WonderTour

Hello and welcome to Lead Wisely by Wunder
Tour.

Once again, today we are talking about the
movie Oppenheimer.

This is our second episode on this movie
and we are gonna start right off with a

tough question about leadership as we
always do.

So I'm gonna kick it right to our friend
Dave Beltran here and ask you our big

question for the day.

In the context of designing an
organization to pursue not just a goal,

but maybe a purpose, which is gonna be our
theme for this episode, the big question

for today is,

How do you gain respect from people on a
team you're leading who may be more

technically skilled than you?

What are some approaches you can take?

What does that challenge look and feel
like?

And I'm not implying anything about your
technical skill level with this question.

Well, it's never as adequate as I'd like
it to be.

Well, it's never as adequate as I'd like
it to be.

Well, it's never as adequate as I'd like
it to be.

None of us are as smart as we'd like to
be, I think, and that's probably part of

None of us are as smart as we'd like to
be, I think, and that's probably part of

my answer.

But just to sort of circle back on that
question, it's something that I've thought

about a lot.

So I'm in a position where I have to lead
people who have technical skills similar

to mine, but probably at some point,
especially now that we're hiring younger

folks who have been learning all these new
techniques in machine learning.

know quite a bit more than I do about the
methods that are currently being used so

successfully.

And this is something, of course, that
shows up in this movie that we love so

much that how do you wrangle together a
bunch of brilliant, fractious, opinionated

people and do something, in this case, as
challenging as building the atomic bomb?

The project was a miracle of organization
beyond...

the scientific achievements.

As remarkable as the scientific
achievements was the organization it took

to make it happen.

We see that in the movie, in the conflicts
and cooperations between Oppenheimer and

Leslie Groves, of course, but also in the
way that the scientists in the lab work

together.

and in some ways also the political
leadership, we see a little bit of that

too.

So we see some good examples of Groves
choosing Oppenheimer and Oppenheimer and

Groves developing an incredibly productive
and successful relationship despite their

differences, different approaches and
different mindsets.

And then we see some other maybe more
challenging ones like the conflict between

Teller and Oppenheimer, although what's
not...

directly said in the movie was that you
know teller who would have Reasonably led

the theoretical division at Los Alamos was
not leading it because he was very

difficult to work with so the
personalities that they had You know that

Oppenheimer himself both had to sort of
You know dominate in a way, you know sort

Oppenheimer himself both had to sort of
You know dominate in a way, you know sort

of sort of You know develop a mastery of
the subject such that he could

be in charge and be recognized as being in
charge by those people, which is a huge

challenge in itself, also required quite a
bit of politicking internally to that part

of the development.

But then the project as a whole and
Groves' role in how it interacted with the

rest of the world and the political and
military world is another thing that we

see a lot of in the movie.

And depending on the situation in my own
life, I think I've taken different

examples from

from that movie, so I'm really looking
forward to talking about that with you

guys.

Yeah, this is going to be fun.

I think that's certainly the experience
I've had when you...

The experience of having a difficult
employee or somebody who's a jerk who's on

your team is certainly not unique to
technical teams, but people that are hyper

specialized in some technical or
intellectual domain seem to have a higher

and average incidence of being somewhat
difficult to manage as well.

So, yeah, that's a familiar challenge.

But we do see some really good examples of
that in this movie.

And...

If you can imagine like, yeah, if, if J
Robert Oppenheimer himself as brilliant

If you can imagine like, yeah, if, if J
Robert Oppenheimer himself as brilliant

and as accomplished as he was, was in the
situation of having people working for him

who were even more hyper specialized and
even deeper down the rabbit hole in their

specific domains and even more confident
in their technical expertise under him,

then anybody can have that experience,
right?

It doesn't matter how smart you are.

It doesn't matter how accomplished you
are.

Anyone can have the experience of like,
you're going to need to leverage somebody

else's superior capability.

in some discipline in order to get a
complicated thing done.

Right.

That's not an unusual thing.

That's not an unusual thing.

Cool.

Well, let's.

in charge, but oftentimes they do.

Yes, right.

Yes, right.

Or at least they don't want to be
supervised.

Yes, so.

Cool, all right, well let's get it.

Let's go ahead and get started here.

Welcome to Wonder Tour episode 108 on the
movie Oppenheimer.

I am Brian Nutwell.

I'm Drew Perot.

and I'm David Beltran del Rio.

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

inspiring lore by going on a wonder tour.

We connect leadership concepts to story
contexts because it sticks to our brains

better.

You can find out more at wond

All right, so let's go ahead and
reintroduce our most esteemed guest, Dave

Beltran del Rio.

It is our pleasure to have you on here,
Dave.

You are a nuclear buff, a Christopher
Nolan buff, and it is so great to get to

hear your experience here.

I've already talked to you about the film
Oppenheimer for hours and hours at length,

as has Brian.

So just getting to get this out onto
WONDER Tour, it's just such a pleasure.

Thanks for being here.

Likewise, thank you guys so much.

It's great to be back and I'm a big fan of
Wondertour and all our conversations on

these subjects.

I'm very looking forward to talking about
it more right now.

So as Brian led us in on at the end of
last episode, if you were listening, we

are gonna talk a little bit more about the
beginning parts of the movie here.

So we brought up the big question, which
relates to, how do you manage these

brilliant technical resources or these
people who have, I mean, you could even

just say, people who have skillsets who
are very different than your own.

At first, it's really hard when you're put
in a situation to manage those people.

It's easy when you're like, oh, this is a
mini me.

And like, they're just going through the
same experiences I went through.

It's never just that easy, but it seems a
lot easier.

Now in this situation, as Dave said, we
have prima donnas.

We have people who are, you know,
extremely skilled, some of them extremely

wealthy.

They have all sorts of different things
going on in their lives.

They have a particular way that they would
like to see things done.

They, that results in people butting
heads.

And yet we have groves.

who is kind of our glue guy in this
situation, keeping everybody together to

save the world and or Bariot.

Dave, talk to us a little bit about Groves
here and why do you think he is a genius

of organizational design and what are
maybe some of the tactics that he uses?

Yes, so this is one that I've been
increasingly fascinated with.

When I think when I first read the
stories, you know, or got really into this

history, I was more on the side of
thinking I would someday be one of the

scientists.

And now I think I'm more of on the growth
side of things, I suppose, meaning that

more as a, you know, as we become managers
and then hopefully leaders, management and

more as a, you know, as we become managers
and then hopefully leaders, management and

organization become.

central in a way that the technical things
that we usually got into these fields for

uh...

become less important and that can be
painful and difficult i think uh...

that's sort of a well-known thing but in
this case actually uh...

groves was put in charge of the project
uh...

by fdr and uh...

he had been he just successfully built the
pentagon and wanted to go back and what

actually fighting in the

but was given this other project which was
top secret.

So the line that they do, actually it
doesn't show up in the movie, was that the

character Isidore Rabi is in the movie,
who is Oppenheimer's friend.

He had a line about Groves which was that
Groves wasn't largely considered to be a

genius, but that he had a stroke of genius
in assigning Oppenheimer to lead the

project at Los Alamos.

And I always thought that this was a
little bit unfair of Robbie, whose

standard of genius would have been, you
know, a genius physicist or mathematician.

But you know, organizational genius and
management genius is its own kind of

But you know, organizational genius and
management genius is its own kind of

thing.

And in Groves' case, the way the story is
generally told was that Groves was

incredibly driven and ambitious and
recognized that in Oppenheimer as well.

So essentially, realize that Oppenheimer's
ambition.

to do something great would propel him.

And indeed it did.

I think that's generally considered sort
of the historical fact.

Likewise, at the end of that, and that the
success of the project, I think, led to

Likewise, at the end of that, and that the
success of the project, I think, led to

quite a bit of soul-searching by
Oppenheimer and a lot of the people

involved.

But Oppenheimer is in some ways the most
interesting one in that, about what

Just in terms of the two of them working
together, in some ways it's remarkable

that with their different backgrounds and
different intellectual approaches and

similar ambition, very different skill
sets, they managed to develop such a

remarkable working relationship that led
to the success of that project.

And that's, I think it's sort of well told
in the movie.

And that's, I think it's sort of well told
in the movie.

I wanna hear your guys' thoughts on that
though.

before maybe talking about some of the
other examples of leadership that we see

in that movie.

Yeah, there's a, there's a, obviously a
wealth of, you know, sort of nuance and

richness of history here.

I love that early in the movie, they
introduced this concept of comp this

concept of who needs to know what piece of
information.

And that's one of the sort of central
tensions of this story.

And one of, you know, it's, it's a tension
that's sort of recognizable in the real

world too of you.

need people to be specialized, you need
people to be focused on their own thing,

you need to not necessarily let the people
you're competing against know what you're

doing, but also you can't, when you're
doing a new thing and you don't know how

you're going to do the new thing, you
can't do it without sharing with

information with as many potentially
powerful collaborators as possible, right?

And there's just, there's a limit to how
much you can get away with.

And of course, in Nolan fashion, we've
got, compartmentalization means something

else when you're talking about the...

Oppenheimer's personal life and everyone's
personal life that's involved with us

because they have this challenge and it's
not it's on top of them being humans who

were trying to sort of navigate in the
world.

So I want to talk about the
compartmentalization stuff a little bit.

I want to hear what you guys think about
it.

But before that, the other thing I just
wanted to say was what's I think obvious

but so striking is this is possibly the
purest example of if you want to do the

nearly impossible thing right if you want
to get the team together and work really

hard and do the nearly impossible thing
like

There has to be incredible clarity of
purpose and not just goal, but purpose,

There has to be incredible clarity of
purpose and not just goal, but purpose,

right?

The goal was figure out nuclear fission so
that we can build a bomb.

But the purpose wasn't build a bomb.

The purpose was don't let the Nazis build
a bomb and kill us all.

The purpose was we have this existential
challenge and we have to get there first

week because we believe the only, you
know, the only right thing to do, the only

thing, you know, the thing that we can do
in the world that no other humans can do

is make this thing and there it's.

They were aware of the entire time that
that's, there's some real conflict in that

purpose, that there's some real risk in
that purpose, but they were super clear

that that's what they were gonna do and
that they were on a timeline and that

there was sort of this context for why to
do it that allowed them to kind of stop

compartmentalizing.

That allowed them to just like, we're
gonna move our families to this place and

we're gonna work on this 24 seven and
we're gonna give all of our energy and all

of our emotion and all of our intellect to
this because we bought in.

And.

Very few of us will or probably should
work on a project that's quite those

implications.

But the extent to which you can take the
best available people and unite them

around a purpose is very much an indicator
of your prospects for success.

The lack of clarity, the lack of purpose,
the lack of being able to select the best

available people, all those are terrible
for you.

If you can move in some steps in that
direction,

is much is a very powerful set of levers
for achieving your goals.

is much is a very powerful set of levers
for achieving your goals.

I like what you said there, Brian, about
how we really need to have clarity.

I like what you said there, Brian, about
how we really need to have clarity.

And it's cool because it answers both
questions.

Honestly, it answers the question of how
do you handle managing or leading really

technically skilled people who are have a
strong will of their own, who have their

own imaginations for how this invention or
whatever they're going to build is going

to work.

And it starts with clarity.

So that, that beats.

It's gonna be individual efforts when you
have strong clarity of vision.

This is where we're going, strong
visibility on the mission.

This is why we're doing what we're doing.

If people are not, you're gonna have this
problem at any big initiative.

There's gonna be people who don't
understand why we're doing what we're

doing.

You're gonna lay it out what seems plain
to you or what's plain to other key

leaders or team members or whatever, and
there's gonna be people who don't get it.

So one of the tactics that I try to use is
simple clarity to things.

It has to be simple enough that I can show
this to somebody, take the vision and take

the mission, whatever it is, take the
values and show it to somebody who doesn't

know all of the details about everything
that we're doing.

And they can be like, that makes sense.

I can get behind that because otherwise
you're gonna have so many different people

who are headstrong and who have the best
of intentions.

But if you just leave too much ambiguity
in there,

That's where the conflict starts to creep
in.

And that's also where the
compartmentalization starts to creep in.

As soon as there's ambiguity about where
we're going, then the compartmentalization

is going to cause fractures in the
initiative.

The compartmentalization is going to mean
that the people who have to work over here

are either going to choose not to work
with the people over here.

Let's say we're building, we always use
data science because all of us know about

data science, but let's say we're building
this new, cool predictive model.

that's going to be able to solve this
great problem for all humans, right?

Oh, cool.

Oh, cool.

Oh, this is a perfect one, right?

We're gonna be able to predict if you have
enough milk in the fridge or when you're

gonna run out of milk, right?

Have you seen those commercials?

They keep telling, because it's an age old
problem that I don't know what's in the

fridge.

I hate going in there and seeing the
expiration dates already passed when I was

planning to make dinner or whatever.

Okay, well, if you can part...

necessarily you can't have the user
experience designers who are working on

the fridge always or whatever the
applications are.

I don't know your whole ecosystem that
you've worked for Whirlpool or whatever,

right?

But if you can't have the people who are
designing the tech always also working

with the user experience designers.

It just doesn't work out that way.

And there are oftentimes the way that
those schools of thought work.

the technical engineers and stuff like
that think very differently than the

designers think.

And so it's a struggle to get them to work
together.

And I think we see a lot of that here
where we talked about it before as kind of

the science community versus the military
community but there's other conflicts that

you see happen in here, right?

Where it's like, okay, how are we gonna
get these skilled people to work together?

And what do we always go back to?

We go back to the David Marquet submarine
captain video where he talks about,

there's two things you need.

As a leader, you need clarity, number one,
and you need competency, number two, you

need to have great people that are working
on it.

And when you build those things, and when
you have even amounts of those things, you

can achieve greatness.

One thing I want to bring up there is that
you mentioned this in passing, but I

really want to focus on it a little bit,
which was that organizationally, in some

ways, the scientific community, the
physicists and all sorts of different

specialties that were working on the
atomic bomb had an advantage, which was

that they came from the scientific
community, which by that point in the 20th

century had developed into this open
culture.

of communicating and sharing information,
sharing results.

They competed with each other quite
intensely in trying to be the first to

achieve some exciting or important result.

achieve some exciting or important result.

And as you probably all both well know,
and most of our audience knows, the early

20th century saw a remarkable progress in
science.

And a lot of it was due to the fact that
they had developed this community of

sharing information, sharing data, sharing
results.

uh...

going back and forth between institutions
as well so these guys at all work with

each other in their respective countries
and moved around and for them it was very

natural to all jump in divide up the work
in whatever way was most reasonable given

their skill sets and their interests and
work on their own parts of it this was

this was this open and sharing uh...

method had been developed in the still
sort of the standard for

for science, this was not the way that the
government or military did things.

So this sort of sets up this conflict we
were talking about.

So now I think this is a really good segue
to our mountaintop for this episode.

And again, this is sort of the scene or
the line or the moment, which sort of best

encapsulates our lesson.

And for me in this organizational
discussion, the mountaintop moment is the,

it's, you know, montage, but it's the
building of Los Alamos.

It's the decision to isolate the team.

but together, right?

And so this addresses both the
compartmentalization conversation and the

open scientific collaboration and power of
the team conversation and the purpose

conversation.

The answer in this case is
compartmentalize to the right size where

all of the people that have to be involved
in are not only together, but are together

with literally nothing else to do.

You know, that was the con.

it, right?

Yeah.

well, physically they're in a space where
they are compartmentalized, so it's

theoretically difficult to be spied upon,
and turns out not so much.

But just the physical structure of the
place enforced the, like, you guys are out

in the middle of the wilderness, you know,
but you're here together.

We have one purpose.

We have one thing to do.

Within these walls, there's incredible
collaboration.

They're floating people between teams.

We see really good examples from
Oppenheimer of...

Like, okay, great, tell her, go work on
your hydrogen bomb.

Like if that's what you work on, do that.

Like we've got people that want to be on
different teams.

I'm going to move things around so that
we've got the best combination of people

aligned with what they're good at and
people aligned with people they want to

work with and people aligned with the
stuff that they want to be working on.

And those aren't all the same thing, but
he does a really good job of that and

but growth grows wants to internally
compartmentalize los alamos and op and i

was is no you can't it's not gonna work if
you do that he knows that they have to

share information internally but he's
willing to have them closed off the way

they were too to uh...

you know it actually is upsetting quite a
weird culture

It does, but it's the only way to resolve
that tension, right?

Or it was a very skillful way to resolve
that tension of we don't want to have

information leaking out, but we cannot
possibly do this job without intense

information exchange.

So, right, you just put little physical
walls around the information exchange, and

we don't have an internet, so at least we
got that going for us, right?

So, yeah, so for me, that's the
mountaintop here is the...

you know, the leadership lesson to be
taken is like, how do you put the right

size and shape of a team in place and how
do you give them enough structure, air

cover or separation, whatever you want to
call it in an organization so that they

feel like they can act as a team with
minimal interference while they pursue the

purpose that you've already agreed that
they're going to do.

Right.

And that's.

So many of us have worked in these
matrixed organizations where you feel like

every meeting is a different topic and
every email is a different topic and

you're constantly bouncing back and forth
between things.

As a manager, you can live in that role if
your job is to remove roadblocks.

But as a creator, as an innovator, as a
scientist, as a person who writes code, as

a person who does analysis, that doesn't
work.

You can't do a new thing every 12 minutes
all day long and be a creative person,

right?

You need to do the same thing for some
large blocks of time.

and get the collaboration support that you
need.

So how do you set, you know, going back to
our, our Wondr Tour line, if it's not

about you, right?

How do you as the manager, completely or
regardless of your personal schedule, set

the people up so that they have the
maximum possibility to succeed, the best

alignment, the best support, the best
compartmentalization into the right size

team.

And that's, I think a really cool
challenge to think about, like what would

be a Los Alamos for your project?

You know, it's not going to be.

Los Alamos, but it's going to be something
other than business as usual.

It's going to be something other than
anyway, go to nine meetings a day.

Yeah, that's one of the controls that you
have as a leader and manager is over the

organizational design.

It's where you have a lot of influence.

In fact, you may have some of the most
influence over the organizational design

versus some of the other areas.

And so that's the lever that you have to
pull and to not think that that's a lever.

Oh, we evaluate that once a year or
something like that.

But instead to think about that,
obviously, there's limitations in terms of

budget cycles and all sorts of stuff.

Right.

But there's stuff you can do periodically
every month, every quarter, whatever it

is.

in order to constantly refine it.

And that's what we see as well in
Oppenheimer is they don't just settle for

the first idea.

It's like, okay, how are we going to make
a decision?

Well, this isn't a decision science
podcast, but there's many different models

that we can use and they all kind of
gravitate around the same things.

Okay, is it a reversible decision or is it
not?

Well, a lot of times organizational design
seems like it's an irreversible decision,

but it's not.

How might we set up a test that is not

cruel and unusual, right?

We're not whipping people around, putting
them on different things, sending people

to jobs that they didn't sign up for when
they signed on to do the work or whatever.

But instead we're not focused, again,
we're not just focused on the number of

widgets that we're making in the
throughput, but we're focused on creating

really empowered and high performing
teams, because that's the goal.

We're trying to create high performing
teams.

When you create high performing teams, you
can't necessarily measure them.

on the widget output within the first six
months or something like that.

It takes 18 plus months to create a high
performing team, which means you might

have to rotate people in and out.

You might have to figure out the best way
to coach those team members, because it's

gonna be individual.

It's gonna be different than the last time
that somebody coached a similar team

working on a similar initiative.

And I think that's what we see here is
Appy really takes a stand for some of the

things, like he's like, okay.

I get it, we're gonna have to do some comp
I understand that, but like, let's try to

focus on our principles here.

We're trying to build this complicated
thing that we don't, you know, the

theoretical and the physical have to come
together on this thing.

So we can't decouple the theoretical and
the physical.

That will not work, I'm telling you that
won't work.

And we can't decouple all of the different
elements of that thing either, because

those elements have to eventually be put
together, but maybe we could decouple

those a little bit.

So I don't know where that goes, but where
does that take you guys?

Well, the thing that I like, I'm thinking
as you're talking here is that one of the

things they took from the military
viewpoint that I think, you know, sort of

Grove's influence and the fact that, you
know, the seriousness of what they were

doing is that unlike the traditional
scientific method, the chain of command

was extremely clear.

The decision science was, it's very clear
who's making the decisions.

It's Oppenheimer, right?

Or it's Grove's.

It's one of those two guys, right?

And in the teams, it was clear who's
making the decision.

And that's a thing that wasn't common to
the scientific community.

outside of Los Alamos.

But it was a thing that they really took
to heart as like in order to move quickly,

we can't be sort of dithering and arguing
and wondering and doing things in

parallel.

We actually have to be very structured
about our decision tree.

We have to be very structured about which
things we decide to do next and tracking

them and sticking to the decisions we
make.

And that I think was also a very powerful
element of the Los Alamos environment,

which wasn't a natural environment of any
of those people's lives before they got

there.

In Oppenheimer's case, I think the thing
that reinforced or even made possible his

leadership role was that he did know as
much and more about every detail of the

project as everyone who was participating
in it.

So he had to develop that mastery of being
unquestionably their greatest scientist, I

suppose, something along those lines for
that development.

which was probably more from that
scientific world that you know, you would

see if someone was producing this
remarkable output or seemed to understand

something better, they would be in charge.

And Oppenheimer found himself in a role
where he kind of had to be in charge of

all of it at once, and his mind was such
that he was capable of doing that, his

mind and his ambition.

Unfortunately, I think most of us aren't
Oppenheimer, I know I'm not, so...

I think you have to find a different model
of leadership.

And the person in the movie that they
don't tell the story, they don't bring the

story out is his next door neighbor and
the leader of the theoretical division,

Hans Betha, who's one of the characters.

He was a different style of leadership,
more softer and more cooperative.

He was a different style of leadership,
more softer and more cooperative.

But at some point you do need.

you know that hard ass above you which i
think for most of the section heads it was

convenient that they had uh...

you know the some of the hardest people
you could imagine in charge groves and

openheimer

Yeah, well, and I like what you said,
right?

You know, we're as, as leadership lessons
that we can take away, right?

We can't take away, you should be
Oppenheimer and be the most brilliant

person in the building at all times.

Like that's maybe not a life lesson that
we can aspire to, but yeah, great.

Okay.

That's my plan.

Okay.

I'm, I'm good.

Right.

But the, but the idea that you should take
seriously everybody's individual

discipline and learn as much about it as
you can and be prepared to discuss it with

them and be prepared to respect it as its
own unique discipline.

which he did by studying it, but it's
maybe not the only way to do it, right?

That idea that you can gain respect by
engaging with people on their ground and

acknowledging their expertise is certainly
a lesson we can all take, right?

That's a technique that we can take away.

That's the competency, right?

And it doesn't have to be perfect in our
world.

And indeed, we're lucky that the people
we're managing aren't developing new

physics that nobody else in the world
understands, but usually doing things that

we do understand a little better.

So lacking that, if you don't have that,
if you're not willing to reach out and

So lacking that, if you don't have that,
if you're not willing to reach out and

you're not willing to be compassionate...

to other people's challenges, you're not
going to do a very good job.

I think in our world, that compassion is
what matters.

Yeah, so I think one little tactic that
just says from a practical application

Yeah, so I think one little tactic that
just says from a practical application

perspective that I tend to use, and I'm
sure you guys use it too, is, okay, when

you, when you need to like lead really
technical people in a certain direction or

really highly skilled people, a lot of
times those people, if you set yourself up

with all of those people in the room
altogether, so you have a conversation to

move towards a decision or clarity or
something like that, you, a, won't get the

desired result.

And B, you won't even get that good of
feedback and you won't know if you're

actually moving the right direction or
not, it'll be unclear.

So going and spending a little bit of time
with those highly skilled technical

people, that fits right into what you were
saying about learning a little bit about

their discipline, their knowledge, but it
goes both ways.

You spend a little bit of time, I'll go
spend time with an architect, right?

Who's working on systems architecture.

infrastructure, all that sort of stuff.

Infrastructure, that's the thing that I
don't know a whole lot about, but I learn.

You just spend a little bit of time
sitting with them and learning.

And when you're there, it goes both ways.

It's also about clarity, making sure, do
they have clarity in exactly why we're

doing what we're doing?

Because in the architecture example, if
you're talking about like technical

architecture, IT architecture, a little
bit of purpose and explanation of...

why and how is going to go a long way in
making the little fine-grained details

decisions about what tool to use for a
certain part of the architecture.

And it's going to help to make sure that
architecture is more future-proof and it's

going to help the person to have more
ownership.

And so just spending that time, and I
think we see that with Appy, right?

He goes off and he picks people off one by
one and wants to make sure, or like team

by team, and wants to make sure he
understands what that team is doing and

how they're doing it and that they trust
that he understands it.

And then he's also making sure they
understand how it integrates with the

bigger solution.

That's really the job of the leader in
that situation where you have to be the

integrator to get these different
technical or different, again, not even

just technical, but just different skill
sets, people to work together towards one

bigger solution.

And that's how you end up with 14 meetings
a day, right?

Is that the people on the team need to
have that individual attention in some

cases, both so that they feel that their
voices are heard and valued, but also

because you can get a real sense, a real
nuanced sense of their alignment to the

purpose and their needs.

And those are not things that you can get
out of everybody talks for 30 seconds in a

round table.

Yeah, that's a really good point.

I really liked that.

You know, the practical application
takeaway of like, yeah, go talk to your

people one on one, listen to them.

Check in what they're saying, make sure
that they understand the context of what

they're doing and that they're
collaborating with the right people.

That's really cool.

I don't want to drag things in too
different a direction than we've talked

about, but the thing that occurs to me is
that these things, I see a conflict

about, but the thing that occurs to me is
that these things, I see a conflict

between the leadership style that is
smartest guy in the room, which is sort of

Oppenheimer and his scientists, and the
leadership style that is more

compassionate, I suppose, or more
inclusive.

that leadership, the leading through being
the strongest and brightest, which later I

think we talk about now in sort of a
negative way is being the smartest guy in

the room, right?

That that goal is I think maybe a bit of a
dangerous one in a way and that you do end

up with this situation where just because
someone has a great deal of technical

ability.

or is indeed smarter than everybody else
in the room doesn't necessarily mean

they're going to make the best decisions
if they can't also listen and think

outside of maybe their own specialty.

Ooh, that's really good, Dave.

I have a practical story about that
recently.

So actually I was working on my vision
board, creating a dream board and goals

and the art that goes along with that so
that I can feel inspiration when I look at

it and make sure that I, you know, those
emotions are aligned with where I'm going,

whatever.

So I was searching for an image that had
to do with being a leader that empowers

others because I don't...

So I was using Dolly3, the image
generation AI model to try to help me

create some images and get some
inspiration.

And the images it was creating was like a
guy in a suit standing in front of a crowd

giving a speech or something like that.

And it just doesn't feel right.

It did not feel right at all, right?

Exactly, right?

It's like, oh yeah, we need it.

Yeah, that's exactly what it is, right?

It's like, okay, there's this very
stereotypical guy in a suit.

standing in front and everybody's clapping
and they're happy and that's what it

thinks leadership is.

And I was like, no, that's not what
leadership is.

And it occurred to me this morning while I
was meeting with a mentor, what leadership

actually is.

He was talking about another leader who I
have a lot of respect for.

I don't know him super well, but extremely
compassionate guy.

When he walks into the room, everything
lights up.

His name is Bishop Johnny.

He is one of the homeless ministry that we
do.

He lets us use his facility to be able to
do that.

and he shows up, he's not there all the
time.

and he shows up, he's not there all the
time.

But this is what my friend was telling me.

He was saying he shows up and he doesn't
have to be there all the time because when

he's there, he sets up.

So he does, he will work with some of our
guests in this homeless ministry and it

literally solved my vision image problem
when he described the way that Johnny sits

with the guests.

So he will take them upstairs after the
meal and he will go up and he will make a

you.

and he will sit in the center of the you,
and he will turn his way around the you,

and he will talk and ask questions, and he
will listen to each person.

And he sits in the center, so there's not
a classroom environment, it's not a

speaking environment.

He is building up people by understanding
them better, by being there, by sitting

next to them at their level with them.

That's the type of leader that we wanna be
here.

So I love what you said, Dave.

It's like sometimes when we look at it,
we're not here to criticize.

these people in these movies and stuff
like that.

That's not Wondertor reframes things
rather than criticizes.

But there is something to learn where
you're like, okay, yeah, maybe that method

isn't gonna, maybe the method of being
Oppy isn't gonna work in my workplace.

It isn't gonna work in my family.

It isn't gonna work in my nonprofit or
whatever.

And I think the hard part can be how to
balance those two.

You know, sometimes, you know, we do see
the use of quite a bit of hard power in

the movie in terms of, you know, tough
decision making by traditional sort of

tough, my way or the highway leaders.

But somehow we also know that that's not
the whole story.

It's not the whole story in the movie, for
sure.

But it's also.

maybe not something that we think about so
much.

It's not something that's obvious until
you present yourself with that question,

well, why can't I be Oppenheimer?

Well, I'm not gonna be that guy, but what
can we do to be more effective?

I mean, how can we learn these, these are
the skills, because the story about, you

said Bishop Johnny, right?

Is that, did I get the name right?

You know, he strikes me as the sort that
is a different kind of Oppenheimer, but a

sort of maybe a...

you know, sort of a moral or a genius of
another sort that people recognize, you

know, that his authority comes from, you
know, something moral and other people

know, that his authority comes from, you
know, something moral and other people

recognize that.

And that is, I mean, certainly we can
study and learn to be smarter, but maybe

we can also study and learn to be more
compassionate.

I'm sure there's something in there right
about the leadership style has to be

appropriate to the context, to the people
that you're leading and the kind of thing

that you're trying to accomplish as an
organization to the higher purpose, not

just the goal, but the purpose.

There are a lot of different kinds of
organizations.

There's a lot of different kinds of people
that you might be placed in a leadership

role relative to and being amidst a group
of volunteers or being amidst a group of

people that just need help is a very
different environment than being a...

amidst a group of hyper-motivated people
with an existential crisis.

Right.

So there, all these techniques are, are
good to know about because you, you know,

the reason we do this, the reason we have
these discussions on the Wonder Tour is to

have mental models of, oh, this is the
kind of situation I'm in.

This is the kind of skillful response that
might, might work for me.

And so I love having the, having the
Bishop Johnny mental image of like

sitting.

at the same level or lower in the middle
of a group and engaging with them one at a

time is a very different mental model than
standing up in the pulpit and

expostulating at them.

Right.

So that's very cool.

Thanks, Drew.

right.

right.

So do we want to start wrapping up with
our takeaways here, Drew?

So do we want to start wrapping up with
our takeaways here, Drew?

What did you think we got some good ones
out of this one?

Oh yeah, definitely some good ones and not
necessarily what I was expecting when we

started out.

We did hit everything that we wanted to
hit here in terms of our theme, designing

an organization to pursue a purpose.

I think we talked a little bit about each
one of those things, but as always with

Wondertour, we kind of say that we're
going on a journey.

We're going on a hike, we're climbing a
mountain and it's a new mountain that we

haven't climbed before each time and so,
and the journey's different because

You know, today I'm going on the journey
with Brian and Dave and with all the

characters and creators of Oppenheimer.

And next week we'll be going on the
journey with some different folks on a

different mountain.

But coming back down, for me, one of the
best parts of the hike is just talking

about it.

You know, what did we see?

What did we learn?

How did we grow?

What are we gonna do differently?

And again, everybody's experience of a
hike is a little bit different, but coming

down here, some of the things that I take
away, number one, we talk about this a bit

down here, some of the things that I take
away, number one, we talk about this a bit

on-

different episodes of Wander Tour, but
clarity and competency, that to have a

really effective organization, whether
you're leading a team, trying to influence

a community around you, your family,
whatever it is, clarity and competency is

the key.

And this is from David Marquet, says that
you need to have enough clarity so that

people can act in alignment with each
other.

Again, they don't have to be perfectly
aligned, but the clarity will help them to

integrate and work together.

And they have to have enough competency to
be able to make the right decisions.

That's how we make really good human
beings, or make is a tough term there, but

that's how we help to cultivate great
human beings.

We also, yeah, cultivate, exactly.

We like those garden terminology, right?

Number two, the best way to move quickly
is to create high-performing teams.

And that's what we see here as well,
whether it's Oppenheimer or Groves, they

both understand that.

via their past experience.

They have very different experience in
building organizations, but they are well

aware that the best way to move quickly is
to create high performing teams.

We see this obviously with the SEAL teams
as most people would consider like the

premier teams in the world.

These US Navy SEAL teams that are able to
do unthinkable things, impossible things,

and they do it not through individual
feats of strength or fortitude or anything

like that, but by working together.

And...

that so their exercises are focused when
you read about their journey about working

together.

That's what we wanna do within our
organizations.

We also talked about the kind of
transparency and vulnerability to break

down the silos and the need to consider,
what compartmentalization is required

versus what compartmentalization are we
going to have to sacrifice in order to

achieve the desired result?

So when you're making an organization or
you're influencing the direction an

organization goes, whether it's an org
chart or like Brian was saying, more like

of a virtual org chart where how are the
connections supposed to look, who's

supposed to work together on a day to day,
week to week, month to month basis, I

think heavy consideration should be making
sure that there's transparency as much as

possible while compartmentalizing where
there is secret information or competitive

advantage or something just long enough to
gain that edge.

And this was really key, now we're getting
to the good stuff.

You can't just decide to be Oppenheimer,
but you can really learn and respect the

knowledge and the skill of the people
around you.

You can seek to learn and understand and
not be the expert on each of the teams

that Oppenheimer managed, but to be there
with the team, to help them to integrate,

to provide that clarity, to make sure they
have the competency that they need to

perform the task.

We talked about talking to people
one-on-one in order to be able to do that.

That's one technique that you can have
that goes two ways where talking to

somebody one-on-one gives you an
understanding of how much clarity and

alignment they have, how integrated they
are with the mission and the vision.

And of course, also it helps you to better
understand them and build trust with them

so that they're able to feel more
empowered to make the decisions to move

the mission forward.

And then lastly,

We talked about how Oppenheimer isn't the
only model of a leader that can lead a

successful initiative, that can lead a
transformative program, that there's

different times where you don't need to be
the highly skilled technical person who

jumps into every discussion and makes the
tough decisions and no, there's other

times where you need to be the
compassionate Bishop Johnny that sits in

the middle of the group and listens.

to somebody and understands them and shows
them that you care about them, because

that changes lives just as much, perhaps
more.

Anything else, guys?

Well, and knowing when to switch, right,
or knowing how to bring all of those

things in is something I know I'm working
on.

Oh, and I assure you Bishop Johnny had
knowing him again, not super well, but

well enough.

He has other modes that he goes into, but
he's very skilled at knowing what mode to

go into based on what audience in order to
achieve the desired result.

And the effect is such that when he walks
into the room, somehow you notice that he

walked into the room, you're like, oh,
Bishop Johnny wasn't here before.

But literally I felt him behind me enter
the room.

And isn't that the definition of the type
of leader that we're trying to be?

yeah.

I'm gonna take that thought and work
towards it.

I love that.

No, that's awesome.

Yeah.

And I think the, with the first couple of
points you made about the clarity and

moving quickly and transparency, just to
kind of box all that up, like the.

The mental image of the Los Alamos of
like, what can I do that will get my team

into a physical and mental and emotional
information space that they can really be

maximally productive that they're talking
to people that they need to talk to that

they've got support, they've got
collaboration and they have minimal

interference, like whatever you can do to
give them that space is a gift.

to a creative, intellectual, hardworking
person, right?

Is the opportunity to just go be amazing
at something and be confident that those

are supported and be confident that
they're aligned with not just a goal, but

a purpose.

Beautiful.

Thank you, Dave.

This has been great.

Really appreciate you bringing in your
subject knowledge on the matter, your

passion, enthusiasm, your just general
interest in Wondertour and leadership.

It is always a pleasure to talk to you.

Awesome.

a big fan and I'm glad that to ride along
for this one.

All right, well, you're a wonder tour core
now.

So thank you for joining us.

Thank you everyone for joining us on this
episode as well.

We're excited for next episode.

We're gonna be wrapping up our human
machine interaction series with a classic

from the Marvel canon about another person
who thinks he's the smartest one in the

room.

That's right, we're going all the way back
to the Robert Downey Jr.

original Iron Man.

So looking forward to that for episode
109.

But in the meantime, thanks again for
joining us.

We hope you got something out of this to
chew on over the next week or so.

And just remember, as always, character is
destiny.