WonderTour

All right, welcome to Lead Wisely by
Wondertor.

We are in a conversation about the movie
Ready Player One.

So Brian, let's start off with a tough
question about leadership.

How do we use technology to create more
opportunity rather than more inequality?

Oh, this is fabulous.

I love this question.

So in the context of an organization and
in context of a business or whatever kind

of organization you're involved in, you're
going to have a hierarchy, right?

The organizations inherently have there's
some people in charge and then there are

layers and there are people that are doing
jobs at various levels.

And I think our experience has been when
you do technology projects, when you're

rolling out a new technology in the in an
organization, it's a really common

possibly trap, to focus that technology on
how is it going to benefit the people that

are already the most powerful in that
organization, the leaders, or what we'd

love to call the early adopters.

The people who already love the
technology, who want technology for

technology's sake, who are the
overachievers, the top guns, the hot

shots, the A-plus performers, you know,
the 10x programmers, and we tend to focus

the technology on those constituents.

those members of our organization.

And to some extent, this is really
natural, right?

Your highest leverage on making good
decisions can appear to be, well, let's

make sure that the vice president doesn't
make a terrible decision.

Make sure that the CEO makes good
decisions, make sure that the CFO knows

what's going on, right?

The easiest way to roll out a new
technology is to take the people that are

excited about making change and excited
about getting better and excited about

tech and ask them to use it.

And so that is...

It's natural and in some cases it's a
really good way to run the experiment or

it is a high leverage way to do it.

But the trap is, and the question you
asked, is that approach will tend to

create more inequality.

It will tend to make the people who are
powerful and influential, it will lock in

the decision-making authority at their
level.

It will take the people who are
overachievers, who are successful in the

current system, who feel empowered...

and it will make them more empowered or
more effective and get more recognition

and do all the things that normally happen
to people in an organization.

They'll get promoted faster, they'll get
higher visibility, they'll get bigger

bonuses, right?

So those aren't necessarily bad things.

Like you wanna take motivated people and
make them more motivated.

But it's also a potential blind spot where
you are then by definition saying the

other people don't need to make decisions.

The other people don't need to be
empowered.

The other associates who are keeping their
heads down and getting their jobs done,

They don't need new technology just
because they're not asking for it.

Or they couldn't, you know, they couldn't
have a better experience or they couldn't

be more effective because they today
aren't the ones beating on the door saying

I want to chat GPT model or I want to, I
want to, I want to use the cool new

things.

Um, so this is the real question is what,
what is the, what is the upside down world

version of that looks like?

You know, a lot of the, uh, transformation
kind of business transformation.

Ethos that's out there, the techniques
that are out there, the lean

methodologies, the agile methodologies
stem from an understanding that the best

way to gain performance in an organization
is not by consolidating power at the top,

but by distributing it by finding what
individual people are best at and making

it, making them really good at it, but
also making sure that what they're doing

is really well aligned with the value
chain or is not wasting time with the

product purpose and the roadmap and the
backlog.

So all of these practical business things
that we do in transformation are trying to

make people at every level more effective.

And so how do we use technology to do
that?

If you're implementing a decision support
tool, if you're implementing a dashboard,

if you're implementing a recommendation
engine, if you're implementing a

simulation tool, how do you use that not
to make it so that the vice president is

the only one that gets to make any
decisions, but that everybody makes good

decisions all the time with their unique
knowledge and skills?

Like what does that look like if you work
in that organization?

And how would that change a technology
deployment that you were planning?

So Brian, what you're really saying is we
need to identify the personas and

especially identify the personas that are
all over the organization that are

potentially the most underserved because
we have the most to benefit when we can

help those underserved personas.

And I think as we move forward, we're
going to talk a little bit about how maybe

becoming more efficient isn't the
benchmark for how to serve those

underserved personas.

we will have a rant on efficiency here at
some point.

I feel confident.

All right, this is a great place to break
for our actual introduction then.

So thank you everyone for listening.

I'm Brian.

And we are on a journey to become better
leaders by touring fantastic worlds, by

looking at this inspiring lore and by
going on a wonder tour.

We connect leadership concepts to story
context.

Because the six-store brain's better, you
can find out more at

wondertourpodcast.com.

Yes, you can.

So yeah, in the last episode, we talked
about what is the purpose of technology.

And in the context of myself, the
technology for escapism, technology for

gaming and movies, we challenged each of
us to look at why am I using this

technology?

What, you know, isn't supporting a purpose
in my life?

Do I understand what I'm getting out of?

This is kind of the same question, but
it's the top down question is what's the

purpose of a technology in an
organization?

And one really powerful way to look at it
again, is to take it back to the humans.

Who is the technology for?

Who are you trying to benefit by deploying
technology in your organization?

And it might, you know, you might be doing
it because everybody else is doing SAP or

everybody else is doing Salesforce or
because there's, you know, your old ERP

system is, you know, bloated and outdated
and built on some server that you can't

get upgrades for anymore and you got to do
a new thing.

Great, a lot of times technology programs
happen to us.

But while we're doing them, who are we
doing them for?

And I love that you brought in the idea of
personas.

It's like a tech world way of saying,
let's think about the people that are in

our organization and the roles that they
play and the problems they kind of try to

solve and look at the technology from that
lens.

So what does that look like in your
experience?

What are good and bad examples of how that
might go?

Well, let's go back to our source material
here in Ready Player One, and let's look

at how some of the different characters
handle who they're designing for.

So the most obvious example is probably
Sorrento and Halliday, right?

So we have a couple scenarios where those
guys even are in the same room together in

these memories that we're looking at in
the archives, but either way, their

approach is totally different.

Halliday is all about creating joy for the
players.

He's trying to...

create this world where people have
infinite possibilities.

And so that's why it is turned up to 11.

And it does allow you to do all of these
crazy feats.

And he really is so focused on the
players, the grassroots, and how he can do

good things for them.

Where you see Sorrento, and of course the
typical movie villain way, I mean, come

on, you have Ben Mendelsohn playing this
villain.

Ben Mendelsohn basically exclusively plays
villains.

have something some greedy like they're
just trying to get money and they don't

care about sustainability or quality or
anything else right but he's coming in and

he's not worried about who he's designing
for who he's designing for is him and the

shareholders pretty much that's it so he's
like he comes into holiday and he's like

well we should have like a gold tier and a
platinum tier and the highest tier could

be water it's like well he has no concept
of who he's designing for

and why that would be good for the
players.

It's all just like we could upsell them on
X.

Right, no, this is amazing.

And he's even got a little bit of the
Casablanca system, right?

Where he's bought into the rules so, so
thoroughly that he's like, nakedly

two-faced.

He's like, Oh, I had to make you that
offer.

Cause the board said that I was, said that
I had to, but actually I really wanted you

to reject it because I want to crush you
and, you know, murder you personally and

just take over like he's very, he's very
much into it for himself, but also for the

joy of imposing order on this chaotic
thing, right?

He's that, he's that personality as like
the problem is that everybody gets to do

what they want.

And the goal is that everybody behaves and
they get punished when they don't behave.

Right.

So the organization that he runs that we
see is an organization which has taken

this promised world of you can do anything
you want and made a whole bunch of grunts

out of it, right?

They're the people that work for their
organization are literally the way that a

lot of us feel working for a bigger
organization is they have the white

barcode number on their chest and the
faceless mask and they just do what

they're told.

Right.

So that's, you know, that's the
Hollywoodized version of it, but it's also

kind of a real thing, right?

How many times have you been part of a
software deployment, a new technology, oh,

hey, we've got a new expense report system
and travel request system at our company.

And you just feel like you're just this
barcode mouse trying to run through the

maze, figuring out how can I get paid back
for coffee the other day, right?

There's just, it's not for me.

This is for, there's some purpose on the
other end of this, but it's clearly for

the organization because nobody considered
my experience in the process of rolling

this out.

Yeah, it's that process design or
experience design and stuff like that we

definitely need to look at.

And then it's just, to me, it's the
approach that we take when we do it.

Who is the technology for?

It's going back to what you said in the
last episode, which is that really there

is no purpose of technology.

What is your purpose?

So unless we are very clear in what is
your purpose, then it's easy to fall into

the trap.

And so maybe let's look at another example
in Ready Player One.

if we instead look at a maybe less obvious
example than Sorrento and Holliday, if we

were to look at Iraq versus Sam.

So talk to me a little bit about what you
see in those two characters and how

they're contrasted in their approach to
technology and to problem solving in the

world or in this virtual world.

Yeah, so these are great avatars of
personalities, right?

So Iroq is the second in command villain
or whatever.

He's the other antagonist, and he is
perfectly adapted to this environment.

He's completely bought into the Oasis.

He's completely bought into this mercenary
winner take all.

It's all about the Venjamins thing, and
he'll just do whatever is required.

And he's quite happy about it.

Like he's, you know, he knows that he's
sort of mercenary, but he's like, hey, I'm

really good at this.

This is, you know, I rock.

And he thrives in that environment up
until the point at the end of the movie

where somebody even more mercenary and
heartless than him, you know, threatens to

take it all away.

Whereas the Samantha character who's Kira,
right?

And is her character is she's very
upfront.

Once,

Wade Parcival has a real conversation with
her.

She's very upfront about like, you don't
understand, like this, I'm not here for

the game.

I'm not here to win because I want to win.

I'm here because I'm trying to solve a
problem in the real world.

This giant evil corporation can't be in
charge and I have to get there first,

right?

And so she is, use it.

She has a purpose.

She has a purpose that is larger than the
virtual world set of rules.

She's just trying to follow the rules so
that she can have agency in the real

world.

She's focused on people and freedom and
she has a personal purpose where you see

the opposite is Iroq who doesn't really
have a personal purpose and if you take

this and you look at how Haliday kind of
designed this environment, the Iroq

person, of course that's going to be a
potential option, that persona, and he's

trying not to cater too hard to that
persona but of course it's a game and so

he does allow somebody to go down that
path as the creator of the game.

It is possible

What we see, again, going back to
Holliday, what he wants to see is he wants

to see the world evolve with its users,
and he wants to see a world that actually

continues to benefit its users and doesn't
converge towards like Iraq's end.

Look at the end of Iraq, like you said.

He's there and he's like, wait a second,
you're saying we might destroy the game?

He's like, but the game is everything to
me.

Like we can't destroy the game.

Right, well, and like the best thing, it's
part of the trap of escapism, right?

Is the best thing that can possibly happen
to Irock is he gets more stuff.

And the worst thing that can possibly
happen to Irock is he loses all of his

stuff.

Neither of these are actually terribly
consequential, but he's locked himself

into this paradigm.

And so, you know, the movie of course
presents us with our main character, Wade.

to make a decision between these two paths
right when we meet him he's totally on the

iraq path he's like oh yeah i got all
sorts of plans when i win this thing i'm

gonna buy a big house and a bunch of stuff
you know like he's he doesn't actually

have a purpose other than escapism but he
has the advantage that he's bought into

not just the game but he's bought into
haliday's persona he's bought into the

persona of this character who is trying to
transcend

his personal struggles and create
something that helped other people.

And so at the end, we kind of get, you
know, he kind of gets clarified that

that's the decision he's making.

He's got the example of Samantha Kira.

He's got the example of I did actually
accidentally make friendships in this

game, not just because we were helping
each other get gold, but because we just

had all these casual hangout interactions.

And they show that, I think in the book,
they show that a lot better, sort of the

casual friendship building that is enabled
by this virtual world too.

But because he's got those human
connections and because he recognizes that

Halliday himself never really got to that
point, never really figured out how to

make human connections through his virtual
world, he kind of, our main character, of

course, very Hollywood, sort of
understands that and makes that call.

He's the second Haliday, and that's what
Haliday wanted.

He wanted a second Haliday who didn't have
the failings of the first Haliday.

And so he designed a puzzle that hopefully
the second Haliday would be able to solve,

and that second Haliday would be the 2.0
version that would be able to figure it

out.

And then we see, yeah, exactly, he's the
better iteration essentially.

And of course there could be a third and
whatever still, but what we see is that...

You know, they institute two days a week
of downtime on the Oasis, amongst, I'm

sure, many other things that is
essentially heads up governance that's

trying to be for people instead of being
for a company or for an experience or

something like that.

It's all about who are we designing for,
who are the personas in our world.

And I think all of this comes together in
our mountaintop moment for this episode

where, Brian, why don't you take us into
our mountaintop moment?

Yeah, this is awesome.

I was just about to get there.

So if we think about that, if the trap is
escapism, if the trap is buying into the

rules of the game, if the trap is doing
the game for the game's purpose, then

what's the alternative, right?

And the alternative is, in this movie,
it's portrayed as this moment where we

have Wade and Samantha in their human
personas and their human bodies.

sitting on a bench on a rooftop in
Columbus, Ohio, surrounded by like, you

know, that grown vegetables, you know,
having a very quiet, very personal,

direct, uncomfortable interaction.

They don't know what the rules are, and
it's totally unscripted, and they don't

really know what they're gonna do, and
it's super awkward.

But they're like, wow, it's really slow
here, and it's really quiet, and nothing

is exploding quite yet.

Right, and we have to decide how to just
be with each other.

We have to decide, we have to reveal who
we are to some extent and have a real

conversation.

And so the movie holds this up as that
moment, but it's actually really good the

way they portray it, as a contrast to the
incredible glossiness and frenetic energy

of everything in the Oasis that you see,
there's like, oh, actually this was kind

of the point.

This was the thing that Halliday never got
to, that he was trying to create this

human connections and he created escapism.

He created shallow connections, but he
didn't create the deeper ones because you

can't do them there.

Right.

And so that's our, our mountain top moment
is like realizing that this slowing down,

realizing that opening up, realizing that
breathing actual error is kind of the

point, whether it's for entertainment
purposes or for larger organizational

purposes, like, you know, Keira's got a
mission and this actually helps her like

making.

personal connections, but also thinking
about the challenge of personal

connections is what helps her in the game
and what helps them.

So that moment where they slow down is the
flipped script.

is the script flip that we always talk
about here on Wander Tour.

It's when something happens that subverts
the narrative.

At this point, everything is speeding up
and speeding up, and it's all about we

have to go as fast as possible to find
that new tech, to find the next key, so

that we can be the first to solve
Halliday's puzzle, but the only way to

actually move forward is...

well, the first key is to move backwards.

So the only way to move forward is to move
backwards.

And the second key...

The only way to move forward is to slow
down, exit the Oasis, and actually have

that real moment.

Like you said, it's the slowest moment of
the entire movie and there's just, it's

beautiful and you don't have this CGI
going on.

You just have this actual shot of these
individuals.

And then from then on in the movie, you
actually get probably somewhere near half

of the shots are now going to be in the
real world.

as opposed to inside the Oasis.

It's this turning point where the
characters recognize we're aligned to a

mission in real life.

The technology is just a means to a
purpose, like we've been talking about.

So now that we've all agreed on this
purpose, who cares if our characters die

in this game or whatever?

But we now know what actually matters.

And guess what?

We have to slow down.

They, he almost creates this like Oasis
Sabbath, right?

He's like, hey, there's gonna be a day
each week or two days or whatever where...

In the end, once he has control of it,
where people can't be in this world, they

have to stop and remember what real life
is actually about.

Right.

And so that zoom out lesson, I think, can
be applied in an organization.

It can be applied in a business or
leadership context, right?

It is the goal of using the software is
not to use the software better.

The goal of deploying the software is not
so that everybody does things exactly the

same way so you know exactly what's
happening at all times, right?

That is a way to do it, but that is not.

purpose in and of itself.

Like the purpose is can your organization
be more effective?

Can your people be more effective?

Can they be, you know, like you said, the
agile mantra, the lean mantra is pushing

the authority and the decisions down to
the lowest level, making them clear enough

on the big mission that they can be super
clear on how what they're doing connects

to it and then trust them to do it.

Right.

And that is very different from a lot of
times what we see software being deployed

in a big organization.

to amplify its mission.

That's not necessarily the way it gets
perceived or the way it gets rolled out.

And maybe you just forgot about those
personas.

Maybe you didn't look at what their
experience would be, or maybe we didn't

even examine the purpose in the first
place.

Maybe it's because we didn't slow down.

That's a starting point when it feels like
the world is moving at a breakneck pace

and to just stop for a sprint, to just
have this moment where you're sitting on

the bench instead of just racing the hair,
racing the hair, racing the hair, it just

feels like you're gonna get left in the
dust if you stop for a second.

But I think what's really critical here is
it's not.

You have to stop one way or another.

If you just keep moving at a breakneck
pace, eventually you have to stop, but

it's figuring out strategically, when are
we going to slow down?

It's slowing down on a rhythm.

It's having those retrospectives.

It's not always being so focused on
efficiency.

There's times to be focused on efficiency,
but really the end goal is not to become

more efficient so that we can become more
efficient.

That's the tech for the sake of tech trap.

And that trap doesn't actually have a
purpose.

So I think that's a good indicator.

I think we've all probably fallen into it
sometimes.

If you look around and you're like, you're
doing a technology implementation or

you're pushing forward your business model
or something like that, and you're like,

wait a second, I don't know if we have a
purpose, or like I'm not super clear on if

the purpose is, if this is still the
purpose.

And if you ask the team, can you tell me
what the purpose is?

And their version of the purpose is not
what you think the purpose is or

something?

That's a good sign you might be doing tech
for the sake of tech.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I think we're getting into our
practical application discussion here,

right?

Those like thinking about how do we use
these lessons?

How do we think about slowing down?

How do we think about who is it for?

How do we think about the purpose?

So yeah, my efficiency rant for the day is
this, whenever we have this conversation

inside an organization is a lot of times
you will have this, oh, we're gonna do

this because it will make us more
efficient, right?

That's a phrase that people love to talk
about.

And it's a real thing, it's valuable.

And my challenge is always,

The actual mathematical definition of
efficiency is output over input.

And almost always when you're rolling out
technology, you're looking at the

denominator.

You're looking at the input.

You're like, oh, we're going to do less
hours of work to get the same output.

We're going to have less manpower
required.

We're going to have less waste.

We're going to spend less money.

We're going to whatever.

It's always the denominator.

and that's a valid piece of it, but it's
only half of it.

Because you can't, the end game of that is
to zero.

I can absolutely cut costs to zero.

I can lay off the entire workforce and I
will not spend any money.

Theoretically, if even one thing gets
done, I'm now infinitely efficient.

But that is not the path to success.

That's certainly not the path to
transforming anything or creating, you

know.

extraordinary growth.

The numerator is also important, the what
is your output.

And so if you think about it not in terms
of efficiency, but in terms of

productivity, how do I take the people
that I have and the resources that I have

and the time that I have and do as many
great things with that?

How do I make sure that the output is
better and better aligned and more

impactful with the resources that I've
got?

You get two things, right?

One is you get out of this cut your way to
victory mindset where you're not worried

about, oh, you guys are screwing up by
spending my money or you're spending so

much time.

Why are you so inefficient, right?

But you also get, just like what venture
capitalists talk about, you get

asymmetrical upside.

The most money I could possibly save is
only the money that I'm spending.

The most money that I could possibly make
is substantially more multiples of the

money that I'm spending.

If I figure out the way to use my
resources as well as possible.

If I figure out how to be the most
effective organization to change the world

as possible, then you can become two,
three, five, 10, a hundred times more

productive, but it's very, very difficult
to be a hundred times more efficient.

So that's one of these conversations.

Like you can't 10% cut your way to
victory, right?

It's not to say you shouldn't cut 10% of
your costs, but that's not gonna transform

the world.

That's not gonna make you a world class.

So my usual rant is please measure
productivity too.

or instead and think about it because the
numerator is purpose.

The numerator is how do you measure
whether or not you're accomplishing your

goal in the world and the lessons of
agile, the lessons of lean are those

aren't local, those are global, those are
for the organization is what I'm doing.

Making the organization's goal succeed.

Not did I issue slightly more skews this
month or did I produce slightly more

widgets this month?

But.

Did that actually result in more happy
customers?

Did that actually result in, you know,
whatever my organization is, healthcare?

Did that result in fewer unhealthy people
in the world?

That's the goal.

The stuff in the middle is just different
ways of getting there, and you need to

empower your people to figure that out.

Yeah, this is definitely one of the traps
that you're under thing here.

The trap of tech for the sake of tech.

If you keep advancing that and your metric
is efficiency for the most part, or one of

your main metrics is efficiency, there's
nowhere to go, but zero or, but like the

lower limit, essentially, you're just
trying to go as close as possible to the

bottom, which again,

Look, that's a race to the bottom.

We've seen this over and over and over
again in the economy and going back to our

original question that we talked about,
how do we not create more inequality but

instead create opportunities?

Well, we have to start measuring by
productivity instead of measuring

everything by efficiency because an
efficiency gain doesn't actually

necessarily do something good for humans.

Efficiency can be great for humans when
they're doing just a mundane task and

we're trying to make that task better and
they hate doing that task.

And that task inherently is giving them
carpal tunnel or whatever, right?

Okay, great.

Then you have a purpose.

Your purpose is to make sure that the
human has good well-being while performing

the task or whatever, while performing the
mission that the company needs to exist.

That's great.

But what's not good is just tech for the
sake of tech.

We can achieve 25% more cost down on our
manpower.

But what is this allowing us to do?

And like you said, it's really measuring
it overall in productivity.

or we need to make everything super
standardized so that the executives have a

perfect image of what's happening so they
can make all the decisions better, right?

Like that's, some amount of that is
valuable.

Like they should know how much money
they're spending.

They should know where the problems are in
the company.

But the point is not so that they can then
make all the decisions, right?

The point is not so that only the hotshot
associates can be more hotshots, right?

The goal is that wherever the decisions
are being made, wherever the opportunities

to add value there are,

the technology is helping that happen
rather than hindering it.

And the challenge is, the thing that we've
all seen is that top-down applications of

technology solely for transparency, solely
for executive decision-making, solely for

standardization almost inherently stink.

They're terrible at the ground level.

They make things worse for the people that
are doing the actual work that your

company does that are performing the
actual output of your organization.

And that's the trap.

The tech for tech's sake or the tech for
leadership's sake.

you know, is negative efficiency because
it hurts your productivity.

It hurts your alignment to purpose.

It hurts your visibility to purpose.

Yeah, and really this is a trap that we
can walk into right now.

I mean, this trap, the door is always open
basically with how fast we're moving as a

civilization.

But tech for tech sake with generative AI
is just the same as it has been, right?

High performers, high performing teams do
really well with AI.

Mid-level performing teams, not so much
right now.

And so there is an opportunity for us to
help to make sure that we don't create a

bigger gap.

between the high performers and the mid
and low performers and end up leaving

people behind like we have with other
technological revolutions.

And you could argue that eventually it
gets sorted out and maybe it does, but as

we as humans, who for me, like I said, my
personal purpose is to help other people

achieve freedom.

What I don't wanna do is what we have
probably all been victims of before,

because we're all consumers of technology,
users of technology, we see where...

Let me just paint a picture for you,
right?

Big tech mindset is hire the best, hire
the best technical skill sets in the

world, hire the most advanced minds and
put them in a room together and let them

design the most advanced solutions.

I'm not saying that everybody does this.

I'm not, don't hear me as painting with a
broad brush.

I'm just saying here's a specific example.

It does happen.

And what you end up with doing is creating
an advanced solution that creates a bunch

of sixers in Ready Player One terminology,
creates a bunch of bots.

And guess who most of those bots are?

Either...

the people at the company who are already
the worst off, or the people in society

who are already the worst off, and
sometimes it's us, right?

It's the users of certain social media,
certain social media features.

It's the users of certain online shopping
experiences and features and things like

that, right?

Instead of giving us more freedom, the
ability to follow our purpose, we now are

more entrapped.

So, yeah, so let's take this back to our,
our Wondertour conversations, our

Wondertour mindset, right?

We're talking about what does a
magnanimous leader look like, right?

If I'm a magnanimous leader in a company,
I'm a team leader, I'm, you know, I'm not,

I'm not a superstar, but I'm a, I'm an
experienced person and I'm pretty good at

my job and I've got people working for me.

Then the, you know, the using technology
for helping, you know, for inequality

would be.

we get a new technology and what I'm gonna
do is it's gonna make me really effective.

I'm gonna have a dashboard that makes
really good decisions but the way that I

get to do that is all of my people need to
spend an extra hour of a day filling out

some online things so I know exactly what
they're doing with their time and exactly

what interactions they have.

So their lives are getting less productive
and I'm getting better at making

decisions.

But also I'm then more likely to thrive,
right?

I'm gonna be the one that looks like I'm
making good decisions and I can show cool

dashboards and meetings, right?

That is accelerating the gap between me
and the people that work for me.

That's not the magnanimous leader.

That's not the Dr.

Strange, it's not about you lesson, right?

The magnanimous leader version is the
inversion of that, which is that how do I

do it so that I make fewer decisions?

How do I do it so that the people that
work for me, the people that I'm

supposedly mentoring and helping, are
getting closer and closer to my capability

every single day?

So pretty soon there's five of us instead
of one.

Right, how do we use technology so that
they have time

to, for me to mentor them, for they have
experiences that I had more quickly than I

did.

They catch up more quickly.

They don't make all the same stupid
mistakes that I made.

So that suddenly now you have a team of
people that all have very high capability.

Those two mindsets are very easy.

One of those is, you know, is available,
but it's very easy to fall into the, I'm

in charge, therefore we should invest in
making me more effective mindset rather

than the I am.

knowledgeable, therefore I should invest
in bringing other people up to my level as

fast as possible.

If the people who hire into your
organization or join you, if their

experience is that you're investing in
them, that you want to get them to be

amazing and you want to let them make
decisions as quickly as possible without

letting them burn, that's a very different
experience than they hire in and they

understand that their job is to grind so
that you can thrive.

Yep.

And if we look at the example of the
submarine captain David Marquet, if you

haven't seen the video, just go Google it.

It's the best video or the best like
content that you can consume in like eight

minutes on decentralizing decision-making.

He points out that really in order to be
able to decentralize decision-making, in

order to be able to have other people be
wise and successful and things like that,

they need to have competence and clarity.

So your job as a leader is to make sure
they have

competence and clarity.

And in the end, isn't that your total job
as the leader, basically clarity on the

goals of the organization, the strategy,
what is in and out of scope and things

like that, and competence, developing
leaders, developing skill sets, developing

technical abilities and things like that,
so that people can go forth and conquer.

So if this is the case, then how can we
use technology to build competence?

How can we use technology to communicate
more clearly or to develop a more...

high fidelity model that's even clearer on
what our vision and mission and everything

is.

That's a purpose that we can use
technology for.

And that's what we see Haliday doing to
bring this home, right?

Haliday's whole puzzle with the three
keys.

What is it doing?

It gives clarity over the course of the
puzzle to what the Oasis is for, what it

is not for, and it also gives competence.

If somebody can solve this puzzle, like
Wade is able to solve it,

The person must then be competent enough
to make the next decision of how they can

use the Oasis in the future after he's
gone.

This is great.

So the three keys are the three lessons.

The first key, go backwards, is the lesson
of slow down and look around, and it's the

lesson of don't follow the rules.

The rules are just there to make the game
work.

They're not the point.

The second lesson is the lesson about
human connection.

It's also the slow down lesson, but it's
the lesson about connect with the people,

not the technology.

And the third lesson is the it's not about
you lesson, and it's not about winning.

Right?

The way to get the way to the third key is
to not go to the end of the game, but just

go to the hidden place where you can learn
about somebody.

And then the way to win is to not make it
about I'm in charge now, but to like, Oh,

you know, signing a contract doesn't even
seem like the right solution.

That doesn't seem like a holiday solution.

Like I just want to do this with my team.

So those, those are the leadership
lessons.

Those are the magnanimous leader lessons
that we've been talking about for a year.

Right?

Is it's not about you.

Right?

So.

clarify the purpose and think about how to
bring the people up around you and, you

know, use the rules, use the tools for
their value, for their benefit, but for

something.

I think that's it, Brian.

I think that was the key takeaways there.

And some, are we subordinating people to
technology for the sake of efficiency, or

are we subordinating tech to people for a
mission and purpose?

Love it.

Well, that was a lot of fun.

Thank you so much.

We hope you all enjoyed listening to us
and joining us in video once again.

We always enjoy these conversations.

What do we have queued up next?

We've been talking about technology
helping us go faster and faster and

faster.

So naturally, Ford versus Ferrari seems
like a segue to this conversation.

So we'll be talking about that in our next
couple episodes.

We're really looking forward to that.

In the meantime, thanks again for joining
us and just remember, as always,

Character is destiny.