Lean Blog Interviews · 2026-04-29 · 55 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
59 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Scott Burgmeyer explores the widespread problem of shallow thinking in organizations and how cognitive biases - confirmation bias, echo chambers, and others - trap leaders into reactive, stimulus-response decision-making rather than thoughtful problem-solving. His book "The Road Less Traveled" (co-authored with Tammy K. Rogers) addresses why most people aren't truly thinking deeply about important decisions, operating instead from their "lizard brain" and jumping to conclusions. Burgmeyer presents the ROADD methodology (Reflect, Options, Analyze, Decide, Do) as a structured approach to deeper thinking, alongside practical organizational tactics like carving out dedicated thinking time on calendars, creating physical thinking spaces, and building a culture that values reflection. The conversation also touches on AI as a business tool - while acknowledging its power for specific tasks like data formatting, Burgmeyer warns against blindly deploying AI without thoughtful prompts, proper context, and organizational understanding. He argues that like previous technology waves (invoking the GM automation failures of the 1980s), companies that thoughtfully implement AI with proper leadership thinking will outperform those who treat it as a differentiator in itself.
ROADD stands for Reflect, Options, Analyze, Decide, and Do. It's a structured approach to decision-making that prevents the common trap of jumping straight to action without thinking through options and impacts first.
While many leaders spend less than 10 minutes per week thinking, Burgmeyer recommends allocating 10 to 30 minutes daily depending on organizational level for processing leadership, strategy, and problems keeping you awake at night.
Cognitive biases are mental shortcuts that cause shallow thinking and stimulus-response behavior, such as confirmation bias and echo chambers. They operate from the lower, reactive part of the brain, and asking questions can shift brain chemistry to activate higher cognitive functions.
Yes, some clients have created thinking sanctuaries - quiet rooms designed as dedicated spaces where employees can work heads-down on complex problems and engage in reflection without interruption.
Most businesses have access to the same AI tools (ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, etc.), so differentiation comes from thoughtful prompt engineering, organizational context, and critical evaluation of outputs - not just deployment of the technology itself.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode delivers moderate insight density with several useful frameworks (ROADD methodology, growth questions, cognitive biases discussion), but much of the content consists of conversational elaboration and storytelling that dilutes the substance. While the core ideas about shallow thinking and the need for structured reflection are valuable, the episode lacks the density of novel, non-obvious claims that would elevate it higher.
people's thinking. Thinking is about as deep as a parking lot puddle. We're not really thinking. We're just responding to a stimulus.
when you think about it, we all, we all fall into these traps. Like none of us is perfect. We're also not suggesting that we need to overthink.
The frameworks presented (cognitive biases, ROADD, growth questions) are sensible but largely conventional applications of established thinking models. The critique of AI adoption without deep thinking is timely, but the core thesis - that organizations need to think more systematically - is not particularly contrarian or novel. The conversational exploration feels familiar within the lean/continuous improvement discourse.
AI is amazing tool. I use it, happy to use it. I am not convinced that AI alone is going to be a differentiator.
we have to cultivate that, which means I have to grow it, which means I have to plant it, which means I have to. And I'm gonna. Wow, we're gonna have a whole ag commentary here.
Scott Bergmeier is an experienced practitioner with 30+ years in organizational development and measurable impact (Baldrige recognition, CEO awards, work with major brands like Google, P&G, Bridgestone). However, he is not a household name operator at the scale of a current CEO or founder managing a major business, and much of his current identity appears consultant-focused rather than hands-on operational. He has relevant credentials but is positioned more as a thought-leader-turned-consultant than an active operator.
Scott's a transformational leadership expert who spent more than 30 years helping struggling organizations become high performance teams. So Scott's helped teams at organizations like Google, Procter and Gamble and Bridgestone
founder and CEO of Become More Group
The episode contains limited concrete examples and numbers. The restaurant staffing observation and the contract error anecdote provide some specificity, but most claims remain abstract. References to client work lack named organizations, timeframes, or quantified outcomes. The AI prompt example is vague ('more sophisticated'), and the discussion of organizational practices relies heavily on generalization rather than detailed case evidence.
We, you know, we're pretty old, old quote, old school. When, when we do training, we're, we're charts and handwriting and people are moving around because in our experience, people learn better in that environment.
I can tell you I'm a terrible golfer. I really don't care. I have no desire, I have no desire to play that. I have no desire to do it. Right.
Mark Graben demonstrates solid interviewing technique with thoughtful follow-ups, genuine pushback on topics like the AI discussion and policy-driven decision-making, and willingness to explore nuance (compliance vs. belief, reflection vs. rumination). However, the conversation occasionally allows Scott to drift into lengthy anecdotal tangents without sharp redirection, and some softball moments exist (e.g., not pressing deeply on measurement or scalability claims).
Hold on, you made them up? AI made them up. I don't know.
I mean, defining it often means a bit of an aspirational statement, what we want the culture to be, but without the actions, without the behaviors from leaders and from colleagues.
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Most people think they're thinking. Scott Burgmeyer says they're mostly just reacting. Scott is the founder and CEO of Become More Group and coauthor of Think: The Road Less Traveled . In this episode, we dig into why smart, well-intentioned leaders keep making the same avoidable decisions - and what to do about it. Episode page with links and more We cover the cognitive shortcuts that run in the background without us noticing, the ROAD thinking methodology, why AI won't be the differentiator most organizations are hoping for, and what it actually takes to build a culture where real thinking happens. Scott also shares the three growth questions he uses after every client meeting - a simple practice that compounds fast. If you've ever watched a team fix the same problem twice and wondered why, this one's for you.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: Now celebrating 20 years of lean Podcasting. Hey, it's Mark Graben.
Speaker B: If you've ever felt like you had
Speaker A: to be perfect at work or you're worried about making mistakes, check out my audiobook, the Mistakes that Make Us. I share stories about how owning and learning from mistakes actually leads to better results, stronger teams and real innovation. It's available on Audible, Amazon, Apple Books, or just head over to mistakesbook.com.
Speaker B: i hope you'll give it a listen.
Speaker C: Welcome to the Lean Blog Podcast. Visit our website at www.leanblog.org. now here's your host, Mark Graben.
Speaker B: Hi. Welcome to Lean Blog Interviews. I'm, um, your host, Mark Graben. Our guest today is Scott Bergmeier. He is founder and CEO of Become More Group. Scott's a transformational leadership expert who spent more than 30 years helping struggling organizations become high performance teams. So Scott's helped teams at organizations like Google, Procter and Gamble and Bridgestone reverse years of stagnation, work through deep rooted leadership breakdowns and rebuild from there. He holds, ah, a PhD in organizational development and leadership from the University of Arizona and an MBA in Organizational Leadership from Ashford University. He's a seven time Iowa Recognition of Performance Excellence recipient and winner of the Bridgestone CEO Award. So, Scott, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?
Speaker D: I'm doing well, Mark. That intro makes it sound like, like I'm pretty awesome. I don't feel like I'm that awesome though. So some of those happen to be made up.
Speaker B: Hold on, you made them up? AI made them up. I don't know.
Speaker D: Either way, that's good.
Speaker B: I can't help but notice you've also got a coffee mug with your logo.
Speaker D: Branded mug.
Speaker B: Yes, my, um, my favorite mistake mug. I don't have a Lean Blog interviews. Uh, coffee cup handy. But, you know, it's all right. Um, you know, it's about all the time in Iowa. That's how you and I crossed paths.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Believe Iowa Lean Consortium when you were living in the state.
Speaker D: Yep.
Speaker B: Great things happening with Lean in Iowa.
Speaker D: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker B: And we're going to get acquainted by. Let the audience get to know you a little bit better. You know, I always like to hear people's origin story, like, you know, how, how, what's your Lean origin story? How'd you get involved in this type of work? Why did that become such an interest in a career path for yourself with lean and quality and improvement?
Speaker D: Yeah, it's funny because I never, and I often wonder, do. Does anyone ever actually start out trying to do this like most people I've met, they never, like, try to do this. So I don't talk about it much, but I like, I. I am a chemist. I was working in a lab and I had. The boss of a boss came to me and said, hey, we're going to this talk. You should come. You should like, would you like to come? We've always been taught when your boss's boss's boss start paying what you'd like to, that you just say yes. You don't think about it. You don't ponder it. You say, yeah, go, yeah. And so that was like, I was always taught that. So I went and it was someone speaking on Lean six and they were talking about it. I had never heard of it at that time. And it was. I laugh about it now because it just made sense to me. Like, it was just like, this is just logical and why don't people do this all the time? And that's really when I started and I went and got my lean a black belt and went into quality and kind of went from there and had chance to get involved in baldrige and other things. And that just like, it just kind of became part of who I am that I now tell people when I. When I do training with them or I coach with them, it. At some point it becomes a disease. Like, you can't turn it off. It's always on your. And yeah, it's just like, actually, we have a new employee and it is her. Uh, this is her 1.5 week. Her first week she traveled with me and she shared with a group. We were doing an event at a client and she said, oh, having dinner with Scott is interesting because he's always questioning, why do they do it that way? It would be easier if they. And I said, yeah, it's a disease. It just doesn't.
Speaker B: Why do they do it that way? Meaning the restaurant.
Speaker D: Oh, yeah. We were at dinner and I'm like, why are they doing that? Like, this person is buried. And you watch and you sit and the host is standing up there doing nothing while my patrons are, like, sitting at their tables waiting for the server. It's a busy night. Like, I get it. Um, hey, how about go get drink orders. How about. You could turn your tables so much easier. The customer experience is so much better. But nope, it's super important to make sure that little host stand doesn't magically float away because, you know, gravity boots or.
Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, I think they're back to your question of why it don't People do this all the time. Why isn't this the default? I mean, I think in a lot of industries there are methodologies. Um, you know, like Lean or Lean Six Sigma. People don't get invited to a talk. And, uh, people are maybe just kind of, you know, they're stuck in. Well, this is the way we've always done it. They don't question. I mean, I think a lot of lean is just like you said, about questioning why we do it this way and helping everybody question things. Yeah.
Speaker D: And it becomes really a. I mean, if you really peel it back, there's a little bit of scientific problem solving with it. Sure. A lot about. Are you curious? Are you curious and are you thinking about it through the eyes of the customer or the patient or the patron or whatever you define as. As the customer? And are you making it easy for them, um, to connect with you, work with you, whatever that is?
Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, you know, that, that, that moment of curiosity or questioning, certainly it has to be backed up with something more. Because if people say, well, it could be better, but they don't feel confident, confident in their ability to make it better, they might keep wondering or, uh, you know, and it might not lead to any real benefit for the organization. Yeah. So, yeah, there's these different chains, and I think you and I would agree it comes back to leadership. And, you know, so you've studied that and you help people with that and you write about it. Tell us about your most recent book for those. Oh, yeah.
Speaker D: So the.
Speaker B: I'm going to hold it up. Think the road less travel with you and Tammy K. Rogers.
Speaker C: Yep.
Speaker D: Yeah. So Tammy's my business partner. And we, years ago, we started to see this trend of, um, people doing weird things. And we kept asking, like, what why did they do that? Or why did this person make that decision? Or why did they act like that or whatever it is. And we started to boil it down, and what we recognized was people's were, frankly, just not thinking. And they were more, you know, stimulus, response, stimulus, response. And, you know, in the book, we say, hey, people's thinking. Thinking is about as deep as a parking lot puddle. We're not really thinking. We're just responding to a stimulus.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: And as we started to research it and dive in, what we found was people. And this is like a really blanket statement for people were operating at a low, you know, in a lower part of their brain. They're operating in their lizard brain many, many times. And there are cognitive biases that we all have little shortcuts that we use. We jump to conclusions. We, we say, yep, I gotta go. And I just take off running. And so we, we took the approach and we gave the most common cognitive biases. We gave them characters.
Speaker B: Yeah. So there's a confirmation bias character for, you know, I'd love to make, I'd love to make the joke. I, I see confirmation bias everywhere I look.
Speaker D: Yes.
Speaker B: We're all prone to this because it is part of the human conditions in our brain for sure. To be aware of it. And I guess similar to being aware of waste. Being aware of the opportunity to do things better. That's the first start. But what, what, what do we do beyond awareness of these traps? You know, flipping back through here again like, you know, uh, echo chamber. Evelyn.
Speaker D: Yes. Back. Everything she hears, like it's a, like it's an absolute fact.
Speaker B: Yeah. So. So what do we do beyond being aware of these different traps?
Speaker D: Yeah. So when, you know, when you think about it, we all, we all fall into these traps. Like none of us is perfect. We're also not suggesting that we need to overthink. There are times that the light bulb goes out. Yes. The most logical thing to do is just change the light bulb. Like we don't have to root cause and dive deep. Now that's the third time this week specific light bulb was burnt out. One might suggest changing the light bulb isn't the correct course of action. So there's a time and a place.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker D: To think a little deeper and am I aware or am I like aware of my surroundings enough. Connect those dots. Or am I so busy. Focused on being busy.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: That I don't like, I don't even notice. Okay. We then talk about how we kind of approached it was then looking at what are the tactics that we can do to give ourselves time to think. So some of it is, are you putting, are you carving out time to think on your calendar? And when we talk to leaders, many of them aren't even spending 10 minutes a week just thinking about whatever they need to think about. It could be, how am I doing leading people, Am I connecting with them? It could be how are we doing executing our strategy? It could be what are the things that are keeping me up at night that I need to start to process through? What do we need to do a little different so that it maybe doesn't keep me up at night or starts keeping the workforce up at like less or whatever those things are. And I, it's like, wow, you're not even spending 10 minutes a week doing that when 10 minutes a day, maybe 30 minutes a day, depending on, you know, where are you at an organization, how are you doing that? Yeah, sometimes it's. Are you creating an environment too? And that could be like as a leader, am I expecting others to think and, or do I create space for people to think? Which could be time element. Or we have some clients that have taken it so far that they actually make thinking sanctuaries as part of their office design.
Speaker B: A thinking space.
Speaker D: A thinking space. Uh, like here, these different space, they're quiet rooms, they're whatever. And when you need to go heads down, get something done, you can go in that space with the goal of how do you, um. And then the. Probably the biggest tactic we talk about is a little reflection of the, of the title the Road Less Traveled. We introduce a thinking methodology called the Road. And it is R O, A D, D. And yes, everybody M can say, yeah, he's misspelled M Road. Got it. Okay. Yeah, but it really is. R is reflect. So what's happening? O is options. A analyze, D decide and then D do. And many times people are in the. I'm going to reflect for a microsecond and then I'm going to skip all, uh, the other letters. I'm going to go to that last D and I'm going to go do. And I haven't really thought through the impact or the options. And then I wonder why. Why am I fixing the same problem again? Huh. Curious.
Speaker B: Well, there's I, I think a step. I don't know if we can jam another letter on the end of road, but there's maybe another analyze step.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: Or think of, uh, I don't know, think of fans and uh, roadie. I don't know what the, the ie, uh, at the end of a road, but I mean, I think one of the traps people fall into is, you know, kind of just thinking linearly. Yes. We decided to do something, go do it, assume it was the right thing to do instead of like, you know, thinking of, um, cycles, whether we call it PDCA or pdsa, like having that evaluation of did we do the right thing or did we do the partially right thing?
Speaker D: Okay.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: And part, I know part of, part of do that last step is the evaluation. Did it work?
Speaker B: There's another D then.
Speaker D: Yeah.
Speaker B: And did it work? But yeah, that's, that's, um. But that's certainly worth talking through with people and make sure there's that, um. I don't know if that falls into one of the cognitive bias models. But like a lot of times people don't like to think that they could possibly have had an idea that wasn't going to pan out. They assume their ideas are good and if it doesn't work out, they'll blame everything but the idea. Perhaps.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker D: And you know, so at, at the end of the day, it just is, can we get people to think a little deeper? Do we get people to get out of just. I'm just going to react and I'm just going to take action and I haven't really thought it through in whatever you're doing, whether that's work life or you're an improvement guru or personal life, like, hey, do I, uh, you know, do we want to have a, A, a child? Do we want to buy the house? Do we want to buy a car or what kind of house or what kind of. Right. Any of those things I can, I can process through in a logical way. The other thing we found is the brain science is really clear that when I'm not thinking, I'm operating in that lower cognitive part of my brain, the lizard part of my brain. Asking a question.
Speaker C: Mhm.
Speaker D: Changes the brain chemistry and pushes you out of that part of your brain.
Speaker B: We identify the trap or the problem of not thinking or shallow thinking. You know, I'd love to dive into some of the countermeasures that you talk about in the book and I'm going to hold up again for those who are watching on video, I love the word and the imagery here. It talks about cultivating a culture of thinking and um, a brain with arms and legs tending to a garden. Like yeah, I chose that word cultivating, um, with my most recent book, the Mistakes that make Us. Cultivating culture. Yes. Learning and um, and innovation. Because I mean, I think, you know, the culture, it's not something that we just install. I do think of it as kind of this living, living thing that we need to tend to constantly.
Speaker D: Right.
Speaker B: First of all, tell us what you know, that that word cultivating means to you and then let's talk about what we can do as leaders. We can't just snap our fingers and have a garden with touch suddenly.
Speaker D: Yeah. You know, my assumption is what actually, whether or not you intend to or not, there is a culture in your organization. We, we would suggest, or we subscribe to the idea that I'm going to purposefully choose what is the, what's the culture I want once you said, hey, that's what I want or I want these kind of behaviors, activities, traits, Now I have to cultivate that, which means I have to grow it, which means I have to plant it, which means I have to. And I'm gonna. Wow, we're gonna have a whole ag commentary here. I gotta seed it, which means I have. I have to do some sort of development or training, and I have to water it. And you know what? Sometimes I have to trim the weeds, which means. Hey, if someone's not aligning in your culture, trimming the weeds is. I'm going to hold them accountable or I may vote them off the island.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: Really? You're not voting a bunch of people off the island all the time.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: That might suggest there's actually a different problem. Right, but it's this piece of, you know, if, uh. No, if I'm going to cultivate, it's going to take time to get to that point. And it's an. It's an action. I have to be in action. I can't just, you know, it is not whatever infomercial is. It's not set it and forget it. It's. No, I have to check on it, and I have to evaluate it, and I have to go look and I have to water it, and sometimes I got to put a little fertilizer on it, and sometimes I have to tweak it a little bit. Because in my experience, what you define as your culture today likely evolves some over time.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: And you won't get it right the first time. That's okay. It's an evolution. Anyone who's a master gardener, they would say, oh, my garden looked great this year, but next year I want to.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: Their whole planning, a whole nother thing about what they want to do. That to me, is that, uh, that's a long answer to, you know, what is cultivate?
Speaker C: But it's.
Speaker D: I have to be in action. I can't be a passive passenger on this. I have to define it and drive towards it. Otherwise, frankly, you won't achieve it. You'll have a culture. It just may not be the culture you want.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, defining it often means a bit of an aspirational statement, what we want the culture to be, but without the actions, without the behaviors from leaders and from colleagues. Like, I mean, I. You know, I think culture is how we do things around here, and I think that includes, uh, how we lead. How do we react when somebody says things could be better? How do we react when somebody tries an improvement that doesn't pan out? How do we react when someone admits a mistake? Those are all Elements of culture, right?
Speaker D: Yeah, for sure. And yeah. Do, do we. Are you a learning culture or. One of the things I keep thinking about is do you want an improvement culture or do you want a culture that includes improvement? And so it, it. M. It's, it's a little bit philosophical when you start to think about it. It, it isn't about having one because you could say, well, we want a patient safe. Safety of a patient is critical. I want patient safety culture that for some people might say, well then that's all you want. You don't care about employees. M. And so like, like one of the things I've been seeing is this piece of like, okay, what are the elements of the culture you want? Well, I do, I want patient safety, but I also want my employees to be safe too. Or I also want to have a high quality. You know, I want to have an attention to quality or my product is good.
Speaker C: Like.
Speaker D: And it's been interesting to kind of start to think about what are those elements. And if you want thinking as part of that, that is just one element of your culture. And in our experience it becomes a balance. Yeah. I don't want deep thinking about everything.
Speaker B: Mhm.
Speaker D: I want us to be thoughtful hits. I want us to think about when we need to think.
Speaker B: Sure. Well, I think of like, you know, using um, different AI models. When do you hit the toggle that jumps into, you know, whatever it's called and the different models, deep thinking mode or. We don't always need that for certain simple tasks that we're asking AI to help us with.
Speaker D: Yeah. And AI we actually the intro of the book talks about AI and, and I may be unpopular here in, in just a moment.
Speaker B: Mhm.
Speaker D: AI is amazing tool. I use it, happy to use it. I am not convinced that AI alone is going to be a differentiator. Mhm.
Speaker B: For businesses.
Speaker D: For businesses.
Speaker B: Yeah. Tell us more about that.
Speaker D: And so when you look at it, there's lots of AI out there and we can sit like part of what I'm seeing is how people define AI. It's vastly different. Uh, and then second is this piece of. If I am going to blindly say
Speaker B: AI
Speaker D: without having some parameters and thinking around it, you are asking for pain and suffering.
Speaker B: Mhm. Okay.
Speaker D: So if any of us have used, you know, there, there's a skill set for how you write a prompt, there's a skill set for how I'm going to use it. There's a skill set for. And there uh, are some things that it is amazing for. Like I could Tell you, I have used it to like, hey, I actually did it last week. We, you know, we're, we're pretty old, old quote, old school. When, when we do training, we're, we're charts and handwriting and people are moving around because in our experience, people learn better in that environment. Yeah, I took a picture and I dropped it in and I said, hey, type all this out for me. My prompt is a little more sophisticated than that.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker D: And that saved me an hour of being in formatting. So, like, totally makes sense. I can tell you. It didn't get it right.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: And so if I was just going to, you know, submit that. No. Um, and so to me it's like, can I be thoughtful in my prompts and do I have enough construction context for the business, the organization, what we're trying to accomplish to say, is this directionally correct? I'm watching too many people not have the context, then just say, oh yeah, here's the answer for AI, therefore I'm worthy of this elevated experience. And it's like, uh, no, you're a little bit blind right now.
Speaker B: M sure. Yeah. And I, I don't hate you for making that statement. I agree with you that, not for any. I was waiting for someone really controversial. But. No, no, no, I know, um, I think, you know, there, there are lessons to be learned from previous technology waves, like when we all have access to the same technologies and I don't know, maybe there are proprietary AI models out there, but most people in businesses are using one or more of, uh, Copilot, chatgpt, Claude Grok, handful of others. We all have access to signing up and paying for the same tools. Some people will use those tools better than others and some will incorporate those tools into their business better than others. So I flashback to, uh, oh, forgive me. 30 years ago, um, when I 31 almost when I was still. We'll call it 30. 30 years ago, when I was start. Started my career at General Motors, this was uh, you know, a manufacturing plant. It was engine assembly and upstream of that I worked as a support engineer for engine part machining. And at some point when that line was, um, designed and General Motors bought the same equipment from the best manufacturers in Germany, and they copied the layout of, uh, Toyota facilities with the conveyance between machines and trying to intentionally limit WIP between the machines and you know, you buy the same equipment and our, our results were roughly half classic. It could have been data straight out of the machine that changed the world. You know, our productivity and effectiveness was probably half of Everybody else. Because like, you know, for one, um, that approach to automation and equipment flew in the face of the GM mindsets. Like the managers there wanted to build up WIP everywhere they could. Right? Because that uh, in their mind protected us against the next machine downtime. And a lot of the machine downtime was because management was in letting workers change the tools at the proper frequencies because we got to keep, keep the line running which ironically made the line put break down more. We weren't as good as maintained at maintaining it. We weren't, you know. And so it just goes to show, like GM had all these dreams in the 80s, um, under CEO Roger Smith of the Lights Out Factory. The vision was that they were going to try to automate everything and they wasted tens of billions of dollars on something that was either way ahead of its time or just a pipe dream to begin with. So I wonder, you know, it makes me think whatever the cognitive biases were back then, we're probably prone to repeating it with exciting new technologies we call AI. What are your thoughts?
Speaker D: No, I think that's spot on. I mean I think there will always be tools, technology that, that are going to have a blend of benefit, uh, and distraction. And are we wise enough to like. Yeah, I mean there's always going to be a learning curve, right? And am I wise enough along that learning curve to look at it and say how does this actually fit into my organization or how does it benefit my organization and where might it be a distraction that I need to pay attention to or where it might it go off? And you know, I'm watching organizations say well we need to have policies and we need to uh. And yeah, I don't disagree, need to have some guidelines, some fundamentals. And we also need to say, you know what? AI isn't the, the end all, be all is not going to solve everything. It has the potential to streamline some things, it has the potential to solve some, some challenges. And um, how are we preparing the workforce for that? How are we preparing ourselves for that? How are we. And, and so it's just, for me it's, it is a little fascinating to just. When we say hey, let's do AI, what does that mean?
Speaker B: Right?
Speaker D: And I, I actually believe in most cases leaders are saying how do we improve and how do we use this technology to improve? And then of course it's improve what, and what level of, of quality or outcome do we anticipate? Is it I'm trying to save time or is it I'm trying to reduce effort and Mental strain. Is it? I like, I want people to work at the top of their skillset. I don't want them to do mundane. You know, back in the old days, if I needed to figure out how to look up a uh, Excel formula, I had to look it up in a book. And then we graduated to Google.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: And now AI writes it for us now. And it's being cool. It allows me to elevate my thinking. Am I going to design the organization to allow that level of elevated thinking?
Speaker B: Mhm. Yeah.
Speaker D: And I'm not sure that people are thinking about that part.
Speaker B: Back to your core thesis. We're not thinking enough or we're thinking too shallow.
Speaker D: Yeah, it's. And it's not saying it's, it's a faulty premise to say let's integrate AI. It's just saying to accomplish what and then what?
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: Yeah. Are, are we automating something that we shouldn't be doing in the first place?
Speaker C: Right.
Speaker B: Yes. That's a trap we've seen for a very long time.
Speaker D: Yes.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Um, so, so back, back to thinking and some of the tactics that you write about for cultivating, you know, a culture of thinking. I'd love to touch on each of these, uh, briefly. Um, that was a substitute for rating the book of course. So you know, the book again, less Traveled. There's the stories and the characters. Um, you know, there's a deeper dive than we're covering here today. But you know, I really, I love the growth questions. Open ended questions around reflection, it seems. Tell us about these growth questions and why they're important.
Speaker D: Yeah, the growth questions are really, at the end of the day are a, uh, methodology, um, we use in our organization. But the growth questions are how do you get better and how do you think about how you perform? So there's three of them. What worked or what's working? What didn't work. Okay. And what will you do differently or what could you do differently? Uh, the whole intent of that is to let's celebrate the things that are working. Let's be honest about what's not working and let's put it on the table like, and we need to do it in a way that we can hear each other, etc. We don't need to be a jerk. And then let's really look at how do we do something different. And uh, what we find is the more frequently you do that. Okay. The more cycles you do that actually the faster you'll get better.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: So one of the things we do after every time we have a client meeting. What worked? What didn't work? What would you do better? I just came from a call and our, our new employee and my first question to her once we finished, we hang out for a few minutes after. And I said, all right, what did you notice? What worked? What did you notice? That those might be some signs that this didn't work or maybe I tripped and I didn't ask the right question or I didn't interact. But it's really about how many cycles can you do? Um, can you be honest enough with yourself to admit here's where, here's what, how I contributed. Without beating yourself. Like the goal is also to like have a beat down here.
Speaker B: There's a fine line between reflection and beating yourself up.
Speaker D: Right?
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: And it's okay to say, mhm. Yep. And like I didn't handle that well and I could have handled that better. And maybe what do I need to do differently is I need to go
Speaker B: apologize in a real apology. Not a sh. Not a shallow apology.
Speaker D: Yeah, not a shallow. Unless you like the person, then you
Speaker B: can not worry about if you were. I'm sorry. If you were offended. Like. No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker D: That's a lovely one.
Speaker B: Not a real apology. But you know, um, you know, there's parallels, uh, that, that come to mind, like those reflection questions that are useful for troubleshooting or problem solving. Similar question, you know, you think about like, well, what did we do? What did we expect to happen? What actually happened? What do we learn from the Gap? What would we do differently? Great questions. And you know, I think we, we have a strong culture at ah, Kinexus, as I often do. I'm wearing a Kynexis shirt today. And you know, at K Nexus there's very much a culture of the cycles formally or maybe twice a year when we get together as a group and different leaders and different people talking about different versions of those three questions.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: When. Well, what went wrong? What did we learn?
Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B: And there's a culture. Um, you know, let's, it starts with the co founders, with uh, our CEO Greg and with our coo Matt. They lead the way with that. So like you said, it's not a shaming session, it's not a beat yourself up session. It's certainly not a beat others up session. So that's one thing we do well. And I think if you have the formal cycles twice a year, you get more of the muscle memory to be doing that on a more ongoing basis. Right. With every project, with every initiative. Right. Yes.
Speaker D: And really, the more, you know, the more you can make it normal and not beat people up for it. And it's okay.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker D: Uh, like, we just, I'm thinking about the one we just learned, and we had two or three of us looked, looked at this contract for a client and we all missed that. The travel element.
Speaker C: Right.
Speaker D: And so we, like, we, we misput that travel was included and it should not have been.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: And so, yep, that was a painful lesson. Costly, costly, painful lesson. And yes, it's like, it doesn't mean you're not frustrated. It doesn't mean you're like, oh, that's okay. We don't want to beat each other up for it. We want to say, hey, yep, we missed it. And the person who wrote it missed it and I missed it. I looked at it. And so we have to say, what did we learn? Well, we learned that, um, and hey, how do we make sure we don't copy paste the wrong terms and conditions on a forward basis? And. Yeah, and we also don't want to. I watch so many people say, oh, well, what we need to do is have more, more eyeballs on it. Let's double check and triple check.
Speaker B: Ripple check. Yeah. Right.
Speaker D: Yeah, that's.
Speaker C: No.
Speaker B: And, and there's. I, There's a reality in a psychology, and I think this is something Dr. Deming used to talk about. You know, when you have two people inspecting something, there's a bit of a, maybe a different mental trap where if you're inspecting it and I inspecting it, my brain says like, well, I don't, you know, Scott will catch it if I miss it. And we both maybe mentally can't help but slacking off a little bit.
Speaker D: Right.
Speaker B: And how many organizations have had double checks? This happens a lot in healthcare because the underlying process isn't well designed. It's not mistake proofed. So, like the semi absurd kind of rhetorical question is, well, if double checks are good, what about triple checks? Right. And if we're, if we're a patient safety culture, I mean, like, well, no, there, there are better ways of accomplishing, um, accomplishing these goals. But so when you think about, you know, your reaction to mistakes. Yeah. I mean, we, we. I don't, I don't think we have to say it's okay, it's not good, good that we made the mistake. Like, one lesson I've learned, I've heard my wife talk about this, as an executive, is you can acknowledge the impact of the mistake and still keep the focus on learning and prevention and Improvement. It's not some sort of Shangri La of like, oh, we don't care if you made a mistake. We care. You know, this isn't about feeling, not making people feel bad because look, I'm sure you all felt bad in that scenario, but feeling bad isn't enough to fix anything, you know, and I, I think there's, you know, this idea of how do we, you, you do a good job. In the book of talking about structuring, thinking, maybe related to thinking is memory. How do we structure the memory so that when we're faced with a similar situation, we don't forget the lesson learned.
Speaker D: And there's an, this piece of. When you think about. And um, pretty much almost any animal, if you really step back and think of it, we avoid pain and we lean into pleasure. So can I make it pleasurable to do it the right way?
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: Okay. Or if I can't make it pleasurable doing it the right way, can I make it painful enough that no one will want to do it the wrong way? We can sometimes misget that misguided by saying, oh, I'm gonna make it so painful if they don't do it right, I'm gonna fire them. Yeah, well no, it has to be painful in the moment, not after the fact. And threatening. No, like that. I mean I guess it worked in the 40s, 30s, 40s, 50s, like we
Speaker B: could say, I don't know, did it, I don't know, did it maybe.
Speaker D: I uh, think we're compliant.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker D: Uh, you know, do you want compliance or do you want belief? And that is a core decision you as a leader or as an organization might want to think about. And in my experience, and change is some percent of the population, you're probably going to get compliance first.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker D: I don't think that lead to belief.
Speaker B: That's okay.
Speaker D: It's just if I'm only going to do it for compliance. Yeah, that go last.
Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, we talk about these aspirations. I've never heard anyone say we. We are a culture of compliance. You know, they want the culture of innovation, they want the culture of improvement. Compliance is not part of, let's say that Baldrige roadmap. It's not most, you know, maybe you know, uh, being uh, having good standards and standard work that we can follow. It's easy to do the right thing. That's probably table stakes or just the bare minimum.
Speaker D: Right.
Speaker B: You know what, um, compliance culture is probably, you know. No, that's probably not the path to world class performance. I Want to explore a little bit? You know, you said something earlier I think is, you know, interesting and you know, I'm sure you have thoughts on the psychology involves being honest with ourselves, being candid. You know, those two words that aren't exactly synonyms but they're related. A lot of times we think about like, you know, can you speak up honestly and candidly about problems in the workplace? And like, yeah, it depends on how my boss reacts. But being honest with yourself is a different, different situation. Like what, what have you learned about some of the, the barriers to being honest with ourselves versus things we can do to encourage that kind of the even just the uh, the admission to ourself of uh, yeah, I made, I made a mistake. What do I learn from it?
Speaker D: Yeah. You know this, this piece about am I honest with myself? I always think about it. Can I hold the mirror up and look at myself in the mirror and, and truly say I am being truthful and realistic about whatever this situation is? Or am I blaming? Because many times if you really peel it back when I am not owning it, I am blaming something or someone else. Mhm. And am I then stepping back and saying no, no, no, how did I contribute to that? That doesn't mean other people don't need to own their part. And it has to be in my experience is I then have to ask myself, am I willing to do something about it? I can tell you I'm a terrible golfer. I really don't care. I have no desire, I have no desire to play that. I have no desire to do it. Right. So I like, I'm okay not getting better at that.
Speaker B: Sure. Because if you do it, it's social or it's social.
Speaker D: And even then I probably wouldn't do it. Yeah.
Speaker B: Yeah. I'm not a golfer either.
Speaker D: And, and so it's looking at it and saying, you know, if I'm going to spend the time doing that self reflection, I also have a decision to make to say what am I going to do about it? And not doing anything is a decision.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: And then what you have to realize is if you decide I'm not going to do that, I'm not going to get better, I'm not going to. That's okay. Then you have whatever consequences or outcomes that you have and you have to look at that and say, yep, I decided going to.
Speaker B: That was a choice.
Speaker D: It is a choice.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker D: And again it. There is a balance that there are some people we know, some who are perfectionists and you have to fight the urge of Being a perfectionist.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: Because sometimes you can be, you can do this self reflection and it can be self depre. And you're beating yourself up and that frankly is not helpful.
Speaker B: Or there's a word I've learned in the last couple of years because I would have a tendency toward this and it's something I've tried to work on. This word ruminate.
Speaker D: Yes.
Speaker B: Where you kind of, you, you don't, you can't let it, you don't let it go.
Speaker D: Yep.
Speaker B: Becomes less helpful than a little bit of reflection. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker D: And it's, it's okay to have emotion around something. There is a time and a place that I need to, to pack that up and move on.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: Okay. And if I, and I love that word rumini. I even think there's things in my life that I ruminate on and every time I start to go there, I have to self like, whoa, that is over and done with. There's nothing you can do about it. It's an amazing lesson.
Speaker B: Go on, let it go.
Speaker D: And that can be really hard.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: Uh, for people, for leaders, for whatever that is. And, and I would also say there are some things in all of our lives that would probably be unforgivable. Like someone might do something that you might say, you know what? I can't forgive that. And, uh, you know, yeah, you probably need to move them out of your life.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: I worked for a company that their core perspective was, we're going to forgive. And they had people who embezzled, who they didn't, they didn't fire.
Speaker B: Yeesh.
Speaker D: Now they made him pay it back and all these things. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know that I could do that.
Speaker B: I mean, there are mistakes and there are bad or egregious things.
Speaker D: Yes.
Speaker B: Illegal, egregious decisions. I mean, the mistake was thinking they could get away with it. Apparently. Yeah. In a sense they did. Yeah. But they, the mistake was thinking they would get away with it and keep the money.
Speaker D: I mean, and I'm very, you know, I, I think early in my career I had, I had to terminate someone because they misused their, their company card, peeled it back. What happened is they had some pretty major life things going on.
Speaker C: Mhm.
Speaker D: And they did it once. Once. Because they were struggling financially. They bought groceries. Their family. And the, uh, company at the time was like, you misused it. And, and like I, that's still, I reflect back on that. That still feels really gross to me now. Did it violate the policy? Sure did.
Speaker B: By the Letter of the policy by
Speaker D: the letter of the policy. Sure did. Now all uh, now I can also. Right. Make the other case. Like well how many other times were there that that just didn't get caught. Like I can.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker D: Uh, again, well, it's that scenario where, you know, my conversation with staff is like just come and talk to me. Because many times we can figure out how to manage through that and I don't know ahead of time. It's hard for m. You know, it's like well no, unfortunately we jump to a negative conclusion. Were you trying to hide it? Were you trying to. Versus hey, I'm in this tough spot. I did it. I can remember years later I had another staff member. I think they reached out. They were like I was traveling. I own. That was the. I had to do this. And I just want to let you know this is what happened. And uh, like can we take it out of payroll? Of course. Like I swiped the wrong car. Like there's lots of.
Speaker B: Sure.
Speaker D: Becomes very different. Back to your original question about how am I self reflecting and trying to grow becomes crucial. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: I mean, you know, a systems view might look at a situation where somebody needed to buy groceries and you know, even if the company decided to fire someone to hold them accountable, you might step back and think what do we want to do proactively as a company if somebody is struggling financially for some reason? Some companies have, you know, kind of like a kind of, you know, mutual aid situation where you know, a lot of times people don't like asking for help. But if it becomes at least a little bit more normalized than if somebody's hit a rough patch.
Speaker D: Right.
Speaker B: Uh, that's going to happen. That's bound to happen. It'll happen again. Like let's. Whereas some people would say like we. We'll just hire people that aren't going to be quote unquote unethical.
Speaker D: Right.
Speaker B: I think it's a little more nuanced.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: Than that. But when I think about. I mean that's where thinking sometimes policy replaces thinking. I think is maybe one moral replaces thinking. I mean how often do we face that as a customer of an organization? I can't do that for you. It sounds totally reasonable.
Speaker D: Why?
Speaker B: Uh, because of policy. Because I'll get in trouble for. For doing the right thing for a customer. Almost got wanna cover. And you know, to give people a bit of an overview, I um, think some of the other thinking tactics as you call them in the book would be real familiar to people you've already mentioned. Carved out thinking time, expanding facilitation and problem solving. Uh, readers or thinkers, you know, as authors, we have a bias toward that view. Of course. Yeah. Everybody please read more. But there's, there's one other one here that, you know, it's eye catching and I know it's intentionally provocative. Stay stupid longer. Love that. Tell us, what do you mean we shouldn't be stupid at all, Scott, we're
Speaker D: all stupid if we're going to be honest.
Speaker B: Back. Yeah. To that question of honesty. But yeah.
Speaker D: And it is a little tongue in cheek. But the whole idea is, um, don't allow yourself to believe, you know, it. Be more curious. Truly be like, okay, help me understand. Hey, I, uh. And, and so many times, some of this is when you think about a leader that give the answers a lot when ideally they're asking questions to support people to learn how to fish.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: And so part of it is, yes, as a leader, you need to stay stupid and not answer the question. So, uh, that they can. And again, you have to be selective with that. Of course, if they don't know it's their first day.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker D: Give him the answer, please.
Speaker B: I mean, if there's literally a fire and somebody doesn't know how to operate the fire extinguisher, probably not a time for Socratic. Yeah.
Speaker D: Uh, what do you think? Yeah. And so, so part of it's that. And then part of it is what we find is the more curious you are, usually your solutions and your outcomes will be better because you're. You peel it back to really understand what's going on. Okay. And so, yes, we do have a little tongue in cheek way of, of saying that, hey, you need to be stupid longer. Uh, and with each other, with clients, with staff, with leader, I mean, it just is this piece of. It is a little arrogant to believe, you know, what their problem actually is.
Speaker B: Yep.
Speaker D: If you haven't spent time working to understand. Yeah.
Speaker B: And you know, I think, um, I mean, you know, the word stupid lands, you know, and it has a ring to it. Stay stupid longer. I mean, we could think about the difference between stupidity and ignorance. Smart people are often ignorant about what's going on. Like, ignorance is more that gap in a knowledge gap. Uh, I don't know, it's a common expression, I guess. You can't fix stupid stupid, but you can fix ignorance by reading, by learning, by experimenting. We can close those gaps for sure. And smart people are victim of cognitive biases. And, you know, I think, I think, you know, the one thing you really make me Think of there is the difference between what we truly know and what we're assuming to be true. Like that's where I think like the, the best, some of the best coaching I've gotten in my experience former Toyota people are very disciplined about this.
Speaker D: Yeah.
Speaker B: Because I think they were asked constantly like what do we know? How do we know it? And I think that's one of the, that's one of the biggest causes of, of mistakes is that we, we think it's knowledge when it's really an assumption. We don't go test the assumption on a small scale so that we can learn and prevent.
Speaker C: Right.
Speaker B: A big business catastrophe.
Speaker D: And it is this piece of, of uh, can you put your ego aside enough to step into the spot, into the space? And yes it does take longer until you get people used to will take a little longer
Speaker B: but it's more effective
Speaker D: long term and has much longer term lasting effect.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: Well that's a great note. I think uh, to end it on Scott. So and the episode. Thank you. Um, again our guest Scott Bergmeier and uh, the book we've been talking about mainly here today, Think the Road Less Traveled. We've been thinking. You've thought a lot about thinking Scott. And um, thank you for prompting us to think about it. And then another book also co authored by Scott and Tammy. Thank you for sending me this book as well.
Speaker D: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker B: Chief Optimization Officer. What's the elevator pitch on this book?
Speaker D: Oh yeah, I always, I always forget we wrote that one. The premise of that book is we believe uh, many organizations are missing the opportunity to have a role who. And that role's function is to push the organization to be better. And so that the book makes the premise for why this role is important. Ah, some of the attributes um, of that role. And again whether or not it sits really on the executive team, but really it's looking at and saying who is that at the team and who is pushing the organization to be better. And we can sit and split hairs about the title but at the end of the day we would suggest that many times lots of people are trying to make it better and they're actually not aligned and what or why they're trying to push it in a direction. So it's also this case of how do we get aligned so that we're all going in that same direction.
Speaker B: Well, thanks Scott. Uh, again, Scott Bergmire, our guest today, founder and CEO of Become More Group. Uh, look for links in the show notes to the books, the company it's become more gp.com is the, uh, address and, uh, Scott's podcast, Mission Matter Business Podcast. Hope you'll check that out. Not instead of this podcast, but in addition, in addition to this podcast. So, Scott, thank you, uh, for joining us here today. Really appreciate you being here and for sharing the book with me. And, um, great things to think about.
Speaker D: Yeah, thanks, Mark. It was great to be here.
Speaker C: Thanks for listening. This has been the Lean Blog podcast for Lean News and Commentary. Updated daily. Visit www.leanblog.org if you have any questions or comments about this podcast. Uh, email mark lean podcastmail.com Foreign.
Speaker B: Let's be honest.
Speaker A: The old wooden suggestion box is where great ideas go to die. And trying to manage continuous improvement in a chaotic maze of spreadsheets, that's not much better. It's time to digitize your daily Kaizen process. This episode is sponsored by Kinexus, the platform designed to empower your team to capture, implement, and measure every improvement from the front line to the executive suite. Stop letting innovation slip through the cracks. See how to spread a true culture of continuous improvement today at www.kynexus.com.
Other episodes covering the same guests and topics, from across The B2B Podcast Index.
E195 - How Leadership Transformed a Side Hustle into a Full Business with Eric DinglerSurviving the Side Hustle · on Leadership development81 / 100
Rerelease: Why Not Shoot for the Moon? | Phil Manchester | Frontline UNSCRIPTED Ep. 1UNSCRIPTED · on Leadership development75 / 100
Is HR Obsolete?The Digital Transformation Playbook · on Leadership development75 / 100
The Team Culture System That Changes Every Metric, with Jenni CatronCatalytic Leadership · on Leadership development72 / 100
23 Reasons Your Mind Loses You MillionsMaking Billions · on Confirmation bias70 / 100
Ep 216, Failure Is A Component Of SuccessConflict Managed · on Leadership development69 / 100
Preconditions for Lean: Psychological Safety and Model 1 vs Model 2 Leadership with Thomas Cox and Andre DeMerchant69 / 100
Psychological Safety and Autonomy in a Lean Culture with Gary Peterson76 / 100
Jeff Liker, Twenty Years Later: The Ideas That Keep Showing Up75 / 100
Chad Diggs on Building Quality Systems, Not Heroes86 / 100
Karen Martin: Five Conversations Over 20 Years