WonderTour

All right, welcome to Lead Wisely by Wondertor.

We are in our series on Trust the Process, where we're learning about putting forth effort
and making the everyday adjustments that we need to make in order to move towards our

ideal state for flourishing.

We're in episode 127, and now we're going to talk about The Mandalorian.

We're going to go back to the beginning of one of my favorite TV shows of the past couple
of years.

We're going to go to season one, episode three.

In season one, episode three, if you remember, is where Din kind of has a change of heart
and he realizes that he's following this bounty in order to be able to get this payoff.

But the bounty required that he turned in Grogu or Baby Yoda, as we called him at that
point, if we were watching it live.

And so he has this ethical dilemma that he's faced with.

He's at the crossroads between.

following the way which is as we learn kind of the sect of Mandalorianism that Din is a
part of and taking care of this foundling or this helpless creature that he finds himself

in custody of so Brian We're kind of at the intersection of a couple different sets of
explicit and implicit rules

for how to operate in the universe.

So our big question for today's episode is, how do we know when it's the right thing to do
to break the rules?

Awesome.

love this question.

And I think you're right.

This episode gives us a really fun framing of it, right?

So the Star Wars universe, the little sliver of it that we're seeing, we've got at least
three layers of rules going on here, right?

We've got the classical Star Wars, like the Empire is the big impersonal order is the
right way to do things.

We should all fall in line versus the, know, kind of the dingy, grungy, edgy rebellion
pieces of everybody else that's kind of...

pushed to the margins, which is mostly where this episode is set.

So you've got that sort of thing.

Even though the Empire is not technically around anymore, there's clearly people that are
following that ethos.

Layered on that, we've got the Mandalorian himself, Din Djarin, is a bounty hunter, and
there's a very strict bounty hunter code about how you get jobs and how you do the jobs

and how you, once you've completed the job, you forget that it existed and you walk away
and you go do another job.

So it's very transactional, it's very mercenary, it's clearly not super ethical.

mean, they're bounty hunters, right?

There's a dead or alive clause in this one.

There's a dead or alive clause in this one.

So you've got a pretty brutal look at the universe that way.

And then we've got the third set of rules, which we're starting to learn about this early
in the season, which is the Mandalorian code, or like you said, the subset Mandalorian

code that they've got,

which they always phrase as this is the way.

Right?

Like these are the rules and the context for the Mandalorians is they've been sort of
driven underground and the way that they're surviving is they've got this code of behavior

that has a lot of different layers to it.

Taking care of foundlings is one of their ethics, but also like secrecy is an ethic and
never taking your helmet off is an ethic.

And there's a lot of honor and discipline

Samurai Warriors and all typical Star Wars stuff.

So Din's in the middle of all these sets of rules and sort of trying to navigate them for
himself.

And what he finds is that these overlapping sets of rules put him in this really
conflicting situation, right?

He gets this real dilemma where he's got a clear sort of an emotional attachment to this
child figure, the baby Yoda.

He's got an ethical challenge of, I protect this defenseless creature?

against somebody that might not have good intentions for it, or do I take care of myself
and my group and follow the rules that everybody's setting?

Like all three sets of rules are telling him, you do the job, you get paid, you go back in
to do another job,

The rules are all consistent and they're all telling him the same thing.

They're all telling him, take the money and walk away.

And of course we're rooting for him to not take the money and walk away.

And I think that's my, you know, that's my first question back is like, why are we rooting
for him to not take the money and walk away?

Why is it so obvious that that's not the right thing to do?

so what do you think, why do you think it's not the right decision to hand baby Yoda over
to the Imperials and take your money and run?

I think it's obvious from the beginning.

mean, one of the first things that we see in the Mandalorian season one is Din being
rescued by the Mandalorian sect that he's a part of, by the way.

So we have this like set up that the thing that's of highest value, right, their version
of an ideal state in the world that they live is to save these people who have nobody to

look out for them, right?

They're basically taking care of the orphans.

that's their whole vision in life.

And so if in any way, and we see this come in conflict multiple times over the first
couple of seasons of the Mandalorian, the rules that are set in place, especially by the

Mandalorians in this example right here, or you could look at the other ones as well.

But if these rules are getting in the way of your version of the ideal state,

of the version of the ideal state that creates the most flourishing for the people around
you, for the people that you are specifically trying to serve, then that's probably a

chance to violate that rule.

mean, I remember, you know, a handful of years back, a great leader once told me that,

You want to understand the rules because you need to understand when it's the right time
to break the rules in order to accomplish the mission and the vision.

And that's, think, where we see ourselves here.

It's like staying focused on the vision and the mission instead of living within the
constraints of the current system.

Yeah, no, I think that's a really good way to look at it.

And I think you're right that it's thematically consistent for the Mandalorian character
to want to, protect people in the way that he was protected as a child.

But I don't think we as humans need that framing.

Like it's not, we don't require seeing it on a screen to know that it's the right thing to
do to protect a harmless child, a helpless child from being harmed, right?

Like that's just intrinsically obvious, right?

And.

So what I want to suggest, and I think we're going to spend the rest of this episode
really talking about is that.

The rules are not there to be followed.

The rules are there to help us understand how to achieve the bigger mission.

How do we help our community thrive, how to help human flourishing, how to help our
organization do the thing that it was put in the world to do.

And the rules are helpful in that context, but the rules are not the point.

The rules are the means to an end.

And so I think I really want to dig into that after the intro.

Hi, I'm Brian Nutwell and we're on a journey to lead wisely, to become better leaders by
touring fantastic worlds and inspiring lore by going on this wonder tour.

we connect leadership concepts to story context because it sticks to our brains better.

You can find out more at wondertorpodcast.com or on YouTube by looking up Lead Wisely, all
one word.

Where were you hoping you're watching this right now?

So yeah, let's circle back to these rules.

And I love the framing of this in this environment, especially with the Mandalorian code,
right?

Where the phrase that they keep repeating back to each other is this is the way, When
they're talking about the rules, when they're talking about never taking your helmet off,

when they're talking about keeping the covert safe, when they're talking about rescuing
foundlings, when they're talking about getting your armor tuned up, like this is the way.

You know, they're very attached to their code and it's clearly served them well.

And they're, you know, they're, they're pretty committed and he's, and he's in there with
the best of them.

but I love that they call it the way it's not like they're reciting to each other.

These are the rules.

Like these are the rules.

Like that wouldn't be nearly as compelling.

said that like this is the process.

we wouldn't be repeating that on social media.

If that was the, if that was the phrase, right.

And it's because the way is inherently dynamic.

The way is we're going somewhere.

This is a way to something.

And it's a really cool way to think about rules is that not that rules exist solely so
that they can be followed, but rules exist so that we can be on the path so that we can

serve the purpose in the world that we have committed to.

And that's really the challenge that the Mandalorian is presented with himself.

You know, what is the way?

But then that he ends up posing back to the rest of his community, even when they're
questioning what he's doing.

Like, Hey, you're going to expose us, right?

You're putting us at risk as the community.

You're not following the rules as an individual.

know, the bounty hunters are the same way.

Grief Karga is like, you're not following the rules as a bounty hunter.

Like take your money and walk away.

Right.

that's, and, and we all know what he's struggling with.

We all know the obvious right answer to this problem, but I think we all have this
experience too, where you are.

You're in a situation where the easiest thing to do is just follow the rules, right?

Just do the thing that everybody wants to do.

Everybody wants you to do that as the normal thing that your organization does and assume
that that will result in a good outcome rather than the other way around.

Try to get the good outcome that you know your organization needs that you need, that your
community needs.

and then figure out how the process can support that.

Yeah, it seems to me that just about all great leaders of all time will absolutely spout
off rules, right?

They will absolutely, especially share personal rules, things that they do that help them
to be successful, that help them to be the servant leader that they are.

And also that if you look close enough, people will get frustrated because those rules are
often incongruent to the outside viewer, right?

To somebody who's not practicing them and learning and doing them, it's like, they...

They said it one spot to do it this way.

And then they said it in another spot to do it that way.

It's like, well, yeah, because they're they're more than likely practicing the way or
their version of the way versus practicing a specific explicit set of rules.

I'll just live my life by Hammurabi's code, Brian.

It's like the whole point of Hammurabi's code and why was one of the reasons I'm not a
historian in that way, but why it was interesting is because it contextualized a lot of

things.

It wasn't just like a general set of things that we should aspire to.

It was contextualized to a situation.

so you could definitely assume that it could then be expanded to other contexts as well.

And I think that's what is so cool about the way is the way transcends your different
situations.

It transcends your different personalities.

And that's why I want to dive in here and talk a little bit about how the way kind of
influences different characters across the Mandalorian.

And that's why I want to dive in here and talk a little bit about how the way kind of
influences different characters across the Mandalorian.

Ooh, okay, alright.

So, Brian, why don't you bring us up to the mountaintop here where we're going to talk
about one of my favorite Mandalorian characters, love Carl Weathers, Grief Karga.

So, Brian, why don't you bring us up to the mountaintop here where we're going to talk
about one of my favorite Mandalorian characters, love Carl Weathers, Grief Karga.

Yes.

All right.

So in our mountaintop scene, again, our discussion is like, why do we have all these
rules?

And when do you, how do you know when it's okay to break the rules?

And the Mandalorian's in this situation where he has several sets of rules that are
telling him to do one thing and his gut is telling him to do a different thing.

And the point where this sort of all comes to a head is not the point at which he decides,
but where it sort of becomes clear to him.

He's in the cantina with Grief Karga, who's the bounty hunter patron who hands out the
tags and the jobs.

And Griev Kragh is explaining very calmly and very logically and very correctly, like,
this is how it works.

You took the commission, you're getting paid for the gig.

Like you forget that you did the job and you go do another thing.

Like that's the, that's this code that you've committed to.

he's just come out of a meeting where the Mandalorians have told him basically the same
thing.

Like, this is the way we stay secret.

You shouldn't put us at risk by getting involved with the Imperials.

shouldn't getting put us at risk by.

doing something that will cause you to stand out in the world, you know, and the imperials
have told him the same thing.

The imperials are like, it's really none of your business what we do.

Like you did your part of the job, go back and do go back into your little corner and
we're we'll take it from here.

Right.

So he's got all these messages and he's sitting there and he's like, just give me another
job.

And I'm out of here.

Like, just give me another job.

I don't want to talk about it.

I want to celebrate.

I want to drink.

I don't want you to tell everybody how amazing I am.

Like I did the stupid thing.

I'm not happy about the stupid thing.

Just give me another job.

and I'll leave.

anybody watching this knows 100 % what's going to happen, right?

But you're looking at this and you're just like, there's no way that he's at peace with
this, you know, which is, which is an impressive acting job for Pedro Pascal, you know,

encased in a chrome helmet to be able to express with posture and tone of voice that he's
clearly dissatisfied with the state of the world.

But we're pretty clear.

you know, and Grief Karga is right.

Right?

The Carl Weathers character is, he's right.

Like these are the rules and this is the correct thing to do.

And this will cause the fewest ripples.

This will not disrupt the process.

All of the organizations will be happy with you.

The bounty hunters will be happy.

You know, the, the Imperials will be happy.

The middler, it's gonna be happy.

You'll get paid.

You've got your shiny armor.

Like, what are you worried about?

And I think we, we've seen this, right?

We've been in this situation.

We, we've had this experience where...

this moment is the moment we've been in where we're like, just following the rules would
be easy and doesn't feel right.

Yeah.

And it seems like there's like an underlying current here that in these different
situations, whether it's the Mandalorians or the bounty hunters that like, like you said,

Brian in the past, you know, we had to create these rules because somebody did something
and it caused us to take on too much risk.

It caused us to have too bad of an impact.

Right.

So the rules exist to try to narrow the range of outcomes so that we don't have things
like that happen again.

And you just have to respect it.

And in a way, we absolutely want to respect the learnings of what came before.

And so we do want to understand the intent of the rules.

think that's critical.

And this is where Din can provide this unique perspective.

he is seeing this ideal state.

He's the only one that actually just did the thing, right?

He sold Grogu.

And so the other Mandalorians in that example are a little bit further away, right?

The other bounty hunters are a little bit further away.

They're like second hand, third hand.

And so they're like, of course to them, it's just, just follow the rules, just do the
thing.

Yeah.

But for him, it's way more than that.

This is a story that he's a part of.

And I think that's where it's exciting for us in our lives is we end up in these stories
where there's an opportunity to violate the rules in order to help us to achieve the

vision that we have.

And it's especially powerful when that vision or that mission is shared.

It's not like Din is just going out on a limb.

You know, that's a risk.

If you're like, well, my vision is this and I'm the only one standing behind this, but I'm
just going to have to do it anyway.

That's a little bit risky, right?

There's times when that can be OK, I think.

Like, because in a way you could look at that and say, well, isn't that what Din's doing
here?

He's the only one standing for his position.

Excellent.

Yes, we should do that in this situation.

The thing is.

The other Mandalorians technically are standing for it too, they just don't know it yet,
right?

Well, yeah.

so like exactly as you said, you know, to sharpen it, right?

Why do we have all these rules?

We have all these rules to prevent bad things from happening, right?

This is a bad thing that could happen if you break this rule, right?

If you let everybody know that the Mandalorians are hiding here, then the Imperials will
come wipe us out.

If you take off your helmet, then you are not going to be disciplined enough to really
live this lifestyle.

like, you know, and we have businesses make rules all the time.

Organizations make rules all the time.

Families make rules all

Like they're, know, it's really helpful.

Like, it's just, yeah, we should, you should always put a helmet on before you ride your
bike down the street.

Like, you know, these are very useful rules, right?

They're there to prevent bad things from happening.

But you're right.

If you're in the privileged position to observe that following the rules will make a worse
bad thing happen, you know, that the whole point of the organization is to protect

foundlings and following the rules in this case, is going to potentially violate that rule
is, you know, violate that principle.

then you, when you're in this conflict, then you're the one that has to make that
explicit.

You're the one that has to make that clear.

And so Din does that, you know, by taking it upon himself to violate the rule for sure.

Like, okay, I'm going to go personally rescue the child.

I'm going to go personally put myself at risk to rescue the child.

I'm going to go fight all the stormtroopers and, the reason we respect what he's doing is
not because he broke the rule.

The reason we respect what he's doing is because he put the principle and the benefit to
somebody else over his own safety, over his own small minded following of the rules.

So I want to tag this.

Another moment that I think is really important that leads up to this is that, you know,
the Mandalorians are very clearly like they're, putting this onus on him of like, just

follow the rules.

And when he's at the, he's at the forge and

he's asking them to make armor for him and he's delivered all the materials and he's kind
of, so this is a good moment for him.

He's like, he's becoming more of a Mandalorian.

He's leaning into the process.

He's getting this symbolic progress of becoming a better member of the tribe by having
better armor and being, you know, being down there with them.

Like that's really good.

Uh, the armor offers to make him a sigil and he's like, Oh, you can't do that.

That wasn't an honorable kill.

Like I don't deserve that.

I think that moment's really important because he is.

demonstrating to them in a very detailed way that he's committed to the principle and the
code, right?

He's like, I really want to have the cool armor.

I really want to have a sigil, but I didn't earn that thing.

Like I'm thinking about the principle.

And so he's challenging them to recognize that his viewpoint is challenging them to
recognize that he's committed to the rules, but also committed to the principles.

And so by the end of the episode, spoiler alert, They come bail him out.

they have seen that he's operating on principle that they're aligned with and that they
can understand when it's appropriate that one of these rules doesn't apply anymore.

Like secrecy, the covert is not more important than taking care of our people is not more
important than taking care of families is not more important than writing injustice.

And so that I love this idea that, you know, if you follow the rules when it's appropriate
to follow the rules in a way that is, you know, they would frame it as honorable.

You know, in a lot of contexts, right?

But are, you know, you I'm committed to the purpose of this organization.

I'm committed.

I'm not trying to take advantage for myself.

Right.

If you, if you demonstrate that, then when you take another selfless act that violates the
rules, they kind of get it like, yeah.

Like, no, he's, he's actually, he's actually thinking deeply about the principles and we
can all respect that.

We can all challenge ourselves to see if that makes sense.

I think one simple way to practice this, and I know people might already do this in
different ways, but just to try to make it more helpful is, you know, when you feel

something weird in your gut, right?

You don't know how to describe it.

You have some gut feel that there's something else that you should be doing instead, that
you should stand up and say something in a meeting, that whatever just happened in a

relationship, like shouldn't just go by me and I can't just let that go.

You know, we need to go revisit that again.

even though it's going to seem like the more in that situation in the relational one, I
don't want to go down a rabbit hole, but it's more so like the cultural norm versus a rule

would be to let it go.

Like that is the exact moment where you just got to be like, me put my finger on that for
a second.

And I might have to come back to it tonight, you know, when I'm reflecting and tomorrow
morning when I'm reflecting, but I can't just stop or I may even sometimes, you know,

there's going to be a decision that's made where if I don't stand up and say something,
then it.

I don't know that I'm going to have a chance in the future.

And so at that point I need to recognize, Am I going to like Din, right?

That's his moment.

He's realizing that he has to do something now.

If I don't do something now and try something, then I don't know how I'm going to process
this in the future.

And so I think it's tough to tell somebody to look for a gut feel.

So I think I want to pair that with the reflection.

Gut feel, reflect, gut feel, reflect.

Well, and I would say from a playbook standpoint, right?

The simplest thing is zoom out, right?

The reflection is not like, how do I feel about this?

Let me think about that for an hour.

The reflection thing is like, why am I uncomfortable with this?

Zoom out in the bigger picture.

Where is this going?

Am I happy with that?

Would I be happier if I took an action?

Would I be happier if I didn't participate?

Would I be happier if I resist, right?

not just like my own personal happiness, but like, would I feel more consistent with my
goals?

Would I feel integrity?

Would I feel character by taking an action or by not taking an action or by not
participating?

And so the zooming out is really powerful.

And so we actually see this, this is common, but it's nice the way it's shown in this
episode, right?

He kind of does the thing that he's uncomfortable with and then he does the next thing
that he's uncomfortable with.

He takes another job and he walks out of town and he sits down in a ship and he gets ready
to leave.

And then he's like, well, crap.

and he has a tangible thing that reminds him of his, you know, of his emotional
commitments of who he really wants to be.

But that happens to us.

Like sometimes you do have to reflect.

Sometimes you do have to walk away and chew on it.

But at some point it'll just arise to you like, no, the future that I want is not the
future where I just let things happen, where the rules just turn on and everything is

fine.

Like, no, in this case, the rules are doing the wrong thing and nobody else is in a
position to see.

or do something about it.

Yeah, it's kind of on you.

Yeah, yeah.

We've talked about in the past how, you make your decisions And then eventually your
decisions become your character basically, and then your decisions make you.

And it's true at the societal level as well, we create the system and then the system
creates us.

The system, you know, curates us, morphs us into, people that are kind of biased towards
the center of the system.

And it does that oftentimes by enforcing rules or norms and things like that.

It's very good normally that we have those things.

But the power of the transformative leader is to figure out when it's time not to do those
things.

And one of the tools that we have at our disposal is having the way.

And I've said in the past, Brian, we're not going into this because I'm not the expert on
it.

But, you know, rabbis for thousands of years have had something called a rule of life.

This is a different version of this idea of the way there's been many like iterations of
this that have been successful in the past.

And it's critical for us to figure out what our way is.

We don't have to have a of people that wear masks that we walk around with Brian, right?

But let's talk about an example of zooming out.

So one of the most common zoom outs, if you're in tech business, anything where you're
doing development work over the past three decades has been agile development.

This thing we always talk about where there's an admission that

I don't have all the information upfront.

And so I need to iterate quickly to learn and be willing to change off my priors of what I
thought the product or the service should be and allow the team to be empowered to learn

as well and make decisions.

And it's great, right?

So that is getting us away from the rigid old system that we call waterfall project
management, where everything was very straightforward and we'd set all the requirements up

front.

Then we just, you know, mindlessly achieve them.

So that's the end, right, Brian?

That's like the end of that story and we solved the problem and agile is the way.

now we're flexible.

Now we're iterative.

Now we're agile.

Now everything's going to go great.

Right.

Yeah.

No.

Right.

Right.

So, so what happens is that, you know, the people that felt compelled to change the way
that they were doing software development observed that they weren't getting to something

good, you know, at the end, right.

People were dissatisfied with the software they were producing.

They're like, all right, well, this isn't working.

We don't have enough information.

So we're to go over the new process that allows us to iterate our way to success as we
uncover new information.

We're going to call it agile.

And in order to do agile, well, guess what?

We need to come up with a new, is the way.

So we've got sprints and we've got daily standups and we've got retrospectives and we've
got Jira tracking boards and we have all these things, right?

Fast forward five years, 10 years, 20 years, couple of generations of software developers.

You now have entire tribes of people who mindlessly follow this is the way agile.

Right.

You know, who are turning the crank on all of these wonderful artifacts and all of these
wonderful discipline processes that are intended to prevent bad things from happening.

But they're not necessarily inherently focused on delivering really great software to the
end.

Right.

many of them are like, it's not, it's not that it prevents you from doing a good job, but
if you think the, what doing a good job looks like is having your.

boards filled out properly and having your meetings last exactly 15 minutes and doing
retrospective every two weeks.

those are, those are framing, those are processes, those are rules, right?

But those rules are for something.

They are the way to something.

And if you're not ever zooming out and checking that you're on the way to that thing, then
there's no guarantee that you'll get there.

There's no guarantee that you're producing the value in the world that you thought you
were going to produce.

Yeah.

And isn't the point of Agile initially, right?

It's to empower the individual and the team to empathize with the customer, the user of
their solution, to understand properly and then to build accordingly to bubble up

information when they feel that something's not feasible or something's not going to be
desirable for the customer to work across functions to make sure that we're not silo

designing things.

That's the purpose of it.

And

really in the end, when we're talking about WonderTour right?

our mission is to become more magnanimous and to teach others to do likewise.

And if that's the case, then the way is not a very explicit system where you just follow
all these things and then you'll be magnanimous, right?

It's much more difficult than that.

And that's where Din's magic comes in because Din understands that it's not about the
rules.

The rules are a pointer to where we're trying to get to and they should be violated.

if they're going to keep us from getting there.

It's like he in the Mandalorian is in a way also about something magnanimous.

It's about, taking these foundlings and giving them dignity and giving them purpose and
giving them community.

And that's amazing that that's what they're doing.

I love to see it happen, but

Even the Mandalorians got caught up in this idea that like we do that by following a
process, right?

They're in their own second generation, third generation of agile developers in our
practical application example where they're just following the system heads down.

And one of our superpowers of leadership we talk about is compassion, right?

And that's the, you know, we don't talk about following the rules as a superpower of
leadership.

Like that's management, you know, we have, that's a whole different part of the world,
right?

Is, when you know how to do a thing and you're following the rules, but the leadership
challenge is recognizing, you know, compassion.

Like I recognize that there's a thing that could be improved in the world, that there are
people suffering in a way that I could change it.

And those could be just like people that are having a terrible work experience.

So they're not necessarily foundlings that are going to be have, you know, medical
experiments performed on them.

Right.

But there's still, you know, there are opportunities to make things better.

Even if it, even if that's not exactly what the rules are telling you to do.

yeah, maybe a quick anecdote about, falling into that trap, right.

Falling into the process trap.

some years ago I was the

responsible for a process where we had to do a job inside our company on time.

So you declared a schedule of when you were going to deliver this thing, you know, and
this business work product, and then you would have to honor that schedule.

And if you weren't able to meet your deadlines, then you had to, there was some additional
tracking that went onto it people would pay attention.

Like, okay, make sure, make sure we're getting things, everything's happening smoothly.

Cause we got a lot of downstream stakeholders and people need to know when they're going
to be able to have the information to move ahead.

And we had one team that was on time all the time.

you know, 100 % compliant all the time for years.

And then one month they had a single outlier.

They had a single trivial thing that sort of slipped through the cracks.

wasn't even that big of a problem.

It was just a small thing that got flagged as late.

And the manager came to my desk from that group and spent an hour complaining about the
fact that they got flagged as late because he hated being flagged as late and

in the course of that meeting proceeded to explain to me that the reason that they were
never flagged as being late is because they had been in the habit of canceling anything

that they proposed that was at risk and then rescheduling it later when they knew the date
was and then canceling it again and rescheduling it again when they knew the date was

going to be until they finally landed on a date that they could achieve.

And then the system would let you do that.

And so you could kind of fly under the radar of never having a thing that violated the
rule.

And so great, you know, this is the way we're never late.

We never took our helmets off.

Right.

Yay.

But the intention of that rule was to tell your downstream customers when you were going
to give them something so they could plan their work and so they could know what, what was

going to happen and when.

And if you violate that by repeatedly breaking your word and canceling things and then
scheduling them again, like it makes you look good, but it doesn't actually accomplish the

goal.

And this was a surprising.

The manager was shocked that we had that conversation.

He was so convinced self-righteously that they had been wronged because this one thing had
snuck through late because somebody was out of the office.

That he was happy to explain to me that they've been gaming the system for years.

And, the thing that they were avoiding by gaming the system was like having an
uncomfortable conversation with an executive every once in a while.

It wasn't like somebody was going to get hurt.

So it was such a trivial thing, but it was such a like.

the process is more important than the purpose so clearly.

And we fall into that so easily unless we zoom out.

Unless we take a step back and say, what is the principle we're trying to accomplish with
this rule or this set of rules?

And if you zoom out, you know, if you, like you say, we tell each other these stories, if
you tell yourself the story of like, I'm Din Djarin, I'm the Mandalorian, I'm sitting at

this...

Cantina table with grief, cargo, and he's telling me, you're awesome.

You did such a great job.

You followed the rules so well, you should go celebrate, you know, right.

And what's inside of you is telling you this is terrible, right?

This is not going to work.

This is not the world that I'm trying to create.

Like if that's telling you something, then that's really important.

Listen to that, right?

If you are, if you know that you are not honoring your own principles, if you know that
you are not being the leader that you want to be, even if you're following the rules,

Listen to that.

That's really good stuff, Brian.

I think we all find ourselves in those sort of situations where you start to have that
feeling.

So it's helpful to have a little bit of a model and somebody to look to when I, again,
inevitably next week, next month, find myself in that situation.

All right.

Well, that was a really good conversation about rules and what they're for and what
they're not for and the principles that we might need to pay attention to around them.

I think that's all for this episode.

Thanks everyone for joining us once again on our journey to become better leaders, to lead
wisely.

In our next episode, we'll be back for another episode of the Mandalorian, this time
season two, episode seven, The Believer.

We hope you'll join us for that one.

In the meantime, just remember, as always, character is destiny.