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Video ID: tBtt_c6XZYQ
Language: en
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[0:00] And the way that you should be
[0:02] transitioning into that role is not by
[0:04] like, oh, that person looks like they're
[0:06] doing a really good job in their current
[0:08] role. They become the cap on their
[0:09] organization because they're not good at
[0:11] leadership. This is one thing which AI
[0:13] is really horrible at is saying I don't
[0:15] know. Hey everybody, I'm Devin Kums. I'm
[0:17] a CPA, MBA, and I work at Google Cloud
[0:19] where I lead multi-billion dollar deal
[0:22] negotiations as a financial expert. But
[0:25] for fun, I also do this podcast,
[0:26] Ambition Aligned, where I try to find
[0:28] purpose-driven professionals making real
[0:31] impact with what they're doing in their
[0:32] lives. Please watch, please subscribe,
[0:34] and I think we're going to get a ton out
[0:36] of today's episode. And we're ready to
[0:38] go. Welcome to my podcast. Why is not my
[0:40] podcast? It's your podcast. Why don't
[0:42] you make the nuts? Yeah. No, thanks for
[0:44] making the time today. I'm really
[0:46] excited about this one specifically
[0:48] because I'm in Google and I work with a
[0:50] lot of tech people being in the Bay Area
[0:52] and I have found that many tech founders
[0:56] are extremely intelligent and good at
[0:59] their tech uh at the technical details
[1:01] but really struggle with people. And so
[1:04] when I was talking to a CEO of a very
[1:06] prominent startup the other day, he was
[1:09] telling me about how his least favorite
[1:10] thing about his business is HR and
[1:13] people. And it seemed to me kind of
[1:15] counterintuitive because that's 90% of
[1:17] business and leading a team is you got
[1:19] to grow in order to scale. Yes. Yes. And
[1:22] I see that you're so focused on at least
[1:24] when I read through your stuff, you're
[1:25] so focused on bridging the EQ with the
[1:27] IQ. And yeah. So I'd be curious if you
[1:29] could walk me through your thoughts
[1:30] around that. For sure. And um even
[1:33] though you said the EQ IQ um in the
[1:36] given uh current world of AI, I feel
[1:39] like some point we might need to
[1:40] leverage EQ to understand a certain AI
[1:42] model which is in front of us. Um
[1:46] I believe it. I believe it. Yeah. Yeah.
[1:48] That's actually really true. Which I
[1:51] think will require us having both of
[1:53] those hats. But yeah, you kind of hit it
[1:55] on hit it on the nose.
[1:58] Um a lot of uh technologists including
[2:00] myself uh love solving problems and uh
[2:04] we love solving very technical complex
[2:07] problems and problems that already have
[2:10] been stated. If you give us a problem
[2:13] statement with all the details in it and
[2:15] give us I don't know five weeks in the
[2:17] dark room and maybe coffee or something
[2:19] like that. I think it's the most
[2:21] enjoyable experience for many engineers
[2:23] because they get to lock in into the
[2:25] puzzle, research things online, try some
[2:27] things out, and eventually perhaps
[2:30] arriving to the
[2:31] solution. The problem with the real
[2:34] world is that a lot of problems are not
[2:37] actually very formulated. We absolutely
[2:40] love textbook problems because they're
[2:42] so isolated in their context, but real
[2:46] world problems are very poorly defined.
[2:48] And if there is a definition, if there
[2:50] is a problem statement, it's usually a
[2:52] product person's guess at what the
[2:55] problem is that needs to be solved,
[2:57] right? It's an experiment. And after we
[2:59] solve the problem, we're going to try it
[3:01] with the user. We're going to try it
[3:02] with the our customers and we hope that
[3:05] it will solve their problem, which we
[3:07] think the problem is. So there's a lot
[3:09] of may that gets involved as part of
[3:12] problem definition. Now a lot of those
[3:15] may have to be extracted from the actual
[3:18] users, from the actual market, from the
[3:20] actual um customers and that happens
[3:23] through conversation. The thing that
[3:26] hasn't been done as part of our
[3:28] engineering journeys is nobody actually
[3:30] taught us how to have conversations.
[3:32] We've been taught how to program in
[3:34] certain languages. We've been taught how
[3:36] to access specific database. We've been
[3:38] taught how to uh write beautiful AI
[3:40] models, but there is no communication.
[3:43] There is no negotiation class. There is
[3:45] no um uh team leadership classes as part
[3:49] of that journey. You can go up to as far
[3:51] as being a PhD in your art as a
[3:55] engineer. And most of those classes do
[3:58] not touch upon the issue. But how do you
[4:02] interact with other people in a way that
[4:04] you can be more successful, build a
[4:06] business, even solve a problem better?
[4:09] And so that's why uh I decided to focus
[4:12] my current uh coaching on bridging that
[4:16] gap. Um and I tried to focus and figure
[4:19] it out for many different engineers for
[4:22] many different uh ways of that they
[4:24] travel. Um and we start with a place
[4:27] where we have to switch off the part
[4:29] which helps us solve the problems and
[4:32] start training up or transfer learning
[4:35] areas that can help us writing the
[4:38] problem and defining the problem before
[4:40] we can actually attempt to solve.
[4:43] Now your the CEO example that you
[4:46] mentioned of your good friend is that HR
[4:50] is absolutely not the favorite one for
[4:53] many people but including engineers
[4:56] because it's so messy because it doesn't
[4:58] have clear guidelines because it starts
[5:01] including people problems as part of it
[5:05] and they are messy they're hard to
[5:07] define right but there are frameworks
[5:10] there are analogies there are ways of
[5:12] thinking that we apply that helps us get
[5:14] through that and
[5:16] eventually the complexity of human
[5:19] problems becomes way more attractive to
[5:23] the brain which is have been trained on
[5:25] solving problems than typical technical
[5:28] problems. I'm not saying there are no
[5:30] technical problems out there which no
[5:32] remain attractive but the complexity of
[5:35] the human interactions especially at
[5:37] scale beyond 10 15 people becomes
[5:42] immensingly complex and thus more
[5:44] interesting to solve.
[5:46] Yeah. And what's so interesting is what
[5:49] I'm hearing through all of this is even
[5:51] in finance or other technical fields not
[5:52] as technical as engineering but
[5:54] technical fields you get that where you
[5:55] get very technical people who ultimately
[5:57] wind up in leadership. Yes. and then
[5:59] they become the cap on their
[6:01] organization because they're not good at
[6:03] leadership. Leadership be then they
[6:05] become the bottleneck from system
[6:07] perspective. And so it would be really
[6:10] interesting to talk through since it's
[6:11] such a big problem for so many people as
[6:13] soon as they enter management. Yes. What
[6:15] do you do to get them over that hurdle?
[6:17] How do you get to see people to see the
[6:20] value of entering into that leader
[6:22] people driven role and how do you do
[6:23] that practically? For sure. Um I think
[6:27] uh and if we're talking in in the
[6:28] context of an organization versus let's
[6:30] say uh entrepreneurs is that there has
[6:34] to be a certain promotion criteria which
[6:36] is not based at what you're good at now
[6:39] but what you're going to be good at in
[6:41] the role that you're going to be filling
[6:43] which has leadership requirements. And
[6:46] the way that you should be transitioning
[6:48] into that role is not by like oh that
[6:51] person looks like they're doing really
[6:52] good job in their current role. they
[6:54] might be good at this leadership role
[6:56] because that's a gap. It's almost asking
[6:58] asking if can an ice skater be a really
[7:01] good hockey goalie. Yes, there is a lot
[7:04] of overlap but chances are they're not
[7:06] going to be as successful as somebody
[7:07] who let's say goes to through training
[7:09] as a hockey goalie. Um maybe watches
[7:12] some videos of other hockey goalie
[7:14] playing. Um but what I see happens in a
[7:18] lot of companies is that person gets
[7:20] promoted one because their boss maybe
[7:22] left become maybe because the company
[7:24] has no other choice. There is no
[7:27] understanding that leadership requires
[7:29] training. It's not just an innate thing
[7:31] that like oh they're naturally born born
[7:33] leader they can just go ahead and take
[7:35] care of all the different problems that
[7:37] we have. No, it's a lot of training, but
[7:39] it's also a lot lot more experience. And
[7:42] some things that I try to um advocate
[7:45] for uh in organizations that are trying
[7:48] to promote leaders or uh advice to
[7:50] people who would want to become managers
[7:52] and leaders is how can you get this
[7:54] leadership experience and management
[7:57] experience without being in a role yet?
[8:01] What are the opportunities that are
[8:02] available in your current role to
[8:04] volunteer for certain leadership
[8:06] responsibilities to manage some projects
[8:09] which perhaps are not bottom line
[8:11] impactful but they can demonstrate that
[8:14] you're able to organize lead manage um
[8:19] and kind of lead the projects in a way
[8:22] that you can transfer that experience
[8:25] onto your next role. And if you don't
[8:27] have those opportunities uh inside the
[8:29] company, what are there opportunities
[8:31] outside of the company? Can you organize
[8:33] a club? Can you organize a project? Can
[8:35] you start a nonprofit which demonstrates
[8:37] that you can lead and organize a big
[8:40] number of people aligned towards uh that
[8:43] goal. Now you might be also in a
[8:46] disadvantage where your organization
[8:48] might not understand what leadership
[8:50] criteras are important for you to get
[8:52] promoted. So in a sense you kind of have
[8:53] to both then not just educate yourself
[8:55] but also educate your management and
[8:58] your leadership that those skills are
[9:00] important to be part of that and it
[9:02] becomes a really difficult cell and
[9:04] maybe at some point you might want to
[9:05] consider like is this the right
[9:06] organization for me to get promoted in
[9:08] but then again um everybody has uh their
[9:10] own priorities.
[9:13] Yeah that's really fascinating. I'm
[9:14] curious too, you you did a good job
[9:16] differentiating between organizational
[9:19] leaders and then entrepreneurial
[9:21] leaders. And from my own experience, I
[9:24] find entrepreneurial leaders are almost
[9:26] like like an exponential version of the
[9:29] organizational where right like where
[9:32] and I'll see organizations once they hit
[9:34] 10 headcount like 10 headcount yes they
[9:36] have a block 100 headcount they have
[9:38] another block because they have trouble
[9:40] with that leadership side. So yeah, how
[9:42] do you practically when you're working
[9:44] with entrepreneurs in the space since
[9:46] this is your expertise? How do you help
[9:47] them work through that specifically when
[9:50] they don't have they're the top of the
[9:52] organization, they're the founder, how
[9:54] are they going to get that exper
[9:55] leadership experience without breaking a
[9:57] few barrels or making a few people cry,
[9:58] you know? Yeah. Um
[10:01] well I guess I guess the right answer
[10:03] there you kind of screwed because once
[10:05] you're already at the top of the
[10:06] organization um there's not a lot of
[10:10] experience that you can get in the
[10:11] moment because now you have already the
[10:13] responsibilities of the leader. Uh you
[10:15] just have no time to train on them. You
[10:18] just kind of have to go ahead and do
[10:20] them and if you screw up that's your
[10:22] training. Um now ideally if let's say
[10:26] you're starting a company and you're
[10:27] starting in a specific industry I would
[10:30] probably advise or coach on is um how
[10:33] can you get this experience before you
[10:35] jump into the company let's say if
[10:37] you're working full-time at a large
[10:39] company again can you start something on
[10:41] the side that takes 5 10 hours of your
[10:43] time so you can practice some of those
[10:45] elements of entrepreneurship because if
[10:49] you kind of quit a company called Turkey
[10:51] and start entrepreneurship
[10:53] um journey you're probably a lot of your
[10:58] uh listeners and yourself I know that
[11:00] you're kind of assembling plane on the
[11:03] fly as you go from the parts which never
[11:05] were supposed to be part of the airplane
[11:08] um and the more of those parts which
[11:10] already come pre kind of prefab from
[11:12] your head thus from experiences the
[11:15] easier is for you to put those parts
[11:18] together because you know that they're
[11:19] already flight worthy. Um but the more
[11:22] things that you have to learn from you
[11:24] the more it's it's like the more number
[11:26] of learning curves that you have to
[11:28] ascend and at some point you just hit a
[11:30] personal limit. Now having said
[11:33] that it's still good. It's still there
[11:36] is a room for improvement and growth. If
[11:39] you already have taken on a leadership
[11:40] role uh at organization
[11:43] uh and you're at the top you can find a
[11:47] mentor, you can find a coach which can
[11:49] help you navigate and perhaps transfer
[11:51] some of their own experiences and into
[11:53] the one which you're having right now in
[11:55] order to grow. Uh and when I suggest uh
[11:58] somebody getting a mentor
[12:01] and there was always a question like
[12:03] well what kind of mentor should I get
[12:05] and also where would I find them? The
[12:07] best mentor usually is the one who is 2
[12:09] three years ahead of you in the same
[12:12] exact business that you're doing in the
[12:14] same same exact role. Usually those
[12:17] ideals do not exist. So you have to
[12:19] figure out how to patch that missing
[12:21] experience out of one or two different
[12:23] mentors, maybe three mentors. um but
[12:25] then to realize
[12:26] that how to extract their knowledge in
[12:30] the way that that is the most useful to
[12:31] you. The reason why I'm saying that it
[12:33] has to be super aligned because context
[12:36] of you in your company in your industry
[12:38] in your team and your product are so
[12:40] unique that if you go ahead and you try
[12:42] to listen to mentors who are outside of
[12:44] your industry or outside of let's say
[12:46] your age uh range or your experience
[12:48] range a lot of things will just not land
[12:50] in your context. So you're trying to
[12:52] match that context as much as possible
[12:55] uh with your mentor and you're basically
[12:57] doing a patchwork between all the
[12:58] different men mentors to uh help you
[13:01] with all the different learning curves
[13:03] that you're going through. Yeah, that
[13:06] makes perfect sense to me. I people are
[13:08] going to give advice based off of their
[13:10] own experiences. Yes. And so for in my
[13:13] world, there's people who do the
[13:14] consulting world, they do the big four
[13:17] accounting or they go corporate. And if
[13:20] I wanted to go write a book, let's say,
[13:22] I don't if I went to them for advice,
[13:24] none of them would say, "Go write the
[13:25] book." You know, they would all tell me
[13:27] like, "Oh, no, you need to go in
[13:28] corporate and here's how you succeed in
[13:29] corporate." And so, you need someone
[13:31] who's been down that path a little bit
[13:33] in order to guide you, which makes
[13:34] sense. But I I want to dig a little more
[13:36] into the coaching side of things is
[13:39] because that's where you you excel is I
[13:42] see such a value in especially leaders
[13:44] who are moving fast and are young who
[13:47] need that extra leadership and are
[13:48] learning on the fly. How can you give
[13:52] them that space and give them kind of
[13:54] one of the biggest things I've seen
[13:55] missing is maybe self-awareness. Yeah.
[13:57] Of hey, they might be pushing the team
[13:59] too hard. They might not be pushing hard
[14:00] enough. They might be overly
[14:01] compassionate, undercompassionate. they
[14:04] might need people to mitigate it. How do
[14:06] you create that space for them and
[14:07] diagnose it, if you will, and figure out
[14:09] how to help them through the process?
[14:11] That's that's a really good question.
[14:13] Um, but I would still put it into place
[14:16] of a maybe a third or fourth fifth
[14:18] follow-up question as far as uh founders
[14:21] figuring it out because I'm not a
[14:23] doctor. I'm not a prescription thing.
[14:25] Like, nobody's going to tell them, "Hey,
[14:27] go see a coach for self-awareness."
[14:28] They're already at the top of the
[14:29] organization, right? Yeah. In a sense,
[14:32] they have to run and become self-aware
[14:35] themselves of at least some pain that
[14:38] they want to fix. And they no longer
[14:40] trust themselves at that this point to
[14:42] actually go through that. And that's
[14:45] usually becomes the core uh of uh
[14:48] beginning the relationship with a coach
[14:50] or a mentor or at least asking
[14:52] questions. And it could be
[14:55] like, do all relationships
[14:58] uh are are all relationships filled with
[15:00] so much drama and so much friction as
[15:03] mine is with
[15:04] co-founders? Maybe for a week or two,
[15:06] you're thinking like, okay, this is a
[15:08] little bit dramatic than I'm usually
[15:09] used to. Um, we're kind of yelling at
[15:11] each other, but then again, like it's a
[15:13] very rash project. It's something new is
[15:15] being born. Like we're passionate about
[15:17] it. Maybe it's the right thing. But
[15:19] after maybe a month or two or three or
[15:21] four or five, you start questioning
[15:23] like, is this the actually right
[15:24] approach? Because I'm not feeling good
[15:26] about it. I'm not I'm feeling pretty
[15:28] painful about it. I haven't heard too
[15:30] many stories about this kind of
[15:32] co-founder relationships happening. And
[15:34] then the question arises, what are other
[15:36] relationships out there? And perhaps
[15:39] there is some research done maybe some
[15:42] questioning of other maybe mentors maybe
[15:45] other founders and they're going to say
[15:46] well actually sounds like your
[15:48] relationship maybe is toxic right or
[15:50] perhaps some other label or unhealthy
[15:53] being slapped on it and then maybe the
[15:55] founders are thinking well how do I go
[15:58] and solve this relationship right and
[16:01] this is when they realize that in order
[16:03] to solve for them they might need
[16:05] somebody who has gone that gone through
[16:07] that themselves or perhaps have coached
[16:09] others to how to go through themselves
[16:11] and that's becomes a moment of
[16:12] self-awareness and that's not
[16:13] necessarily self-awareness but also a
[16:15] relationship
[16:16] awareness I have a bad relationship with
[16:18] my
[16:19] co-founder others verified that it's
[16:21] this is not a great relationship three I
[16:24] need to figure out how to solve this now
[16:26] this is not a complete self-awareness
[16:27] yet but this is at least through the
[16:29] lens of the problem that they're having
[16:32] now they start start seeking advice and
[16:34] they start seeking approaches that they
[16:36] help them guide to the right is
[16:39] then as part of the coaching as part of
[16:42] understanding we try we'll try to figure
[16:44] out what role do they play as part of
[16:47] the relationship with the founder now u
[16:50] there could be some examples and um in
[16:53] in in one of the examples that I share I
[16:55] was working with a co-founder who was
[16:57] completely burned out and wanted to quit
[17:00] and he wanted to quit cold turkey and uh
[17:04] uh and we were trying to figure out how
[17:06] to process said, and I asked him the
[17:09] question, well, let's say you look at
[17:12] this situation 5 years from now and you
[17:15] quit cold
[17:16] turkey. What would you say you've gained
[17:19] from this relationship and said, "Well,
[17:21] experience." I'm like, "Okay, great. And
[17:23] what about your co-founder? What kind of
[17:25] things do you think they have gained?
[17:27] What kind of experience they have
[17:29] gained?" I'm like,
[17:31] "Well, I guess a shitty co-founder who
[17:34] quit." All right. So like and you see
[17:37] the difference, right? You see the
[17:38] difference, right? And which of the
[17:41] scenarios would you like to attempt to
[17:43] fix or how would you like to fix it? And
[17:47] then we start introducing some moments
[17:49] of questions of growing of
[17:51] self-awareness how we are appearing in
[17:54] the
[17:55] communications and uh and communications
[17:58] uh conversations with our other people
[18:01] in the team and thus we start monitoring
[18:03] more well if I'm doing this thing with
[18:06] my co-founder maybe I'm doing it with my
[18:09] spouse maybe I'm doing it with my
[18:11] employers employees maybe I'm doing it
[18:13] with my vendors and partners
[18:15] ers and it creates a small seed where
[18:18] the person starts growing their own
[18:20] self-aware. So that's why I'm saying
[18:22] your question is probably like a little
[18:24] bit later um in the process than the
[18:27] first question cuz I don't think um
[18:29] maybe there are maybe uh the world is a
[18:32] crazy place like look at the market
[18:34] today right um tariffs
[18:38] yeah um what I don't think at any point
[18:42] somebody raises like hey I have no
[18:43] self-awareness I need to get some it
[18:46] usually comes from other paths uh which
[18:49] highlight perhaps inefficiency
[18:51] um or perhaps some light level of
[18:53] ignorance in certain scenarios which
[18:55] help a person uh improve.
[18:58] Yeah. What's what's really interesting
[19:00] that you brought up and was me think
[19:02] makes me think of it almost like a
[19:03] superpower if you will of being able to
[19:07] feel enough pain and to recognize maybe
[19:09] I'm contributing to some of this and
[19:11] then having a coach and give to give you
[19:13] the space to process it. But then you
[19:15] need a coach that kind of gives you
[19:16] tough love. It can't be, "Oh, I'm sorry.
[19:18] I hear it sounds like you're going
[19:20] through a hard time. Like, let me help."
[19:21] You need someone to really point like,
[19:23] "What? How are you contributing to this
[19:24] mess? What's in your control?" Yeah. You
[19:26] can't control other people unless you
[19:28] want to go the mockabellian power
[19:29] dynamic route, which I normally don't
[19:31] recommend, but it's prevalent. That's
[19:34] more organizational and nature, too. Um,
[19:37] but I think it'd be really interesting
[19:38] to
[19:39] explore how how could more people lean
[19:42] into self-awareness as a competitive
[19:44] advantage because if you are able to
[19:47] create that space and figure out where
[19:48] your relationships are off or where your
[19:50] people skills are off um then you can
[19:52] grow your business more that makes you a
[19:54] better leader, right? Yes. Yeah. And so
[19:57] how have you seen people have you how
[20:00] have you seen people grow and maybe you
[20:02] can give me a story a bit of someone who
[20:04] came in and with a viewpoint of that was
[20:07] they were experiencing a lot of pain but
[20:10] that transformed into self-awareness and
[20:12] to growth for their business. So that
[20:14] was a great question. Um I I think so
[20:18] you mentioned that uh coach is there
[20:20] also to support like in sense to create
[20:23] the safety but also ask questions which
[20:25] I hope that uh self-awareness come up um
[20:29] I generally
[20:30] uh like to bring up self-awareness um
[20:34] through analogies and one of the
[20:36] analogies let's say if you're driving a
[20:38] race car and you only have brake and gas
[20:41] paddles uh in in the wheel you will get
[20:44] somewhere eventually it. Um, but you
[20:46] will not know how fast you are going,
[20:48] what is your oil uh level, um, how what
[20:51] is your GPS navigator saying by all the
[20:53] different parameters that you're
[20:54] measuring for the race car? How strong
[20:56] is the wind? How what are other forces
[20:58] that are happening on your
[21:00] car? You have controls, right? You can
[21:03] say things, you can listen to things,
[21:05] but what are the things that you're
[21:06] observing? What what what are the things
[21:08] that you're measuring as part of the
[21:10] relationship? How do you know something
[21:11] is going well?
[21:13] Um, one of the things uh, so I had to
[21:17] coach a person uh, who was uh, joined a
[21:20] role um, in in their
[21:22] uh, leadership position. They were
[21:25] coming from a large company into a
[21:26] smaller firm and they're saying
[21:29] like what's going on with these people?
[21:32] Why why there's they're they're not
[21:35] listening to me at all? I'm telling them
[21:37] I'm telling them I'm telling you and
[21:38] they're not listening at all. I told
[21:40] them they have to do X Y and Zed.
[21:43] And through a series of questions, I
[21:46] asked them, well, what has your
[21:48] experience been in the past, right? How
[21:50] have you managed those kind of
[21:52] relationships? Well, what I told them
[21:56] exactly what to do and they kind of did
[21:58] it. Now, I told you like, well, did
[22:02] anything change between your previous
[22:03] job and the current one? Well, we have
[22:05] talked through that and we realized,
[22:07] okay, the context has completely
[22:08] changed. Um, and what kind of talent or
[22:12] what kind of people are you working with
[22:14] now that you uh were not working before?
[22:17] And there's another revelation that uh
[22:20] they were able to observe is that they
[22:22] were working at larger companies. Larger
[22:24] companies can afford to pay a lot of
[22:26] money for very very educated people and
[22:29] and the smaller companies they don't
[22:31] have big budgets to pay for the people.
[22:33] So the people were different and so
[22:35] while their management uh practice
[22:37] stayed the same they transferred over
[22:39] the context and the people changed uh
[22:42] whom they were managing and different
[22:44] approaches needed to happen perhaps
[22:46] additional training or perhaps the way
[22:48] that they were communicating the things
[22:50] that were being done or needed to be
[22:51] done to those people that had to change.
[22:54] So I'd say that moment of self-awareness
[22:56] helped a person uh to um triage and and
[22:59] also improve their approach in their new
[23:03] position. Okay. Now that that's really
[23:06] interesting and it makes sense and so
[23:08] it's making me think
[23:10] of how like the flip side of the problem
[23:14] like you can also have situations where
[23:16] you're used to managing small
[23:17] unperforming teams and then as soon as
[23:20] you start managing high performers they
[23:22] have their own set of issues. They're
[23:23] really tough to manage on like career
[23:25] expectations, how do you actually retain
[23:26] them, all of that. Um, there's so much
[23:30] ambiguity here in
[23:31] flexibility. Is there a one-sizefits all
[23:34] model that people can work through
[23:36] themselves to start d start figuring out
[23:39] this or are there books that you
[23:41] recommend or do you really think
[23:43] coaching is kind of the answer here?
[23:47] Um,
[23:50] everything that's a that's a good
[23:52] question. Um yes of course coaching is
[23:54] an answer to everything. Go to my
[23:55] website uh subscribe. So absolutely. Um
[23:59] so I I look at it more as another
[24:02] learning curve right in a sense. Uh we
[24:05] have can can anybody intelligent anybody
[24:08] who can read learn all the things that
[24:10] coaches are doing? Absolutely. Now will
[24:14] they also be able to let's say get all
[24:15] the experiences that mentors uh get in
[24:19] order for to be useful? Absolutely. The
[24:22] question is like how long may it take?
[24:24] Let's say if you're looking for somebody
[24:26] with 20 years experience in aerospace,
[24:29] would you be able to get that 20 years
[24:30] by yourself and get to the same level?
[24:33] Absolutely. But it's going to take you
[24:35] 20 years. What if the information you're
[24:37] looking for is available from that
[24:39] veteran uh in just one session and
[24:42] they're able to answer all your
[24:44] questions almost instantaneously? Now,
[24:46] how much time are you able to solve and
[24:48] be closer to the goal that you're trying
[24:50] to achieve? just like that. Um, same
[24:53] thing with coaches, especially coaches
[24:55] with experience in the industry they're
[24:56] coaching. They're able to navigate your
[24:59] issues in a much faster way um than you
[25:03] are because uh of the experience that
[25:05] they're bringing to the table and it is
[25:08] sometimes confusing and um and maybe a
[25:11] little bit egoensitive to engineers. Um
[25:15] a lot of engineering problems are
[25:17] stacked on top of one another in a
[25:18] sense. There's has to be a foundation in
[25:21] order to that you have to learn and
[25:22] different level of complexity and
[25:24] expertise that you have to get in order
[25:26] to solve this
[25:27] problem. When it comes to world or
[25:30] management or leadership, a lot of
[25:32] things are actually less based on each
[25:35] other. They're more just memorizations
[25:37] in a sense. You have to remember a
[25:39] th00and 2,000 5,000 different just
[25:42] management hacks in order to be
[25:44] successful. And pure memorization gets
[25:48] you where you want to be. Like a lot of
[25:49] those hacks are not even based on each
[25:51] other. Sometimes you hold the door,
[25:52] sometimes you don't hold the door. But
[25:54] which one is
[25:55] right? Depends on the context, right?
[25:58] And it depends of somebody who's been
[25:59] there and had the experience. Uh so and
[26:01] the person who has got the most
[26:03] experience, they're not necessarily
[26:04] perhaps maybe the most intelligent than
[26:06] you are compared to when solving
[26:08] engineering problems but but they have
[26:10] learned through their experience 5,000
[26:13] hacks which help them be better leader
[26:15] um and the manager. Now is it again
[26:18] possible to learn? Is it possible to
[26:20] open chat GPT and answer all the
[26:22] question and ask them all the questions?
[26:23] Absolutely. Um, I personally haven't
[26:26] found it natural right now to
[26:27] communicate all of my story through text
[26:30] because when I communicate through voice
[26:32] uh or or communicate with another human
[26:34] being, I think just different types of
[26:35] interfaces get light up and uh we have a
[26:38] much better and closer interactions and
[26:41] plus there is also an element of trust
[26:43] um in a sense that if you're speaking to
[26:45] uh chat to petique um it it's already
[26:48] processed advice. So in a sense you
[26:50] still have to go ahead and try it out
[26:52] and to see where it's going to work.
[26:55] Um and in coaching and mentorship
[26:58] example, you have another human being
[26:59] who can actually uh tell you for sure
[27:01] that that has worked uh for them. So a
[27:03] slightly uh different relationship. Um
[27:06] books wise absolutely there are
[27:08] different parts like uh one of my
[27:10] favorite self-awareness books is uh your
[27:13] uh brain at work by David Rock. Um gives
[27:15] you different instruments of how to
[27:18] quote unquote query your own brain and
[27:20] how to navigate your thoughts. none of
[27:22] the woowoo stuff like very much uh
[27:23] straightforward um kind of uh learning.
[27:26] It's a book. Uh it's going to take you a
[27:28] couple weeks, maybe a couple days to
[27:29] learn and then you get to practice and
[27:31] it's an aspect of something that I've co
[27:34] I've been coaching to. There are many
[27:36] other books but all of that takes time.
[27:38] So in a sense, how do you know which
[27:41] book to read next? How do you know which
[27:43] uh person to talk to next? How do you
[27:45] know which questions to ask? And the
[27:47] best way to answer that is leverage
[27:49] somebody who already has experience.
[27:52] Yeah, that's going to be your fastest
[27:53] way to multiply results. You brought up
[27:55] something really interesting there about
[27:57] AI and I kind of it would be fun to talk
[27:59] about for a second because I'm realizing
[28:01] it in my in my coaching practice, but
[28:03] also just in business is kind of this
[28:06] overuse of AI. And when I mean over,
[28:09] maybe overuse isn't the right word, more
[28:11] maybe more inappropriate use where they
[28:14] don't realize the natural biases of the
[28:16] AI and so they kind of misuse it or it's
[28:22] like you using a hammer and when you
[28:24] needed, you know, a crowbar or
[28:26] something. Yeah. And so I'm curious on
[28:28] how how you're seeing it in practice or
[28:30] how maybe you're using AI to enhance
[28:32] your practice. For example, to get more
[28:35] specific is like I'll see people who
[28:37] query it on like maybe a discussion
[28:39] between two parties. Yes. And say and
[28:41] ask the AI what what went well in this
[28:44] discussion or how could I I have done
[28:46] better and they don't realize that the
[28:47] AI is actually naturally programmed or
[28:50] naturally will defer to being very
[28:51] positive for the person who input the
[28:53] information. Yes. So it'll always bias
[28:55] to them being correct. Yes. And so then
[28:58] it just creates an echo chamber of their
[28:59] own thoughts. Yeah. Which is pretty
[29:01] dangerous. So yeah, I'm I'm curious on
[29:03] your thoughts on this and if you're
[29:04] seeing anything similar. Um yeah, u and
[29:06] I think there's lots of different
[29:08] examples and starts with marketing. Um
[29:11] like there's a lot of content if you
[29:12] look at LinkedIn, if you look on Twitter
[29:14] or any other uh platforms where AI is
[29:17] being leveraged to generate a lot of
[29:19] content
[29:20] and a what what sometimes appears to be
[29:25] a genuine message easily could be
[29:27] detected if you see certain elements
[29:29] that it is AI. And for the person who
[29:32] perhaps is generating might not be fully
[29:34] aware that that's how being perceived
[29:36] and as you mentioned we're focusing a
[29:39] lot on self-awareness. That could be
[29:41] another thing that is really hard to
[29:42] measure.
[29:44] Um it I think in the future we might be
[29:48] able to get to the place where AGI will
[29:50] be indistinguishable as talking to the
[29:52] person. But it's as we're talking to
[29:55] people, as we're talking to computers,
[29:57] it's very important to know, as you
[29:58] mentioned, biases, right? And those
[30:00] biases could be the training data. It
[30:02] could be the way that
[30:03] they're trained to reply back, whether
[30:06] they're focusing on you as the user
[30:08] more, if they're focusing on the problem
[30:10] too, it's a tool. So says, how can you
[30:13] use this tool the most effective? And I
[30:15] think each tool has its own bucket of
[30:18] where it's really been train well
[30:20] trained on. If you are asking AI to
[30:22] analyze your conversation and give you
[30:25] our honest uh analysis of what you have
[30:29] said is it's a good idea to verify
[30:32] whether was AI specifically trained on
[30:36] the type of conversations that you're
[30:38] having because it will always give you
[30:40] an answer. This is one thing which AI is
[30:41] really horrible at is saying I don't
[30:43] know otherwise it will always tell you
[30:45] exactly what it thinks it is even if
[30:47] it's absolutely wrong. So you have to
[30:50] verify that it was specifically trained
[30:52] on the subjects that you're uh talking
[30:54] about. Um then um you need to also
[30:59] figure out what is this thing really
[31:01] good at. Um one thing which identify AI
[31:03] as being really good at is idea
[31:06] generation. Um for some reason the ways
[31:08] our brains are organized, it's really
[31:10] hard for me to come up with 15 different
[31:12] things I can do at a party. If you ask
[31:14] me right now, it's just going to take me
[31:16] a pause to figure it out, imagine, and
[31:18] kind of come up with the list. AI can
[31:20] come up with this like like that. Also,
[31:23] if you ask it a thousand things to do at
[31:25] the party, it also will come up like
[31:26] this. So, for idea generation in a
[31:29] context, let's say you're writing a book
[31:30] and you're writing a plot and you say
[31:32] like, "Hey, there's people at the farm
[31:34] and they just got there from space. What
[31:36] are different plots directions that the
[31:38] plot can take?" it will give you a
[31:39] thousand different versions which I
[31:41] don't think any human can do uh on the
[31:43] spot uh and then you can iterate and be
[31:46] creative. So you're not spending time uh
[31:49] investigating all the different options.
[31:51] You actually can dive in into one of
[31:53] those and be uh filling it out uh with
[31:56] ideas uh yourself um with a prompt. And
[31:59] I also noticed that um if you're talking
[32:03] to the AI um sometimes it's also a good
[32:05] idea like what questions should you be
[32:08] asking in order for you yourself to
[32:10] explore what you're exploring? Um so
[32:13] let's say um if you're exploring new
[32:15] space, if you're exploring coaching,
[32:17] hey, I'm going to talk to the coach. So
[32:18] what questions a good question should I
[32:20] ask a coach to figure out whether this
[32:22] coach is good or not? Um but when it
[32:26] start um and then it it kind of you
[32:28] become the the filter on the quality of
[32:31] the questions that um AI is going
[32:34] through but to analyze and to kind of
[32:38] take at heart any answer that it's
[32:40] giving you without understanding its
[32:42] biases as you mentioned it it's very
[32:44] difficult. Uh it's a very useful tool.
[32:46] So again to summarize it's very useful
[32:49] tool as long as you understand what it
[32:50] is really really good at without any
[32:53] issues and if there are issues how do
[32:55] you mitigate those uh when you interact
[32:57] with it. Yeah and I think that's a great
[33:00] call out is so many people are using the
[33:02] tool at least that I'm saying but they
[33:03] actually don't understand what it was
[33:06] trained against or if it's even relevant
[33:08] to the fact set that they're trying to
[33:10] apply. Yeah. And even more
[33:11] interestingly, I like your answers. They
[33:13] It will always give an answer, which is
[33:16] a problem, right? It's just like that
[33:18] friend who's always going to give you
[33:19] like, "Yeah, we should go." Yeah, that's
[33:21] Yeah, it's 7 o'clock right now. It's
[33:22] like, you didn't even check your watch.
[33:25] Are you sure it's actually 10? Yeah. So,
[33:27] so very helpful. This has been awesome.
[33:30] I would love to talk to you more, but I
[33:31] know we're wrapping up on time. I want
[33:33] to respect your time.
[33:35] any any big piece of advice to maybe
[33:38] let's say a tech founder that's trying
[33:40] to take their organization and hitting
[33:41] that roadblock from leadership like if
[33:43] you had a 10-second or 30 second
[33:45] platform any big takeaway and then after
[33:47] that I would love just to hear where
[33:49] people could learn more about you and
[33:50] what you're focusing now on in your
[33:52] career and your business it'd be great
[33:53] to just share with the audience. Yeah.
[33:55] Yeah. Um I think anytime we're hitting a
[33:59] problem that we've never uh faced before
[34:01] uh if let's say in this particular case
[34:04] a leadership um it's really hard to
[34:07] label and describe it to anybody else.
[34:09] Um like what is that? So I think the
[34:12] first step that for anybody hitting a
[34:14] problem is useful is finding somebody
[34:16] who can give you that space to talk
[34:18] through the problem and help perhaps not
[34:20] even diagnose but label it in a way that
[34:24] now helps you communicate it to others
[34:26] of finding help. It's the same thing as
[34:28] you're searching for a bug issue. you
[34:30] type you take in the error message and
[34:32] you put in Google or you putting into
[34:33] chat GPT and then it labels you like oh
[34:36] I think that's the kind of issue that is
[34:38] same same thing uh with uh when you
[34:40] we're facing leadership issues either
[34:43] talking to somebody or even talking to
[34:44] AI it will give you some idea of what
[34:47] the form of a problem you're solving
[34:48] because then you can ask hey I have X
[34:52] problem who is there really right person
[34:54] to actually address those um so I would
[34:56] say like labeling and triaging that
[34:59] problem would one of the first steps I
[35:01] would consider.
[35:03] Okay, that's great. That make that makes
[35:04] sense. And having someone help you frame
[35:07] that if you don't have that experience
[35:08] yourself so valuable. And then and what
[35:10] are you working on now that's making you
[35:12] excited? What's what's this next year
[35:13] that look like for you? Things, big
[35:15] projects, anything that you'd like to
[35:17] share with everybody? Yeah. Um uh super
[35:20] excited right now with growing my
[35:21] practice. Um I think I'm finally uh
[35:24] hitting the stride and uh super excited
[35:26] about all the different conferences that
[35:28] I get to go to uh and share my
[35:30] developments with other engineers. And
[35:32] as we're talking on this different
[35:34] podcast, always like in my head uh
[35:36] different approaches uh or analogies or
[35:39] frameworks arise that I'm very excited
[35:41] to share uh with everyone that I'm
[35:44] speaking.
[35:45] Yeah. Well, great. Well, I'll put all
[35:47] your information, you know, down below.
[35:48] And I really appreciate you taking the
[35:50] time today and hopefully we get to talk
[35:52] more. And for anyone watching, please
[35:53] explore if you're looking for a great uh
[35:56] executive coach, founder coach,
[35:57] especially in the technology space. I
[35:59] couldn't recommend you more. So, thank
[36:00] you so much. Of course, Evan.