Expand the Circle with Matt Poepsel

Speaker A: People first organizations will win in the future of work.

Speaker B: Your only real asset is your people. We all want purpose and work. HR led organization is.

Speaker A: I'm sorry, but leaders don't lead empty

Speaker B: desks and empty shop floors.

Speaker C: Welcome to the People Strategy Leaders show. I'm your host, Sree Chalapa, founder and president of Engagedly and a serial entrepreneur in technology, films and music. This is where we talk to people leaders, business strategists, and organizational savants about leading in the time of change. What is working, what is not working, and more importantly, what we should be thinking about. Stick around to the end of the show. We will reveal how you can be our next guest. And now, let's engage.

Speaker A: Hello, this is Sree Chalaba again with People Strategy Leaders. And I am here today with one of my best friends, uh, on LinkedIn and, uh, one of my heroes who's written this amazing book, uh, Expand the Circle, Matt Pepcel, who'll talk about the core philosophy behind the book and his own experience that led him to write this great book that I've been loving, uh, reading it. So, um, Matt, uh, introducing you real quick here. Matt Pepczel is the author of the enlightened leadership book Expand the Circle and the host of Lead the People podcast. His work centers around leadership, organizational performance, and personal growth. He holds a PhD in psychology, an MBA and a Harvard Business School Certificate of Management Excellence. He has more than 20 years of leadership experience as a software executive and consultant. He's also a U.S. marine,

Speaker C: uh, and

Speaker A: an Ironman triathlon finisher and a student of business philosophy. Wow, that's a lot. Matt, welcome to the show again.

Speaker B: Thank you, Siri. It's great to have, have me on the show. I'm so excited to be here.

Speaker A: Great. You know, I follow you. I've been following you for years. Uh, you know, we've talked a few times before. I really wanted to understand. Uh, I love your book, by the way, not to berate the point again. Um, and it's very well written. Uh, I like the style of writing. I like the messaging that's in it. But what led you to actually write this, this book in the first place?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting. I had a guest onto my own podcast and I had interviewed him and he had just written a book. And I said to him, I said, I think I might want to write a book someday. And he said, oh, you should absolutely, uh, do that. You should take a look at this program that I'm a part of out of Georgetown University. And we write Books, uh, as a cohort, as a group of nonfiction authors. And we just work on our own books, but we do it together. And I thought, well, that sounds really interesting. So when I looked at it into the program, I thought, oh, this is absolutely something I've always wanted to do, so I'm going to try it. And as soon as I started talking to the program's director, I said, well, you have to write an authentic book. And I thought, oh my, I'm working on some stuff in my life. You know, when it comes to leadership, the things we'll talk about today. I said, uh, I guess I have to go all the way and really disclose my own personal journey, my evolved views about what leadership is and what it isn't. And, uh, I'm really glad that I threw myself into the process.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, thanks for uh, thanks for doing that because I think there's a lot of good, valuable takeaways from this book. The core circles that you have in the book, which is lead yourself, lead others, lead your team, lead your organization, and then lead your world in that order. Right. So this is one of the things we were talking about earlier, how people become managers too soon before they understand how they are leading themselves first. Um, and then they want to be leaders before they become good managers. So can you talk to me about each of those concentric circles and you know, a little bit more detail around exactly why that progression that you have there?

Speaker B: Yeah, you're exactly right, Sri. I think what happens is we uh, don't, as a society, we don't put a lot of accolades on the self managed person. It's like that doesn't get a lot of headlines. But when you lead large organizations or sports teams, or pick your pickup picker, overused analogy, you know, we really start to pile on the accolades. So people are wired kind of to judge their own progress in life based on how big their teams are, how lofty their titles are, and they're tempted to skip steps. And what unfortunately happens is you build this kind of shaky foundation. So that's why the, the circles I do, I do say leadership begins from the inside out. The. Where the circles came from in the first place. There is a meditation technique I learned which talks about expanding the circle of compassion and really how we can wish wellness for ourselves, which that comes very naturally. Obviously we think about ourselves quite a bit. But then how do you extend that out to your close family or maybe your extended family, your coworkers? Could you push even further to strangers and then to an enemy, perhaps or even out into the universe. And um, it was such a beautiful um, exercise to go through. And I thought, oh my gosh, this is exactly how I've approached my leadership journey. I had to learn to lead myself before I could lead others, before I could lead teams and all the things that you just mentioned. So that's kind of where the concentric circles came from. What it forced me to do though is to say, well, what does it really mean to lead yourself in this sort of an enlightened way? And the first, one, first element that I came up with isn't going to come as a surprise to anybody I would think, which is self awareness. If we don't have self awareness, nothing changes. Right? And unfortunately some leaders don't even make it that far. You know, they just haven't really done the hard work of really absorbing a 360 review or maybe paying attention when you get feedback from the world of work or even to sit down from yourself and ask yourself about your values, your preferences, whatever it might be. But most of us, I think at least we consider ourselves self aware, even though we may not be as aware as we might like. And I won't go through the whole framework, but I will say that the very second element of lead yourself in my view and in my work, is self acceptance and really being willing to uncover those not so comfortable things about ourselves. Times when we came up short, some of those character flaws that we perceive that we try to hide away from people because we don't want them to know about them. What, uh, I learned is that we have to really express that same sort of uh, self care and self compassion, but also incorporate those vulnerabilities into our leadership. And that's where things begin to really get spicy when it comes to what it takes to lead yourself.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think if you look at there are people who are always busy and they don't know how to manage their own time or priorities. Um, um, and then those people, I feel like just in my experience when that happens and they also want to become managers. And I really agree with this philosophy or approach that you kind of learn how to say no and prioritize yourself, provide yourself care and self awareness around it, uh, before you get to that next level. But you know, you talked about another thing that I really enjoyed about this was once you get to that leadership level, there are multiple approaches. You know, I was uh, really impressed that you had a new box for leadership that I did not know about. Um, when you went, you went all the way from Authoritarian to transactional to transformational to a servant leader. And I think that's where probably I stop. And then you go to authentic leader, the next level up. And I was like, oh, that's impressive. And there's one more. And the one more is your enlightened leadership. That's right, enlightened leadership. So talk to me a little about that. And I mean, obviously there's some Buddhism embedded there, so I would love to hear more about that.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting. When I started looking at what uh, I define as the world of work, and I've been in the talent consulting space for just about as long as I can remember everything, 99% of what I do always comes down to three elements. And I just summarize them as what's the work to be done, who's doing the work and who's leading the charge. So I started to think as I expanded my view a little bit and said, what do we know about the work that we do? And it really showed this evolution that in our, in our humble beginnings as humans, you know, we really started out as hunter gatherers and moved through agrarian societies, etc. But fast forward to today and what you find at the, the uh, vanguard of business theory, if you will. We start to see things like corporate social responsibility. We start to see uh, esg, which is environmental, society and governance, where we see conscious capitalism. And what you're finding is that organizations now realize that we can't serve just our own bottom line. That's not being a good actor. It squanders our opportunity to have enterprise that actually can make life better for other stakeholders, customers, disenfranchised, uh, groups, the environment, these types of things. So you're seeing the selfless form of enterprise, um, or at least minimizing the sole focus on self. And I thought that was really interesting when we look at the uh, evolution of people and Maslow's hierarchy of needs is one of the most widely recognized ways of looking at human motivation. Certainly we start with our physiological needs. You know, if you're starving, you're going to be focused on that pretty much. But we pretty quickly in the world of work in developed nations start to move on towards, you know, our uh, safety needs, relationship needs, et cetera, onto things like at the, toward the top of the pyramid. Self actualization. How can I be in that flow state? How can I fully bring my strengths to bear these things? And then ultimately self transcendence, which was Maslow's ultimate, uh, peak where you start to leave even your own self Interest because you want to be part of something bigger than yourself. And think about all the headlines we see today about purpose and meaning at work and these things. Something that's even bigger than our own limited view of, of experience on this planet. So in our terms of our human needs, we're experiencing this type of selflessness too. But when I looked at the leadership literature, as you pointed out, we started with authoritarian leadership was very, you know, very much command and control. And we did matriculate. And even things that we, we think are relatively new, like servant leadership and authentic leadership, really were around in the 60s and 70s and 80s. They're not altogether that new. But when I put that challenge of saying, if the work has evolved to this kind of minimizing self interest and the worker has evolved to minimize self interest, what's the form of leadership that does this, that matches what's the next evolution hold for us? And that's where I found that these ancient wisdom practices that are more than 2,500 years old can be the inspiration for a new path, a new type of leadership, one that focuses less on the leader as the, the beneficiary and more on the mission and more on the welfare and the benefit of others. And that, to me is, uh, is the future of, of enlightened leadership that awaits us.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's very interesting. You know, there are a lot of stories, at least in Hindu mythology and the religious texts, um, that I grew up reading and listening to and can escape it however hard you tried. Uh, growing up in India, you know, there was this whole concept of Ram Raja, which is based on the Ram Lord Ram's, uh, whole. Where it was supposed to be this perfect place where justice was always done. The king always made sure that he led us a servant to the people and made sure they were for the bigger purpose of that and all of that. So it kind of reminds me of that a little bit. Um, but if you think about the society we live in today, you know, we are, I mean, even as much as we would like to be a conscious capitalist, um, environment, I think we're still pretty fairly capitalist society, uh, at least in the Western side of things, on the US Mainly. How do you expect or anticipate this actually working? What is the shareholder of, you know, a company say when you say, oh, I want to do this, that's bigger than ourselves? You know, let's say you're Nike. I'm, um, making it up. Right. Nothing against Nike. I'm just totally making this up. Sure. So a CEO we don't do something bigger than ourselves, and the shareholders are going to be like, wait, what? You're supposed to make us money? Yes, part of encouraging employees to stay and do better by being a server leader makes sense. But now you're crossing the line and where is the fiduciary, uh, responsibility that you have as a CEO?

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that what we're starting to see is a gradual shift in the sense that I predict, and I'm not the only one who predicts this. I think, you know, the creators of conscious capitalism and other types of these programs will say that there is an economic, uh, windfall or benefit to these approaches. And the question is why? Well, the reality is that recently in the last, call it, you know, five to 10 years, we've started to see consumers vote with their conscience in the sense that they will not honor brands that they consider bad actors. When you start to look at emission scandals or oil spills or these things, when they start to shift their purchasing allegiances, that gets the attention of, uh, of CEOs for sure. Right. And boards of directors, when you start to look at advertising. And now we're starting to be a lot more, um, conscious about the social, uh, images that we portray, the family settings, these things, because we don't want to be seen as being on the wrong side of history for these things. And, and with good reason. Right. There are entire groups of people who felt like, unrepresented in, you know, uh, from Madison Avenue's perspective. And I like to say that Madison Avenue and Wall street aren't that far apart in Manhattan. Right. And so that's a big part of it. But also when you think about an organization that does give people a connection to the mission and to purpose and something bigger than they will have an unfair advantage when it comes to attracting top talent. And the best performers are going to want to work with the newer generations for, uh, organizations that they think very strongly about. And I remember talking to a Gen Z person who was saying they were at a party and somebody had mentioned they work for a company that will go unnamed, that was seen as a bad actor. And the other workers that were at this party thought less of the person because they weren't going to quit that job. And so all of a sudden I was like, wow, there's actual societal pressure now that if you work for a bad actor, it's a reflection, a poor reflection on you if you work there. I thought, this is exactly why we're going to start to see more and more of this requirement coming from both the consumer side and the supply side, from a labor perspective, that is going to take even companies that are like, yeah, but my fiduciary responsibility is to make a profit. You're like that short term thinking is only going to work for so long eventually in the long run. I think that whether you are enlightened enough to voluntarily step into this higher awareness or whether you're coerced into it, I think it's inevitable. I think it's.

Speaker A: Yeah. You know, and with the whole gold rush that's happening on the AI, I think we will see if people are taking that approach to enlightenment approach to AI or abusing it, uh, like some other social media platforms have done in the past to their advantage. Um, so I think that'll be a good case study to see in a few months or a year from now.

Speaker B: And I think a lot of managers, leaders, people, workers are worried about AI because for the first time with generative AI, we start to see that technology is able to do things that typically were seen as the domain of humans. Right. So it's one thing if a machine can lift, you know, more pounds than a human. You're like, okay, big deal. If it can beat us in chess. Well, I don't play chess, so it doesn't scare me. It can write an email that looks like it came from me. Whoa, you just got my attention. But what it means from a leadership perspective is that the, the most human aspects of our leadership will never be impinged by AI. So the fact is, if that was the, if that was the extent of your leadership, that you could communicate in a way that was replicated by a computer piece of technology that wasn't being much of a leader. When you show up with empathy and compassion, when you start to experience the wisdom of situations and you're willing to be selfless in your approach, you don't have to worry about ChatGPT. You're a fine leader in that perspective, right?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. If you're really good at it. But I'm talking about the nefarious leadership here where. So with all the data that AI can get on you, it can build a better profile on what you actually will say yes to. Better than you may know yourself. Mhm. Potentially. Right. It knows potentially that I can get this person to say yes to this. If I played. It's almost like playing chess. If I played these particular moves because I have perfectly profiled this person, because I have so much data about this individual.

Speaker B: And that really plays on the conditioned Psychology that we have. Right. So the patterns that we have, our purchasing preferences and behaviors that are available through all this data and through these advanced AI techniques, uh, because we're very predictable. And I think that that's the reality is that a lot of, uh, our day to day is driven by self interest. Right. What are the products I can consume to make me look the way I want to look, or drive what I want to drive, or how should I show up at work? And we're running these outdated playbooks in many cases that are not serving us well, uh, but they're easy to prey upon in terms of the consumerism aspects or some of the more, um, you know, coercive aspects of whether it be advertising or behavior, uh, modification, I would call it. So, yeah, it's, it's something that we really have to be aware of.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I think the entitled leadership, if we have more of it at these, at times like these, would play really well because we need, we need to really figure out and control how AI is being deployed. Uh, but it's not manipulating behaviors like you said. Yeah. Um, one thing in your book that I really enjoyed, uh, or not enjoyed, but I actually had questions on, is about this widening gap among the leaders and the employees of the people. And it's almost like they're on different floors on the elevator. Um, can you expound on that a little bit more? Uh, on you believe that the leaders haven't gotten to a point, should be based on what people are asking for. Is that correct?

Speaker B: Yeah. What I basically have, um, found is that when we talk to individuals that to varying degrees we have these existential needs showing up at work for the first time. And I call them the three Bs. Being belonging something bigger than myself. Those are the three Bs. And in fact, I call them the killer bees. Because when we don't meet these needs through our work, it kills our performance, our productivity, our intent to stay. All these bad things kind of happen. So that's where I find that the workers have matriculated these higher levels, these higher floors. In my analogy of looking for meaning and purpose and being able to be fully authentic at work. But if the employers are saying, well, we wouldn't need to have competitive pay and benefits, you're like, okay, but that was a few floors down. You know, if you're stuck there and you're thinking about lunches to try to get us to return to office, but you're going to impinge upon our flexibility and freedom. We need to have a Family life like that, that's not my authentic self is now being impinged. So you're not really uh, meeting me on the floor where I'm up here in the penthouse and you're somewhere in the middle of the building. So that's where I feel like there's this widening gap because the, the uh, employers in some cases I've seen are starting to entrench uh, into more of that hustle culture, more of that bottom line, more of the we need to get back in the office kinds of things. Not that that's the wrong decision for every company, but if it's made from a self centric point of view, it's limited versus what's truly in the welfare of our mission and of our people, that kind of selfless, uh, uh, stance, then I think that that's where we start to see that there's going to be this widening gap that will continue. And eventually the top performers have choices, you know, and we're seeing this play out now. Um, even in industries where there have been significant layoffs, you start to see that employees will withdraw their discretionary effort. They will uh, do all kinds of um. There's this backlash brewing against hustle culture right now, especially from the younger generations. And it's going to take us a long time to sort this out. And um, that's when I see that widening gap is. It's concerning for two reasons. One is business performance is being impinged. Like that is a, um, it's a major concern. When we don't have the highest levels of productivity and performance, we're missing an opportunity in our business. But the other is that people's welfare is being impinged. The levels of stress and anxiety, mental health, people who are having trouble with everything from personal self care, sleeping, all these types of things, they take a human toll and we just can't be comfortable with this.

Speaker A: Yeah. And why is, you know, one of the things I, you, you say that and I agree, is that enlightened and authentic leadership, both are so hard to do. Why is it so hard to do?

Speaker B: I think that it requires in the case of authentic leadership. You know, we uh, really talk about how we can examine our crucibles in life. Bill George, uh, out of Harvard Business School, has done amazing work in this area and really talks about how our crucibles, those really pivotal moments, positive and negative, that we've experienced in our careers, really shape and define our experience. And it's a question of how do we incorporate those into our leadership. So there was a time when I would squirrel away and try to hide any of my perceived shortcomings. But when I started to make myself vulnerable and incorporate them into my leadership, it actually deepened my connection with people. It deepened trust, it deepened commitment to whatever it is that we were working on together. So that's where I feel like, um, there's this. It is not easy to do, and it never gets completely easy, but it gets easier when we start to, um, practice these techniques like anything else. They're like sore muscles. When you try these authentic or these enlightened techniques. Servant leadership, for example, Even in the 70s, they were asking questions, well, what if I act like a servant leader, but it doesn't work out and the person doesn't, you know, perform the way I need to? That's the trick. You can never know. That's what Robert Greenleaf had said. That's the dilemma. You just don't know. But there's no other way to operate other than to act in service until you do know. Right. So that's what I think. That's what makes it not easy. It requires us to trust. We have to face our fears. These are unnatural things to do. And so it's always easier to seek safety of the. Of the old means, but increasingly, they're threadbare. They just don't produce the results, the human or the business results that we need.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, one analogy that you gave, which, you know, I. I came from engineering school, and I was a big student of physics and math and loved quantum physics. Um, I've also read a lot about the Buddhism philosophy growing up in India as well. And I really liked this whole discussion topic that you had about this biosphere, like, there's no separation in the Atlantic Ocean, and how you're tying that to quantum mechanics. I mean, I enjoyed that paragraph, but I wanted to expound on that a little bit. Can you explain how, like, how you. What was. What was the intent behind writing that whole? And maybe you want to explain that first and then talk about the intent behind that.

Speaker B: Yeah. When I talk about, uh, this concept of connectedness, then, uh, it's my argument and my observation in my own life has been that we're more connected than we often realize. You mentioned, for example, in quantum physics, or physics, generally speaking, any body that has mass will give off gravity as an example, uh, on other smaller objects around it. So that means even as whoever, wherever you are, when you're listening to this podcast, for example, anything that's smaller than you, you're imparting gravitational force. And you never think about it like, what do you mean I'm imparting gravitational force on my keyboard? Or, you know, my, my car stereo or anything like that. Well, it's true. Uh, but just because we don't think about it all the time doesn't mean it's not true. In the book I use the analogy like I live on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. And I said if I dip myself into the waters and submerge myself, um, you, you, the listener and I were off the, off the coast and we were doing that, we would be connected by the water. We're suspended in this body of water known as the Atlantic Ocean. And it connects us all the way to all the different, you know, the coast of Europe and Africa and South America and everything in between in this conceptual, uh, uh, frame, if you will. And, and that was just one example that a lot of times we act like we're separate. When in reality we're more hyper connected than we are could ever realize. And uh, from a quantum perspective, you know, there's quanta that stretch all through the universe where no matter where you go, everything around you is all part of the same quantum field. And, and while we don't think about it all the time, to me it's a nice analogy and a nice metaphor for the fact that we are connected. If someone in your organization, I don't care if you have 10,000 people in your company. If somebody in your organization is having a bad day at work, then that's happening throughout the entire organization because you're a contiguous whole. Even though you may not feel it as directly and you may not sense it, it true. And so if we were to shift our mindset and recognize how connected we are, maybe we wouldn't do the things that create as much suffering and as much disruption to the financial performance of the business that we might seem. How many times have you heard in a large company, oh, accounting's at it again. They just changed the forms that we got. It's not even a person at this point. It's now an entire department that's been generalized to say, well, accounting is added again. Now they're forcing us to change the way we do things. It's going to make my job harder. Well, they probably didn't set out to deliberately run your day. So we're connected in this. There's a way that maybe they could be more artful in the communication. We can explore those things if we realize that we are more connected than we may give ourselves credit for. Otherwise.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's actually better if everybody wins. It's not a zero sum game just for you to succeed. Other people don't have to suffer. Um, in fact, then you suffer in the end of the day because your environment suffer, suffers around you and you can be successful in the future.

Speaker B: Yeah. So that's, it's almost like you can also, if you turn to the volume, you know, do like Spinal Tap and take the volume up to 11 on these amps. And you said you could work with an organization full of people who were incredibly, extremely selfish or selfless. Which would you prefer? And the answer is the business is going to perform better and your experience is going to be better. And if the people in the organization were incredibly selfless because they recognized how connected we all are, that's going to be a much better harmonious environment than one where everyone only acted exclusively in their own self interest. That would be a disaster. And it wouldn't just be a disaster in how it felt to work there in terms of the performance. It would be a disaster because there'd be no knowledge sharing and no collaboration and no cooperation and none of those things. So to me, if it's true in an absolute sense, then we should probably make it true in a relative sense too.

Speaker A: Yeah. And that's just true about businesses. It's true about our society, our own relationships in our lives. Uh, whether you're leading your family or your, any club that you're part of, I think all of these things absolutely apply. It's not just a monetary thing for sure. Um, so, ah, again, thank you for writing this book. I think it's phenomenal. I really, really enjoy it. Um, what are some of the key takeaways do you want people to have away from this book?

Speaker B: I think one of my favorite things about the book is that I try to use analogies. You mentioned M1 around quantum physics. These, these unexpected things. I try to bring in analogies to make it, um, an easier read. It's not academic, although it's grounded in more than 100 psychology and business citations and references. But, um, the other thing that's really important is it does include an assessment so you can go through and understand where are you on your own enlightenment journey. Right. So in terms of things you're already doing naturally, that's great. Be aware of those things where you find there's something that may not come as natural to you. You can be surgical about it and kind of hone in on those things that you might want to work on. But it also includes exercises. So it's not just a theoretical book. There's actual techniques you can use to, to get better. So I feel like it's, it's both, um, thought provoking and action oriented, which is some of the feedback I've received from readers that I appreciate the most.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I see. All these exercises that you have, I haven't gotten there yet, but I will get there.

Speaker B: You're going to love them. You're going to love them.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm pretty sure so far I've loved, you know, uh, everything I've read so far. So. Well, thanks again, Matt. Uh, where can people find you and read this book and find out more about what you do?

Speaker B: Yes, like you, I'm, uh, very active on LinkedIn. You mentioned that earlier. Uh, I would love to connect on LinkedIn. If you have, uh, a chance in the show notes to include that link, it would be great. I'm very easy to find there. And then if you want to learn more about the book, mattpepsil.com circle that's the place where you can read all about the book. See if it's something you might be interested in learning more about.

Speaker A: Excellent. Well, thank you, Matt.

Speaker B: Yeah, thank you, Sree. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. I enjoy our conversations very much.

Speaker A: Thank you. Bye.

Speaker C: Sree Chalapa here. Thank you so much for listening to the People Strategy Leaders podcast. If you are a successful leader or a people strategist who would like to be on this program, please visit engagedly.com peoplestrategyleaderspodcast if you got something out of this interview, would you share this episode on social media? If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag PeopleStrategyLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content to make sure you don't miss any episodes. Go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter Sri Chalapa. Thanks for listening. We will see you next time. And thank you to Patrick Ramsey, Sound Engineer at Kalinga Production Studios for recording and mixing this show.