The Fastest Way to Kill Buy-In Is Your Own Good Idea | Dave Garrison - E71

Speaker A: Welcome to Leadership Unlocked, where we uncover the pivotal stories that shape extraordinary leaders. I'm Dusty Holcomb, and on this show, we don't just talk about leadership, we decode it. In every episode, we sit down with the change makers who've walked through the fire, challenged the status quo, and emerged with wisdom worth sharing. These aren't just lessons. They're lived experiences, real moments that reveal the mindset, resilience, and the clarity that comes from creating lasting impact. And today, you're going to hear one of those stories. I want you to picture a Friday night football game. The noise, the energy, people who are not paid to be there, giving everything they have to a common goal. And that, my guest says, is buy in. And on Monday morning, it gets left in the parking lot. Dave Garrison ran multinational companies on, uh, four continents, sat on the board at Ameritrade, and he wrote Buy In Advantage. And here's the claim that he hooked me with. Buy in cost nothing. Yet it doesn't exist in most organizations. And the reason is not that leaders are bad or that they're not trying, is that nobody ever taught them how. Let's get into it. This is Leadership Unlocked. Dave, I am, um, Man, I'm delighted and excited. I'm a little, uh, energized and maybe terrified because I have a feeling that we could create this incredible flywheel of just riffing and, um, conversation. So before I let myself just get into a long diatribe, I've got to ask you one question that I've been chewing on since our last conversation. And I can't wait to hear you not opine on, but really demonstrate your wisdom on, which is, what the heck is the difference between buy in at a human level, at an employee level, a team member level, and engagement? Because in so many ways, aren't they the same thing? Like, I think of engagement? We do employee engagement surveys. I don't think we're talking about employee buy in surveys. What the heck is the difference between buy in and engagement? And why does it matter?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question, Dusty. Thanks for having me. Look, we heard a lot about engagement 10 years ago, and leaders kind of tuned out and said, yeah, that's interesting. What's it got to do with anything? And it wasn't very relevant. But engagement is a classic measure. And Gallup does a great job of doing employee surveys around the world, in the US and they ask a question, basically, would you recommend this as a place to work? And here's the sad truth. Two out of three people in America say, nope, it's like, run, Forrest, run. Now imagine what kind of work effort they're putting in if two thirds of the people that are working for you are saying, run, Forrest, and 50% of professionals say they're looking for another job. The deal is that whether it's engagement or buy in, um, and we'll talk about the difference in a second, it is directly related to how much effort people are putting into getting done what it is you would like to have done together. And I'm going to make a simple assumption that all of us are smarter than any of us, and more of us working in the same direction is better than fewer of us. So if you believe that engagement matters, but engagement's a pretty low bar because people could say, oh, I'd recommend this as a place to work because it serves spaghetti and pizza on Fridays, or I like the benefits, or, you know, it's, uh, this office building is kind of cool and it's convenient and there's a great restaurant downstairs. We have no idea why people would say, I'd recommend this as a place to work. Buy in is a whole different level. Buy in is what you see on Friday nights at football games. Buy in is people bringing their hearts and their souls and their minds to seeing their team win. And it's the energy and excitement. It's people bringing their full selves to a common goal. And Monday morning buy in gets left in the parking lot. Now, Gallup also says, look, the biggest predictor of an engaged employee is an engaged leader. And I would recommend to you that is probably true, that if a leader is not bought in, and I don't mean the leader who's getting a grillion options, I mean the leader who's actually the supervisor of a team, if they're not bought in, their people aren't bought in. Buy in doesn't cost anything. And it doesn't exist in most businesses. Not because leaders are bad, not because leaders are not trying. It's because they don't know how to do it.

Speaker A: I, uh, couldn't agree with you more. You, the, uh, you took the question I was going to ask, which is, how do I know it when I see it? The Friday night football metaphor is brilliant. Brilliant because it does just. I immediately know, oh, that's buy in. I'm not paid to do this. I care about it passionately. I'm bringing it all here and, and I'm really aligned. The two thirds number is fascinating because that means that, you know, it's not all. It's not like it's all the back office folks who don't actually talk to customers or don't actually talk to team members who talk to customers. It means that our customers are getting a suboptimal or sub optimized experience. And I would say it's by design because if we know something exists and we don't do something about it, we are intentionally allowing and curating a suboptimized experience as a leader. And so that like, uh, oh, once you see this thing, you can't unsee it. We got to go figure out how to. How to solve for this. When did you realize or what was the magic epiphany moment if there was one where you went, it's more than engagement. It's more than employee satisfaction surveys. Buy in, uh, is the leadership challenge that we need to solve to unlock the discretionary effort inside of our organizations.

Speaker B: Yeah. I'm not sure I can tell you there's one moment, to be honest, but I did a lot of research for the book primary secondary research for the book the Buying Advantage. And what I saw in Great Leaders is a conscious effort to include everyone and to take the time to communicate why it matters. Uh, there, there are three things that people are looking for from work today. Three things. And I hear all this, oh, it's this younger generation. They don't care, blah, blah, blah, that's upset about our generation. Generations before. Every generation might live differently, but it's really about ages and stages of life than it is about generations. But here's the deal. People are looking for three things. One is they want to be seen as a human being, not a cog in a machine. So we say that human beings, not human doings. Two is they want their voice heard. They bring experience to work. If you're not interested in their experience, they'll say, okay, whatever, I'll just keep it to myself. But they want their voice to be heard. And the third is they want to align with a purpose and answer the question, why should we bother doing this as a collective? And it's never about making money.

Speaker A: It's never about making money. You and I have talked about this a little bit in the past, and we are violently aligned about how important these elements are. I love frameworks. I love simple frameworks. And I like the rule of three, which you, you certainly have laid this out here. I want to go deeper on these things. But before we go there, I'd love for our audience to know that you, you know and understand a little bit about you and understand that the guy who is saying these really wise and smart things isn't just doing it because you read it in a book. You heard a great podcast once where someone was talking about these things. You've actually lived this in the seat, leading organizations, leading people, probably testing and learning and failing along the way to create these hard one, uh, lessons. You've paid tuition for this wisdom. Give us a little bit of an overview of who Dave is and why. These words that you're sharing aren't just good advice. They are sage counsel from someone who's got the battle scars to prove it.

Speaker B: You know, you don't have enough hours in your podcast for me to tell you all the mistakes I've made as a leader. I've got mistakes down. I wish I knew half of this stuff through my leadership career, which basically, you know, I worked full time through college and I went to a guy I really respected in management and I said, hey, what do I need to study in college? And he said, accounting. I said, accounting? I hate accounting. He said, yeah, that's why you need to study it. It's rules, and if you don't know it, people run rings around you. So my degree is in accounting, but my experience was in broadcast sales, selling air. And in selling air, I began to learn about other people and how sales was done. And that was very instrumental. And then fast forward, I ran multinational companies. Fast forward, a group of members who are part of the young, um, president's organization that we both participate in said to me, basically, you're miserable. Go see the shaman. It's go see a shaman. Go see a shaman. I didn't know what a shaman did. I didn't have time to see a shaman, blah, blah, blah. And the SHAMA basically challenged me and said, look, if you didn't have any constraints at all, no constraints, tell me what you'd be doing. And don't tell me about work, tell me about life, because there is no Dave, Work, Dave, life, there's Dave. And tell me by drawing with your non dominant hand in symbols what your ideal life looks like. That one question took me months to answer, and I had to put aside the, oh, I need to be a CEO of a multinational, and oh, I need to make a million dollars a year and all this other stuff to realize my joy. My satisfaction came all the way through leading multinational companies. So I've done this in a variety of cultures in Asia, in Europe, in the US and Africa. It's from seeing people achieve things they didn't think they were capable of doing. That's where my joy and all this comes about. And so the buy in advantage really came about because I realized I was never taught as a leader. How do I create the environment where people can be their best? How do I create an environment where they can share their experiences from day one where people don't have to wait five years before they're asked for their opinion. And I realized those techniques are the techniques that the leaders I interviewed were using. So all I did was put it together into what amounts to a leadership cookbook of things that are free, they're easy to do, and they create an environment where people can bring their full selves to work. It's as simple as that. I just want to change lives.

Speaker A: Small mission, small mission is one that I uh, uh, orient to and gravitate towards and share uh, with you. And you've. We're going to put your bio in the show notes and we're going to put your, the book, a link to the book in the show notes as well. Uh, you understate through uh, your chops and your, your background just because that's who you are. And I appreciate that. But it anyone hearing this right, we're going to have so many sound bites and so many pearls of wisdom from this because what we're talking about is linking the human's precious life force towards work and how we as leaders can unlock and unleash a different level of capacity and capability and contribution and meaning and really like being the connector between a person and work. And you know, I had this belief like I had to sit down a number of months ago and I was writing down, you know, the purpose for my organization. Uh, and it's, you know, I have done this years ago when I founded arcus and I was thinking more and more about it and it's like I believe that every job has meaning and it's the leader's purpose to help the people feel it, see it, sense it, know it, do it. And I think that, that you and I share that and you, you do that as well. What was the moment for you as a leader? And I'm sure there's many of these moments where you realized you didn't have all the answers and you needed a mentor, an advisor, a guide to sharpen you when I ask you that question unprompted, you knew this was coming. Does a specific situation or scenario come to mind?

Speaker B: You know, I had a, a leader in Providence, Rhode island named Jack Clifford. And Jack Clifford is a guy, among other things, who is responsible for basically being the driving force behind the Food Network and was instrumental in the Weather Channel and other stuff. So the guy's very creative. I was, um, leading a business unit that was undergoing, uh, a union drive by the Teamsters. And I am not anti union, I'm not pro union. They have their place. But I certainly did not want to be unionized because I felt I would lose flexibility. The union driver was not about my business unit at all, who was part of a bigger strategy of the Teamsters, which is great. But he gave me perspective and said, look, this is not about you. This is about people wanting to know that they are heard. And that piece of leadership advice was really useful because otherwise I would have gone into sell mode and said, look, you don't need a union because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And what we do is we tend to sell. But what I learned from him was people will listen to you only after they are listened to. So one of the things that we work with leaders on is when somebody comes to you with an idea, if you want to shut down all their ideas forever, just give them your reaction to their idea. So if they come to to you with an idea on, hey, we could do this differently. If you judge their idea and say, yeah, that might work, but here's what we could do even better. People will get the message you're not interested in ideas. What great leaders do, and we talk about this in the book, is they say, hm, could you tell me more about your idea? And they're going to tell you more about the idea. And then the second question is the power question. Most leaders will go into judgment right away and say, well, instead we could do this, or we tried that before, or whatever the second power question is. I'm really curious to know, what is it that lets you know that your idea is the right one versus every other idea you considered? What people will do is lay out what we call their implicit criteria. What was the checklist in your head that informed this idea? When you know that as a leader, you can then understand how do they think about things where it is, you can add value from your experience. And the way you add value is by asking another question. You know what? I really appreciate you sharing that. I'm curious if you also considered the time it takes to train everybody on your idea, how would that influence your thinking? So working with people on their decision muscle to make them a better contributor, a better person, because that skill will bleed over into their entire life and they will appreciate the gifts you gave them. Just like I appreciated Jack Clifford when I didn't understand what he was doing, but, boy, did I benefit well.

Speaker A: And, um, hearing you say that, what I'm also hearing is someone is now invested in the outcome. They're invested in, you know, the success of this solution that they brought to bear. They're not just a cog in the wheel. They are bought in ensuring that this thing that we're going to do, whoever created the idea is going to win and it's going to be successful. I love that. What would you tell to the person who's going, okay, Dave, I hear you, but that takes a lot of time and I don't have a lot of time. And I just need to tell dumb ideas or dumb ideas and let people know so we don't waste time around here.

Speaker B: Yeah, you're absolutely right, Dusty. And what you just told me is you have time to find replacements. You have time to go chase people and ask them if they've done stuff. You have time to go interview new people. You have time that, to take the 50% chance the new person will be better than the last person. So if you got all that time, awesome. Just choose how to use your time.

Speaker A: Love that. You just, uh, demonstrated one of my favorite, like, mental practices, which is what I call a judo move. Right. You know, judo works because you don't receive force, you redirect force. And like, when we don't have time. Well, you have time. You're choosing like we have choice. I just started every, every summer I reread Man's Search for Meaning. And it's a, a bit of a ritual now. And I've never read the same book twice, literally, at least this book. It's always a different season of life when I'm rereading it. But I love it so much because we talk about choice and we talk about, he talks about agency and we talked about, you know, how we as humans get to choose between cinemas and response. And you just said that so well. And so for that CEO who says, well, yeah, but I, I hear you, Dave. I don't have to have all those things like, you know, I just need to be able to do more. I need them to do their darn job. I need them to own it. I need them to be responsible. I'm kind of arguing with you as if I didn't believe in buy in, so it's a little hard for me. But I know you've heard all of the arguments for the cynic who wants the output and the outcome, but doesn't know how or isn't yet comfortable listening, being curious and, and allowing someone else to own the actual creation of the idea. Um, how would you coach them on, um, becoming comfortable with something that feels scary because they're not in control?

Speaker B: I think that the feeling they're not in control is actually a story. And what I'd like to do is substitute another story. And let me give you an example. So let's say that you're out on the lake canoeing this weekend and you come up with some amazing idea. You come back to the office Monday morning and you say, hey, I want to share with you this idea I had this weekend. And with all your enthusiasm, you share this great idea you had and you ask people one of the dumbest questions in the world. You know, what do you guys think? What are they supposed to say? Or you ask even dumber, any questions? It's cursor, no questions. That is well intended. It's coming from the right place. You are applying all your experience around solving a problem and you are disengaging your team. There is no middle ground that destroys buy in even though you had good intention to do it. So here's an and so your story is I just wanted to share the idea and see if they had any, uh, better ideas. They didn't. So we're going to do my idea and you hear this over and over again. So here's an alternative. The next time you have some great idea, what it asks you to do is do work first, which is ask yourself the question, what problem is my great idea addressing? What specific problem number one? Second question, how do I know my idea is a great idea? The second question will let you know what your implicit criteria is. What's the checklist in your head that lets you know it's a good idea? Then when you meet with your team, instead of blah, blah, blah ing your idea, all you do is say, you know what? I've been really concerned about the amount of waste on the factory floor. You know, the data suggests we've gone from 7% to 12%. And I would really be interested in ideas on how we can address this waste issue on the factory floor. Now, before you get to thinking about ideas, here's what I'd like you to consider. I'd like you to consider what evidence you have that this idea might work. I want you to consider, uh, how long it would take to implement. I'd like you to consider how much it will cost us to implement. And I would like you to consider, uh, how much training would be required or how much reshuffling of the factory floor would be required to implement your idea. So those are the things I'd like to know about your great idea. And with that, I'd like you to take the weekend and come up with your ideas and then we'll compare notes. So some would say, I have the great idea, I have the experience, just go do what I say. Which is fine. You have a less than average chance of your idea being implemented the way you want it. And then you wonder how come they don't get it? How come they don't do what you say. The alternative is to engage them and create. Buy in to the solution and give up ownership to your idea. You actually increase your control. So the story flip I'm going to ask you to do is say, instead of saying I'm giving up control, you are gaining control because you are setting the rules of the game by how you set the criteria and the problem would be addressed. So actually you're in total control. If you're so in love with your idea that you just want them to do your idea, don't waste any time with this. If you want better thinking, then control through criteria and the problem be solved. And then be amazed when people apply their own experience to coming up with ideas you would never consider.

Speaker A: I love that. Well, what I, uh, particularly appreciate about what you just shared is the, uh, reframing of control is the shifting of what people want to control at a role level versus what they should control. And the leader should control the criteria for success, the definition of what great looks like, you know, here's what, you know, like orientation to the, towards the solution that we're trying to get to, not the control of the idea, uh, that we're going to force down everybody's throats. And it's a different place. And it requires people to learn how to use and leverage new skills. At least this is my thinking on it. Then perhaps the skills that got them to the seat they're in now. And that's one of the things that I have been fascinated with about leadership and leadership journeys is as people grow and take on new responsibilities and new roles, they are immediately upon entering a new role no longer qualified for that role because they have to earn the, they have to get new skills. Like they, they, the things that got them there aren't going to be the ones that even, um, them there. They got to learn new. And like, I always had this idea that, you know what I love so much about leadership? Is it's not a learned behavior. It's a learning behavior. It's an active tense, never done, always getting better. In this place, in this space of what definition of what control is, is such a subtle yet powerful Jedi mind trick to think about what it is we're trying to, to achieve how as, ah, you think about this, uh, and I'm just going to role play with you for a second. So I say, man, I get it. I love this. This is brilliant. How does, how do I keep that from taking too long? It feels like it would just be faster if I were to tell everybody or astound everyone with my heretofore unseen brilliance and how good my idea is. It's just going to slow everything down. If I give people time and space to feel good and Mandy pandy about how they're part of the solution, why isn't it faster for me? Just tell them what to do.

Speaker B: The question is, is speed your criteria? Or are, uh, results your criteria? So you can tell them specifically, here's what I want you to do. Then you can invest the time to chase after them to say, did you do this? How come you didn't do it? The way we talk about how come you didn't do it? The way I had it in my mind that I never told you how come? And you can spend your time. So it is absolutely faster. Just tell them what you want done. And there's some people who appreciate that. I'm checked out. Two thirds of the people are checked out. Half the people are looking for another gig. Just tell them what to do. Don't make me think, don't make me do anything. Just tell me what to do. It's fine. It's good for you because you feel better. Good for me because I don't have to think it's a winner. Chicken dinner.

Speaker A: Well, and I think it really speaks to which two thirds do you want to manage? Do you want to manage? You want to lead? Do you want to lead that you want 2/3 of your people bought in and, uh, leading, or do you want to just. You spend all your time managing the disengaged and trying to get everybody up to the minimal viable effort, the minimal viable output and realize that there's just so much potential and waste going on in the organization.

Speaker B: Just to this point, we have a chapter, Chapter six in the book is I have to look because I don't memorize chapter titles. Chapter six is focus on questions instead of answers. This is so contrary, Dusty, because in school, beginning in first grade, Ms. M. McDonald taught me there's one right answer and my job is to repeat the right answer. And I get tested in five subjects for 12 years. What is the right answer? And the reality is. And ah, so we transfer that to work. Our job must be to give the right answer because we have the most experience, because we're the smartest person in the room, blah blah blah. Ah, so we give answers and answers actually cut the organization off at its knees. Answers cut off results at their knees, answers cut off buy in. So we have a chapter devoted to ask questions, not give answers.

Speaker A: We sing out of the same hymnal. And I'm laughing to myself as I hear you say this. I just this week wrote an article on the importance of uh, flipping the question to statement ratio. Like, uh, a leader 20 years ago said, hey, you need to ask more questions than you give statements. Because I, I had an inverted, I had a statement to question ratio. It was like a lot of statements and I might ask a question and mainly it was a question around do you understand what I'm saying? And it wasn't a real question. Yeah, don't you think the don't you

Speaker B: think question, don't you think that's a question?

Speaker A: That's a good idea? Tell me, tell me where I'm wrong, guys. Does anybody disagree with me? You know, uh, ask more real questions. Curiosity driven questions, Learning questions. Questions can be a weapon if we're, you know, if we're not careful, if people are not using them wisely. I love that man. I may have to quiz you more chapters in the book like, because like that's, could not agree with you more. I'm thinking I have a particular person in mind. I'm thinking about, as I think about this and, and how they have evolved in their leadership to be a question first. Curiosity questions, leadership questions, not dictatorial weapon questions. And there's a big difference. Most leaders don't need more advice. They simply need clarity. That's what the Vision to Victory scorecard is all about. It's free, it's fast, and it gives you a clear picture of where you are and what's next. Start now@clarityalignmentexecution.com let's make sure that your next step forward is the right one. I want to go back to because I could quiz you for hours on this stuff and I'm going to resist all temptation. I could go back to your three core things that people need to get buy in and I'm really curious. I'm going to repeat back You've correct my paraphrasing. One, they want to be seen as human. Two, they want to have their voice heard. And three, they need to know how their work aligns with the purpose, that there is purpose to their work, that it has meaning. Why does that still matter today when AI is doing so much of the quote unquote work that gets done?

Speaker B: Um, do you have another half hour? Here's the short end. What we know to be true about AI is it has a seventh grade education, right? So if you want a seventh grader to answer a question for you, just ask AI a question just like you would Google, like, where should I go to dinner? Or uh, how should I do this work? Or what should I tell this customer? You'll get a seventh grade answer. However, if you want to use AI for the powerful potential that it is, it actually requires you to identify the listen for these themes, identify the specific problem you would like addressed, tell it what its position is, you're an expert in whatever, and tell it, most importantly, your criteria of a great answer. I am looking for an answer that meets the following conditions. It's in line with our company values and purpose. It doesn't take a year to implement. It is something that is easily understood by everybody. If, you know, I, uh, can easily find three stories to support it or whatever. But your criteria are what makes AI, uh, a power weapon. Interestingly enough, that's exactly the same conversation we just talked about. Instead of presenting your great idea and asking AI what it thinks, give AI your criteria. And then when you get the output of whatever AI says, if you think about it, your gut will tell you what criteria was missed. Well, this answer doesn't quite feel right because it didn't consider fill in the blank. You have an additional criteria, then go back to AI and say, hey, AI. You also need to consider blah, blah, blah, and get a new answer. Now, what's interesting, we talk. AI will replace people and replace jobs. You know, in software, that's probably very true. AI at the moment is hitting the big stall. I mean, AI is not having the results that people expected. But I would also argue that not only are leaders not trained in identifying specific problems and implicit criteria and making them explicit, they're not applying that to AI either. And they're not training people to do that. So it's no wonder we're in an AI stall, because AI has been done to people, not done with people, and we haven't used criteria as a way to make AI work for us. There are some loaded statements I got about five stories rolled into one there.

Speaker A: You did good, man. And you got it. Uh, that was the fastest half hour. Like we had a wormhole of time. There was, there was a lot there. And you and I have talked about this. I am in violent agreement with you on this and I am working on a book on this very topic right now. Because I think it's going to be the difference between leaders who are successful in this next age. AI is just a tool. Just like we've had many tools in many ages that have changed things. Analytics tools, Internet, like, you name it, whatever. Or it will expose the flaws of leadership. Because the difference is AI enables us to move at a faster pace. It just, we don't know if, uh, without leadership, if we're going the right direction. And it can actually do a lot of stuff and a lot of harm. What I love about what you said is if you get better at leading people and deploy the same skills, you will be better at leading the machines and leading the tools and creating the outcomes you want. Or if you practice those same skills on your AI tool sets, you will get better at leading people. So you have an actual real world living practice studio for the practice of leadership, the practice of effective, engaging, value accretive leadership sitting in front of you with your AI tool. You just have to practice it every single day. And so like what. That's actually one of the things that excites me the most about AI is I can get better at being a leader of humans if I use those same skills on the machines and on the tools and the outcomes will be better and I get better results. This is a win, freaking win, win. But I have to double down on the principles that like you have in your book to do those things better. And man, when that happens, it creates. I, uh, I hear angels singing somewhere in the background.

Speaker B: Would you, would you mind sharing again your analogy about giving people a hammer, a box of nails on wood and saying, here's, here's a new tool.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's thank, thanks for asking. Like this is, and I've talked to a lot of people about this, sort of like testing this and understanding this is AI because there's so many tools, there's probably been 25 released today. Right? There are so many tools available that we as leaders have said, holy crap, we're getting caught behind. Everybody needs to be using AI. If we're not an AI native organization, we're not going to be relevant. Go use AI. Uh, and so what we've done is we've given all of our employees, all of our team members, all of our people this giant box of hammers and said, go hammer. Here's a box of nails. Go hit nails. But nobody, not, uh, nobody but the leaders aren't there stepping back to go, what is the blueprint? What is the plan? Where does the nail need to go? Here's how you hit it. Here's the effect. You don't need a nail because this actually needs a bolt and a screw. And you've got to do it differently. We've given our organization thousands of hammers, thousands of nails, and no direction. And we're wondered why we're catching our pants on things and why we're not having all these problems is because we're hammering and hammering and hammering and we're not actually building.

Speaker B: Absolutely. So let's talk about what it looks like when it's not done that way. It means we ground our, uh, thinking and reinforce what our purpose is as a company. Why are we doing this? And our values a specific objective that we're trying to achieve. We equip people with practice using AI tools. Pick your favorite Gemini, Microsoft, I don't care which one, pick one. And practice on personal stuff, like describe how you'd know what a perfect date looks like, a dinner date looks like. How would you select a restaurant? Tell me all your criteria and have them run through practice about their life so it's not this scary thing. And with the context of within our values aligned, uh, with our purpose, we want to solve and get better at this one specific objective. How would you think we go about that and set people free? Because you've given them a specific issue to address and they've worked on criteria, or you've given us some starter criteria and then put the AI tool to work and then we'll see productivity changes. It's just another tool.

Speaker A: It's just another tool and it's just leadership. And it's why I think those who lead and practice leadership, especially the way you've outlined it, will be the most successful in this next era. Because it's going to demand it or because there's more tools, there's more distractions, there's more waste opportunity we've ever had. Okay, Dave, I'm going to just, uh, I'm going to go to Rapid Fire because I could talk to you about this for hours. And I actually think there's a whole separate episode on leadership in AI, uh, and how we can actually practice these skills tangibly, fruitfully right now, real time. So if you're open to that, I want to hold that whole conversation for another episode. Let me ask you this one question. Normally I ask a bunch of rapid fire questions, but I want to ask one today. And I'm going to take your book off the counter because we're going to put links to uh, your book in the show notes. And it's incredible. What is one book that you believe every leader who wants to unlock the capabilities of people in their organizations must read?

Speaker B: It's a fable that's easy read called Five Dysfunctions of a Team by our friend Pat Lencioni. Uh, and it's a fable because it talks about the five dysfunctions. And one of those functions is inability to have conflict where conflict is not well understood. Conflict is the ability to strike together. It is not argument. We've corrupted the word conflict into being my idea is better than your idea. Ideas don't have owners if they're great. Ideas are our ideas. And so Pat's Five Dysfunctions of a Team easy read. Should be really stimulating if you see the multiple layers. And Pat wrote that, by the way, because he did consulting for five years in Silicon Valley and said it doesn't matter what plan we come up with. If they can't implement it in a healthy organization, it doesn't matter. And it's brilliant.

Speaker A: It is brilliant. Uh, and it is a worthwhile read. Reread. Perennial reread. And it's timeless. It's absolutely timeless. And it's going to be timeless in every era because it's human and that's what leaders are leading as humans. Dave, this has been m brilliant. You have an invitation. We're going to get you scheduled to go deeper on this leadership in AI topic because I think it's timely and necessary and needed and uh, uh, really foundational for what people need to be thinking about. I'm delighted that you're here. How can our audience learn more about you, the work that you do, and get in touch with you if they're interested?

Speaker B: Thanks for asking, Dustin. Thank you for having me. We have a website, garrison growth.com garrison G-R-O-W t h.com garrisongrowth.com that has leadership assessments. They're free for you and for your team to generate discussions so you can decide where to start. We also have eight times a year free, what we call leadership sprints. They're one hour sessions. The next one, for example, talks about what is going wrong, that our meetings are a total waste of time and they're not connected to results and so we talk about a topic that is of importance to our community every single month. Bring your problems. Bring your questions. Bring your issues. Sign up. It's free. It's one hour. Garrisongrowth.com Reach out to any one of my accomplished team members or myself. We love to hear about your solutions and how you apply this great work.

Speaker A: Love it. Dave. Thank you. Thanks for being a beacon of light and for keeping the human in the leadership role and really making it simple for leaders to do the most powerful thing possible, which is to lead and impact the lives of others for positive benefit. Thank you Dave. Hey, before you go, if this episode helped you see leadership differently, I have three personal requests. First, and this is the most important one, Share the With one leader who needs it. Think of someone in your network who's frustrated with their team's execution or is trying to scale their own impact. Copy this episode link right now and text them, hey, I just listened to this episode and I think you'll get real value from it. That simple act of sharing that is servant leadership in action. Second, subscribe to Leadership Unlocked. Whether you're on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, your favorite podcast player, just hit subscribe or the Follow button. That way you won't miss the next episode and it helps us reach more leaders like you. And third, if you're willing, this would be a huge help for us. Leave a five star rating and write a quick review. I know it takes 60 seconds of your time, but here's what it does. It helps other leaders discover the show. Every rating, every review. It's how we expand our impact together. So those three things Share with a friend. Subscribe, Leave a review. I'm deeply appreciative and that would give us so much help. Thanks for being part of the Leadership Dunlop community. Now go create some clarity for others.