Boundless Curiosity
Boundless Curiosity
A Vision for the Future of Leadership
This episode centers around the importance of vision in leadership, especially as new year resolutions approach. Brandon and Jason discuss how a compelling vision can guide leaders, inspire their teams, and impact broader organizational goals positively.
• Differentiating vision from New Year's resolutions
• Understanding the significance of purpose in vision
• The interplay between specific goals and overarching vision
• Co-creating vision with team engagement
• Reflecting on how technology shifts the landscape of leadership
• Considering the balance of profit and purpose in organizational goals
• Exploring questions to guide listeners in their vision setting
All right, Hello folks, and welcome to another episode of the Boundless Curiosity Podcast. I am your co-host, Brandon Smith, here with our other co-host, Jason Smith. How is it going, Jason?
Speaker 2:It's going very well, lovely week here between Christmas and New Year's and just enjoying a little time with the family. How are things with you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, everything's great here. Same kind of a slow time of the year, which I appreciate the holidays, spend a little bit of time with family. So yeah, everything's going great. And wow, it has actually been. I was looking back through our previous episodes and it has been about six months since we recorded an episode, so kind of curious for the listeners. What have you been up to for the last six months?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Well, I didn't even know that six months had gone by. What have I been up to? I think it's really more of the same so doing a lot of coaching, doing, you know, moved into kind of a bigger role at work, thinking about executive development and some stuff that I haven't been thinking about in a while and kind of designing some next steps for that in the new year. Enjoyed the summer, I guess, since it's been that long, and yeah, it's good to be back and hopefully we can find a good rhythm for this podcast. What?
Speaker 2:have you been up to.
Speaker 1:Great to hear those updates, jason, and thinking back for myself one, I think it is true that it has been around six months, because it was the summertime when we last recorded. So glad we have the opportunity to reconnect and today we'll take a little bit of time to talk about what our vision is for the podcast, which I think will be helpful for us to think about the future and our recording tempo. But yeah, the last six months, so big updates. I think I moved into a new home recently in my same area here, but all the stuff that goes with relocating and moving and unpacking boxes, so that happened. That's the big update. Super busy at work and then we're rolling into another semester at school, so I'll be teaching again in January and starting to get prepared for that. So those are my big updates over the past six months.
Speaker 2:How settled?
Speaker 1:are you after the move we are getting there? We still have a lot of boxes to unpack and I was just going through a couple of cabinets here in the office yesterday trying to get organized, but my tendency is just to throw a bunch of stuff in a drawer and forget all about it. So I'm trying not to do that nice yeah and um, how'd the move go.
Speaker 1:It went well. In retrospect I would have loved to hire some movers to move everything over, but we probably moved maybe about two miles from our previous house. So I thought that we would just throw some stuff in the back of the pickup and make a lot of trips. And we had a little bit of an overlap where we had the previous home and closing out the sale of that while we had already purchased this home. So that did allow us a little bit of flexibility in getting stuff moved over.
Speaker 2:Well, that I really get to hear. I mean, we moved a couple of times in the last few years and I mean, like to me there's like there are a few things it's like deeply unnerving as like packing up all of your stuff or watching other people packing up all your stuff and then sending it off in some sort of like c container somewhere, and so that's probably even though it was like you at least knew where it was and that it was all getting where you were going and you were like touching it the whole time. I think I don't think I want to die in this house, but if that happened and I didn't have to move again, I'd be all right with that.
Speaker 1:Well, let me ask you this, jason, since you brought it up where would you prefer to die if not in that house?
Speaker 2:Exactly, man, if I could, if it could be like it's like some, some sort of lake up in the mountains, like right on the edge of it, like that's, that's it. Just leave me right there in the tall grass.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you have a place of death picked out. Cause of death. Do you have any strong preferences there? Sasquatch attack, sasquatch attack, sasquatch attack.
Speaker 2:All right, that'll lay, I just wanted to go out because if that happened, I'd be so excited about the prospect of seeing Sasquatch that I would be less worried about being torn to pieces, assuming that's what happened.
Speaker 1:Fair, I feel like see you're assuming Sasquatch would tear you to pieces, but it could just be like I don't know Sasquatch, maybe they use weapons, or who knows what could transpire there. This is a good point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, anyway, that's my ideal state, right there.
Speaker 1:All right, fair. Well, that's definitely a morbid start to our podcast, and it turns out we're not actually talking about Sasquatch or causes of death on the podcast today.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, who knew? But yeah, that's probably a good thing. We can take a different direction. And I understand we're talking a little bit about vision today.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I was thinking and you and I exchanged a few messages about this, but it might be a good opportunity since it's the end of the year and people are thinking about New Year's resolutions and what they're doing next year and we're thinking about the future of the podcast that maybe we could spend a little bit of time talking about vision, what our vision for the podcast is, what our vision for leadership development, human-centered leadership. We could take this topic in a variety of directions that I am super excited about.
Speaker 2:Well and a great time of year to think about lofty concepts like vision. As we bring one year to a close, as we look to open up another year, this is often the place of some sort of vision setting for the another year. You know, this is often the sort of the place of, you know, some sort of vision setting for the next year, and that's something that you know. We may not we talk about them as resolutions and stuff like that, but really what it is to me is like setting a new vision for yourself, like in a new year. So wonderful time to have this conversation, I think.
Speaker 1:Agreed. Are you a new year's resolution person? What are you resolved to do in the new year or?
Speaker 2:not. Well, you know, we do a little bit of a. We do. We have a little bit of a tradition in our house where we take a. Actually it's right here, we take a St Bridget's cross, which is a cross. There you go, that is a Celtic cross, and we have one hanging this is actually the new one, but we have one that's been hanging next to our front door since January of last year and what we do is we burn the old one and kind of talk about what we want to let go from the old year, and then we put the old new one up and talk about kind of what we want to bring into the new year.
Speaker 2:Um and uh, it's to me it's a, it's a like, it's a, it's fun. I mean, you get to set something on fire. The kids like it, um, but it's just about setting a little bit of an intention, like do I get it? Do I do all of those things in terms of letting those things go? No, um, but um. But I do like to mark the the year's transition. What about you?
Speaker 1:before I answer that, jason, what I think I've just heard you say is that at the end of every year to bring in the new year, you burn across as your family tradition is that am I capturing that correct? Am I mischaracterizing that or do I have that right?
Speaker 2:Well, when you put it that way, it sounds kind of sinister, but no, it really is, and it's just, it's a. It's a. It's kind of just like a symbol of good luck that you hang next to the door. But yeah, so what we? That is what we do, and we mark that passing, leaving something behind, and and stepping into something new, hmm, fascinating.
Speaker 1:I've never been much of a New Year's resolution type person. I feel like I resolve to do things throughout the year and prefer not to wait until the end of the year to do that. And I'm going to give you a statistic, jason 97% of all New Year's resolutions fell before the end of January.
Speaker 1:I believe, it, do you? I just made that up, but I feel like that could be a real statistic. I feel like that happens quite a bit. 97 might be a little high, but I get the sense that a lot of people don't carry through with their resolutions. And that's why I think this concept of a vision is so important and timely at this time of year, because what might be missing from people's resolutions is the linkage to some sort of larger vision for their life, their family, the way they're approaching things. That sometimes maybe the New Year's resolution, those goals we set, like I want to lose 20 pounds or I want to start going to the gym, that discrete goal isn't necessarily tied to a larger vision.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's a great. I think it's a really good point. And I checked in with ChatGPT here, which I know you're a fan of, and it says 80% of New Year's resolutions fail, often by mid-january.
Speaker 1:No, okay, so wasn't too far off, maybe maybe a little high 80. So four out of five I I could buy that I'll buy that too, and I really like that you're.
Speaker 2:You're thinking about like tying it to something, tying into something bigger, um, and I often think about like tying it to something tangible too, right, like, so, like something that's um, a little bit clearer in terms of goal setting, right, like if I want to hit a new running goal, like I'm setting a very specific goal, right, so I want to run, you know, 15 miles a week, you know, or something like that, and that way I can kind of track it a little bit better. So I was just thinking about that's what popped in my head. It was like okay, so what's it tied to? Kind of big picture, wise vision, wise, like. How am I measuring it? How do I know I'm getting something, getting some progress?
Speaker 1:Agreed and what might be beneficial then. As we're talking about goals versus vision, the two can sound very similar, maybe even synonymous. So how might you separate the two if you had to? I think of the goals maybe myself as being a little more granular, whereas a vision is like a inspirational statement that's more like bigger and more future oriented. That's how I'm thinking about it, but curious to hear how you think about it and vision.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, like to me, vision, like I oftentimes go back to, like you know, my work as a facilitator and thinking about like vision setting right. Like in those vision setting things, it's often, you know, it's often pretty big picture, it's often aspirational, it's probably like future focused um and um and it's something that, like to me, is like kind of a guide as you move through a period of time or something like that is like you can kind of look up like a North Star and say, okay, are we on the right track or are we not on the right track?
Speaker 1:I would love that idea of a North Star and, as you were describing that big future focus, aspiration, that is the thought that popped into my mind and how I've heard it described in the past that it's more of your North Star and then you can lay in some more specific goals to help you achieve that North Star, but it starts with that overarching vision. So kind of curious, then, as we think about vision and we're thinking about the future of the podcast. If you had to articulate a vision, it needn't be anything like fancy and well thought out. I think sometimes that's where we maybe get stuck with our visions, as we think it has to be this poetic wording. But maybe it's just this couple of ideas weaved together of what we're hoping to achieve in the future. What are you thinking about in terms of the vision for our Boundless Curiosity podcast here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think you know, when I think about it it's kind of twofold.
Speaker 2:Like one of them is like, very specifically for the podcast, like I was interested in like what does a human development, leadership development lens like? How can that, those, those lenses, how can they be helpful in thinking through, you know, challenges that we often see in leadership, often see in organizational development, like that's the easy one, right, those are already like the lenses that they're intended for. But also like how we might apply those things to like other other topics that pop up. You know we, you and I were just talking about ethics, you know, human centered ethics or, or decision-making, or complexity, or some of those things. So that's one, the other. The other thing that pops up for me in terms of like that the vision is kind of how it aligns with my vision. So, like one of the things that's important to me as a person is to not get too stagnant as I get older and to always like have a little bit of an avenue for possibility, and that's what I see this as what about you.
Speaker 1:I will answer that, Jason, but before I do, I can't help but pull this thread on possibility, because it's something I have heard you mention quite a bit in various conversations. So I am curious to hear from you what is it that possibility does for you?
Speaker 2:you? What is it that possibility does for you? Um, it probably gives me some sort of like an illusion that things get better fascinating that even as I sit here in my mid-40s, things can change in a good way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that, and I see Jason's having like an allergy attack over there and I'm going to jump in and talk a little bit about my vision while he chugs a little bit of water there, and hopefully we were talking about place and time of death and we know we don't want it to be in that house, jason, so do not just keel over the other side of the screen there. We don't want it to be in that house, jason, so do not just kill over the other side of the screen there. I don't really know what I would do in that instance. I suppose I would just keep on recording the podcast because the show must go on. Okay, definitely, all right, here's my vision for the podcast.
Speaker 1:When I think about my vision, I can't help but think about not only myself, but who do I think about listening to this podcast? And I'm thinking about that leader who's in a new position or a challenging role or leading a team, and maybe there's a lot of ambiguity and not a lot of structure. So I think about the vision of the podcast as that place, that source where people can go and be empowered to help navigate through that complexity in a way that is curious, in a way that is thoughtful, in a way that explores new and different possibilities and ways of being. And so really, just to recap that I think about the podcast as a way to help and inspire and empower leaders to approach their leadership practice through a little bit of humility and curiosity.
Speaker 2:Well, I love how tightly aligned that is with you know the nature of kind of what we've been talking about, like the name of the podcast, our backgrounds, and I'm curious, like, when you think about like, like for the sake of what, or like why Like? Why is that important to you?
Speaker 1:Hmm, hmm, great question, great coaching question.
Speaker 1:I would expect no less for you. So one I find it's important to me, one because I've been that leader and to on it I say I've been, I still am that leader who's trying to navigate complexity and ambiguity, and trying to do it from a curious mindset and I know how challenging that can be and thinking about work in general. It's so hard to tease that out from our well-being, our livelihood, our happiness, our life satisfaction, our experience at work is so important to us. So I've been in places where I've had really difficult times at work and it's really impacted my life. And I've been in places where I've been very engaged, inspired and committed and it's had a positive impact on my life.
Speaker 1:So my hope, then, is that I can help people have that more positive work experience which bleeds into their life experience. So that's one thought. And then, secondly, I'm very eager about this possibility that maybe leadership, the future of leadership and how we approach it, can be a little bit different than maybe how we've approached it in the past. What is that future of being a leader, human-centered leadership, and how we interact with work? I, using your word, I think there's a lot of possibility in that.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think that that probably gets a part of like my vision. For you know why, why do a podcast Like, why they do this stuff? And that's because you know things. Things have changed so much, you know, with like we we we do need to like, update our approaches to things like leadership, to running teams, to leading organizations. You know, one of the things that's important to me is for organizations to start thinking about things in addition to just profit, which is good and helps organizations continue to run and thrive, and that helps families earn money and have health insurance and stuff like that. We're in a place right now in the world where we really need organizations to start doing good outside of just organizations living their own visions, living their own values, but in the world outside of the organization itself. This podcast just introducing new ideas, new concepts to get people thinking a little differently about how they approach leadership, how they think about the organization that they're a part of, that they might lead.
Speaker 1:I absolutely love that, Jason, and where I might add to that a little bit is when we start to talk about leadership and think about leadership.
Speaker 1:Sometimes our mindset shifts to organizations, which is where a lot of us spend a lot of time. But as we're thinking about leadership one, I love this idea of thinking beyond profit and maybe how do we balance profit with purpose and making sure leaders are championing that is a difficult word for me to say, for some reason not only profit, but also well-being, the values, the purpose of people on their team. But it isn't just in organizations. We can think about this in our communities, in our families and maybe, at a broader scale, thinking about it in politics, which I think is an area where there's a lot of opportunity for people to approach leading in a much different mentality. Instead of falling into echo chambers and thinking about maybe I need to continue to push my agenda or get reelected, what would it look like to lead from a place of helping people transcend and move to a place that is a little bit more, I guess, enlightened or purpose or values driven than maybe it has been in the past?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think the way you describe that is so in line with my thinking about, like, how visions are helpful, because that's that's a big idea, that's a big concept that you're talking about there and it's something where, um, you know, to me, like visions, it gives you a sense for, kind of like, where you want to go and why you want to go there and why it's important to you, and how you make your way there is probably going to be really, really different than you expected it to be, because of how big the challenge is, because of how you're going to encounter obstacles along the way.
Speaker 2:You're going to encounter a change of thinking that might shift where you think you need to go next. And you also hit on another thing I think is important about this podcast is, like using the human development lens, using the leadership development lens, like, what does it tell us about society? What does it tell us about politics? What does it tell us about what's next? What does it tell us about how we navigate really sticky situations that are outside of organizations or outside of team dynamics and sort of like, where we normally apply these lenses?
Speaker 1:Agreed and you made that point about the vision being tied to maybe some big, lofty transitions or changes, and I think to me that is the big benefit of a vision. If I were a salesperson, let's say I'm setting up a lemonade stand by the road and instead of selling lemonades I'm selling people on. You need to get on board with adopting visions and making sure that you're laying out meaningful visions for your teams, family, community. Visions have an emotional component to them. Them or they tap into emotion. I think that's the big benefit of a vision. When you're looking to do something different or to change something or to push someone towards a aspirational goal, it begins with getting them like excited about it, of seeing the need for the change. So a compelling vision really gets after someone on an emotional level and then, once you have someone's buy-in at the emotional level, you can start to lay in some of those more specific and tactical steps to achieve that vision.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I like the way you're talking about, you know, the interplay between goals and vision, um, and that like you're like what came up me where you're saying that was like a little some of the work simon sinek is famous for around, like starting with why, right, like his golden circle, um, and how like to me like a vision and a why are they're very much intertwined, because I think, like a vision is, it should be inspiring, it should hook you right, it should like allow people to kind of like line up and move in the same direction because they can kind of see where they're going, where where they think that they can go, at least.
Speaker 1:It's interesting that you draw in that connection between the why, because as I was thinking about visions, I my mind gravitated towards the why as well, this concept from Simon Sinek and I see a close connection there. And I also wonder if the why may not always be as future oriented, and tell me what you think about that. So my why of doing the work that I do might be tied into. I don't know, and now as I'm thinking about it, maybe I'm talking myself out of it. So let me ask you this Is the why always future focused? I'm struggling with that a little bit. How would you draw a distinction between those two, if at all?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, like again back to my like facilitator work.
Speaker 2:You know, like you do these like mission vision statements, right, Like mission statement is supposed to be like present focus, like what are we doing now, and I think, like why do we do it?
Speaker 2:Um, where the vision tends to be a little bit more future focused. So, like my, my thought of, like you know, I think, the, the why, the why, can be very much present. It can be very much, like you know, there to kind of guide day-to-day activities. But then again, like you know, as a facilitator, every time I've done like a mission vision values, like I've always struggled and I think groups have always struggled to sort of make the distinction between the mission and the vision, because there is a lot of overlap between the present and where you want to go in the future. And that's one of the reasons why, like you know, as a facilitator, I tend to kind of gravitate more toward creating purpose statements or, you know, like North Star statements, like things that guide what we do now and help us move into the direction, into the future. That feels like you know, in a way that feels inspiring.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I find we get a little stuck in some of these labels and maybe lose sight of the purpose of the exercise. Back to your idea of the mission, mission purpose, values that sometimes they're so intertwined and it seems that people make a lot of a big point in separating those things out and I'm not always sure that it's always meaningful to do so yeah, I don't think it's like.
Speaker 2:I think the more I've done this, the less I've seen meaning in them to make those distinctions, and that's why, again, that's why I talk about purpose statements or North Star statements or just something that kind of gives a sense of like. Here's what we're doing, here's where we can go, because making the I don't know.
Speaker 1:Is there a?
Speaker 2:benefit to making the distinction that I'm not seeing.
Speaker 1:Potentially, potentially and I'm probably the wrong person to ask. I think about my own experience and career as someone who has a PhD. For example, we spend a lot of time thinking and talking about different concepts and constructs and how they're separated and alike, and sometimes I do take a step back from that and say, wow, is this meaningful? Does it add value? Is there a lot of purpose to it? And I have also spent a lot of time doing that myself, so I'm not really sure the answer to that, well, there you go?
Speaker 1:Curious to hear, maybe, how you've seen this show up more practically, Jason, in the sense of you've done a lot of coaching, maybe thinking of your own leadership practice where has working and establishing a vision where have you seen it be successful? Maybe you've seen it not be so successful. Curious to bring some practicality to the conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think, where I've seen it like. So I love bringing like vision into, like into how I run a team and to me it's really important to bring in because it provides a degree of organization, right. It provides, you know, like, an opportunity, right, it provides, you know, a, like an opportunity to get people on you know, at the, at the starting point, together and to map out, like the direction that they're going to go. And I think that where the, where they're successful is, is where you get you. Give people a voice so that they can create a vision that they can, that they can connect to you. Give people a voice so that they can create a vision that they can, that they can connect to, that that might speak to something that's deeply important in them. And I think there's great motivation there and I think there's inclusion there. And then I think it's something where you really have to like keep it alive for it to matter.
Speaker 2:And that's the part where it's like you know if you're not going, you know if you're, if you, just, if you know what you do and you do it well and everybody's fine, then don't, you don't need a vision Like cause you're, you're doing it. But if you're, you know, if, if you're looking to kind of create, you know a, a team that is doing something new, doing something different, like that, you're leveraging creativity, like those sort of pieces, then a vision becomes really important. And unless you continue to sort of check back and, to your point earlier, right, make goals that you can kind of like look at and say are we making progress, how are we doing, you know, along this path, then unless you're willing to do that, then it's there's no point, right, like it just dies and then nobody cares. In fact it may have done more harm than good because you asked and then you didn't follow through with it.
Speaker 1:Fascinating. And something I'm hearing in there, jason and tell me if I've mischaracterized this a little bit is if we want to move beyond the status quo, the way that we're typically doing things, then it's likely going to require a compelling vision that people are bought into. And I don't know that you hit on this, but it's something that I've found important in crafting a vision is, to some extent, it might be more meaningful to a group of its co-created. So instead of me coming in as a leader saying here's our vision as a group of what we're going to achieve, maybe I have a general direction and vision, but if you're able to draw out people's voices, help them or allow them or encourage them to have a say in the vision, they're going to be a lot more committed to that vision than if you try and shove it down people's throats for lack of a better word or terminology.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's my experience and I think there's some practical pieces to it too that are worth bringing out here. I mean, like one, if you're, you know, the president, CEO of an organization, like your ability to get that kind of buy-in is probably a lot more limited than if you're, like, the leader of a team or a department. And that's the piece where it's like, you know, if you're, if you're, if you're the leader of a team or a department, if you're a leader of a department, for example, you know, if you're bringing your leadership team together to create this vision that you're going to like bring down to the people, like bring the people's voice into it. Maybe start there, because I think when people can see their perspective in a vision, they're more likely to get on board with it.
Speaker 2:And same thing with like something like values. It sort of like guides your way along the vision. They sort of tell you the how a little bit Well, like making sure that there are things that are deeply meaningful to those who are meant to abide by them, Like that that's just to me a good place to start, because otherwise they're not going to get on board. And then there's just something that sits on a wall or on some sort of like you know. You know like letterhead or something like that, and they're meaningless yeah.
Speaker 1:I find that sometimes leaders are maybe a little reluctant and I don't know if it's reluctance, but it takes time to take a step back and think about a vision for a team or an organization, and I find that leaders oftentimes, oftentimes they feel like they don't have enough time, Like I'm hurrying, I got to hit this deadline, I got to hit this goal. I don't have time to step back and create this vision. But it is the case that having that compelling vision is actually going to align people's efforts, motivate them and inspire them in such a way where it's going to buy you some, it's going to get you some time back. Essentially, and so many times I talk to leaders and they say well, why can't this person just do this? Because I told them to or because it's their job and it's just what I'm asking them to do. Any sage advice for a leader who comes to you and says that have you ever heard that in any of your coaching conversations, Jason? And says that.
Speaker 2:Have you ever heard that in any of your coaching conversations?
Speaker 1:Jason Like that I'm too busy. Not even that I'm busy, but maybe not even seeing the importance of it. I think that, and going back to this idea that the future of leadership might look a little bit different, I think some of our traditional views of leadership is just do as you're told. I've asked you to do this thing, it's your job. Why do I need to tell you the purpose?
Speaker 2:the why, the vision behind it. Just do it, because that's what you're being asked to do. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean I think you know if you've got, like, if you've got a job where it's really clear this is what we do and this is how we do it, you know, I mean you think about, like people pulling something off an assembly line, or you know mechanics taking apart an engine. There's a right way to do things, there's a wrong way to do things. But when you come into more creative work, more like thought-based work, then there's something I think that's helpful there. You know, like, maybe it's helpful kind of talking to the leader about it, but like, well, how do you get people like thinking creatively, how do you get people thinking critically, like, how do you get people like how do you unlock creativity and innovation in what they do? And I think that's where, like, maybe that distinction is, is helpful, is like, is it? Is it like worth doing? Is it not doing? And it's probably the nature of the work.
Speaker 2:There's some really good um, and, if you like, we've talked about this guy before, but dan pink, who I'm a fan of with his book drive, where he really kind of dives in to some, you know, to some kind of core principles of motivation, and he comes down to like autonomy, mastery and purpose, and purpose is one of those things that, to me, is very much tied to vision. But if people feel like they're doing something because it's, it creates a greater good. You know, both of us are former federal employees and you just said it before we started this podcast, like that felt like a noble pursuit, right. Well then, that unlocks greater degrees of creativity, of innovation, of being willing to sort of like push ahead when things get hard.
Speaker 1:Agreed. And to your point about being a federal employee, for example, I find it's often the case that the organizations, the management, the leadership doesn't do a good enough job of stepping back and saying here's our vision for why you're doing the get stuck into the mundane. And for myself I worked for the Department of the Air Force for about 10 years, and I think we missed a lot of opportunities to link the work that we were doing in the day-to-day to the broader defense strategy or what was going on in the broader environment that sometimes we just put our blinders on and focus in on the day-to-day work, and it's easy to become disconnected to the larger vision and strategy of the organization. Here's something I'm curious about, though, jason this focus on being more human-centered. How do you find that technology artificial intelligence, large language models and the change in the way that we're potentially going to interact with work how is that changing what it means to be a leader or a person navigating the workplace?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. I think the to me, the short answer is like who knows at this point, like I think we can, I think we're like anybody who's looking into it. It's like imagining, you know, implications for different professions and careers and stuff like that. You know, I think the thing that comes up for me and this is very much would be helped by like having a human-centered vision for the future. It's like, you know, if we're just in this for profit, then we're all expendable, but then for the sake of what right Like to're all expendable? But then for the sake of what right like to bring that question back up for the sake of what?
Speaker 2:Like you know, a few, a few people gain, everybody else loses, um, and then people become part of the tragedy of the commons in some weird way where, like, we don't have to, like we're not thinking about, you know, society, we're not thinking about communities, we're not thinking about people. We're not thinking about communities, we're not thinking about people. They do their thing. We're just earning money for the organization. But if we bring a little bit more human-centered piece into it and say, how do we leverage these technologies to increase well-being, to help the planet to help people being to help the planet right to help people. Then it starts to shift in a way that hopefully creates better outcomes. But that's a big, hairy question. What are your thoughts on it?
Speaker 1:I have zero answers to that question, jason. To that question, jason, and it is the case that we could interact with this new technology in a way that's very status quo. How we've thought about the nature of work in the past and that you hit on it is it's a way for us to be more efficient and profitable. Maybe I don't need to employ so many people because I can augment the work that's being done with artificial intelligence, so that is one way to interact with technology. In a way, that's status quo.
Speaker 1:What I would love to happen is for us to take a more visionary approach of it being an opportunity for us to change what it means to interact with work. If it's an opportunity for us to focus on the things, maybe, that we value more, that bring us purpose, that contribute to the greater good of society, maybe it allows people to have a little bit more balance and well-being. So, instead of using it as an opportunity to have less people on my team, maybe I can have the same amount of people. They're able to up-level their work product by interacting with AI, and also, maybe they don't have to expend as many hours and work quite as hard and they're able to have a work-life balance, and what that would require us to do is to balance a little bit of profit with purpose and meaning and well-being. But I think there is an opportunity for us to us to re envision that.
Speaker 2:Oh, I agree and I love your framing with this status quo and then something new, something different, and the way you teed it up. It really hits home how important it is to start to think about leadership differently, to start to think about organizations differently in terms of what their purpose is, in terms of how they do things, in terms of the role of people in them. And I love that you brought in work-life balance as being an outcome that organization would actually strive for, that they could actually look at it and they could measure it potentially and say, like boy, we really knocked out of the park this quarter on work-life balance. Like then that gets to be something that we're moving toward.
Speaker 1:It's funny you say that, jason, because I read a lot in the leadership space of how do we measure leadership effectiveness. If I'm a leader, how do I measure effectiveness? Is it goal achievement of my team? Is it profitability of my work unit? But what if we did shift the focus to say, we're measuring leadership effectiveness by sure, you have to be profitable and achieve goals, but how satisfied, engaged and how much well-being does your team have? I think that could be a good reframing. We're getting close to time, jason, but I'm going to put you on the spot here as we're wrapping up our podcast. So for our listeners out there, they're thinking about vision and how this might apply to the work that they're doing. If you were to have people reflect on a couple of good coaching questions as it relates to how they're thinking about vision and how they might use it in their own leadership practices, what, what would you have people thinking about? What are some questions that folks might reflect on?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think the first thing that came to mind is like, how do you think about purpose? Because, like to me, you know it's this, you know it's a helpful thing that thinks to me, like, why don't I get out of bed in the morning? What am I doing this for? Like, for the sake of what? And like I know I can be a little, I can be intimidated by it, I can be too beholden to it, it can come at the expense of other things. So how do you think about purpose? And I think there's probably other pieces in there that are worth thinking about, that are a little bit more operational. So it's like you know what motivates you.
Speaker 2:Um, you know how can you, um, how can you help other people understand what motivates you? Like, if you're the leader of a team, like maybe doing a little bit of a pulse check and saying where are you? Like, where do you want to be? Like, are you where you want to be? And if you're not, then like, how am I? Like? How am I bringing two people together to co-create a vision and then move toward it? How might that help?
Speaker 1:element for people to consider. When we talk about vision, it tends to be something that's very aspirational, and sometimes I think a mistake we can make when we're thinking about a vision is we don't think big enough, we don't think broad enough, that we have these limiting frames and limiting beliefs that lead us to a vision that maybe is more status quo than we'd like it to be. So a question that I like to ask people is this magic wand question right. If you had a magic wand and you could create this ideal future of leadership and what it means to interact with work in an age of AI, what would that future of leadership and work look like for you? And starting with that, maybe the next question might be why not? Why can't we move in that direction? Why can't we accomplish those things that you're hoping for in your ideal state? So a lot of big questions to end on there, but I've really enjoyed the conversation, jason. Anything left that we need to say about vision before we end this episode?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think we covered a lot of ground here today and I also very much enjoyed the conversation. So thanks for having me, thanks for coming up with the topic and bringing me in on it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. I enjoyed it as well, Jason, and to our listeners. We will be recording an episode again soon. Fingers crossed, it won't be six months.
Speaker 2:No, not six months.
Speaker 1:No, all right.