

Halifax. And so I think

29:48

that the people have

29:50

to be in a position where they encourage

29:53

courage. And so the word I think, I like what

29:55

you're saying, Todd, is that it's

29:57

not really about being forgiving that that's not the

29:59

appropriate word for it because that's not what it is.

30:01

It's that there has to be a culture

30:04

or the people have to be in a spot where

30:06

they will encourage courage. And still when

30:08

Martin Luther King started out, he didn't want to be the leader

30:10

of, of, of, of the organization

30:12

and the southern leadership conference. He didn't want to be a leader of

30:15

it, but the people encouraged

30:18

his courage and I think they saw

30:20

his hypocrisy in various areas. Yeah . That

30:22

happened with the poor man's march around Chicago. Yet they

30:24

still encouraged his courage.

30:27

I think with Kennedy, he was surrounded by his,

30:29

you know, the Irish mafia as they say. They

30:31

encouraged his courage. So I

30:33

think I love what you're saying is that this is

30:35

not an issue of forgiveness. I'm

30:37

going to go with you on that. This is an issue of courage,

30:40

but then I will say it's always easy for

30:42

like Kara Swisher's article about Zuckerberg

30:45

is about, well look where he's led Facebook

30:47

and they've weaponized this and they've done that.

30:50

And I'm like, okay . Um,

30:53

that's making him responsible for an extraordinary

30:56

amount of things. That is totally

30:58

unfair. And it would

31:00

be smart of him to say,

31:02

you know what, I'm , I'm

31:05

out of this business. I'm retiring. I'm

31:07

going to go over here and do this. Let somebody else take

31:09

over and do this and watch Facebook take a dive.

31:12

He could do that. That would be,

31:14

I suppose, somewhat cowardly, I

31:16

suppose. Right. But if

31:18

you're in a culture that says we love the fact

31:20

that Mark Zuckerberg started in a, in

31:23

a dorm room, has connected millions

31:25

of people, has changed the lives

31:28

of millions of people. We love that. So

31:30

yeah, he's gotten this wrong, but

31:32

he got this wrong because of a failure of leadership

31:34

on a government level. Let's, you know, certainly

31:37

I want to devote , I want to snap back

31:39

on you a little bit of shirt . Can, I would love all

31:41

the pushback. [inaudible]

31:43

yeah. Push back a

31:46

little bit. Um , double

31:48

down on that . You

31:50

know, there is this law which is called the law

31:52

of unintended consequences. Okay.

31:55

Yeah. Okay. Yeah . I believe in that law and

31:57

it's a , it's a big deal. The only

31:59

thing I would fault Zuckerberg with in

32:01

, in his journey thus far is

32:05

at least it's not apparent to me that

32:07

he has availed himself of,

32:10

of older , um,

32:13

experienced , uh, people

32:16

around him where

32:18

he could ask about, you know,

32:20

what are the things that could

32:22

happen here that I'm not thinking

32:24

about. Right. So his, his,

32:27

his, his genius was, we're gonna

32:29

, we're going to allow people to connect

32:31

with each other, communicate post pictures,

32:34

talk about our lives share. And

32:36

there was a time when he said, if,

32:38

if , uh, when, when, when from

32:40

privacy issues came up early in the

32:42

company's history, he said, well, everybody just

32:44

thought to share everything and then we wouldn't

32:46

have problems, which is a really nice

32:49

thing to say. But the thing about

32:51

it is that the, the unintended consequence

32:53

of Facebook is they collect

32:56

all this information. Yeah . They

32:58

have all this information about

33:00

people and that information

33:03

can be used for good or for ill. And

33:06

, um, I'm

33:08

not ascribing any

33:10

, um , you know, nefarious

33:12

, uh , motives to what he's doing with

33:15

that information. But you

33:17

have to think about what

33:19

the unintended consequences are going

33:22

to be of the way you

33:24

build a business.

33:25

So see , I agree with you 100%

33:28

[inaudible] but this is my point and you, you

33:30

, you, you guys are helping me get this. This is my whole point.

33:33

My point is that that's

33:35

how you develop leaders like that. That

33:37

if the, I'll pick the secretary of state or

33:39

we'll pick him. If someone had come in and

33:42

said, this is where a government matters

33:44

had said, look, you have

33:46

the data of whatever, 1,000,400

33:50

million people or whatever, or

33:52

200 million Americans, let's say. And

33:55

because you have that data, you're going to have

33:57

to allow something to happen that

33:59

gives us confidence that you're handling that

34:01

data appropriately. So we're appointing this

34:03

task force to examine what you have. You

34:05

don't have to give away your secrets, but we have people in

34:07

every venture in America

34:10

that are government people that know banking

34:12

secrets and are able to keep them. We're

34:14

going to have him in there. He demons , it'd been better

34:16

if he had just walked down the street, right. And asked

34:18

some CEO's that are, you know, living in

34:20

his neighborhood and said, hey, can you , would you come over

34:22

to my house? But I think that's part of the,

34:24

the right education. I think the education that

34:26

I'm probably saying is it a deterrent

34:29

to leadership, is the education that takes

34:31

place in, in, in the media that

34:33

that is the examination of, and to some

34:35

degree, the destruction of people who

34:37

could lead instead of there being

34:39

some mechanism by which they are being

34:41

coached up now they have to make that choice.

34:44

I get that.

34:45

Okay. I'll push back on both. Slightly.

34:47

Go for , so in terms of your point, Russ,

34:50

about encouragement and a culture of encouragement. I

34:52

think encouragement is a basic human need . So

34:54

any leader has to have a circle. However

34:57

big that circle is to be three people or 300

34:59

right? Where they can draw encouragement

35:01

, right point. But

35:04

if a leader depends on the adulation

35:06

of the larger crowd and

35:08

need encouragement from the greater culture, that

35:11

leader is doomed to fail from [inaudible] hundred

35:13

percent and the great leaders throughout history,

35:15

it actually had to operate in many cases

35:18

without the adulation or encouragement

35:20

of the greater crowd. And

35:22

so again, I think that goes back to the courage

35:24

piece. Dave mentioned,

35:27

what can I just share [inaudible] good point . So

35:31

I agree with that 100%.

35:33

The question is how do you teach

35:36

someone between the ages of

35:38

15, let's say, and 30

35:41

to go seek that out? How

35:43

do you help someone know ? Because

35:45

I know I never learned that there was no class

35:48

I took in college. I think I

35:50

did learn some from coaches,

35:52

but not a lot about

35:54

how you proceed down the path

35:56

of maturing as leader because things you're talking about,

35:58

even courage, that's a mature

36:01

thing. There's a book called the seminarian about Martin

36:03

Luther King that talks about him in the seminary and , and

36:05

what he went through and , and some things

36:08

that, that, that, that probably weren't good that

36:10

he was doing. Uh, as far as,

36:12

you know, studying and all this stuff,

36:14

I won't get into all the details. I can go read that book.

36:16

But I think there's the things you

36:19

talk about to me are really good,

36:21

but there are things that come about after

36:23

someone's been on the journey for awhile and

36:26

I don't think they're easy to get. I don't think it's easy

36:28

to become a courageous person. I think

36:30

some people are born with gifts, you

36:32

know, but if you look at Churchill,

36:34

I think he had a tremendous amount of ambition and

36:37

he had a tremendous desire to be. I mean, Churchill

36:39

had a tremendous desire to fight

36:41

in wars and thought death would be glorious.

36:44

So there are people like that. They just,

36:46

you know, they're like, Hey, I'm going for it. Um,

36:48

I'm just concerned that, that,

36:51

that, and I like the pushback . I'm just tossing

36:53

the tennis ball back over that you're over-simplifying

36:56

how difficult it is to be a leader. Uh,

36:59

I think it's okay . Sorry. I think

37:01

it's really hard to, it wasn't an accusation.

37:03

I'm just thinking it's really hard to be

37:05

a leader. That's why I think it , it

37:07

requires deliberate training and culture

37:10

that teaches it. And I think we can

37:12

infuse in our young women and young men

37:14

or young girls and young boys courage.

37:17

And it often taught , uh, requires

37:19

being a part of something greater than oneself. Because

37:21

if I'm only thinking about myself, the courage will not

37:23

follow. So courage outside of prop for profit

37:26

comes with great loss because if

37:28

you have the courage to stand up and then you, let's

37:30

take the extreme example, you get shot or

37:32

the less extreme example, you get attacked.

37:35

Then once that happens,

37:38

you're alone. Like Winston Churchill. And

37:40

not a lot of people want that for their life. They don't want

37:42

their life to be, I gave my life to a cause.

37:45

I mean let's take you hit it one

37:47

for my life. That's a , if you know,

37:50

leadership can't typically be driven by

37:52

that desire. So

37:55

then how do you motivate

37:57

someone to want to be a leader? Because everybody has to

37:59

self-interest of I want a quality life. I'd like to

38:01

live a while not like that . So if you

38:03

look at MLK, his last speech, when he said

38:06

when he kinda knew he's about to get killed and

38:09

he said, of course

38:11

I want a long life. Right? Longevity

38:13

has its place. Right? And he had young

38:15

kids and he said,

38:17

but he accepted. That's not my lot. Right?

38:20

That's not mine. And then he started shaking.

38:22

Tell me now in case we got into ran out of air,

38:25

how many we have in his bullet the

38:27

next day, but how many hits , how many do we have in history? I mean,

38:30

because we're talking about leadership crisis. If you're going to have to

38:32

wait for the MLKs word finished , that's the , that's the,

38:34

that's the obviously more extreme

38:36

example. Yeah . But just

38:38

thinking on a , on just a day to day , local

38:40

ground level, how do we teach kids

38:43

to have character and conviction? Right.

38:46

And it'll show itself in many

38:48

different ways. I think the combination

38:50

of those two, like I said at the very beginning,

38:52

is at a crossroads right

38:54

now.

38:55

Dave, my concern on it is that, that

38:57

as I told Todd, I think over simplification.

38:59

I don't mean that to be a negative word. I,

39:02

I think some, you've had a long journey

39:04

in leadership. And so I

39:07

think, you know how up it goes, how

39:09

down it goes, how tough it is in life

39:11

on life. I'm, I'm

39:13

concerned. I see this and in

39:15

the work I do , um,

39:18

whether it's , uh , in, in

39:20

the little startup world of finding

39:22

people who are willing to make sacrifices

39:25

to, to build, which may be taking

39:27

less money for awhile while you're building a product

39:29

that may even be to help people less

39:31

than to make money, whether it's in the spiritual

39:34

realm of , of , of helping people be motivated

39:36

to serve and do good things, even though they're not

39:38

getting a financial, you know , benefit

39:41

from it. Um, I

39:43

find a lot of people don't want to be leaders. I

39:45

find a lot of people don't. I tremendous

39:47

numbers and I worry that,

39:50

that, that the [inaudible] and

39:52

I think the thing you point out to on that

39:55

, and I've done it in this conversation

39:58

by using the big example once

40:00

we , it probably exaggerates how tough

40:02

it is to be a leader. So I hear that. But

40:04

I , I, I, I'm a little bit more on the

40:06

journey side going. I look

40:08

at my, I look at my journey and I go, wow, you know, it. Yeah

40:11

, it's tough. And it, you make you

40:13

, you make mistakes every day. Every time

40:15

you open your mouth, you, you look

40:18

10 years past and you go, what was I doing?

40:20

As you, as you get older and you're like, I

40:23

don't even know why I , I don't even know why I made

40:25

those choices I made. Or you get

40:27

trained by somebody to lead in Hawaii , this totally

40:29

not effective. And then you have to unlearn

40:32

what you learn and then learn from

40:34

people, new ways to learn. So

40:36

I , I, I'm in, I'm on that journey

40:38

side of will

40:41

people take up that journey with

40:44

the level of difficulty that it seems to present?

40:46

Well, I think our incentive structure is,

40:48

is incorrect, right? So

40:52

Dave Ray made a great point about Dr Bergan than I ever

40:54

the , of some of the early decisions

40:58

that were made without full consideration of longterm consequences.

41:01

Right? But I say,

41:03

I don't think that's new at all. And I think you could look at any

41:06

error of American industry and there's

41:08

niativity across the board, be

41:10

it forward, be at Rockefeller, be it, you

41:12

name it. Yeah . And we are suffering

41:14

the consequences of that now.

41:16

Like if you follow, if you follow

41:18

global warming or anything like that, those

41:20

are nice . The

41:22

short term decisions that were made

41:24

because the incentives for them

41:26

were really, really positive financially.

41:29

Same with Zuckerberg, right?

41:31

Our whole economic structures

41:34

around four year, 10 year increments,

41:37

never longed longer than that. Yeah. Right.

41:40

We're older, more mature cultures

41:42

might've thought about multigenerational

41:45

type of decisions, right? So there's

41:47

more sustainability and things like that. Right ? And

41:49

so there is a systemic

41:52

nature to the [inaudible]

41:54

and that's just how it is. That's how we have built this little

41:58

boy that leads to a whole nother discussion. But , um,

42:01

uh , meeting is it, did we do it

42:03

intentionally? We didn't intentionally . I just think sh

42:05

, you know, the nature of male narrative

42:07

, 70 years, 80 years, right? So I want

42:09

mine, right? That's the culture

42:12

that we're far . It's the nature of man though, right? There

42:15

are plenty of cultures that didn't live that way. Oh.

42:18

As successful United States it,

42:20

depending on how you measure success, if you look at it

42:22

, it just DDP then

42:24

no, but if you look at it as sustainable

42:26

over a long period of time. Yes. Yeah.

42:29

Dave, I'm, we're, we're both looking to you for wisdom . We're

42:32

both out there. We're both out there in the ocean with

42:34

our sailboats going, we think we're getting somewhere, but

42:36

we don't know.

42:37

Well, I want to come back to your question,

42:39

which was basically, you know, how to , how

42:41

do we encourage people to be, to be leaders? Um,

42:45

my response to that is , um,

42:48

leadership requires mentorship. You

42:52

have to have people around you who

42:55

tell you the truth. In many instances,

42:58

we don't want to hear the truth, right ? Be it

43:00

about marriage or, you know,

43:02

raising kids. Um, it's

43:05

amazing to me how little that, the

43:07

whole, the whole aspect of mentorship

43:09

, uh , is, is,

43:11

is valued and understood. And, and

43:13

it's interesting just kind of across

43:15

the board, some cultures

43:17

, uh , consider it a demeaning.

43:20

Um, I had a consulting client , uh, who

43:22

, um, is a , uh,

43:26

uh, somebody who, who moved to this country

43:28

from somewhere else. And , and

43:30

, uh, I posted , um

43:32

, on linkedin that I was

43:35

going to be doing consulting with this

43:37

company and this

43:39

individual had a number of his

43:41

, uh, of friends

43:43

contacts reach out to him saying, is this

43:46

resists real? Are you, are you really

43:48

getting help? And

43:50

so, you know, I basically was asked

43:52

to take the posting down . Interesting.

43:54

And , um, and I was just blown away.

43:57

I said, really? So

43:59

I mean , um, I think that

44:01

this sounds self-serving cause I'm the oldest

44:03

guy in the room, but on the

44:05

whole, I don't see a lot of

44:08

situations where , um,

44:11

you know, mentoring is, is valued.

44:14

I think that lands pretty squarely

44:17

, um , or addresses

44:19

pretty squarely my concern. I think

44:21

part of what is hard

44:23

about being a leader is if you're

44:25

alone and the people who tend to

44:27

be less caught up into the adulation

44:30

of the crowd are who are mature enough

44:32

to have already figured out that it's not

44:34

going to be with you forever anyway. I mean that's how I live.

44:36

I live like, you know what? Um,

44:39

I, when I was young, I used to think, man, if people

44:41

are cheering your name and , and, and thanking

44:43

you and pat you on the back, you're in good shape. And then you

44:45

realize in the down moments when they're

44:47

not patting you on the back, you sit here and go, hey,

44:49

what happened with all that? And you start learning. I

44:51

can't live for that and I can't have that. But

44:54

I think it takes someone older to tell you that. And

44:56

I think our, the point maybe we're all, because we

44:58

are all are converging on, I'm going to check with you guys

45:00

on this, is that at the

45:03

end of the day, leadership is hard. And

45:06

sometimes I think one thing a leader

45:08

has to do is he has to pick his culture, right? He has to say,

45:10

this is the organization I want to lead. And

45:12

don't go lead something where the culture is

45:14

gonna eat you up. And so you guys say, if you see that

45:17

you've got to get out of there, you want to be in a culture,

45:19

this , they're going to mentor you. They're going to understand you, they're going to

45:21

be patient with you, they're going to let you make

45:23

mistakes. Uh , they're gonna let you do things

45:25

wrong. And probably , um,

45:28

the mentorship part of it is the part

45:30

that it's interesting.

45:32

I've , I face it with guys that are younger than me.

45:35

They really want to prove they can do stuff

45:38

and they, and they can sometimes think if I

45:40

get help, then that detracts from

45:42

my accomplishment. Um,

45:44

and I don't, I don't think it does. Uh

45:47

, um, and so I think that's probably hard. And

45:49

I think going back to what we were, we were bouncing

45:51

back and forth about , um,

45:54

and I like how we switched that word unforgiving.

45:56

Cause I , I , I mean we need to

45:58

be gracious, but I think, I think, I

46:00

think we're , what we're talking about about development

46:03

is a much bigger issue. And

46:05

a mentor I would think would

46:07

say to someone who is at a certain age, say

46:09

they're 25 and they're making mistake , certain area

46:12

would say, you know, you shouldn't take that promotion.

46:14

You shouldn't go over there and try and run that. You're not ready.

46:17

And, and that, that, that's how you

46:19

protect yourself. Or when you go down and fall

46:21

on your face to help you get back up. I'll tell you guys a

46:23

story I want to, so when I moved here in 93

46:25

to the Silicon Valley , um,

46:28

I took , uh, I was , uh , took it , took

46:30

a program at Stanford , uh , um, on

46:33

innovation. They had program , had an innovation. Jim

46:35

Collins was here , one of my favorite business thinkers. Um,

46:38

several engineering people, MBA business

46:40

school, people from Berkeley were there. And

46:42

it was sort of my introduction to the place, but it was

46:44

all about leadership and innovating and leadership.

46:47

And it introduced ideas to me. I'm from the east coast, new

46:49

long ways that I hadn't thought about. You know, they were

46:51

much more into the silicon valley type.

46:53

Well, in fact the first story I heard was about

46:55

Hewlett and Packard, Jim Collins, first

46:57

thing he said, is this how you build a company? And

47:00

I sat there and went, oh , I hadn't heard that story. You

47:02

know, that they, that they did , they were what he

47:04

says, they were more concerned about who's on the bus

47:06

than about what they were trying to do. And that's why they built such a

47:08

great company. But in the evening

47:11

session, and there's about 40 people in the program

47:13

in the evening session, Steve Jobs was there,

47:15

but he was at next, and

47:17

I had read the book Odyssey, but John Sculley , so I'm

47:19

expecting this, you know, charismatic

47:22

Dynamo Guy and I walk in,

47:24

he's got his kid with him and he's talking

47:27

and I'm like, this isn't the, this

47:30

isn't the guy I read about in the book. I

47:32

mean, and I actually said, asked him after he

47:34

was done talking, he talked about leadership and I asked

47:37

a few questions. I said, how are you ? How do you pick

47:39

leaders? What do you do? And I was sort of struck by the

47:41

depth of his understanding, but he was at

47:43

the time being seen as sort of a failure.

47:45

Like what happened to that dude? And

47:47

I walked out with him and I was like, Hey, can I come over to the next

47:50

sometime ? He goes , there's nothing there, but computers, you don't want to come over

47:52

there. And , and he was so ordinary.

47:54

Like I was expecting so much power. And

47:56

I, and I think that Kinda stuck in my

47:58

head is a

48:01

lot of, a lot of people

48:05

cast him aside and

48:07

yet, you know, arguably, he now

48:09

could be argued to be the greatest CEO

48:12

of the early 21st

48:14

century, 20th century. He could

48:16

be in that discussion of whether it's a hundred people or whatever.

48:20

Um, and I think he's still probably, Dave, you know, better than me. He still

48:22

probably had some of the weaknesses that he had previously,

48:25

but time, age, a little

48:28

bit of time in the wilderness. And he became, you

48:30

know, extraordinary things that I think was extraordinary.

48:32

As I read an article where he was interviewed, he goes,

48:34

well, I think the differences I've learned,

48:36

I need a team and I can't

48:38

do it by myself. And um , I

48:41

don't think a lot of people are talking to . That would

48:43

be my point. I W I , I mean

48:45

probably somebody out there who taught me what to say. I taught you that,

48:48

but I wasn't taught that early.

48:50

Like I was taught you need to be

48:52

the star. You know, you get out there and hit

48:54

the most shots, do the most stuff, be

48:56

the accomplish it, show people you can

48:59

do it. And then you get older and you realize

49:01

that that just makes you tired and it makes you make

49:03

a lot of mistakes and you cause you

49:05

overreach and you exhaust yourself and you burn

49:07

yourself out and you don't even know it. Um,

49:10

he's my example of a guy who I look at and

49:12

I say, I'm not sure politically

49:14

that a , that and this is this such a big

49:16

statement. I should be careful, but I'm not sure politically

49:19

that we know how to develop a Steve jobs in the political

49:21

world that we know how to let a guy go off to the

49:23

wilderness and show back up later after

49:26

having totally falling on his face

49:28

and then run for president. Maybe we do. Maybe

49:30

it's just that they don't have the courage that you were talking about

49:32

to come back. But

49:34

I appreciate your story. A quick story about

49:37

what Dave said around mentorship. Um,

49:40

I don't know if Dave remembers this, but about 10

49:42

years ago, Dave gave me an

49:44

hour of his time and

49:47

uh, I was an overeager young

49:50

professional , silicon valley, et Cetera , met

49:52

with them and uh, he talked

49:54

about a number of things very calmly

49:56

as he is today. And

49:58

he shared , uh , two things that jumped

50:01

out. One about his journey of

50:04

self awareness as it relates to leadership.

50:07

And he also shared with me, encouraged

50:10

me to be more patient

50:12

and more faithful and

50:15

to stop jumping around. Quite Frank . He

50:18

was one hour of his time. I must have

50:20

revisited those two points

50:23

hundreds of times. And

50:26

I've shared those points via

50:28

that story with dozens

50:30

of people. Unlike Russ, I don't take credit for it.

50:34

I say a friend

50:36

of mine, Dave banks, and

50:38

I think when you shared about mentorship,

50:41

I was like, man, I spent an hour with Dave

50:43

and it I'm , you know, we're 10

50:46

15 years later, I continue

50:49

to grow on the advice

50:51

that you gave me in that one hour. And

50:54

it's really powerful and I share those stories all

50:56

the time about you. I don't

50:58

think I ever came back and told you that, but

51:01

I tell them that you know, that it came from you and not

51:03

me. But anyways, I think that's a, a

51:05

story I just wanted to share about mentorship and Dave's

51:07

point.

51:08

So I think we've had a good

51:10

discussion and I

51:12

think that if you guys tell me if I'm

51:14

correct or if I'm wrong, but I

51:16

think one thing we all agree on is

51:19

there's a crisis in leadership at that crisis

51:21

is in the development of leadership, the development

51:23

of leaders that we have to, we have to improve, develop

51:26

the infrastructure, the culture where

51:28

great leaders can be developed and

51:30

that a , it's not necessarily saying we're

51:32

worse off than we ever have been in history, but

51:35

we haven't figured out how to, I'm going to put

51:37

words in all of our mouths. We haven't been able to

51:39

figure it out, how to take those, those may

51:41

be local leaders that are out there being courageous

51:44

and get them to step up into more

51:46

leadership that we think part of that

51:48

is courage, that that that courage

51:50

has to be nurtured. The willingness to say it doesn't

51:52

matter if the crowd is cheering my name or not, and

51:55

that part of that is mentorship. That

51:57

you can't get that kind of courage unless you

51:59

have somebody watching over you, like a parent, so

52:01

you can walk, fall, walk, fall

52:03

and get back up. Um,

52:06

one thing's for sure from what we're

52:08

talking about today that you have to be

52:10

intentional about developing leaders. It's not

52:12

just going to happen. Um, so

52:15

hopefully y'all get you guys back because I

52:17

could sit here for three hour now. I could sit

52:19

here all day and just have him bring in food and keep talking

52:22

free cause food, bringing food with me . [inaudible]

52:24

well I, I didn't have a lawyer

52:27

. I could have a two hour one with you on Churchill

52:29

and a three hour one. Scott was Todd

52:31

on uh, on courage and leadership

52:34

because it's such an expansive subject.

52:36

So hopefully I'll get you guys back and we'll keep,

52:38

I love the fact that we're all

52:41

pooling our sort of experience

52:43

and opinions and coming in with some

52:45

kind of consensus about what we think and

52:47

uh, I'll leave you with this. Todd. Put down competence,

52:50

character and connection. I think it's a good place to

52:52

start. Also don't forget to go read

52:55

the book alone by William Manchester, that,

52:57

that I really recommend Dave would recommend

53:00

the whole set , uh , by William

53:02

Manchester on a, on Churchill. He certainly

53:05

epitomizes everything we're talking about

53:07

today, the ups and downs and all.

53:09

Thanks a lot for listening to our podcast

53:12

leading different. Thank you to Todd singleton and

53:15

Dave, thanks for joining me, Russ

53:17

Tule , and trying to figure out what

53:19

may be the unfavorable, but we enjoyed the journey

53:21

and have a great day.