Jason Taylor 0:00

Welcome to this edition of the People's Playbook Podcast. I'm pretty pumped today. I have a great guest, somebody I've talked to quite frequently in the past. Bob Bouchard is founder and CEO of Integrate. He helps organizations unlock what he calls unused human capacity, which I love that. We're going to get into that, Bob. With decades of experience in leadership, sales, team performance, Bob focuses on helping people and organizations just perform to their highest level and get them to a really great place that doesn't feel like it takes too much work when we just tweak some things along the way. So, Bob, welcome to the show.

Bob Borcherdt 0:37

Yeah, Jason, thanks so much for having me and really looking forward to the conversation. You're right. We've had some great dialogue back and forth.

Jason Taylor 0:43

Yeah, absolutely. I let's get right into that unused human capacity, you know, quote that you use a lot, and I love it. So you talk about that as a hidden cost in organizations. Why do most leaders fail to recognize it?

Bob Borcherdt 0:56

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I think the biggest reason for that is we get taught all along the way that we can only improve what we measure. And the problem is there's no measurement for it. The only thing that it is is a drain on your PL, but you can't see it. It doesn't show up on any line item. So people are really kind of unaware of it. I call it almost like this hidden epidemic of this drain on your bottom line. Because it has no name, because it has no measurement in any of your financial statements, it just kind of goes unnoticed. And what we're trying to do is raise awareness to that and really make people aware, like, no, there's a drain here. You just don't even know that it's there. And it's all in relationship to this capacity that you have in your people. It's interesting. We when we ask CEOs or business owners, do you have a line item on any of your financial statements to measure on used human capacity? They always say no. You ask them if they have it, and what do you think they always say?

Jason Taylor 1:49

Yes.

Bob Borcherdt 1:50

Yes, all the time. So intuitively we know it's there, but we can't put a finger on it.

Jason Taylor 1:56

Yeah. It it's amazing that you you touched on that because I often say, you know, the hard when we're talking about a PL or a financial summary, we we see those hard black and white lines. We see rent, payroll, benefits, insurance, you know, cost of goods. We see all that stuff. That jumps out of the page on us. What we don't see is everything almost other than the payroll that uh it talks about a human. We don't see turnover, we don't see retention, we don't see efficiency, we don't see productivity, we don't see engagement. And those three, those things together fuel fuel culture. And and you and I have talked about this before. So the actual math is hey, if I decrease my turnover, increase my retention, inspire my current teams, those, those three things together equal efficiency. Efficiency is going to drive productivity, productivity fuels engagement. And if I have an engaged team, that's gonna fuel my culture, which guess what? It has a direct line in my bottom line. And I talk to C-suite all the time and I say, listen, it's not a fluke or something lucky that happens that companies with great culture, guess what? They make more money than companies that don't have great culture. They work hard at it, right? Or, Bob, why do people want people like yourself and myself coming into their business? Right? If it doesn't make any money and and whatnot, why the heck could we talk to Bob or Jason? Right?

Bob Borcherdt 3:17

Well, and I think that's one of the challenges that we face because I do think our industry has been complicit in really kind of just treating symptoms. And so, and I and owners, you know, they kind of don't want to hear about the soft stuff that oftentimes the human stuff gets thrown into the soft stuff, right? And I think what you and I have tried to do is go, no, this is actually about how you're running your business. This is actually impacting your performance, as you said, your performance, your productivity, and your profitability. So we're here to help you maximize that. We do it all the time with machines in a manufacturing plant. We're always looking to optimize capacity. Well, we have way more probably invested in our humans than we do in machines. It's just humans are way more complex.

Jason Taylor 3:59

For sure. It's the hardest thing in the world. You know, people we can manage systems and processes, but managing human beings is hard, right? Because everybody's different. Everybody's different. And if I try to lead you the same way I try to lead somebody else, it's it's it's not the same. And and gone are the days where we say everybody needs to hear the same message, everybody needs to be led the same way. Uh that's like giving everybody the same size of shoe. It makes no sense, right? So, how how do I manage Bob? Give the exact same message to Matt in a way where it resonates with both. And how can I tweak that and be a little more of a self-aware leader? And I I don't know what your thoughts are on self-aware leaders, Bob, but I find that it is a journey and we people aren't as self-aware as they think they are.

Bob Borcherdt 4:48

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's probably the great muscle in leadership that needs to be developed the most, is just continually creating more self-awareness. And, you know, in your example of messaging to two different people, unless I understand that person and unless I understand the language that they best understand, which we now through behavioral analytics, we can understand all of that stuff. Like the data will reveal it to us. As a leader, I have the ability now to speak different languages to different people. You know, the first book that we wrote, Leading to the One, was all around that. I often said, I have four sons, and being a dad wasn't very hard. Being four different dads to four different sons, incredibly difficult. And that's where we are in the leadership space. Like, how do I be four different leaders to four different team members? And we just refer to that as leading to the one because you really do have to lead, as you said, individually.

Jason Taylor 5:38

Yeah. Yeah. That's that's a great point you said about being a dad, because I'm just thinking of my two boys, and you're right, they're completely different people.

Bob Borcherdt 5:46

Totally different.

Jason Taylor 5:47

Right. And the way Jacob feels is different than the way Brett feels, right? And you know, with with one of them I could be really direct. One of them I have to be a little softer with, right? And just figure it out, right? But you're right. We have to kind of look at our our team and just say, hey, how does this person need to hear that message?

Bob Borcherdt 6:03

That's right.

unknown 6:04

Yeah.

Bob Borcherdt 6:04

Gone are the days, like you said, where we can just stand up and and just assume that everybody's going to get it the same way. It's just it's just not just not true.

Jason Taylor 6:13

Bob, you're very good at unlocking team performance. And when we talk about unlocking that performance, what leadership behavior creates the biggest shift fastest when doing that?

Bob Borcherdt 6:24

Yeah, that you know, that's a really great question. And I think what I have noticed in my you know X number of decades now in the business world and just being a leader and serving leaders, I think the biggest issue we have that can change things quickly is just around the area of expectations. I think most people are operating in organizations with very unclear expectations. I think leaders, we think we're communicating expectations clearly. And in reality, we're probably communicating them clearly in our head. We're just not communicating them in a way that the person actually understands. And I think when we've seen, or matter of fact, we just had a CEO a couple weeks ago. We were doing a system implementation, and he goes, if we just focused on clearer expectation for one year and get 1% better at it, our profitability will just blow up. That's how significant he saw that issue. I think then when 1%, if we just get 1% better at it over the next year, our profits will explode. So he knows we're just not communicating as effectively around these expectations. I think the second component of that is once we have those, how do we give each other feedback? Because by the way, expectations are bi-directional, and so should feedback between leaders and their team members, right? And then lastly, is the thing you just said earlier. And if we can nail down expectations and feedback, boy, the way we communicate, I think it just can turn things very, very quickly. I think a lot of organizations have what I call organizational confusion, and it's expensive. You know, there's research that indicates that's between $4,000 and $12,000 per year per employee just in unclear expectations and poor communication. So it's expensive to not get that right. And when you do get it right, it turns it quick.

Jason Taylor 8:12

Kind of segue into the next question. So I I talked I hear I talked to you and you talk about leaders and you talk about the environments that they create. So how do leaders create that uh environment where people naturally want to give more than the minimum as opposed to just kind of doing what I'm supposed to do and then I'm gone, I'm gonna punch out and I'm or or leave the building?

Bob Borcherdt 8:33

Yeah, I think we kind of started on that just a little bit ago when we talk about self-awareness and and I would we use the term SOS, awareness of self, others, and situations. I think when leaders are aware of themselves, they're aware of the people around them and they're aware of the situations they're in. So if I can be aware of my team and how they're really designed, I think we do a really poor job of trying to turn people and develop them into us as leaders, or we try and develop them into who we need them to be. The goal is to develop them in who they're designed to be. And when we can be highly aware of that, one, their design, and then two, the environment they're gonna thrive in and we get that right fit, I think that's where things really start to turn. But as high levels of awareness of who is that person, what is their leadership identity, what environment are they gonna most thrive in? Because when we get that wrong, what the sciences tell us is it's a huge energy drain. So when we wonder why people are exhausted and fatigued, it's because we don't have that right fit taking place.

Jason Taylor 9:38

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Do you find, and and just kind of going off, so you you do work with, you know, some professional sports teams as well. And do you find a lot of that from business the business world and corporate office to the actual being a team on the ice, do you do you find that that resonates as well?

Bob Borcherdt 9:57

Oh, it's it's exactly the same. It's bizarre. You know, I did I didn't think I'd ever work in the sports world. I grew up as an athlete and played in college, but I never envisioned my business taking me to that place. And, you know, by chance it did, and at the highest level of one of my favorite sports, which is hockey. And, you know, you start thinking, well, how is this going to translate? And and Jason, the thing is, they're people. People are people, regardless of the industry, regardless of the size of the company or organization, regardless of what they're trying to accomplish, it's always just about people.

Jason Taylor 10:31

Yeah. Yeah. And isn't it amazing that when you're talking about the sporting world, whether it's you know on the field, on the diamond, on the ice, the coach has so much influence on how that game or how that organization is going to you know react to kind of what's coming at them. And if you think of the coach as, hey, the manager or the VP or the CEO, whatever of that of that team on the ice, it it does really resonate.

Bob Borcherdt 10:56

Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, and the work that I've done with some of these teams, one in particular, you mentioned how do you turn these things quickly. You know the story. It was expectations of two of their captains that were just totally unrealistic expectations of them. They expected them a lead in a certain way. They'd waited for them to do it for years. And what we had to do is we couldn't fix the player because the player wasn't broken. We had to change the expectation. And once we changed the expectation, it kind of let loose the problem. And the other part of that story that was really fascinating too is when you have a head coach start to understand, like my assistants don't coach the same way I do, and I need to understand that, and they don't communicate the same way, and we got to understand these players and how we communicate to each of them individually. You know, that particular team went to the Stanley Cup three years in a row recently and won two of them. And so it the stuff, no, it's not just because of the work we did. You you got to be really good at hockey and keep the puck out of your net and put it in theirs and stay healthy and everything else. But these are the simple things we get stuck on that sometimes impact us getting to those levels.

Jason Taylor 12:01

Yeah. I was talking to this gentleman a few months back, and his name's Brian Basley. He's an excellent leader, he's an excellent culture people guy. And he said to me, he said, you know, you walk into these offices and they have a big mission statement on the on the wall and whatnot, but they're when and they have big, big strategies and they have SOPs and they have everything kind of ready, like everything's dialed in. But when you ask them what their people strategy is or what their playbook is, they they don't have any clue. They they think they think almost, you know, well, we give them a fitness membership, they got benefits and whatnot. That's really not that's part of culture, but it's not really it that doesn't ingrain your culture into a system, right? And he was just talking about how many how many companies actually create a bottleneck through their people as opposed to their systems and strategy based on just not knowing how to figure out the game. Right? Yeah, it's yeah, it's it's it's a challenge because you're always you're always looking at people differently, right? Yes. Bob, you use data and behavioral insights through predictive index in your in your world. How should leaders balance analytics with intuition?

Bob Borcherdt 13:10

Yeah, you know, that's that's an interesting topic because as you know, oftentimes we run into people that are like, yeah, but I just have good gut. You know, the data might say this, but my gut just tells me. And, you know, we certainly don't want to discount that because that can certainly be true at times. I will say this we're big believers in being data-centric and then insight-driven and action-oriented. I think the intuitive part of leadership comes from getting the insight. Okay, so if I have the data, now let my intuition take over and go, now what's the insight to take from that data? What do I pull from that? And then how do I put that into action? So I don't totally discount intuition. I think, you know, as we know, the behavioral data is one data point, it's a pretty powerful one, but you got to pay attention to other things. And a big one that we spend a lot of time on, Jason, is mental maps. You know, mental maps can override behavioral drives, just the way people see things or think about things. The more a leader.

Jason Taylor 14:12

I'd love the audience to hear a little more about that. So when you say mental maps, what do you mean?

Bob Borcherdt 14:16

Well, the concept is basically we don't really see and hear through our eyes and ears. Everything gets interpreted in our brain. And everything gets interpreted through these filters. They reside in a certain part of our brain. We call them mental maps. You can call them mindsets or whatever you want to call them. And so you and I can see the exact same event and see it totally differently. Why? Because we're going to run it through different filters, we're going to run it through different mental maps. We see that when leaders really start to uncover those maps in their people, they start to see them in an even deeper way. It's another critical data point, right? Because I can look at data and go, man, this person should be acting this way or behaving this way. They're not. So that's when I, as a leader, have to start asking more questions as to really what's locking that person down. So if you think about it almost as glasses, you know, we can take these glasses on and off. And the beautiful thing about mental maps is we can change them. We can reshape them, right? It's neuroplasticity, which you're familiar with. And so the more we can change these mindsets, some of them are good and we want to lock them down. Some of them aren't so good for us, and we need to be open to changing them.

Jason Taylor 15:22

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, yeah, what what I love that. I'm going to steal that off you. Mental maps. I love that. I love that. I'm going to you didn't you didn't trademark that, did you? Because I'm probably going to use that later on in a conversation. No, that's that's fantastic.

Bob Borcherdt 15:35

And you know, Peter Senge was using it 25 years ago in in the fifth discipline. You'll talk about these mental models that people, you know, run through. And you and I both know we've worked long enough to know what happens to an employee when the boss gets a map about that employee's performance. Well, then they interpret everything through that map. And it's almost like the person can't win.

Jason Taylor 15:56

Yeah. And I I'll be completely honest here. I've done that with people before. We've all experienced somebody maybe, you know, more than once do something. So a lot of times you have to say, okay, it's happened a couple of times, but that doesn't define the person and means that they can't change or get to a different place. Right. And I find myself struggling sometimes. I have to say, okay, Jason, think of the okay, that was a at a time in that person's life where something was going on or whatnot, but like get out of that and just think of the situation and the logic and take the emotion out and just kind of think of this a little more as a business decision, right? Yeah, absolutely. What is one misconception leaders have about motivation?

Bob Borcherdt 16:40

Well, I'm gonna do this. Can I include motivation and development into the same category? Because I think the answer is the same for both. I think we're under the it's it's being under the illusion that we can actually motivate or develop. So let me break that out a little bit. I think, and again, I'm I'm in my early 60s now, so I've been around the block a few times. The more I look at the work environment, the more I look at the leadership space. Like you've been in rooms and you've asked people to identify like define the word leadership for me. And you get a hundred definitions, right?

Jason Taylor 17:11

Yeah.

Bob Borcherdt 17:11

Like I don't think that we have any word in our vocabulary that gets more used that has no definition, no common agreed upon definition, right? Okay. So of course we have our own opinion of what we think the definition is, and we believe the the leader's greatest responsibility is to create an environment where a person can be motivated and developed. So, in other words, they have to own it. Like I gotta wake up every morning and own my motivation. If I need cheerleaders every morning to get me out of bed to get going, I got a problem on my hands, right? And and my development is my responsibility as an employee. My boss's role is to create an environment where I can do those two things, that I can be motivated and I can develop myself. The key is I don't think most leaders know how to create those environments. And that's where we're running. You said it earlier about culture, right? Like I don't you can use the same word culture as environment. I just and I think organizations have multiple cultures, especially the bigger they get. I call them microcultures because culture's led by a leader. And so one big organization doesn't just have one culture. Well, if I, as a leader, don't know how to create culture or environment and and the one or the one that I'm creating reduces the motivation of my people and doesn't develop them, how is that just not a drain on your bottom line? Those people are never going to perform at their best. They're never gonna get that discretionary effort that you talked about a little bit earlier. So that's I'd kind of lump those two things into one and go, we as leaders have to understand that in a totally different way.

Jason Taylor 18:53

How do you get one culture thriving in an organization? Because I agree with you, there's multiple cultures in an organization, but sometimes when we go into organizations, you see, hey, the leader says this, and these are the values, these are our core values, and this is our, you know, kind of what we believe, and this is what we we make sure that we do a check on every time we make a decision, take action, etc. etc. But then you do have those micro little departments that, you know, based on who's leading that department, it goes totally against what the overall culture is. How how do you stop that?

Bob Borcherdt 19:25

Well, clearly those those department heads need to be in alignment with the the bigger overarching culture, right? Because every organization typically has that big, broad 30,000-foot culture thing that they might identify with. And those things have to be in alignment. And I think senior leaders have to make sure they are in alignment. What we like to say is I think oftentimes it comes down to what we promote versus what we permit. I see a lot of things where we promote stuff in our cultures, but then we permit totally different behavior, even in ourselves, sometimes as leaders. You know, we take action that goes against what our culture might promote. That was actually one of the key things in the in the NHL story. You know, there's lots of banners, lots of words, lots of things on the walls. We say a lot of things, but they were different than what we actually permitted. And you know, smart people see that. They see that gap in organizations. And if you have a lot of your high performing people seeing gaps between what you promote and permit, they start to question things.

unknown 20:32

Yeah.

Bob Borcherdt 20:32

It's almost like say do, right? Exactly.

Jason Taylor 20:35

So working with teams in your experience, what causes a high performing team to slowly move lose momentum over time?

Bob Borcherdt 20:42

Yeah, I think one word success. Okay. Yeah, I think I think we start to get good at it, we start to hit a stride, we start to hit our goals, we start to hit our numbers, you know, we kind of start to build this momentum and we get there, and then what's the next thing we do? We forget everything we did to get us there, right? All those daily habits, the determination, the things we did. It's like we kind of arrived, and then we've got this pride or this hubris. Jim Collins talked about it after good to great, right? Like how the mighty fall. How did these great companies fall? Well, it was pride. You know, you get to a place of succeeding and you forget kind of what got you there.

Jason Taylor 21:23

Yeah, it's amazing too. I was I was at this meeting the other day and we had they were talking about, you know, a big conglomerate like Walmart, and then a little company like Amazon came around who sold books at first, right? He said, I uh, you know, I'm gonna sell books. Oh, wait a second. I think I can sell a couple other things as well. Oh, wait a second, I think I could sell everything. Oh, on top of that, I think I want to do some TV. On top of that, I want to do music. Like it's amazing what happens when you you're successful, but you think, even though I'm successful, I have to pivot. And all of a sudden you're not the little guy on the street anymore, you're the big, huge guy on the street, and people are trying to follow you. And say, hey, because you were agile and you thought differently and moved with speed, now I'm trying to play catch up with you.

Bob Borcherdt 22:06

And that's right. Yeah, I think one of my favorite stories and that whole topic is there's a great Steve Jobs movie that came out in 2016. And it's this battle between Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak over the Macintosh versus the Apple II. And Waz and and John Scully, who was, I think, president at the time, came from Pepsi. They wanted to optimize and make the Apple II like, no, there's and and Jobs is going, he's the visionary, right? He's going, no, like, guys, that's not even the future. I'm trying to get you to the future. Well, when you hunker down on that thing and won't give way, eventually it's going to go away, especially in the tech world, right? And Jobs knew that. And he kept trying to push the organization over to here. He was actually ahead of the technology, as it turned out. But that's a hard thing to do in organizations.

Jason Taylor 22:53

Yeah. Stay ahead and stay uh in that uncomfortable zone. And is this going to work? I saw this one interview with Jobs, and he was talking about he just literally said it. He goes, Okay, you're going to take your camera, you're going to take your he showed a Sony Walkman. He goes, he goes, You're going to take your phone. He shows all the things. And he goes, it's just going to be your computer. It's all going to be in one. And people were looking at him like he was crazy. And what the heck is this guy talking about? And he goes, It's it's actually going to be in your pocket one day. And if you think about just him thinking of that way ahead of time, thinking it's all going to be here. And I could only imagine what's next with AI and and whatnot. Like we're we're going to, you know, we're going to see some things over the next few years that we're just going to think, oh, oh my Lord, I can't believe this is actually happening.

Bob Borcherdt 23:43

You know, we've noticed something, Jason, uh, in that area. It seems to us like the basic flow of work in any organization, and we can use the Apple as an ex the Apple story as an example, is there's ideas, and that's great. But if ideas are just ideas and nothing happens, then they're just ideas, right? And ideas have to become plans. And someone has to own that plan and manage that plan and make sure that plan gets executed. And it's typically not the person that comes up with the ideas.

Jason Taylor 24:12

No. You usually can't be because they're all about ideas and concepts, and that's how the company grows, but they need somebody to implement.

Bob Borcherdt 24:18

So you have ideas, you have plans, and then you have execution.

Jason Taylor 24:22

Yes.

Bob Borcherdt 24:22

And the idea people are worse at the they're they're the worst at the execution part of it, right? So we see this in entrepreneurs, small organizations, and so and so what happens when the ideas don't turn into plans, they don't get executed, right? Well, I think one of our big challenges, frankly, in business is we have to match the right people to those three things. Some people are idea people. We see it in the data, right? Some people are people that can hold plans and own plans. And some people are better as executors. You know, they're that's where they're going to focus. And I know myself as a visionary who likes to come up with ideas. If I'm not careful and I produce too many of them, I get my team way off track. Right. So I have that key person who's that implementer. She's that person that can translate to the rest of the organization. And I think about Steve Jobs. Like, who were those people that could relate to what he was thinking and saying and keep the whole organization on track? It'd be fascinating to talk to them.

Jason Taylor 25:22

Yeah. I have that person too, where I'll come to come to her and I'll just say, Here, here's what we're going to do. This is how we're going to do it. We need to, we need it there by next Wednesday. And she'll look at me like, next Wednesday, like, you know how big of a project that is? And I'll be like, oh no, it's like these four steps. And she'll, no, gee, it's like 14 steps. And and and I'll be like, Really? Like, I'll be almost like, you think? And sure enough, she's right. Because I I'm very much like you. I'm just like, let's move with speed. Let's get some, let's try something different and whatnot. And I don't dial into what by that great idea, what does that really mean to implement it and take action on it as opposed to just talking about it?

Bob Borcherdt 26:02

That's right. Well, and you you remember back in the day when the talk was, well, pace of the leader, pace of the team.

Jason Taylor 26:08

Yeah.

Bob Borcherdt 26:08

Well, what do you do when that leader's the idea person that wants to go a thousand miles an hour all the time and we think the rest of the team is going to go at that same speed? I mean, it's amazing that we get stuff done in organizations, actually, when you think about it.

Jason Taylor 26:22

That's great. That is so true. It is amazing we get stuff done at the end of the day. It's a miracle. Yeah. I I I saw this one quote with Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, and he's they were talking about, you know, when they're creating Seinfeld and curb your enthusiasm. And they said, man, we we get absolutely nothing done in a day. We're really good at doing nothing all day long, right? Like Seinfeld said to Larry, he said, We're actually like, if you look at our day at the end of the day, not much has been accomplished, right? Just because they're idea people and they're they're about agility and whatnot.

Bob Borcherdt 26:55

Well, and they're the only people that can create a show about nothing.

Jason Taylor 26:57

Exactly.

Bob Borcherdt 26:59

That's all Seinfeld is just a show about nothing. Exactly.

Jason Taylor 27:02

So you've had the opportunity to work with loads of organizations in many different sizes. And the best part is across different industries.

Bob Borcherdt 27:10

Yeah.

Jason Taylor 27:10

So when you look at all those companies and you see, you know, the different leaders of those companies, what leadership challenge seems to be universal no matter what the company size is?

Bob Borcherdt 27:21

Yeah, you know, I think I think what we're noticing again is this idea, plan, execution thing. I think that's going to be something we're going to talk a lot more about. I think managing energy and leaders that can understand that's going to be a topic that we're going to talk more and more about. But Jason, what's really interesting right now is there's just a ton of research coming out on how powerful really good one-on-ones can be, like really effective one on. It's actually they're saying where development, that's where you're going to create that culture of development that we talked about is in those one-on-ones. I think the people that I'm seeing have the most success are the ones that are mastering that. They're starting to understand that maybe this whole collective team thing that we've often tried to do, you know, with fun events and some stuff like that, there's maybe some value in that, but the one-on-one interactions between the team members, between the leader and the team, you know, those team members and their teams, those one-on-one interactions are really going to be the catalyst for catapulting organizations forward. And we have discovered most leaders, if they're having one-on-ones, they're very transactional in nature. They're just not very developmental and they're not very relational. And so if that's where development's going to take place, we really have to train leaders on how to create that environment. Because remember what I said, that's their job. They got to create that soil for that development can to take place. So regardless of the size of the organization, it always comes down to people to people. It's just in bigger organizations, you have lots of them.

Jason Taylor 28:56

Do you suggest a set agenda for those meetings, or do you like, do you do you do you say to a leader, hey, you should, you know, there should be these four questions or five questions that are consistent with everybody in your organization and then kind of go one-on-one. Like how how do you how do you script that almost in a way?

Bob Borcherdt 29:12

Yeah, I think I actually think they're like we said earlier, with the leading to the one and you know, being a a father of four dads, I think they're all different. I think, as you know, there are some people with data sets, like they have to have an agenda. That's not even an option. Right? And they need time to prepare ahead of time to be introspective and think about what the conversation's going to be. Others like you and I, we can show up and create the agenda. And we'll do it very quickly at the beginning. I think the key is going, what kind of one-on-one are we going to have right now? Like, let's take the first 10 minutes, Jason, and just let's just get caught up relationally. Or, like, I've got my team for next Monday. We're going to watch that Steve Jobs movie, and we're going to look at it in the context of these four quadrants that we're creating, and we're going to watch it kind of play out, and then we're going to get totally developmental. Right? We're just looking at it, going, we've got these concepts. How do we understand them deeper? How do we how do they impact us and how we run our organization? That's a developmental thing. The transactional part is just how are we doing on our goals? How are we doing on our KPIs? It's those types of things. I think we get lost in that stuff and we sometimes don't get the other stuff. We don't see the value in it, or we don't know how to do it.

Jason Taylor 30:24

I agree. I agree. How how often do you think those one-on-ones need to happen?

Bob Borcherdt 30:28

I think it depends on the situation. I think if the relationship's young, probably weekly. I think as the relationship matures, those might that matures, it might spread out a little bit more, and that's okay. But I'll tell you what we're finding too is there's a difference between formal and informal one-on-ones. Like we call them leading to the one interactions or L21s. So there's almost more value in the spontaneous, informal exchanges that we have than maybe the formal one. The formals are our formal sit-downs that we have scheduled. But I think leaders oftentimes miss the opportunity for that informal opportunity as well. And with remote work, that becomes even harder because if we're all in the same office, I can bump into somebody and have an informal interaction.

Jason Taylor 31:16

When we're remote, you have to be way more intentional about it. Yeah. And I feel when we're remote, leaders are forgetting that that you know what, I haven't talked to that person in a while. I need to check in. And then what happens is they see that your phone number come in on the cell. Oh, what does he want? No, I just want to catch up and I just want to say, hey, how are you doing? Sometimes I'll be emailing somebody back and forth, and I'll think, man, we could have gotten this done so much quicker if we just actually picked up the phone and said, Hey, this is what I'm trying to do. It's amazing how how what's that famous line? We have more communicate c communication devices out there than ever, yet we communicate so much uh less than we used to. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's it's crazy. Yeah, because I can hear the emotion in your voice right now. I can see your I can see your reactions and whatnot. Sometimes through email, I'm just saying, hey, is what is Bob is Bob pissed off of me right now? Like it just and you might not be. It's just I don't see that that feeling, those, those, those gestures. I don't see I don't hear the tonality or anything in your voice, right? So it it it could come across different. And we have to be aware of that, specifically in today's society, for sure.

Bob Borcherdt 32:18

Yeah, yeah. We can assume some really bad stuff.

Jason Taylor 32:22

Yeah, absolutely. Bob, I I value your time, and I just got a couple more questions for you, and then I'm gonna let you get back to your your world. So you've had a long leadership journey, and I know you're 29, but it's still been a long leadership journey. Okay What lesson do you think took you the longest to learn personally? Oh boy.

Bob Borcherdt 32:43

I would have to say I guess I would have to say this because I'm still learning it. So, right, at 62, if I'm still in the process of learning it, then then it would be the one. I teach setting clear expectations all day long every day. It's what we write about in our books, it's what we created in our our leadership systems, and I might be the worst person on the planet for doing it.

Jason Taylor 33:07

Yeah. That's very self-aware that you said that, by the way.

Bob Borcherdt 33:11

Well, thanks. Thanks. It it took me a long time to figure out people couldn't read my mind. It took me a long time to figure out that people just didn't proactively understood stand what I expected. It took me a long time to understand that I I was super clear in my head. It just was not clear in their head. And even as we prototyped our new systems, Jason, we had CEOs go, like, you need to give me a one, two, three, four, five on how to set a clear expectation. Like you need to build a system for that. And and so we did, you know? And because our expectations aren't specific, a lot of times they're not realistic. We don't know how to connect them to why. We can't describe what winning looks like. And and so I work really, really hard at that to make sure I'm being really, really clear with my expectations and that somebody understands them. You and I have had a couple of chuckles over the over the last year about the sports world and how they they communicate in buzzwords. And we do it in the leadership world as well. But like I listen to the hockey world and it's like, Jay, man, I gotta have more compete from you. Just I gotta have more compete. And thinking that that expectation is super clear.

Jason Taylor 34:26

Yeah.

Bob Borcherdt 34:26

Because I'm telling you, Jay, I need more compete. Problem is you don't know what more compete means, do you?

Jason Taylor 34:32

Yeah. Yeah.

Bob Borcherdt 34:33

Like what what does that look like? And how will I know if I'm achieving that if I hit that? And so that's been my biggest lesson is I just wish I had like a you know a little USB port or something in my neck and people could plug in and read my brain. And the problem with guys like you and I is we get going so fast, and we live in such a fast thinking world and an ideation world, it's oftentimes hard for people to keep up or catch up. And so then I just end up creating more murkiness behind me. So I'm I'm really super grateful for the co-author in our two books, Nikki McLeod, because she's she's that interpreter, she's that she's the one that pulls the reins back when I'm pushing the organization too hard. She's the one that says this is 16 steps, not four, like you said earlier. She's the one that can translate to the employees. I think if people like us don't have people like that, I think we end up we're in a coffin someday with a million ideas buried in that coffin with us.

Jason Taylor 35:34

Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. I agree with you. I think, actually, the next question I wanted to ask you, I think what you just said is going to tie into the answer, right? So, last question I want to ask you is just if you're looking at a young leader today in any industry and they're listening and you wanted to help them unlock, you know, more potential in their team immediately, where should they start first? And I'm thinking clarity has something to do with it based on your last answer, but is there anything else you want to actually add to that?

Bob Borcherdt 36:03

Yeah, I would say this. I think I think there's some big shifts happening. And I and I'd love to actually have this conversation with you offline even more. I think I've seen in the evolution of organizations this shift to where the people, like the stuff you mentioned earlier, what's our strategy for people and the people stuff, somehow it got sent to these HR departments and they became the source of all things people. And leaders took themselves out of that role. I think we have to go back to the way it was. It needs to look a lot more like apprenticeship. So if I'm a young leader today, probably the first thing I'm gonna grab a hold of is no, it's my responsibility to make sure my people have an environment where they can develop. I can't outsource that to the HR department, and I can't outsource that to Jason and to Bob. By the way, you share that with HR departments and they'll jump up and down and cheer because they're going, yeah, we we we can't do this. Not what, like there's just no way we can develop all of the people. So the lead, if I'm a young leader, I'm gonna grab a hold of that right away. I think the second thing I'm gonna grab a hold of is development and particularly leadership development for myself. It has to be about systems and not content. We've made development an academic thing. It's not an academic thing, it's a systems thing, right? So, James Clear, atomic habits. We don't rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems. So if I'm a young leader, I need some systems that I can do every day because discipline's way overrated. You and I both know that, right? Habits don't come from discipline. Habits come from operating systems every day. That's why our one-on-ones are a system. It's why the clarity model is a system. It's why development by design is a system. Everything is designed to be something you can repeat. And when you do, you're going to develop that habit. So that's what I would tell a young leader like you're responsible. It's systems over content. And then, man, really focus in on those one-on-ones. I do totally think that's the future of organizational effectiveness, is nailing those down.

Jason Taylor 38:07

I love that. You know, I I love it too when a young leader seeks advice. And and I I'm a big believer. I know you are too leadership without title, right? So you can be a leader and you could be, you know, an hourly employee in the warehouse. It doesn't matter. But I think it's amazing when a young person in today's work world, whatever industry or sector they're in, just has the guts to say to some the president, hey, I'd love to have a coffee with you. And I I was hoping we could do that. You I don't think there's a president in the world that wouldn't say, sure, I'll have a coffee with you. Absolutely. Like I tell my boys all the time, and I'm sure you told your sons as well, like, ask people, go, look, can we go out for a coffee? Can I pick your brain? Do you do you mind if I have a 15-minute Zoom with you? I just got some questions and whatnot. As a leader, I think that people thrive to hear that from the younger generation, as opposed to just saying, figure it out yourselves and just say, hey, you know what? And then all of a sudden you've also put yourself up, you know, in a little more of a spotlight on, hey, that person actually cares about leadership. They might be a future leader within within my organization, hopefully.

Bob Borcherdt 39:15

That's right. Yeah. And I would add to that by saying, man, if I've had any success at all as a husband, a father, a leader, a business owner, I would have to, I would have to say it was only because all throughout my life from a very young age, I had people older than me very nearby. I had people that were 10 to 15 years ahead of me that I could go to. I had open doors to get to. My first mentor was a very significant person in the community that we lived in. The basketball arena I played in college ended up getting named after him. He was that type of person. And those were the people I had access to because Jason, in my world, I didn't want to have to learn from my mistakes. I wanted to learn from other people's mistakes. Like I wanted to go so fast. It's like, yeah, I don't, I don't have time to make those mistakes myself. Like, can you just tell me what went wrong so I can avoid it? Now, we still make mistakes. I still make them today, right? But if I've had any success at all, it's it's just because I've had people older than me that have been there that I could go to. And I'm amazed at how many people don't. The majority of them don't.

Jason Taylor 40:26

They don't because they're they're intimidated and there's nothing to be intimidated by. One of my favorites lines is my parents get smarter every year I get older. Right? Because when we're younger, we look at our parents, we think, you are out of touch, you have no clue, right? But then as you get older, you think, oh, maybe dad, maybe dad had a point there. Exactly. Exactly. Dad, leader, whatever, they've experienced something, and they're just instead of you going through that pain and that mistake, they're saying, Hey, you know what? You might, Bob, you might want to look at it this way as opposed to just going through that right now, right?

Bob Borcherdt 40:59

I have a a a good friend who's a mentor, he's about a decade older than me. His name's Al. And I was having breakfast with him one day, and he goes, Hey, I just I just read something in this book. I want to share it with you. And it's about the development of people. And he says, We kind of develop in 10 10-year increments. And yeah, like in your 20s, you're kind of at that warrior stage of life, right? And then you get to your 30s and now you become that wounded warrior because you experience betrayal and hurt and all kinds of things. And then you get into your 40s, and now you develop some maturity at that stage. And then when it's in your 50s, like now you've got some wisdom. Those are the sages. And he looked at me and he goes, I've made a decision. The most important decisions in my business, I'm not going to consult people under 50. And I went, Oh, okay, so that's interesting. And I sat there for a minute and I said, Al, I'll tell you what's even more scary. We have a whole generation of 20 somethings online listening to 20 somethings, and they just haven't been around long enough to be able to give good advice. I get it, everybody's got an opinion. I got it, everybody can give their advice. I get it every now and then you've got some young people who are a little further along than their age. You and I were probably like that. But man, I thought, how many young people today are not listening to 40 and 50 year olds? They're listening to 20 year olds.

Jason Taylor 42:23

Yeah, which is scary. And nuts, hey, those 20-year-olds, a lot of them are smart and they have some really good advice. However, there is that part of advice that you have to kind of live through it and you have to experience the wounds along the way.

Bob Borcherdt 42:36

And would you give the same advice today that you gave 20 year 30 years ago?

Jason Taylor 42:42

No.

Bob Borcherdt 42:42

No, it'd be totally different advice. And yet 30 years ago, you thought you knew it all.

Jason Taylor 42:47

I actually look at some of the things I did in it as a 20-year-old something, and and I look back and I kind of cringe and I think, oh, like what the heck was I thinking there? Or why did I approach it that way? Right. And it's just because you're young and you just think, okay, I I I've got this, I've got this nailed, right? And and you know, the world's not going to stop me. And then you just look at it years later and go, oh, gross. Like, why did I do it that way? Right. All part of the learning. Bob, with that, thank you. Thank you for your journey on helping leaders get to a better place. Teams unlock their potential. I am pretty picky on who comes on the podcast, and I wasn't picky with you at all because I know your values, I know what you believe to your core on leadership and culture. So with that, I thank you. I can't wait till this podcast gets aired in about two, two and a half weeks or so. But yeah, I um I really appreciate your time. Thanks so much.

Bob Borcherdt 43:38

Yeah, Jason, I appreciate you having me on. And I I just want you to know how much I appreciate you and our friendship. And there are people in this world that fill your tank. And so thanks for uh filling my tank today.

Jason Taylor 43:50

I appreciate it. Thanks, Bob. All right. If you love that session and that conversation as much as I did, would love to have you join our People Playbook community in the link below.