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Jacob Morgan - Inside the Cone, Building a Future Leader - Jacob is a Futurist, a 4-time best-selling author and founder of The Future of Work University. Jacob’s latest book from Wiley is called The Future Leader: 9 Skills and Mindsets to Succeed in the Next Decade.
Check out Jacob’s Podcast The Future of Work he idea behind Jacob’s book is to identify the skills and mindsets required to be a great leader. Each of these achievable hallmarks are bolstered with scenarios and founded on Jacob’s interview work. Pete A. Turner and Jacob Morgan expand on the thousands of conversations Jacob had with CEOs, employee and others to determine the elements of a future leader. Haiku 9 skills and mindsets Success in the next decade The Future Leader |
#futurist #CEO #company #business #future #diversity #teacher #skill #author #episode #podcast #leaders #missioncommand #groundtruth #bids
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Executive Producer/Intro/: Pete A. Turner
Producer: Damjan Gjorgjiev
Writer: Bojan Spasovski
Join us in supporting Save the Brave by making a monthly donation.
Executive Producer/Intro/: Pete A. Turner
Producer: Damjan Gjorgjiev
Writer: Bojan Spasovski
Transcription
Pete Turner 0:00
Hey everybody this is Pete a Turner, executive producer and host of the break it down show wanted to introduce to you today's topic, a guy named Jacob Morgan who is a certified futurist. No, he cannot tell the future but he does help you to better understand that prepare for yours. Jacob's written a new book called The future of leadership, he lays out the nine skills and mindsets that make up a great, great leader.
Hey everybody this is Pete a Turner, executive producer and host of the break it down show wanted to introduce to you today's topic, a guy named Jacob Morgan who is a certified futurist. No, he cannot tell the future but he does help you to better understand that prepare for yours. Jacob's written a new book called The future of leadership, he lays out the nine skills and mindsets that make up a great, great leader.
He and I get into a lot of the details about the simple things that it takes. And these simple things are always complicated they require doing and everything else. The cultural requirements, the emotional intelligence requirements, and how one truly builds a diverse powerfully smart team. I know you're going to love that and and I just have to do a hat tip to Janine over at Wiley books, who once again delivers another great guest. We like the folks over at Wiley and we definitely encourage you to buy Jacobs book. Hey, couple things real quick. Look, the show always needs support. I know you guys are out there doing it. you're sharing I see you liking, commenting, all of those things, keep it up. That really helps. We have shirts for sale. I think couple of the campaigns close today, I'll start new ones. But buying shirts helps out for sure. Share the show, talk about the show. All of those things are powerfully helpful. And we thank you for it. Also, our common ask, if you're considering doing any charitable donations in two in 2020. Then I suggest save the brave, go to save the brave.org click on the donate tab. Pick a small amount. It'll come out automatically each month, and you'll be doing a very big thing for a very wonderful conversation. Hey, thank you all so much. Here comes Jacob Morgan. Lions rock productions.
Unknown Speaker 1:48
This is Jay Mohr. This is Jordan. Dexter from the naked Sebastian youngsters, Rick maronna. Stewart
Niko Leon Guerrero 1:54
Copeland is Andy Summers just got back sir Gabby Reese is Rob bell. This is john Leon gray and
Pete Turner 2:00
This is Pete a Turner.
Jacob Morgan 2:04
Hey everyone is Jacob Morgan and you are listening to the break it down show make sure to check out my brand new book go to get future leader book.com.
Niko Leon Guerrero 2:14
And now the break it down show with john Leon Guerrero and Pete a Turner.
Pete Turner 2:20
And if you are not already, make sure that you guys go to LinkedIn and get connected with Jacob Morgan. on LinkedIn. He's also on Twitter. And everywhere else he actually has a podcast called the future of work podcast, which is also very interesting because probably open with that Jacob has written a book. We got him the good folks at Wiley, who we love and they love us like this. And man it's cool. It's cool to can make this connection. You're a bay area guy, right? I am. Yeah. Nice. What part of the bay Are you in
Jacob Morgan 2:51
Simon Alameda and but I lived all over the bay lived in San Francisco. I live in Oakland but originally from Los Angeles,
Pete Turner 2:58
okay, okay. Actually, I'll be up in Venetia next week for Thanksgiving. So I love the bay. I love it up there. Yeah. So you talk about the future of work with your writing and your professional speaking. I mean, you do a lot of different things. When did you get a sense that you were a futurist? Hey, this is Dave Turner from the break it down Show checking in real quick to ask you this. JOHN Scott and I all support save the brave with our time, our location, our effort and our money. Each month, we give a small amount. Do the same with us go to save the brave.org. click on the donate tab, pick an amount that you want to come out each month and they will handle all the rest. I stand behind these folks. Thank you so much. Let's get back to the show. When did you get a sense that you were a futurist?
Jacob Morgan 3:43
Well, actually went to the University of Houston and received a professional certification in foresight so a lot of people don't realize but futurology or four sides, this is an actual academic field that you can study and you can actually get a master's degree in this. Wow. So for quite a few years, I would study a lot of the techniques and a lot of the the approaches that futurists would use to think about the future. And so I called myself a futurist for a while, but I never actually had that professional training. So a couple years ago, I decided to go back to school and get that official official professional certification to be able to actually say I'm a certified futures,
Pete Turner 4:23
I will help me out what the heck does that even mean though?
Jacob Morgan 4:25
So a futurist is someone who it Contrary to popular belief, a futurist does not predict anything, because if I could predict things, let's be honest, I, somewhere. Instead, what features do is they do a good job of looking at scenarios or possibilities or what might happen in the future to help make sure that they're not surprised or that their clients and organizations and people are not surprised by what the future might brings? And I always draw the analogy between this and chess. And so I've been very obsessed with chess over the years I take lessons with a grandmaster. I've been like super hardcore into it. And really what separates a strong chess player from a weak chess player is that a strong chess player is very good at looking at possibilities and scenarios. In other words, when you play a game of chess, you don't just say, I'm going to move my pawn, and my opponent is going to move their night. Like you don't think about it linear is like there's one option. Instead, a great chess player says, Well, there are a couple potential moves that I might make, there are certain ways that my opponent might respond, if they respond like that, I'll go like this. So it's really looking at multiple different options and scenarios. So that when your opponent plays a move, you're not kind of like, Where did that come from? You try to anticipate and look at options that are there. So that's kind of the best analogy I can think of.
Pete Turner 5:45
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. And if you're playing chess at a high level, you're you're many moves ahead, regardless of what your opponent does. You've already anticipated what they what they might do and you're thinking three, six, heck, I imagine a grandmother There's probably 10 moves ahead. And none of that surprises. I mean, they're, they're prepared for it.
Jacob Morgan 6:04
Correct. I mean, of course, every now and then something happens on the board where they just didn't expect it, they didn't plan for it. So that kind of stuff is unavoidable. But usually top grandmasters in games have a good sense of what their opponents plans are, what their plans are, what some potential moves might be. And so they're not kind of just playing move by move.
Pete Turner 6:23
Okay, so in terms of business, if you're talking to CEOs, you're advising them on how to play business chess, are you advising them to take time to go learn chess? Or do you use chess to teach them what they need? It seems like just can be a very consuming, you know? Yes. Like backgammon working on my strategy there and I can get lost and and play too much of it quite frankly,
Jacob Morgan 6:45
I'm the same way with chess actually. And I have, you know, the chess calm app on my phone and literally whenever I get spare time, I'm like on there. Some people do meditation for me, what relaxes me is solving chess puzzles or, you know, learning something on their But yeah, I mean, I wish a lot of business leaders out there would learn chess. And I think that would be a tremendous and valuable skill and a mindset shift for them. And a lot of top grandmasters, like Garry Kasparov is talking about the benefits of chess and the implications that chess has in the business world. But unfortunately, as you mentioned, a lot of business leaders don't have the time to sit there and learn to play a game like chess. And so I just simply encourage them to use just various frameworks. Like there's a very simple framework. Anybody can Google this, it's called the cone of possibilities. It's probably the most famous and most common framework that a futurist uses to think about scenarios. And the way that the cone works is you sort of imagine that you're peering through the narrow end of a cone. And as you look farther out into the cone, the cone expands and gets wider and wider. the narrowest part of the cone represents the closest time horizon. So that's kind of like today, tomorrow, next month, maybe by the end of the year. And so in At times scenario, the The possibilities are relatively limited. I mean, you know what will happen tomorrow, maybe next week, next month by the end of the year. But as you look farther out into the cone, the cone gets wider and the number of possibilities starts to increase. In other words, if you look three years, five years, all of a sudden all sorts of crazy things might happen. You don't know what will happen in that time period. And so futurist, ask a series of questions to kind of help them think about the future. And one of those questions is what is it that you want to happen? Right, so simple question asked, What is it that you want to happen? Another question you can ask is, what is probable, but maybe not likely to happen? So, you know, simple question. Another question you can ask is, why might something happen or not happen? And so you look at you look at it in terms of like, made these possibilities. So simple example you can use. Think of like, a lot of people talk about the impact that artificial intelligence is going to have on jobs. Right, right. So let's say you were to take that kind of a question and apply it to this quantum possibilities. And so one question you might ask is what what do you want to happen? Right? Do you want jobs to get automated? Do you you know, what, what is it that you want to happen? So that's one potential future. Another one that you might potentially look at is what is something that's may be possible but not likely to happen? And so in that situation, I would say one option is that everything will remain as it is. A status quo will remain as it is. It's certainly possible, but it's not very likely. Why might a jobs apocalypse happen? Well, if technology advances and if a lot of CEOs around the world say that humans suck, and they want to fire people a will have a jobs Apocalypse, why might have jobs apocalypse and not happen? Well, maybe we retrain a lot of employees, maybe we realize the importance of having humans work. And so when you just start to think about in terms of those times possibilities and scenarios, what you'll do is that when you make decisions, you won't just kind of pick one path and stick to it, you'll kind of have several ideas in your mind
Pete Turner 10:08
the idea of a cone. By the way, when you say account, I pictured the inside of a waffle cone, because I need to have lunch and I'd love to have ice cream for lunch.
Jacob Morgan 10:18
I'm right there with
Pete Turner 10:20
ice cream cone of pop possibilities. So when you look at that, sometimes things and I'm not trying to have a political conversation. When you look politically we tend to Korean left, right, left, right. And it freaks A lot of us out most of us out. Yeah, regardless of what you know. And we're likely and I'm making a face like we're likely fine. We're in the cone, maybe you're running up against the edge of the cone, but you know, that's still in the cone. Is that a fair way to kind of look at this and having some tolerance for some radicals that are in the system?
Jacob Morgan 10:54
Yeah, you can. I mean, the thing is, we practice a lot of this in our personal lives quite well. But it's when we get to our organizations, especially leaders struggle with this. So for example, you know, when you buy a house or when you go on a date with somebody, you typically think in your mind, well, is this somebody that I might be able to marry? What would our potential future look like? You know, if you buy a house somewhere, you think, well, what if the market goes up? What if it goes down with the schools aren't good in this area? So you already think in terms of those scenarios in your head and your personal life, the struggle is inside of our organizations? We're not very good at that. Because we're conditioned to always, always be right. Always have you know, the results. And so we pick one path, and we say, we're going to do this. And we don't think well, what if that's a bad idea? What if there's a better idea what if you're wrong, what if this happens to the market? What if this, and so we don't have that way of thinking inside of organizations, because we're not trained that way. And we believe that that just causes problems and you know, just do your job and don't ask questions in a strict hierarchy. Yeah. But in our personal lives, we think about this all the time. So it's Bringing that way of thinking into decision making it work. And so what happens is a lot of business leaders always say we want to be able to see around corners, right? That's a very popular business phrase, which of course, nobody can see around the corner. But instead, you can kind of like peek around a bunch of corners. And then if you end up going down one of those paths, you won't be surprised by what's on the other end.
Pete Turner 12:24
Interesting. One of the things I've found from my own personal work working in conflict zones with with big army unit State Department, is these are big immobile objects. You could literally predict the future and they do not care. It's just it's just a giant cement truck going 80 miles an hour down a one way street in UHF.
Jacob Morgan 12:45
Yeah, but look at what's happened to those types of organizations in the past. I mean, look at what's happened. I mean, blockbuster was that type of an organization and they are no more Sears was that type of an organization. A lot of traditional retailers were that type of an organization and when you have that mentality of we're, you know, the 800 pound cement truck, we've got one path and we're going to go down it, what starts to happen is that, hey, if that tends to be the right choice, great, but chances are, something else is going to happen like a Netflix. And you know, your 800 pound cement truck is going to get knocked over by the 10,000 pound cement truck. And so that just goes to show why this single type of linear thinking and by the way that people at blockbuster, they were aware of Netflix, and the board talked about it, and the executives talked about it and they said, you know, we get a lot of money from lead fees, we can't get rid of this. Netflix isn't going to be a real threat. And they just got metaphorically smacked alongside the head. So it's there are many, many examples. You look at traditional, you know, the book retailers as well. Look what happened to the borders, books, if anybody even remembers borders, and Barnes and Noble has been having a tough time. And so when you have that pure, linear way of thinking you struggle But on the other hand, you look at companies like Best Buy and Walmart that have been able to adapt to change changes that we're seeing in the retail space, because they'd have that kind of multiple way of thinking. And they're thriving. They're doing very well.
Pete Turner 14:11
Yeah. So Best Buys ability to latch on to markets that are still viable for them has has been important. But a lot of companies do that, right? Like, you're like, we're going to go vertical, we're going to go horizontal, bring these other brands in, and they don't do it. Well. What What do you think is the difference between someone like Best Buy that dramatically changes its model several times, and gets through looking good, and the companies that just aren't able to do it.
Jacob Morgan 14:35
So I interviewed the CEO of Best Buy, he was one of the hundred and 40 CEOs they interviewed for the book that's coming out. And one of the things that he did that I thought was most surprising is that usually when a company isn't doing well, what they do is they cut costs, especially as it pertains to people. They cut learning, they cut training, they cut development budgets, kubera, Jolie actually increased those budgets. So he invested more in his people and not less and as a resolve, I think that is one of the things that really dramatically helped them get through this kind of traditional retail Apocalypse, there was an article even in Forbes that was written a couple years ago, that talks about how Best Buy was going to disappear. And they clearly underestimated the CEO. And I think a lot of it comes down to people. Okay, so
Pete Turner 15:19
so people are tough to account for in the future. But you're saying like, if you have a baseline of action, like we're going to invest in, in our people, obviously, evaluating that investment and validating that education, that you're going to be more resilient to change and more adaptable, because more folks focused on the problem better, better provision, I guess.
Jacob Morgan 15:41
Yeah. So one of the things that I found from from the research from these hundred and 40 CEOs and by the way, I also surveyed 14,000 employees with in partnership with LinkedIn. And so what identified identified a series of four mindsets and five skills that are going to be absolutely essential for leadership. possess over the next 10 years and beyond. And these are mindsets and skills that are going to be kind of like air and water. And I mean, we can talk about some of those if you want.
Pete Turner 16:08
Yeah. Well, I'm actually I'm, I'm running a panel on leadership for a bunch of college students that are jrtc candidates. So I mean, this is exactly what I want to be able to bring to them is like the latest stuff. So this is great. Talk to me about leadership and how it's evolving.
Jacob Morgan 16:25
Sure. So from the hundred and 40 CEOs that I interviewed, one of the questions that I asked them was specifically, will the leader over the next 10 years be that different than the leader of today? And if so, how will that leader be different? And by far, the majority of CEOs said that there will be some things that stay the same. So for example, as a leader, being able to set a vision, being able to execute on strategy, those things will certainly continue to be relevant over the years for sure. But what a lot of these CEOs also told me is that a new set of skills And mindsets are going to be required because we are going to be operating and living in a new type of world. So for example, look at some of the trends that are driving businesses today, we see a huge impact on purpose in meaning, a globalization, artificial intelligence and technology, even though the very nature of talent is changing, demographic changes, diversity and inclusion. And so what all of these changes mean, what all these trends mean is that our organizations are going to change. And if the organization's change, then we need a new type of leader sitting at the helm of these organizations. So a couple of these mindsets and skills and I tried to create kind of fun little names for them. So the mindsets that I came up with were the servant, the Explore the chef and the global citizen. And the skills that I came up with were the coach, the futurist, the technology, teenager, Yoda, and the translator. So if you want I can quickly go through each one of these Sure, yeah, let's do it. Okay, so let's start off with the servant. The servant is about having a mindset that as a leader, you serve four groups, your leaders if you have them, your customers, your team members, and the fourth group that oftentimes leaders forget is to serve yourself. Okay? Meaning that if you don't look after yourself as a leader, and you don't show up to work every day, being your best How can you serve others? If you're exhausted and burned out and frustrated and overworked you cannot lead your team?
Pete Turner 18:32
Hey, this is Pete a Turner from lions rock productions. We create podcasts around here and if you your brand or your company want to figure out how to do a podcast, just talk to me. I'll give you the advice on the right gear. The best plan is show you how to take a podcast that makes sense for you that's sustainable, that scalable and fun. Hit me up at Pete at breakdown show com Let me help I want to hear about it.
Jacob Morgan 18:54
If you're exhausted and burned out and frustrated and overworked you cannot lead your team You got to look after yourself. Okay? So the mindset of the servant is understanding that your job as a leader, you have to have that mindset of serving, serving those four constituents, those groups. Next is the mindset of the Explorer. the mindset of the Explorer means that you embrace curiosity. You have a growth mindset, meaning that when obstacles and challenges are thrown in front of you, you don't view them as things that are kind of the end all be all you view them as things that you can overcome. You are agile and nimble in your way of thinking. If a problem comes your way, you try to come up with new solutions and ways of being able to try to solve that problem. So the mindset of the Explorer, kind of curious, you're exploring, you have that growth mindset. the mindset of the chef, the mindset of the chef means that as a leader, you understand that there are two crucial ingredients that you balance. So usually chefs when they cook they have you know, dozens of ingredients they're thinking about as a leader, you only got to you got to worry about humanity, technology, balancing the role that technology and humanity play together. So just those two tiny things, just those two things. And they sound simple, but they're actually very, very complex.
Pete Turner 20:09
Gosh, they're massive.
Jacob Morgan 20:11
Yeah, we're so obsessed with technology today, how do we get more technology, AI and all that sort of stuff. And oftentimes organizations do this. And they end up sacrificing the humanity inside of their companies. You know, they chase productivity, they chase cost reduction, but at the same time, your organization is not helping employees find a sense of purpose. There is no empathy at work. There is no coaching and mentoring, like the human stuff gets sucked out, but at the same time, you're more productive. So as a leader, you got to balance. How do we use technology to be as productive and efficient as we can, but at the same time, how do we use technology to make our organization more human and to improve the experience of our people?
Pete Turner 20:53
Yeah, this is a good point. I want to dig in here a little bit because, you know, we are cyborgs. There's a branch of studies. You know, anthropology talking about Cyborg, our Cyborg selves and being able to synthesize that information, you can create better services be a more human company. I mean, I think that's one of the check. Mark Schaefer says that mark Schaefer talks about all the time, like the, the most human company will win. And I know like, I dread calling customer service, especially with tech companies, because I am the customer service. And it's just, I don't use Venmo anymore because of that, you know, I need you to move my money. And then don't point at me or my bank and say check with them. Because I needed you to move my money before we even got to that point, right. So so these are outcomes the CEO can't want at least I hope not, but but are a big problem because how do you maintain low cost and still, you know, run a
Jacob Morgan 21:52
profitable and I mean, a lot and we see this classic example with chat bots. You know, every company thinks they need to have a chat bot Now, let's be honest, nobody's ever found a chat. useful. Yeah, and same thing when you call and you get those automated waste responses from companies like Comcast, those are not helpful. No. Right. So whenever I get those I like mash the buttons on the phone. Yes. And then it says, Sorry, I didn't understand let me transfer you to a representative who can help you. And I'm like, Yes. Right. So that's a classic example of a company that chases technology, but at the same time, puts an extra layer between themselves and the customer between themselves and their employees. So you got to find that delicate balance of how do you, you know, make both of those happen, that Elon Musk was a good example. Recently in an earnings call, he described what he created as a hell a network hell of conveyor belts. And he was so obsessed with automation of his manufacturing plans, that the quality control dramatically, dramatically decreased. And customers were getting cars, the damaged parts and people were getting frustrated. And so he realized that he relied too much on the technology side and brought humans back into the manufacturing facilities to help with things like quality control. So you have to have that delicate balance. It's very tempting to chase technology, but you can't do it, if it means that your company becomes less human. Because at the end of the day, business is still about relationships. Business is done through handshakes. It's done through through the relationships that we have with people. It's not done through technology. And so you cannot erase that. There are some companies out there, believe it or not, who are teaching their employees like super basic human skills? I'm talking about how to give somebody a handshake. Yeah. How to Look somebody in the eye, how to know how to start a conversation or even when to leave a conversation, right? You know, like, you're having a conversation with somebody and you kind of know that it's over, but they still linger there and it's awkward. Yes. So there are companies who are teaching their employees, those human things that like we forgot, because we're all just staring at this all the time.
Pete Turner 23:54
Okay. Tell me about the global citizen.
Jacob Morgan 23:57
Yes, the global citizen is about embracing Diversity and not just embracing it, but actually creating it. Meaning surrounding yourself with people who don't think like you act like you behave like you believe in the same things that you believe the simple kind of test that you can use is, if you were taken out of your current environment and put into another part of the world or into another team, would you still be able to lead just as effectively as you are now? And for a lot of people? The answer to that is no. So you might be in the United States, would you be able to lead a team in India? Could you lead a team and in South Africa, in China, in the UK, having a global citizen mindset means that you understand these different cultures, these values, and that you can bring people together in those different environments. And so those are the most crucial mindsets. Now. I can talk about the skills if you want,
Pete Turner 24:46
well, let's hang up for a second with the Global Citizen because you're, you know, and this isn't meant to challenge you, but let's have this conversation with a little bit. We talk a lot about EQ, but no one ever talks about CQ and that's cultural quotient cultural capacity acuity. And it's easy to think that you I mean, no one runs around goes, I'm a cultural idiot. I'm terrible at it. You know, everybody thinks they're good at it. But the reality is there are outcomes. This is something that I studied quite a bit. So if you aren't culturally in a line if you're uncomfortable at cultural intersections, because that's really what you're talking about it's intersections of culture, whether it's national or departments, there's different cultures there. And if you get a sense of, let's say, corruption in competence or passive aggressive behavior, those are cultural values, that it's on you as the leader to orient to and understand why you're not getting the collaborative outcome that you desire.
Jacob Morgan 25:43
Yep. Yeah, no, totally agree. Do you
Pete Turner 25:45
hear CEOs talking about that stuff? That seems like that's pretty, pretty advanced. I mean, people can't even define culture for crying out loud.
Jacob Morgan 25:52
Yeah. I mean, there are a couple of organizations. You know, L'Oreal does a fantastic job. I mean, they one of the criteria that they look for when they promote Leaders is having that kind of different cultural background, you know, people who possess that kind of cultural intelligence, because they found that those are the types of leaders who do a better job inside their organization. And so having and by the way, we're not just talking about somebody who can eat an ethnic ethnic restaurants for somebody that like, I had I had Chinese food, we're also not talking about somebody who works at a big global company that happens to have a presence all over the world, right? This this is like, you need to experience these things yourself. Yes. And, and that is, and again, because of globalization, you know, the the boundaries, the barriers to doing business are crumbling. And so you need to be able to work with these different types of teams and different types of cultures. And if not, you're going to be it doesn't mean that you won't have a job. But your ability to lead teams is going to be severely handicapped, because quite honestly, you won't be able to lead those teams.
Pete Turner 26:54
Yeah, and let's just spend a little longer here talking about what diversity is because it's not There's brown people in my company like that's that is that is the furthest thing from diversity. And then then the antonym problem of diversity is unity. So how do you maintain a unified approach to a problem with diversified elements to it? That's way easier said than done. So you have people that are from urban areas, people that are from suburban areas, rural folks, you have folks that are national, you have veterans you have disabled for all these different parts. How does a leader get that to be a cohesive group that it's its power and its diverse approach to problems is solid but unified?
Jacob Morgan 27:41
empathy? Alright, emotion, the emotional intelligence component. And by the way, diversity, diversity and inclusion are two separate things. Diversity is easy to do. Diversity just means that you hire a bunch of people with different backgrounds, people who believe different things, people who look differently. That's easy, right? I mean, you just see your resume and you say, Yeah, sure. Your high You have to job. Inclusion is about making those people actually feel like they belong at the company you might have, you might hire and bring in a diverse workforce. And that diverse workforce says, dude, what the hell this place sucks. Like, I don't feel like I can be myself. I like this is not a very welcoming environment for me. And so in that case, your diversity efforts are useless. Inclusion is not just about bringing those different types of people together, but it's how do you make those people feel like they belong at your company. So whether you are a veteran, whether you are Asian, whether you are Caucasian, regardless of where you are and what you believe in, that you feel like you belong at that company. And so organizations do things like they create employee resource groups for you know, different groups that might be inside the organization. They focus on creating teams that bring together people of different backgrounds and cultures and ideas. They do empathy and emotional intelligence training. I've seen organizations do all sorts of these types of things. And they work out well, but I think it all comes down to This emotional intelligence component of empathy, understanding that you are not the smartest one in the room, that there are people that have different backgrounds than you that also bring the value to the organization to the team. And you need to be able to understand that otherwise, you're going to have a very hard time in the workforce.
Pete Turner 29:20
When I worked at cw, they had inclusion training that they gave us and cw, I think to this day prides itself on its ability to train its employees at a high level. And I resisted going because it sounded like hippy dippy, worthless training. I put it off, I escaped it. And finally I had to go and it's like a whole day. It's a whole day of training. And my job is to be on the phones, making outbound phone calls, selling computers. That's my job, Brandon, they're going to adjust my numbers for that too. But that's my job. I don't make money if I don't do that. Yep. So I go on, I sit into my inclusion training, and then they spend the next eight hours telling me that it's all my fault. And if I would include myself, I would be included.
Jacob Morgan 30:03
Clearly it was your fault.
Pete Turner 30:05
Yeah. So the story isn't about me though the story is, if you're the CEO of the company, and I know I am not the only person that's like, what what are you telling me? It's my fault for you know, that's not what you pay $150,000 for this team to come do it your company? How does so when I worked in conflict zones, the value that I brought to especially generals was I knew the ground truth. I could go out and I could see what they could be there themselves and I would find the real ground truth of what's there. So how does the CEO understand I mean, that's poison in your company having me walk out pissed off because, you know, I just got crapped on for eight hours. I you know, horrible, horrible outcome.
Jacob Morgan 30:49
I mean, you gotta Well, I mean, it sounds like that was pretty bad training. First of all, it doesn't sound like that was very effective. Sure.
Pete Turner 30:56
It's evolved into something better now, but this is
Jacob Morgan 30:58
Yeah, I would hope so. I mean, Part of is leading by example, right, as a leader, you need to demonstrate that these are things that you care about not necessarily by going to these trainings yourself, but by surrounding yourself with the types of teams that you think other people should surround yourself by. So if you're the CEO of a company, and you're a white male in your 50s, and everybody else on the executive team is a white male in their 50s, and you're telling everybody else to focus on diversity and inclusion, you're kind of being a hypocrite. Right? So I mean, it starts by leading by example, surround yourself with the types of people that you think other people should be surrounding yourself by. And this is why we see organizations promoting more diverse groups into senior leadership roles. And so as a CEO, you have tremendous power and responsibility to make this change happen. And guess what if you say that this is what you want to do, it will get done. But you just need to be the one that's leading by example, and not kind of passing this off to your VP of diversity and inclusion. For example, you know, dow that I interviewed there. Chief Diversity Officer a little while ago, their CEO, he would bring up diversity and inclusion during all hands meetings, he would talk about why it's so important, he would talk about it on their their corporate scorecard he would, you know, this would be a corporate discussion that would be in part of his CEO agenda during meetings. So he lead by example. And as a result, the organization move kind of towards that direction. But if this is just something that you think is nice, and you're not really going to talk about it, and just kind of pass it off to somebody else, it's not going to do
Pete Turner 32:30
it doesn't, that doesn't create the culture that you want and culture. Culture is hard. It doesn't want to cooperate. Let's talk about the translators now.
Jacob Morgan 32:38
Yeah, so the the five skills are a translator, which is about listening and communication. And some people might say, Well, yeah, that's always been relevant, which is true, but those two things have also changed more in the past couple years then than ever. How so? Um, so when you think about listening, for example, we have so many different channels that really Listening to now, we have different types of people that we're listening to. We have diverse workforces geographically distributed workforces, we have technology that we can use for listening, listening doesn't just necessarily mean that you're having a one on one conversation with somebody in there in front of you. Listening is like a whole other thing. Now, it's like tapping into kind of what's happening in your organization. So the means of listening are different. As far as the technology and how you're listening is also different. You're listening to different types of people, you have to take feedback on the things that you're listening to. And I think for a long time organizations were very good or leaders were very good just at the hearing aspect. And listen, hearing is kind of an uncut, it's the unconscious act of just letting sound enter your ear. And so that's not the same as listening. Listening means you get the body language, right. You're looking somebody in the eye, you're making it feel like a collaborative conversation, you're building the other person up. That is a different type of skill that is now required. As opposed to just being a physical presence or an avatar, that's just letting the other person talk. And because we care so much about purpose and meaning and impact, this idea of listening has never been more important. Communication, the same thing, we have so many different means in ways of communicating. Now, as a leader, if you're the CEO of a company, you might not spend much time with your employees because you have hundreds or thousands of them. And so as one CEO told me, when he was the CEO of 32,000, people, he said, on average, and employee might hear me speak for 20 minutes a year, maybe. And so in that 20 minutes, I better make sure that my message gets across, and that I'm clear and concise and that they understand exactly what I'm saying. And by the way, that message needs to get across whether it is live, whether it is through text, whether it's through an email, whether it's through a live stream, whether it's through a picture, whether it's through an emoji, right so your message is a leader and you come across, regardless of the platform that you're using. And you also need to know how to use these different platforms. If you're going to have a serious conversation with somebody about letting them go or promoting them, you probably don't want to send them a text. Right? We've also seen these emails that people send inside of companies where the email looks like it should be a letter written to a therapist. That's clearly somebody who doesn't understand the channel that they're using. So different types of channels, how you're communicating different generations communicate different ways. You need to understand the different mediums that you have at your disposal, and how to get your message across regardless of what that medium is. So that's what the translator is all about. Alright. The next one is the technology teenager, in the technology teenager is simply about being tech savvy, and digitally fluent. You don't need to be a coder. You don't need to understand how to take things apart and put them back together. But it does mean you need to understand from a high level, what's the technology, how's it going to impact your business or your people and what are the potential Maybe opportunities or threats of that technology, right high level, but don't stick your head in the sand. And just I, you know, I have an IT department, they'll take care of that, you got to be a little bit more tech savvy as a leader. So that's the technology teenager, again, super simple. The coach is about understanding and believing that your job as a leader is to make other people more successful than you. The last two words, they're the most important than you. Because helping make somebody else more successful is easy. You could spend five minutes with somebody give them one little tip, and all of a sudden, they're tiny bit more successful than they are now. And you could say, Hey, I mentored this person, look, they're a little bit more successful. The van up is where that extra effort comes into play. helping make somebody else make me become more successful than you is hard. That's a lot of work time, effort, commitment, and so that is ultimately the goal of the coach. So add that extra value. To the end if you're a leader, and you're going to find that if you believe that the way that you show up to work every day will change, your behaviors will change how you think will change. And then the last one, I think we've covered all the others. Last one is that as a futurist, which we talked about earlier, this was actually ranked by the CEOs is the number one most important skill for future leaders. And it's really all about how do you think in terms of scenarios and possibilities instead of that linear thinking? And, you know, we covered that quite a bit earlier on what about Yoda? Oh, Yoda, we forgot one. Emotional intelligence, that's empathy and self awareness. Empathy is being able to put yourself into somebody else's perspectives and shoes, understand where somebody else is coming from. And self awareness is about understanding your, your strengths, your weaknesses, what makes you feel a certain way, but it's also making sure that other people around you understand those things as well. So empathy and self awareness are the Yoda the emotional intelligence pieces, what are the things you have to do to be a good Leader, especially in the military, but for sure in corporations is your time as a leader is limited, you know, you're part of a bigger organization, you're often working hard support someone else's part of the mission. But yet you still can be a leader within that team, even though you're not responsible for anything other than your own performance or maybe a sub team but talk about leading within a structure where you're not the prime leader. Yeah, so leader, a lot of people think that leader has anything to do with role or was seniority and it doesn't mean you can be leading yourself as well. So leader does not imply that you are responsible, or that you are managing others. A leader, I think is someone who has a vision for a better future has a plan for how to get to that better future and is able to rally people to move in that direction, in in a human way in an ethical in a moral way. And so whether you are an individual country Or whether you will responsible for a team of 10,000 people, you can be a leader. The caveat there is that if you are responsible for other people, you must be a leader, you don't have the luxury of not possessing these skills and mindsets that should be a requirement.
Pete Turner 39:16
Okay. So leaving within is not defined by the role or the fact that you've got people in front of you, you can still be okay, I got that. What about being so focused on the future you forget the geniuses of the past that are still relevant? I mean, look, people still read Sun Tzu. You know, there's a lot of old dead Greeks that we talked about what that did we know it's their idea. How much time do we need to spend in the path past even to just know what to disregard and what to use?
Jacob Morgan 39:44
Well, so I asked a couple CEOs this as well and you know, they they frame this well, it's important to understand the past but to be able to create the future. So it is important. I mean, you should not make decisions based on what has happened in the past because the past is the past, but the Things that you can learn from the past. So there are things that we can learn from Netflix and blockbuster. There are things that we can learn from Best Buy an Amazon and Walmart doesn't mean you need to copy it, it means that you need to understand these things, but still plan for the future. Going back to the chess analogy, the theory of chess has changed quite a bit over the decades. And this is especially relevant when we think about openings. No openings are usually the first 10 or so moves during a game of chess. And so the way that openings were played, let's say 30 years ago, 50 years ago, was done in a certain way. Now, you need to be aware of those past theories if you're a chess player on a high level. But at the same time, if you were to copy and replicate that same way of thinking today, and you were paired up against another Grandmaster who was more up to date on chess theory and knowledge, you would get massacred. So it's about understanding the past but also being able to plan for it. To create the new and adapt to the times that we're in, okay,
Pete Turner 41:03
yeah, that's fair. That's fair. So what do people commonly miss about all of this futurist and leadership stuff? Like, what you know what's, like the big things that you just have to deal with, that you can always spend time working on just because they're so they're so impactful. I mean, it's one thing to say, I'm going to really focus on my emotional intelligence. But oftentimes, there's there are critical things you have to work on to really dial in your game.
Jacob Morgan 41:28
So the simplest advice I can give to people is if you improve 1% a day in a year, you'll be 37 times better 1% a day. So I think the biggest thing that people miss is that in order to be more effective, they need to completely radically transform and become a new type of person. That's not what we're talking about. I mean, there are little things that you can do. Give yourself 20 to 30 minutes each day to practice curiosity watch a TED talk, listen to a podcast next time and employ your co worker comes into your office with a problem, or they're upset about something, take a deep breath and try to put yourself into their perspective before you respond. Right. So doing little things, but doing them consistently every day will make you a much better leader. There's a great quote by Ben Franklin, small strokes fell great folks. Meaning that small things over time will lead to a great impact. So just think about what you can do one, what you can do to be 1% better a day. And again, these don't need to be huge things. Maybe you show up to work one day as a leader and you just go up to your co workers and say, You know what, I just want to acknowledge and appreciate the hard work that you've been doing. I recognize it and I just wanted to say thank you. Simple 30 seconds 1% better tomorrow, what can you do so doing that I think you will become a completely unrecognizable leader within a year. We're talking with Jacob Morgan you guys should check out his all his stuff at future organization. com as well as good his new book at get future leader book calm. This is fascinating. And I love the fact that you get a chance to talk to these CEOs that run enormous companies because they're inside day to day doing it. You know, being able to understand that strategic view. And then also like you're doing linking it to the tactical day to day everything, everyday disciplines, you know that thing of, I often tell people that have sort of invisible jobs where they're right in front of you doing it. Yep, take time to slow down, stop and say, Hey, I appreciate you fill in the blank.
Pete Turner 43:31
They keep people from going in the exit door, past security at the airport, that person is vital. They're sitting at a desk and let's be honest, hardly anyone's ever going to go that way. But at least they're there as a deterrent. You know, and I just, I think it's a wonderful, a wonderful practice to take time and do it. It may be I'm not as successful at conveying my true appreciation as I intend, but the intention is there and and I do it all the time. So hopefully by practicing, I get better at it.
Jacob Morgan 44:00
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I think that's, it's a great piece of advice.
Pete Turner 44:03
All right. Well, I guess I'll turn the microphone around. Do you have any questions for me?
Jacob Morgan 44:07
No, I don't think so. I mean, this was this was a lot of fun. I mean, I enjoy talking about this stuff. So I'm, I'm excited to hear what people think.
Pete Turner 44:15
Yeah, I am, too. I have to and you account gotcha. But it's such a thorough piece of work and 14,000 interviews Good grief, man, that's
Jacob Morgan 44:23
well, hundred hundred and 40 CEOs, but a survey of also $14,000 a week, it was done in partnership with LinkedIn. So I interviewed 140 CEOs, personally kind of one on one and then the survey is non
Pete Turner 44:36
well, even still the hundred 40 interviews again.
Jacob Morgan 44:41
took a long time. Long time.
Pete Turner 44:43
Yeah, yeah. Well, listen, I do appreciate you coming on Jacob. It's such a neat thing, to be able to share these moments and just continue to garner knowledge and this is how I get better at 1% a day. Sometimes I get 2% better
Jacob Morgan 44:55
today. There you go. That's what I like to see. Well, it was a lot of fun. I mean, I like talking about steps. I appreciate you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Unknown Speaker 1:48
This is Jay Mohr. This is Jordan. Dexter from the naked Sebastian youngsters, Rick maronna. Stewart
Niko Leon Guerrero 1:54
Copeland is Andy Summers just got back sir Gabby Reese is Rob bell. This is john Leon gray and
Pete Turner 2:00
This is Pete a Turner.
Jacob Morgan 2:04
Hey everyone is Jacob Morgan and you are listening to the break it down show make sure to check out my brand new book go to get future leader book.com.
Niko Leon Guerrero 2:14
And now the break it down show with john Leon Guerrero and Pete a Turner.
Pete Turner 2:20
And if you are not already, make sure that you guys go to LinkedIn and get connected with Jacob Morgan. on LinkedIn. He's also on Twitter. And everywhere else he actually has a podcast called the future of work podcast, which is also very interesting because probably open with that Jacob has written a book. We got him the good folks at Wiley, who we love and they love us like this. And man it's cool. It's cool to can make this connection. You're a bay area guy, right? I am. Yeah. Nice. What part of the bay Are you in
Jacob Morgan 2:51
Simon Alameda and but I lived all over the bay lived in San Francisco. I live in Oakland but originally from Los Angeles,
Pete Turner 2:58
okay, okay. Actually, I'll be up in Venetia next week for Thanksgiving. So I love the bay. I love it up there. Yeah. So you talk about the future of work with your writing and your professional speaking. I mean, you do a lot of different things. When did you get a sense that you were a futurist? Hey, this is Dave Turner from the break it down Show checking in real quick to ask you this. JOHN Scott and I all support save the brave with our time, our location, our effort and our money. Each month, we give a small amount. Do the same with us go to save the brave.org. click on the donate tab, pick an amount that you want to come out each month and they will handle all the rest. I stand behind these folks. Thank you so much. Let's get back to the show. When did you get a sense that you were a futurist?
Jacob Morgan 3:43
Well, actually went to the University of Houston and received a professional certification in foresight so a lot of people don't realize but futurology or four sides, this is an actual academic field that you can study and you can actually get a master's degree in this. Wow. So for quite a few years, I would study a lot of the techniques and a lot of the the approaches that futurists would use to think about the future. And so I called myself a futurist for a while, but I never actually had that professional training. So a couple years ago, I decided to go back to school and get that official official professional certification to be able to actually say I'm a certified futures,
Pete Turner 4:23
I will help me out what the heck does that even mean though?
Jacob Morgan 4:25
So a futurist is someone who it Contrary to popular belief, a futurist does not predict anything, because if I could predict things, let's be honest, I, somewhere. Instead, what features do is they do a good job of looking at scenarios or possibilities or what might happen in the future to help make sure that they're not surprised or that their clients and organizations and people are not surprised by what the future might brings? And I always draw the analogy between this and chess. And so I've been very obsessed with chess over the years I take lessons with a grandmaster. I've been like super hardcore into it. And really what separates a strong chess player from a weak chess player is that a strong chess player is very good at looking at possibilities and scenarios. In other words, when you play a game of chess, you don't just say, I'm going to move my pawn, and my opponent is going to move their night. Like you don't think about it linear is like there's one option. Instead, a great chess player says, Well, there are a couple potential moves that I might make, there are certain ways that my opponent might respond, if they respond like that, I'll go like this. So it's really looking at multiple different options and scenarios. So that when your opponent plays a move, you're not kind of like, Where did that come from? You try to anticipate and look at options that are there. So that's kind of the best analogy I can think of.
Pete Turner 5:45
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. And if you're playing chess at a high level, you're you're many moves ahead, regardless of what your opponent does. You've already anticipated what they what they might do and you're thinking three, six, heck, I imagine a grandmother There's probably 10 moves ahead. And none of that surprises. I mean, they're, they're prepared for it.
Jacob Morgan 6:04
Correct. I mean, of course, every now and then something happens on the board where they just didn't expect it, they didn't plan for it. So that kind of stuff is unavoidable. But usually top grandmasters in games have a good sense of what their opponents plans are, what their plans are, what some potential moves might be. And so they're not kind of just playing move by move.
Pete Turner 6:23
Okay, so in terms of business, if you're talking to CEOs, you're advising them on how to play business chess, are you advising them to take time to go learn chess? Or do you use chess to teach them what they need? It seems like just can be a very consuming, you know? Yes. Like backgammon working on my strategy there and I can get lost and and play too much of it quite frankly,
Jacob Morgan 6:45
I'm the same way with chess actually. And I have, you know, the chess calm app on my phone and literally whenever I get spare time, I'm like on there. Some people do meditation for me, what relaxes me is solving chess puzzles or, you know, learning something on their But yeah, I mean, I wish a lot of business leaders out there would learn chess. And I think that would be a tremendous and valuable skill and a mindset shift for them. And a lot of top grandmasters, like Garry Kasparov is talking about the benefits of chess and the implications that chess has in the business world. But unfortunately, as you mentioned, a lot of business leaders don't have the time to sit there and learn to play a game like chess. And so I just simply encourage them to use just various frameworks. Like there's a very simple framework. Anybody can Google this, it's called the cone of possibilities. It's probably the most famous and most common framework that a futurist uses to think about scenarios. And the way that the cone works is you sort of imagine that you're peering through the narrow end of a cone. And as you look farther out into the cone, the cone expands and gets wider and wider. the narrowest part of the cone represents the closest time horizon. So that's kind of like today, tomorrow, next month, maybe by the end of the year. And so in At times scenario, the The possibilities are relatively limited. I mean, you know what will happen tomorrow, maybe next week, next month by the end of the year. But as you look farther out into the cone, the cone gets wider and the number of possibilities starts to increase. In other words, if you look three years, five years, all of a sudden all sorts of crazy things might happen. You don't know what will happen in that time period. And so futurist, ask a series of questions to kind of help them think about the future. And one of those questions is what is it that you want to happen? Right, so simple question asked, What is it that you want to happen? Another question you can ask is, what is probable, but maybe not likely to happen? So, you know, simple question. Another question you can ask is, why might something happen or not happen? And so you look at you look at it in terms of like, made these possibilities. So simple example you can use. Think of like, a lot of people talk about the impact that artificial intelligence is going to have on jobs. Right, right. So let's say you were to take that kind of a question and apply it to this quantum possibilities. And so one question you might ask is what what do you want to happen? Right? Do you want jobs to get automated? Do you you know, what, what is it that you want to happen? So that's one potential future. Another one that you might potentially look at is what is something that's may be possible but not likely to happen? And so in that situation, I would say one option is that everything will remain as it is. A status quo will remain as it is. It's certainly possible, but it's not very likely. Why might a jobs apocalypse happen? Well, if technology advances and if a lot of CEOs around the world say that humans suck, and they want to fire people a will have a jobs Apocalypse, why might have jobs apocalypse and not happen? Well, maybe we retrain a lot of employees, maybe we realize the importance of having humans work. And so when you just start to think about in terms of those times possibilities and scenarios, what you'll do is that when you make decisions, you won't just kind of pick one path and stick to it, you'll kind of have several ideas in your mind
Pete Turner 10:08
the idea of a cone. By the way, when you say account, I pictured the inside of a waffle cone, because I need to have lunch and I'd love to have ice cream for lunch.
Jacob Morgan 10:18
I'm right there with
Pete Turner 10:20
ice cream cone of pop possibilities. So when you look at that, sometimes things and I'm not trying to have a political conversation. When you look politically we tend to Korean left, right, left, right. And it freaks A lot of us out most of us out. Yeah, regardless of what you know. And we're likely and I'm making a face like we're likely fine. We're in the cone, maybe you're running up against the edge of the cone, but you know, that's still in the cone. Is that a fair way to kind of look at this and having some tolerance for some radicals that are in the system?
Jacob Morgan 10:54
Yeah, you can. I mean, the thing is, we practice a lot of this in our personal lives quite well. But it's when we get to our organizations, especially leaders struggle with this. So for example, you know, when you buy a house or when you go on a date with somebody, you typically think in your mind, well, is this somebody that I might be able to marry? What would our potential future look like? You know, if you buy a house somewhere, you think, well, what if the market goes up? What if it goes down with the schools aren't good in this area? So you already think in terms of those scenarios in your head and your personal life, the struggle is inside of our organizations? We're not very good at that. Because we're conditioned to always, always be right. Always have you know, the results. And so we pick one path, and we say, we're going to do this. And we don't think well, what if that's a bad idea? What if there's a better idea what if you're wrong, what if this happens to the market? What if this, and so we don't have that way of thinking inside of organizations, because we're not trained that way. And we believe that that just causes problems and you know, just do your job and don't ask questions in a strict hierarchy. Yeah. But in our personal lives, we think about this all the time. So it's Bringing that way of thinking into decision making it work. And so what happens is a lot of business leaders always say we want to be able to see around corners, right? That's a very popular business phrase, which of course, nobody can see around the corner. But instead, you can kind of like peek around a bunch of corners. And then if you end up going down one of those paths, you won't be surprised by what's on the other end.
Pete Turner 12:24
Interesting. One of the things I've found from my own personal work working in conflict zones with with big army unit State Department, is these are big immobile objects. You could literally predict the future and they do not care. It's just it's just a giant cement truck going 80 miles an hour down a one way street in UHF.
Jacob Morgan 12:45
Yeah, but look at what's happened to those types of organizations in the past. I mean, look at what's happened. I mean, blockbuster was that type of an organization and they are no more Sears was that type of an organization. A lot of traditional retailers were that type of an organization and when you have that mentality of we're, you know, the 800 pound cement truck, we've got one path and we're going to go down it, what starts to happen is that, hey, if that tends to be the right choice, great, but chances are, something else is going to happen like a Netflix. And you know, your 800 pound cement truck is going to get knocked over by the 10,000 pound cement truck. And so that just goes to show why this single type of linear thinking and by the way that people at blockbuster, they were aware of Netflix, and the board talked about it, and the executives talked about it and they said, you know, we get a lot of money from lead fees, we can't get rid of this. Netflix isn't going to be a real threat. And they just got metaphorically smacked alongside the head. So it's there are many, many examples. You look at traditional, you know, the book retailers as well. Look what happened to the borders, books, if anybody even remembers borders, and Barnes and Noble has been having a tough time. And so when you have that pure, linear way of thinking you struggle But on the other hand, you look at companies like Best Buy and Walmart that have been able to adapt to change changes that we're seeing in the retail space, because they'd have that kind of multiple way of thinking. And they're thriving. They're doing very well.
Pete Turner 14:11
Yeah. So Best Buys ability to latch on to markets that are still viable for them has has been important. But a lot of companies do that, right? Like, you're like, we're going to go vertical, we're going to go horizontal, bring these other brands in, and they don't do it. Well. What What do you think is the difference between someone like Best Buy that dramatically changes its model several times, and gets through looking good, and the companies that just aren't able to do it.
Jacob Morgan 14:35
So I interviewed the CEO of Best Buy, he was one of the hundred and 40 CEOs they interviewed for the book that's coming out. And one of the things that he did that I thought was most surprising is that usually when a company isn't doing well, what they do is they cut costs, especially as it pertains to people. They cut learning, they cut training, they cut development budgets, kubera, Jolie actually increased those budgets. So he invested more in his people and not less and as a resolve, I think that is one of the things that really dramatically helped them get through this kind of traditional retail Apocalypse, there was an article even in Forbes that was written a couple years ago, that talks about how Best Buy was going to disappear. And they clearly underestimated the CEO. And I think a lot of it comes down to people. Okay, so
Pete Turner 15:19
so people are tough to account for in the future. But you're saying like, if you have a baseline of action, like we're going to invest in, in our people, obviously, evaluating that investment and validating that education, that you're going to be more resilient to change and more adaptable, because more folks focused on the problem better, better provision, I guess.
Jacob Morgan 15:41
Yeah. So one of the things that I found from from the research from these hundred and 40 CEOs and by the way, I also surveyed 14,000 employees with in partnership with LinkedIn. And so what identified identified a series of four mindsets and five skills that are going to be absolutely essential for leadership. possess over the next 10 years and beyond. And these are mindsets and skills that are going to be kind of like air and water. And I mean, we can talk about some of those if you want.
Pete Turner 16:08
Yeah. Well, I'm actually I'm, I'm running a panel on leadership for a bunch of college students that are jrtc candidates. So I mean, this is exactly what I want to be able to bring to them is like the latest stuff. So this is great. Talk to me about leadership and how it's evolving.
Jacob Morgan 16:25
Sure. So from the hundred and 40 CEOs that I interviewed, one of the questions that I asked them was specifically, will the leader over the next 10 years be that different than the leader of today? And if so, how will that leader be different? And by far, the majority of CEOs said that there will be some things that stay the same. So for example, as a leader, being able to set a vision, being able to execute on strategy, those things will certainly continue to be relevant over the years for sure. But what a lot of these CEOs also told me is that a new set of skills And mindsets are going to be required because we are going to be operating and living in a new type of world. So for example, look at some of the trends that are driving businesses today, we see a huge impact on purpose in meaning, a globalization, artificial intelligence and technology, even though the very nature of talent is changing, demographic changes, diversity and inclusion. And so what all of these changes mean, what all these trends mean is that our organizations are going to change. And if the organization's change, then we need a new type of leader sitting at the helm of these organizations. So a couple of these mindsets and skills and I tried to create kind of fun little names for them. So the mindsets that I came up with were the servant, the Explore the chef and the global citizen. And the skills that I came up with were the coach, the futurist, the technology, teenager, Yoda, and the translator. So if you want I can quickly go through each one of these Sure, yeah, let's do it. Okay, so let's start off with the servant. The servant is about having a mindset that as a leader, you serve four groups, your leaders if you have them, your customers, your team members, and the fourth group that oftentimes leaders forget is to serve yourself. Okay? Meaning that if you don't look after yourself as a leader, and you don't show up to work every day, being your best How can you serve others? If you're exhausted and burned out and frustrated and overworked you cannot lead your team?
Pete Turner 18:32
Hey, this is Pete a Turner from lions rock productions. We create podcasts around here and if you your brand or your company want to figure out how to do a podcast, just talk to me. I'll give you the advice on the right gear. The best plan is show you how to take a podcast that makes sense for you that's sustainable, that scalable and fun. Hit me up at Pete at breakdown show com Let me help I want to hear about it.
Jacob Morgan 18:54
If you're exhausted and burned out and frustrated and overworked you cannot lead your team You got to look after yourself. Okay? So the mindset of the servant is understanding that your job as a leader, you have to have that mindset of serving, serving those four constituents, those groups. Next is the mindset of the Explorer. the mindset of the Explorer means that you embrace curiosity. You have a growth mindset, meaning that when obstacles and challenges are thrown in front of you, you don't view them as things that are kind of the end all be all you view them as things that you can overcome. You are agile and nimble in your way of thinking. If a problem comes your way, you try to come up with new solutions and ways of being able to try to solve that problem. So the mindset of the Explorer, kind of curious, you're exploring, you have that growth mindset. the mindset of the chef, the mindset of the chef means that as a leader, you understand that there are two crucial ingredients that you balance. So usually chefs when they cook they have you know, dozens of ingredients they're thinking about as a leader, you only got to you got to worry about humanity, technology, balancing the role that technology and humanity play together. So just those two tiny things, just those two things. And they sound simple, but they're actually very, very complex.
Pete Turner 20:09
Gosh, they're massive.
Jacob Morgan 20:11
Yeah, we're so obsessed with technology today, how do we get more technology, AI and all that sort of stuff. And oftentimes organizations do this. And they end up sacrificing the humanity inside of their companies. You know, they chase productivity, they chase cost reduction, but at the same time, your organization is not helping employees find a sense of purpose. There is no empathy at work. There is no coaching and mentoring, like the human stuff gets sucked out, but at the same time, you're more productive. So as a leader, you got to balance. How do we use technology to be as productive and efficient as we can, but at the same time, how do we use technology to make our organization more human and to improve the experience of our people?
Pete Turner 20:53
Yeah, this is a good point. I want to dig in here a little bit because, you know, we are cyborgs. There's a branch of studies. You know, anthropology talking about Cyborg, our Cyborg selves and being able to synthesize that information, you can create better services be a more human company. I mean, I think that's one of the check. Mark Schaefer says that mark Schaefer talks about all the time, like the, the most human company will win. And I know like, I dread calling customer service, especially with tech companies, because I am the customer service. And it's just, I don't use Venmo anymore because of that, you know, I need you to move my money. And then don't point at me or my bank and say check with them. Because I needed you to move my money before we even got to that point, right. So so these are outcomes the CEO can't want at least I hope not, but but are a big problem because how do you maintain low cost and still, you know, run a
Jacob Morgan 21:52
profitable and I mean, a lot and we see this classic example with chat bots. You know, every company thinks they need to have a chat bot Now, let's be honest, nobody's ever found a chat. useful. Yeah, and same thing when you call and you get those automated waste responses from companies like Comcast, those are not helpful. No. Right. So whenever I get those I like mash the buttons on the phone. Yes. And then it says, Sorry, I didn't understand let me transfer you to a representative who can help you. And I'm like, Yes. Right. So that's a classic example of a company that chases technology, but at the same time, puts an extra layer between themselves and the customer between themselves and their employees. So you got to find that delicate balance of how do you, you know, make both of those happen, that Elon Musk was a good example. Recently in an earnings call, he described what he created as a hell a network hell of conveyor belts. And he was so obsessed with automation of his manufacturing plans, that the quality control dramatically, dramatically decreased. And customers were getting cars, the damaged parts and people were getting frustrated. And so he realized that he relied too much on the technology side and brought humans back into the manufacturing facilities to help with things like quality control. So you have to have that delicate balance. It's very tempting to chase technology, but you can't do it, if it means that your company becomes less human. Because at the end of the day, business is still about relationships. Business is done through handshakes. It's done through through the relationships that we have with people. It's not done through technology. And so you cannot erase that. There are some companies out there, believe it or not, who are teaching their employees like super basic human skills? I'm talking about how to give somebody a handshake. Yeah. How to Look somebody in the eye, how to know how to start a conversation or even when to leave a conversation, right? You know, like, you're having a conversation with somebody and you kind of know that it's over, but they still linger there and it's awkward. Yes. So there are companies who are teaching their employees, those human things that like we forgot, because we're all just staring at this all the time.
Pete Turner 23:54
Okay. Tell me about the global citizen.
Jacob Morgan 23:57
Yes, the global citizen is about embracing Diversity and not just embracing it, but actually creating it. Meaning surrounding yourself with people who don't think like you act like you behave like you believe in the same things that you believe the simple kind of test that you can use is, if you were taken out of your current environment and put into another part of the world or into another team, would you still be able to lead just as effectively as you are now? And for a lot of people? The answer to that is no. So you might be in the United States, would you be able to lead a team in India? Could you lead a team and in South Africa, in China, in the UK, having a global citizen mindset means that you understand these different cultures, these values, and that you can bring people together in those different environments. And so those are the most crucial mindsets. Now. I can talk about the skills if you want,
Pete Turner 24:46
well, let's hang up for a second with the Global Citizen because you're, you know, and this isn't meant to challenge you, but let's have this conversation with a little bit. We talk a lot about EQ, but no one ever talks about CQ and that's cultural quotient cultural capacity acuity. And it's easy to think that you I mean, no one runs around goes, I'm a cultural idiot. I'm terrible at it. You know, everybody thinks they're good at it. But the reality is there are outcomes. This is something that I studied quite a bit. So if you aren't culturally in a line if you're uncomfortable at cultural intersections, because that's really what you're talking about it's intersections of culture, whether it's national or departments, there's different cultures there. And if you get a sense of, let's say, corruption in competence or passive aggressive behavior, those are cultural values, that it's on you as the leader to orient to and understand why you're not getting the collaborative outcome that you desire.
Jacob Morgan 25:43
Yep. Yeah, no, totally agree. Do you
Pete Turner 25:45
hear CEOs talking about that stuff? That seems like that's pretty, pretty advanced. I mean, people can't even define culture for crying out loud.
Jacob Morgan 25:52
Yeah. I mean, there are a couple of organizations. You know, L'Oreal does a fantastic job. I mean, they one of the criteria that they look for when they promote Leaders is having that kind of different cultural background, you know, people who possess that kind of cultural intelligence, because they found that those are the types of leaders who do a better job inside their organization. And so having and by the way, we're not just talking about somebody who can eat an ethnic ethnic restaurants for somebody that like, I had I had Chinese food, we're also not talking about somebody who works at a big global company that happens to have a presence all over the world, right? This this is like, you need to experience these things yourself. Yes. And, and that is, and again, because of globalization, you know, the the boundaries, the barriers to doing business are crumbling. And so you need to be able to work with these different types of teams and different types of cultures. And if not, you're going to be it doesn't mean that you won't have a job. But your ability to lead teams is going to be severely handicapped, because quite honestly, you won't be able to lead those teams.
Pete Turner 26:54
Yeah, and let's just spend a little longer here talking about what diversity is because it's not There's brown people in my company like that's that is that is the furthest thing from diversity. And then then the antonym problem of diversity is unity. So how do you maintain a unified approach to a problem with diversified elements to it? That's way easier said than done. So you have people that are from urban areas, people that are from suburban areas, rural folks, you have folks that are national, you have veterans you have disabled for all these different parts. How does a leader get that to be a cohesive group that it's its power and its diverse approach to problems is solid but unified?
Jacob Morgan 27:41
empathy? Alright, emotion, the emotional intelligence component. And by the way, diversity, diversity and inclusion are two separate things. Diversity is easy to do. Diversity just means that you hire a bunch of people with different backgrounds, people who believe different things, people who look differently. That's easy, right? I mean, you just see your resume and you say, Yeah, sure. Your high You have to job. Inclusion is about making those people actually feel like they belong at the company you might have, you might hire and bring in a diverse workforce. And that diverse workforce says, dude, what the hell this place sucks. Like, I don't feel like I can be myself. I like this is not a very welcoming environment for me. And so in that case, your diversity efforts are useless. Inclusion is not just about bringing those different types of people together, but it's how do you make those people feel like they belong at your company. So whether you are a veteran, whether you are Asian, whether you are Caucasian, regardless of where you are and what you believe in, that you feel like you belong at that company. And so organizations do things like they create employee resource groups for you know, different groups that might be inside the organization. They focus on creating teams that bring together people of different backgrounds and cultures and ideas. They do empathy and emotional intelligence training. I've seen organizations do all sorts of these types of things. And they work out well, but I think it all comes down to This emotional intelligence component of empathy, understanding that you are not the smartest one in the room, that there are people that have different backgrounds than you that also bring the value to the organization to the team. And you need to be able to understand that otherwise, you're going to have a very hard time in the workforce.
Pete Turner 29:20
When I worked at cw, they had inclusion training that they gave us and cw, I think to this day prides itself on its ability to train its employees at a high level. And I resisted going because it sounded like hippy dippy, worthless training. I put it off, I escaped it. And finally I had to go and it's like a whole day. It's a whole day of training. And my job is to be on the phones, making outbound phone calls, selling computers. That's my job, Brandon, they're going to adjust my numbers for that too. But that's my job. I don't make money if I don't do that. Yep. So I go on, I sit into my inclusion training, and then they spend the next eight hours telling me that it's all my fault. And if I would include myself, I would be included.
Jacob Morgan 30:03
Clearly it was your fault.
Pete Turner 30:05
Yeah. So the story isn't about me though the story is, if you're the CEO of the company, and I know I am not the only person that's like, what what are you telling me? It's my fault for you know, that's not what you pay $150,000 for this team to come do it your company? How does so when I worked in conflict zones, the value that I brought to especially generals was I knew the ground truth. I could go out and I could see what they could be there themselves and I would find the real ground truth of what's there. So how does the CEO understand I mean, that's poison in your company having me walk out pissed off because, you know, I just got crapped on for eight hours. I you know, horrible, horrible outcome.
Jacob Morgan 30:49
I mean, you gotta Well, I mean, it sounds like that was pretty bad training. First of all, it doesn't sound like that was very effective. Sure.
Pete Turner 30:56
It's evolved into something better now, but this is
Jacob Morgan 30:58
Yeah, I would hope so. I mean, Part of is leading by example, right, as a leader, you need to demonstrate that these are things that you care about not necessarily by going to these trainings yourself, but by surrounding yourself with the types of teams that you think other people should surround yourself by. So if you're the CEO of a company, and you're a white male in your 50s, and everybody else on the executive team is a white male in their 50s, and you're telling everybody else to focus on diversity and inclusion, you're kind of being a hypocrite. Right? So I mean, it starts by leading by example, surround yourself with the types of people that you think other people should be surrounding yourself by. And this is why we see organizations promoting more diverse groups into senior leadership roles. And so as a CEO, you have tremendous power and responsibility to make this change happen. And guess what if you say that this is what you want to do, it will get done. But you just need to be the one that's leading by example, and not kind of passing this off to your VP of diversity and inclusion. For example, you know, dow that I interviewed there. Chief Diversity Officer a little while ago, their CEO, he would bring up diversity and inclusion during all hands meetings, he would talk about why it's so important, he would talk about it on their their corporate scorecard he would, you know, this would be a corporate discussion that would be in part of his CEO agenda during meetings. So he lead by example. And as a result, the organization move kind of towards that direction. But if this is just something that you think is nice, and you're not really going to talk about it, and just kind of pass it off to somebody else, it's not going to do
Pete Turner 32:30
it doesn't, that doesn't create the culture that you want and culture. Culture is hard. It doesn't want to cooperate. Let's talk about the translators now.
Jacob Morgan 32:38
Yeah, so the the five skills are a translator, which is about listening and communication. And some people might say, Well, yeah, that's always been relevant, which is true, but those two things have also changed more in the past couple years then than ever. How so? Um, so when you think about listening, for example, we have so many different channels that really Listening to now, we have different types of people that we're listening to. We have diverse workforces geographically distributed workforces, we have technology that we can use for listening, listening doesn't just necessarily mean that you're having a one on one conversation with somebody in there in front of you. Listening is like a whole other thing. Now, it's like tapping into kind of what's happening in your organization. So the means of listening are different. As far as the technology and how you're listening is also different. You're listening to different types of people, you have to take feedback on the things that you're listening to. And I think for a long time organizations were very good or leaders were very good just at the hearing aspect. And listen, hearing is kind of an uncut, it's the unconscious act of just letting sound enter your ear. And so that's not the same as listening. Listening means you get the body language, right. You're looking somebody in the eye, you're making it feel like a collaborative conversation, you're building the other person up. That is a different type of skill that is now required. As opposed to just being a physical presence or an avatar, that's just letting the other person talk. And because we care so much about purpose and meaning and impact, this idea of listening has never been more important. Communication, the same thing, we have so many different means in ways of communicating. Now, as a leader, if you're the CEO of a company, you might not spend much time with your employees because you have hundreds or thousands of them. And so as one CEO told me, when he was the CEO of 32,000, people, he said, on average, and employee might hear me speak for 20 minutes a year, maybe. And so in that 20 minutes, I better make sure that my message gets across, and that I'm clear and concise and that they understand exactly what I'm saying. And by the way, that message needs to get across whether it is live, whether it is through text, whether it's through an email, whether it's through a live stream, whether it's through a picture, whether it's through an emoji, right so your message is a leader and you come across, regardless of the platform that you're using. And you also need to know how to use these different platforms. If you're going to have a serious conversation with somebody about letting them go or promoting them, you probably don't want to send them a text. Right? We've also seen these emails that people send inside of companies where the email looks like it should be a letter written to a therapist. That's clearly somebody who doesn't understand the channel that they're using. So different types of channels, how you're communicating different generations communicate different ways. You need to understand the different mediums that you have at your disposal, and how to get your message across regardless of what that medium is. So that's what the translator is all about. Alright. The next one is the technology teenager, in the technology teenager is simply about being tech savvy, and digitally fluent. You don't need to be a coder. You don't need to understand how to take things apart and put them back together. But it does mean you need to understand from a high level, what's the technology, how's it going to impact your business or your people and what are the potential Maybe opportunities or threats of that technology, right high level, but don't stick your head in the sand. And just I, you know, I have an IT department, they'll take care of that, you got to be a little bit more tech savvy as a leader. So that's the technology teenager, again, super simple. The coach is about understanding and believing that your job as a leader is to make other people more successful than you. The last two words, they're the most important than you. Because helping make somebody else more successful is easy. You could spend five minutes with somebody give them one little tip, and all of a sudden, they're tiny bit more successful than they are now. And you could say, Hey, I mentored this person, look, they're a little bit more successful. The van up is where that extra effort comes into play. helping make somebody else make me become more successful than you is hard. That's a lot of work time, effort, commitment, and so that is ultimately the goal of the coach. So add that extra value. To the end if you're a leader, and you're going to find that if you believe that the way that you show up to work every day will change, your behaviors will change how you think will change. And then the last one, I think we've covered all the others. Last one is that as a futurist, which we talked about earlier, this was actually ranked by the CEOs is the number one most important skill for future leaders. And it's really all about how do you think in terms of scenarios and possibilities instead of that linear thinking? And, you know, we covered that quite a bit earlier on what about Yoda? Oh, Yoda, we forgot one. Emotional intelligence, that's empathy and self awareness. Empathy is being able to put yourself into somebody else's perspectives and shoes, understand where somebody else is coming from. And self awareness is about understanding your, your strengths, your weaknesses, what makes you feel a certain way, but it's also making sure that other people around you understand those things as well. So empathy and self awareness are the Yoda the emotional intelligence pieces, what are the things you have to do to be a good Leader, especially in the military, but for sure in corporations is your time as a leader is limited, you know, you're part of a bigger organization, you're often working hard support someone else's part of the mission. But yet you still can be a leader within that team, even though you're not responsible for anything other than your own performance or maybe a sub team but talk about leading within a structure where you're not the prime leader. Yeah, so leader, a lot of people think that leader has anything to do with role or was seniority and it doesn't mean you can be leading yourself as well. So leader does not imply that you are responsible, or that you are managing others. A leader, I think is someone who has a vision for a better future has a plan for how to get to that better future and is able to rally people to move in that direction, in in a human way in an ethical in a moral way. And so whether you are an individual country Or whether you will responsible for a team of 10,000 people, you can be a leader. The caveat there is that if you are responsible for other people, you must be a leader, you don't have the luxury of not possessing these skills and mindsets that should be a requirement.
Pete Turner 39:16
Okay. So leaving within is not defined by the role or the fact that you've got people in front of you, you can still be okay, I got that. What about being so focused on the future you forget the geniuses of the past that are still relevant? I mean, look, people still read Sun Tzu. You know, there's a lot of old dead Greeks that we talked about what that did we know it's their idea. How much time do we need to spend in the path past even to just know what to disregard and what to use?
Jacob Morgan 39:44
Well, so I asked a couple CEOs this as well and you know, they they frame this well, it's important to understand the past but to be able to create the future. So it is important. I mean, you should not make decisions based on what has happened in the past because the past is the past, but the Things that you can learn from the past. So there are things that we can learn from Netflix and blockbuster. There are things that we can learn from Best Buy an Amazon and Walmart doesn't mean you need to copy it, it means that you need to understand these things, but still plan for the future. Going back to the chess analogy, the theory of chess has changed quite a bit over the decades. And this is especially relevant when we think about openings. No openings are usually the first 10 or so moves during a game of chess. And so the way that openings were played, let's say 30 years ago, 50 years ago, was done in a certain way. Now, you need to be aware of those past theories if you're a chess player on a high level. But at the same time, if you were to copy and replicate that same way of thinking today, and you were paired up against another Grandmaster who was more up to date on chess theory and knowledge, you would get massacred. So it's about understanding the past but also being able to plan for it. To create the new and adapt to the times that we're in, okay,
Pete Turner 41:03
yeah, that's fair. That's fair. So what do people commonly miss about all of this futurist and leadership stuff? Like, what you know what's, like the big things that you just have to deal with, that you can always spend time working on just because they're so they're so impactful. I mean, it's one thing to say, I'm going to really focus on my emotional intelligence. But oftentimes, there's there are critical things you have to work on to really dial in your game.
Jacob Morgan 41:28
So the simplest advice I can give to people is if you improve 1% a day in a year, you'll be 37 times better 1% a day. So I think the biggest thing that people miss is that in order to be more effective, they need to completely radically transform and become a new type of person. That's not what we're talking about. I mean, there are little things that you can do. Give yourself 20 to 30 minutes each day to practice curiosity watch a TED talk, listen to a podcast next time and employ your co worker comes into your office with a problem, or they're upset about something, take a deep breath and try to put yourself into their perspective before you respond. Right. So doing little things, but doing them consistently every day will make you a much better leader. There's a great quote by Ben Franklin, small strokes fell great folks. Meaning that small things over time will lead to a great impact. So just think about what you can do one, what you can do to be 1% better a day. And again, these don't need to be huge things. Maybe you show up to work one day as a leader and you just go up to your co workers and say, You know what, I just want to acknowledge and appreciate the hard work that you've been doing. I recognize it and I just wanted to say thank you. Simple 30 seconds 1% better tomorrow, what can you do so doing that I think you will become a completely unrecognizable leader within a year. We're talking with Jacob Morgan you guys should check out his all his stuff at future organization. com as well as good his new book at get future leader book calm. This is fascinating. And I love the fact that you get a chance to talk to these CEOs that run enormous companies because they're inside day to day doing it. You know, being able to understand that strategic view. And then also like you're doing linking it to the tactical day to day everything, everyday disciplines, you know that thing of, I often tell people that have sort of invisible jobs where they're right in front of you doing it. Yep, take time to slow down, stop and say, Hey, I appreciate you fill in the blank.
Pete Turner 43:31
They keep people from going in the exit door, past security at the airport, that person is vital. They're sitting at a desk and let's be honest, hardly anyone's ever going to go that way. But at least they're there as a deterrent. You know, and I just, I think it's a wonderful, a wonderful practice to take time and do it. It may be I'm not as successful at conveying my true appreciation as I intend, but the intention is there and and I do it all the time. So hopefully by practicing, I get better at it.
Jacob Morgan 44:00
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I think that's, it's a great piece of advice.
Pete Turner 44:03
All right. Well, I guess I'll turn the microphone around. Do you have any questions for me?
Jacob Morgan 44:07
No, I don't think so. I mean, this was this was a lot of fun. I mean, I enjoy talking about this stuff. So I'm, I'm excited to hear what people think.
Pete Turner 44:15
Yeah, I am, too. I have to and you account gotcha. But it's such a thorough piece of work and 14,000 interviews Good grief, man, that's
Jacob Morgan 44:23
well, hundred hundred and 40 CEOs, but a survey of also $14,000 a week, it was done in partnership with LinkedIn. So I interviewed 140 CEOs, personally kind of one on one and then the survey is non
Pete Turner 44:36
well, even still the hundred 40 interviews again.
Jacob Morgan 44:41
took a long time. Long time.
Pete Turner 44:43
Yeah, yeah. Well, listen, I do appreciate you coming on Jacob. It's such a neat thing, to be able to share these moments and just continue to garner knowledge and this is how I get better at 1% a day. Sometimes I get 2% better
Jacob Morgan 44:55
today. There you go. That's what I like to see. Well, it was a lot of fun. I mean, I like talking about steps. I appreciate you
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