Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Clint Padgett on Driving Team Performance Excellence EP 491

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Welcome to another episode of Passion Struck! Today, we delve into the intricacies of communication, project management, and team dynamics with our remarkable guest, Clint Padgett, CEO and President of Project Success. Clint is also the author of "How Teams Triumph: Managing by Commitment" and the host of the "Conversation with Clint" podcast on the Forbes Podcast Network.He shares insights on managing by commitment rather than micromanagement, fostering trust and accountability within teams. Clint also discusses the unique challenges and complexities involved in planning major global events like the Olympics, highlighting the importance of collaboration and face-to-face interactions in building successful project teams. Through his experiences and expertise, Clint provides valuable strategies for maximizing team performance and achieving project success.SponsorsBabbel is the new way to learn a foreign language. The comprehensive learning system combines effective education methods with state-of-the-art technology! Right now, get SIXTY percent off your Babbel subscription—but only for our listeners, at Babbel dot com slash PASSION.--► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to:https://passionstruck.com/deals/Order a copy of my book, "Passion Struck: Twelve Powerful Principles to Unlock Your Purpose and Ignite Your Most Intentional Life," today!  Recognized as a 2024 must-read by the Next Big Idea Club, the book has won the Business Minds Best Book Award, the Eric Hoffer Award, the International Book Awards for Best Non-Fiction, the 2024 Melanie P. Smith Reader’s Choice Contest by Connections eMagazine, and the Non-Fiction Book Awards Gold Medal. Don't miss the opportunity to transform your life with these powerful principles!Full show notes and resources can be found here:  https://passionstruck.com/clint-padgett-on-team-performance-excellence/In this episode, you will learn:you will learn about the importance of communication,the power of face-to-face conversations in breaking down silos,the significance of managing by commitment rather than micromanagement,and insights into the complexities of planning for major global events like the Olympics.All things Clint Padgett: https://clintonmpadgett.com/Catch More of Passion StruckWatch my solo episode on The 6 Key Steps to Bold Risk-Taking for Personal Growth.Can’t miss my episode with Jacob Morgan on the Vital Power of Leading With VulnerabilityListen to my interview withJames Rhee On How You Lead Change through KindnessCatch my interview with Gerry Hussey on How You Lead Yourself to Infinite PotentialListen to Seth Godin on Why We Need Systems Change to Save the PlanetLike this show? Please leave us a review here-- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally!

Coming up next on Passion Struck. It's never failed to amaze me how you can have a conversation with someone and do you think they're completely understanding what you're saying? And then they walk away with a completely different take on what you're saying, right? One of the other quotes by George Wernher and Shaw, which says, the single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place. Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles.

And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now let's go out there and become passion struck. Hello everyone and welcome back to episode 491 of passion struck. A heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you who returns to the show every week,

eager to listen, learn and discover new ways to live better, to be better, and most importantly to make a meaningful impact in the world. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for joining us or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member and we so appreciate it when you do that. We have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans favorite episodes that we organize into convenient playlists to give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show. And these are so important because we now have almost 500 episodes to choose from.

Just go to Spotify or passionstruck.com slash starter packs to get started. In case you missed my interview from earlier in the week, I welcomed Rachel Rogers, the CEO and founder of Hello7 and author of the groundbreaking book, We Should All Be Millionaires. Rachel has sparked a revolution in how we think about money and wealth. Now she's back with her highly anticipated companion guide,

Million Dollar Action, your step-by-step guide to making wealth happen. Rachel shares the core principles of her Million Dollar Action plan offering practical tools and transformative insights to help you achieve financial abundance. From daily rituals to envisioning a million dollar future, this episode is packed with actionable strategies.

I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews and if you loved today's episode or that one with Rachel, we would so appreciate you giving it a five star review and sharing it with your friends and families. I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners. Before we dive into today's incredible episode, I have some exciting news to share about my book Passion Struck. For the first time ever, the ebook is being discounted from $14.99 down to just 99 cents, and you only have until August 18th to pick it up. I'm also thrilled to announce that Passion Struck is a finalist for the Global Book Awards. It has already won the gold medal at the Non-Fiction Book Awards and was named Best Non-Fiction Book at the International Book Awards.

You can purchase it at Amazon or wherever you purchase your books. Now, let's get into today's episode. We have a remarkable guest who is a true maestro in the world of project management and team dynamics. Clint Padgett, the CEO and president of Project Success, is with us to share his wealth of knowledge and experience. Clint is also the acclaimed author of How Teams Triumph, Managing by Commitment, and the insightful host of the Conversation with Clinton and Padgett podcast, which is on the Forbes podcast network. With a solid foundation in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech and an MBA from the Fouwell School of Business at the Duke University and an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, Clint brings over 25 years of

expertise to the table. He's been instrumental in helping some of the world's largest companies optimize their business outcomes, build resilient teams, and develop sustainable project success practices rooted in accountability and deep personal commitments. In today's conversation, we will delve into Clint's unique strategies for fostering engaging workplace environments, especially with Gallup reporting 70 to 85 percent of employees are disengaged. We'll explore the secrets behind building resilient teams in the era of tech revolution and discuss the decades of Olympic excellence powered by project success. Clint will also shed light on when it's time to let an unsuccessful project go and how to ditch micromanagement in favor of empowering teams with trust and accountability.

Drawing from his extensive experience, Clint emphasizes that project management is not just about process, but also about people. His principles detailed in how teams try and focus on maximizing performance through enhanced communication, breaking down silos, and providing a proven framework for project completion. Clint's insights are invaluable for anyone looking to ensure their projects and teams are set up for triumph. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide

on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. I am so excited today to welcome Clint Padgett to Passionstruck. Welcome Clint. Thank you for having me, John. Happy to be here. Man, it's great to see you again and thank you for having me on your great show as well. I truly appreciate the support.

No, it was a great interview. I'm glad I was able to do it. Clint, I like to start these things out by giving the audience some background on the guests. You grew up in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and I understand that your entrepreneurial spirit was in part shaped by helping your father run his small business. I was hoping you might be able to talk about that and how these experiences

helped shape your approach to intentionality and teamwork later in your career. So it's interesting, sometimes one backs into a situation that they one says they want to get out of, right? So I was born and raised in Orangeburg, and which is a small town between Columbia and Charleston. And my dad was a serial entrepreneur, who was always starting businesses. He was a visionary, and not always the best in execution. So we did a lot of that. And I were thinking as I was growing up, I don't like this

whole entrepreneurial thing. I think I'd rather just punch a clock and get paid by the man if we have to agree about this. But when that about me was the entrepreneurial blog that bite me and ended up pursuing that and be an entrepreneur myself. But I think what that did for me growing up in that situation, because my dad did have so many different businesses. It was gas stations. I was pumping gas when I was in second grade. I wasn't tall enough to check oil when I was pumping gas and washing windows and making change way before we had electronic cash registers and doing all that kind of stuff. We had a liquor store, a beer store, a pool hall,

a construction company, you name it. And so what that did was that that introduced me to many different types of people from many different backgrounds. And my background was fairly poor growing up. So I, but I also got to hang out and meet people who's doctors and lawyers, kids. And it just taught me that no matter what title you have in life, people matter. And whatever role you're in, whether that's washing the windows or removing conch or being a surgeon, you have a role to play. And I found that I really enjoy meeting people, hearing their backstory and learning who they

were, learning what their background was. And then having that conversation with them helped me understand how people are and how they really matter. And that became the focal point of what I do now, which is project management per se, but I also focus on the people side of project management and how conversations are so important to us. Yeah, I want to dive into that whole concept of mattering, especially why our need to matter is so important

in the work environment, because I think it has a lot to do why so many people feel unfulfilled and disengaged with what they're doing. But I like hearing about people's backstories and you and I are both Navy veterans. Thank you for your service. If my research is correct, you spent about six years on an aircraft carrier. That's what I remember from our discussion. Yes.

And similar to the question... It was only six years, but it felt longer. Man, I have a funny story to tell you that I didn't remember the first time that we talked. I'm on the Saratoga on its farewell voyage, and I get assigned to the Admiral's staff and I'm the representative from the National Security Agency who's working for the Admiral and you can imagine the security clearances, well they can't find me a berthing on this ship and as we're talking 5,000 people it shouldn't be too difficult to find a berthing. So I go into the birthing that they assigned me and when I open the door, cigarette smoke pours out of it, which you don't do on a ship. And I'm

like, what the heck is going on? And as I walk in, I start hearing ace of base playing and see all these guys dancing around, wearing barely any clothes, and they were all officers on an exchange program from Tunisia. And I just, I'm like, I couldn't in any realm of possibility imagine that this was going to happen. And I ended up having to live with them for about two weeks and they

never stopped playing ace of base and they never stopped asking me when we were going to get more shipments of Levi jeans in so they could buy them for their family members. Anyway, I digress. That's awesome. So for me, as we discussed, the Navy really has played a pivotal role, both in leadership and also teamwork. How did it help shape you as a young man? I think for me, what was really interesting is growing up in that small town, never having

left the state of South Carolina until I was 18 and joined the Navy. It was just eye opening to go from knowing everybody's name, knowing everybody and their brother, literally and their brother and or their sister. My school, graduate class had 52 people in it. And so it was a very small school that I went to and I knew everybody and their brothers and sisters and family members. And then getting on a ship and leaving not only the state but the country and going to a different place and realizing that how lucky we are in the way that we had in the US and in going to other countries and really understanding who they were as well because I even then I had this mentality of people matter and I

Remember vividly what I'm my shipmates who were at we were in France And he was upset because the waiter wasn't speaking English. I'm like, you do know you're in France, right? That's not their language. Maybe we should try to speak French. And so that was just one of the things that included me into the fact that other people think their country is the greatest in the world too. And they should.

That's where they're from. That's where they're born. That's what they should think. But then a lot of places think we're the greatest. That's why they keep trying to come here, right? So we're a greatest, that's why they keep trying to come here, right? So we're great melting pot. But I just found that going overseas and seeing the way that some people have to live their life and then realizing that even though I grew up poor, I still had four walls around me called the trailer, right? It's the point in my life that was still better than what

they have a cardboard box. So it just explained to my horizons, really showed me that A, I am growing up in the greatest country in the world and B, there are others out there that have their own values and their own, but they're also their own drawbacks. Yeah, I'm a strong believer that I think everyone at some point in their time who lives in America should have to travel overseas. Because when you see places like I've been in Tunisia, Morocco, India, etc. You completely see a different way of life and it makes you feel so gratified for everything that we have here that we take for granted. Absolutely. So getting out of the Navy, you decided that wasn't

your calling. And you ended up getting into Georgia Tech, where you pursued a degree in electrical engineering. How did that technical education start shaping your perspective on balancing technical skills with the interpersonal relationships that had forged so much of your beginning up into that point? So I think what's interesting is a little bit of the backstory in that I knew I wanted to be a electrical engineer from the time I can remember.

So I remember going to write into the library and checking out books on robotics and lasers. And this was late 70s. So this is way before that was a popular thing. My high school senior year, I did a project using a laser to create a holo-rea. I made a phone call, which my parents not kill me for because it costs so much money. But I called England and talked to the first doctor who did the major fertilization and actually got him on the phone. And I'm 17 year old kid from the US, right?

But I always knew I wanted to be in the last year. That was the thing that really drew me. And I go in the Navy and I'm an electrician's mate on the aircraft carrier. So I'm working on electrical equipment, not theory stuff, really practical identification. And I remember working on machines and thinking, why in the world do they put this part that always fails in the back? This person clearly has never worked on one, they did the design. So then I got out and I like to joke that there's probably no ready motivation to work, to go to

college and to work in a shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia in December, January, which is exactly what I did when I got out of the Navy. I went to work in a shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia in December, January, which is exactly what I did when I got out of the Navy. I went to work in a shipyard. And if you're not familiar with Norfolk, Virginia, it can be quite chilly in the winter and the wind is coming off the water, slicing right through you.

I'm laying in the bill to these boats running electrical cables and like, yeah, this is definitely not for me. There's gotta be something better to do in my life than this. And so I was lucky enough to get into Georgia Tech and get that double-D degree and then become a practicing electrical engineer. But early on in my career, I went to work at Coca-Cola and I got to start working on projects. I really began to love it. Of course, I'm drawn to the technical side of things. I love 2 plus 2. I always joke that there's a reason I became an engineer and not a literature major and that's because I love looking in the back of the

book and confirming that 2 plus 2 was indeed 4, that validation. And I don't like literature majors. I didn't want to be a literature major because I've ever been scarred for life on the essay exam and when I was in high school with the essay question, it's to leave this crowd of the scientific stuff of color red and the great Gatsby. And having not read the book at 16, I had no idea, right? So that just petrified me. So I like the technical aspect of things. And then working for a really long time on different projects,

I found that everybody's happy to talk about process. Process is activity A takes five days, followed by B takes five days, followed by C takes five days, total 15 days. That's great. But Joe, Jill, and Sue do activities A, BumbleBus, he takes five days, total 15 days, that's great. But Joe, Jill and Sue do activities A, B and C. And you have to work with them differently because they're motivated differently.

They speak different technical languages. You have the salespeople who don't speak the same language as the engineers, the technical people and vice versa. And I found myself gravitating more and more towards people is the missing link here. People are the key. Microsoft Project will help you with process. It doesn't help you with people. And so I just found myself gravitating more to that and I found more and more in my classes that I teach in project management. I would get questions on how do you end up this person to that person. And that's what

led to the second book that I wrote, which was really about the people's island managing project. So I still appreciate the math. I love doing the math. I just did the class the last two days. And I love chapter six, because that's the chapter where we do all our math. And I love it. But the hard questions really are about the people side of things. And how do you handle situations with people? How do you handle bad team members? How do you engage them and get them to be on board? So I just found myself loving that side of things, even though I'll tell you a quick story. I was talking to somebody, Warner Brothers Pictures many years ago for lunch. And we're trying to obviously sell all my services. And so I didn't choose myself and we're having lunch together. And I'm on my soapbox about how

people matter. And he stopped me and said, wait a minute, I thought you were an engineer. I said, I am. He goes, what is all this touchy-feely people stuff? I think that's the thing. Until people don't do project work, then I'm gonna have to be a touchy-feely people person because people do projects and I can't be successful if they don't have what they need to be successful. Well, I think a great follow on question to that is after you got that degree similar to that story

you just shared, you started to observe in your work that many projects were failing due to poor communication. How did this observation then lead you to go down this path for having a huge passion of providing clarity through what I see are intentional conversations that people have? It's never failed to amaze me how you can have a conversation with someone and do you think they're completely understanding what you're saying? And then they walk away with a completely different take on what you're saying, right? One of the other quotes is by George Bernard Shaw, which says,

the single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place. So when I was doing some research for the second book, I looked up the definition of communication and realized that it's not the same thing as a conversation. Communication can be a one-way dialogue, posting on Slack, posting on Jira, sending a Tings message, sending an email, leaving a voice mail.

Those are one-way communications. And what I found is beneficial is when you have a conversation. To put this into perspective, when you were a kid, if you ever played the game, telephone, right? With telephone, if you don't know the game, I think sometimes it's called Chinese whispers, but if you don't know the game, basically somebody has a secret. They tell it to somebody else, the next kid in mind, who they whispers into the next kid in mind, and it goes on down to five or six or seven people. And the fun of the game is that what the last person says

is not remotely close to what the first person whispered. Which is fun, right? It's very funny. The problem we have is that same dynamic plays out in the business world. Except now people's livelihoods are impacted, raises are not gotten, your job promotions aren't had because of the fact that the message was misunderstood.

And so what happens is I'm a leader. I think I've written the perfect email that clearly succinctly says exactly what I want you to go do. I post it and then nobody asked me a question. So I assume you got it. And then I find out you went in the wrong direction according to what I wanted. So to me, what helped solve that problem would have also solved the game

telephone, which would have made it not as much fun, is if you ask clarifying questions. So now what happens is when the first person says something to the second person, the leader says, here's my message. If the recipient of that message can look back and say, well, can you help me understand what does it mean? How are you defining this term? Right? Because sometimes we hear a message, we hear it through our filter, through our biases

and the way we define terms. Right? They'll be even here through the kind of data we're having. How many times have you received a text message or an email and you just got fired up because you were mad that you sat on it overnight and realized, hey, they didn't really mean it that way because you're just having a bad day. You heard it through that filter. And if I can have a conversation where I'm able to ask you clarifying questions like,

when you say you want to turn left, do you mean like right now at the stop sign or that major intersection up there? Where am I turning left? And by asking those clarifying questions, which I call a dialogue, by having a dialogue, I'm able to receive the message the way you intended it. And then when I pass it on to the next person, they can ask clarifying questions. And that way the message gets through completely and that doesn't get mangled along the way you intended it. And then when I pass it on to the next person, they can ask clarifying questions. And that way the message gets through completely and that doesn't get mangled along the way. Thank you for sharing that. And I just wanted to share a couple other thoughts on this. I think the other thing we fail to take into account oftentimes, because so many businesses today are global,

is the cultures and other parts of the world. And I got my first rural introduction to this when I was working for a company called Lenlis, and we were doing all these construction projects around the world. And I remember being in China, and we were talking to a group of people in Shanghai about this project that we were wanting to implement

to change the way that we were doing safety around the construction projects. And I remember we were sitting there and during the entire meeting, all the Chinese executives who were there were all shaking their heads in approval. And what I failed to understand until later on was that when they were shaking their heads

and nodding yes, it means that they understood what we were saying. It didn't mean that they were going to comply with anything that we had to say. And that was a custom that I found not only there but in other parts of Asia as well. And it's, and the second real wake-up call for me when I was at Lindley is as I was working for the chief information

officer, this great guy named Jay Skabinsky, and he wanted to do some of these radical changes to the way that the company had operated in the past. And so we were starting this large project. And we had this meeting with all the different executives worldwide. It was an in person session, he asked them to raise any objections they had, there were not very many, etc. And we came out of the meeting and he became a great mentor to me. And he said, John, one of the most important lessons I want to teach you is

that people speak with their feet. And he goes over the next couple weeks, I don't want you to observe what they're saying out loud, I want you to start observing their actions about their commitment to doing the project. And he was absolutely right, because we saw although everyone was saying, yes, we need to do it about 75% of the people who were saying yes, were doing actions that were really in 180 degrees voicing their disapproval for wanting to do what this was

going to enact. So I think those are important things that happen so often in the business world that people say they're on board and they're completely not. I think that's good. I have a similar experience in Japan, which is a country that I absolutely adore and love. And one of the first projects that I was working on there, very exactly that you're describing, I'm talking to somebody and nodding off, it seemed to be agreement, they keep saying hi, which I'm assuming means I'm 100% on board, I hear what you're saying, totally agree. And then later somebody said hi means exactly what you said.

I understand you're speaking words and I understand those words, but it doesn't mean I agree with you, right? So that's just an eye-opening experience. And the other one that I learned when I was there was they would say, that will be difficult, which is they were saying that he never going to happen, but they don't, they're not confrontational and they don't want to say no.

So they just say, that will be difficult. So you learn as you go through different cultures. One of my colleagues spent a couple of years in Mexico and he likes to tell the story of he was talking to one of his worker coworkers. And the guy said, manana, which I believe the little translation of manana is tomorrow. And so the next day it happened and still the work wasn't done and the guy said manana. And after a couple of weeks went by, somebody finally said, look, manana doesn't mean tomorrow.

It just means not today. So he just lost the translation. Oh, no, I lived, I was stationed in Spain as one of my first duty stations and we were wanting to get this work done on this house that we had and our landlord was Spanish. And every time we would ask him for something, it was mañana.

Well, mañana meant we'll get it done in the next two months. But not today. But not today. But not today. You Americans worry about stuff too much. Exactly. So one of the things I picked up in my research is that you really emphasize the importance of up close and personal conversations in order to break down silos and to foster cross-functional teamwork.

How has this approach become a foundational element of your project management methodology? So we work on some pretty large global projects. I've been fortunate enough in my career to work on those. I think I'm approaching about 30, or 40, as for Coca-Cola. I've planned all of the Olympic summer winners since 1994. Starting with the 96 Olympic Games, we started planning about two years in advance. Planned all the people at World Cup since 1998. So these major global sporting events.

Also some really large projects for Caterpillar and some other clients. And what we found is even a project that takes two years and is geographically dispersed, the team members are literally all over the globe. If we can get people together face to face for just as little as three or four days, the bonds that we form over those three or four days allow us to run the next 22 months, 23 months remotely. What I mean by that, to put it into perspective, there's a wonderful book by John Casaback,

I think it's called List and Matisse. Yeah, List and Matisse. And in that book, when I was reading it, what he talks about is, how do you take a group of individuals in my world who've been assigned to a project and actually have them work as a cohesive team? And the finding really was you got to put a structure in place within which people begin to feel accountable to each other, not just to the boss, but to each other. So my experience with that in this panel and the way that I verbalize that based on my 30 years of doing this.

I need to change you, John, from an email address into a living, breathing human being to a jopula connection. I was saying that you and I worked together for six or seven years at the company and all I know, all I just know you is John at athletecorporation.com and when I finish my task I send it over to you and you do some thanks to it and magic and project finishes, company makes money, everybody's really happy. And so this particular time, of course you're not the only project I'm working on, I'm working on five or six different projects. And this week, it's Friday, it's eight o'clock at night, I've already put in 60 hours this week, I'm tired and I haven't gotten to your task yet. And I don't really frankly feel bad because I did more than I did 60 hours this week, I did more than my first year. So I'm going to go have dinner with the kids and that's it. So Wednesday of next week, when I finally get around to doing your task,

I finish it, send it off to you with a note, hey, I'm sorry this is late, it was a really bad week last week, help out as well. And I email it to you and all I know is you did your magic, project got launched and the company made money, everybody was happy. What I find is we've become face to face. I get to meet you, hey John, nice to meet you,

nice to put a name with a face. How are you? And we start talking and over the breakfast or over a tea or lunch or a coffee break or over a tea dinner, I get to learn who John Miles really is. I get to learn about your background and age. I get to learn about you have three kids. I have three kids. Your kids do this and my kids do that. And I start to form a connection a connection. And then what happens is we go back into the planning session, and I don't want to get too much technical jargon, but there's a set of activities that are important, all the critical path and that they're late, the project's late. And I see that I'm on that as well as your task. And I say, well,

John, something is wrong, because I know for a fact, that task I've been late with in the past, and it didn't stop the project. And you say, well, Clint, you're right. But the connection is right. The problem is, he says, last time, I remember vividly, you were three days late when you gave it to me. He says, and I had to work two weekends in a row to make up for that. And I'm going to tell you, I know Clint's five letters, but in my household, you were four-letter word for those two weekends. Because I had to miss this big event in my kid's lives.

I couldn't go to the soccer game. I couldn't go to the soccer game. I couldn't go to this recital, all because I was trying to make up for you giving it to me late because I knew I couldn't afford to give it to the next person late. So now I start to feel bad. Nothing has changed. I'm still going to go back to my office. You're still going to be John at AgriCorporation.com, except for the fact that now I have formed and established a bond with you. I hold myself accountable to make sure

that I get my stuff done. Cause I wouldn't want somebody else calling me that's a big event in my kid's life. So what we find is having people come face to face, even for just as short as three days. And this is not replicable via Zoom. Because as you pointed out, people work with their feet. Even on a Zoom call, even if I've got you online, which half the time I don't,

I've just got your picture up, but I can't really tell. I just see your face. I can't see, I can't necessarily see that you've got your arms crossed and you're mad about something. I can't see that you're, I see that you're looking down, taking notes, you're turning email on your colleague, writing a PowerPoint for your boss. I can't really see all that. I can't see the body language and I miss all those nonverbal cues. So having those conversations face to face, I'm access to all of that information. Not only that, but I also have the ability now to form that bond with you that conversation you asked out and now begin to put, it's not just John, it's John

with three kids like I have three kids and it's my importance that I care about now deeply, that I form some kind of a connection with. I interviewed Dr. Sherry Turkle once for the podcast and she's she's written six or seven books. She's New York Times bestseller. I think the one that was Nicolaj reclaimed conversations. She's a professor at MIT. She's a fantastic woman, clinical psychologist. She writes on empathy and in one of the books that I was reading, there was a study done by some Japanese researchers. And what they found was, I've always heard this, with eyes that are windows to the soul, and the research actually backs that up.

What they found was when people are face to face and they make eye contact, there's some chemical reactions of bond that starts to form. And so when I was interviewing her, she was laughing. She said, Clint, to mimic that, I'm tricking you right now by making you think we're bonding because I'm looking at the camera. So it looks like I'm looking right at you. She goes, but unfortunately you're down here.

I can't see you at all. And so there are those things that happen face to face. It's an investment of two or three days, but it gives us the ability of executing long, difficult projects even when we're spread across the world. We could do the rest of it remote as long as we form that basis of PROM. I've seen that play out so many times, especially when I was starting to do the work with Indian

outsourcers or outsourcers in other countries. It meant so much to get that lead who you're gonna have from that company to come and meet with you face to face so that you had that rapport, understood more about them. And when you had heated discussions, you always had a common base that you both could go back to that would help to diffuse anything that might come up.

So Clint, I wanna talk about your book, How Teams Triumph, Managing by Commitment. And in it, one of the core things that you discuss is managing by commitment rather than micromanagement. How does this intentional approach to leadership foster trust and accountability within teams? So it's really, I'm glad you asked that question. So I think one of the interesting things for me is

when I work with a new team and you can see the trepidation on their face when they walk in the room, the project management. Just one more way for the man to keep me down, right? My boss is gonna use this to micro read what I'm doing. Tell me that May the clock, eight, 10, I should be doing that. If May 10, eight, 25, I should be doing that. If May 10, 8, 25, I should be doing that.

And they just want to run straight from the room. Another reason that they would all like to do traditional project management is their whole life experience is that project management is punitive. And what's happened is that organization has used project management as a club to beat people over the head, which

is not what, to me me a project should be about. To me, project management should be inclusive, should be collaborative, it should be helpful. And the way we do that is, so I'll tell a quick story. So basically, what is happening is somebody will tell me, I hate project management, but I said, well, why do you hate it? Here's what they describe. Because what happens is the project manager sits off to save me time, he says, he's gonna go build a plan without me. Just because he knows how to always together, I don't need to be bothered by that, so I can really do my work.

He says, then the guy laughs and says, but the unfortunate piece is he doesn't know what I do. And apparently he used a random number generator for the durations, because those are already remotely close to what it's gonna take me to get it done. Then he publishes the schedule without my input, and then complains to my boss, and I'm not getting it done. Well, that's how project workers do it. I'm running around streaming from the room as well. So the approach

that we take, what we do is the team builds their plan for their project. I've worked on so many global events. There's probably nobody in the world that is more about how Coca-Cola plans and executes an Olympic event than I do. There's so many of them in my career. If not the number one, I'm probably in the top two or three. I also worked in Brazil on the FIPO World Cup. So I knew the people, the processes, the culture. So when that was 2014, they got the 2016 Olympics, the Summer Olympics. So I probably could have gone off by myself in a vacuum and built a pretty solid plan based on for the Rio 2016 Olympics,

based on my understanding of what happened on the people who woke up in Brazil, plus the understanding overall knowledge of Olympics planning. But that would never have worked because my name isn't attached to all the tasks. That belongs to other people on the team. So yeah, also the people can change, skill sets change, regulatory things can change.

So what we find is, even if you know a lot about the project as a project manager, you should involve a team and let the team build their plan for their project. Because at the end of the day, most of the world today works in a matrix organization, which means I have no control over the people on my team. They don't report to me for their job,

for their pay raises, for their job reviews. That's their functional manager. Their dotted line in my project and five or six other projects. Not only do I not control the people on my team, I can't force them to do the work. I'm competing for their time with multiple other projects. The only shot I've got to be successful in that scenario, which is how most of the world works,

is that they hold themselves accountable. And the way that I find we hold ourselves accountable is if you remove all the obstacles that people can hide behind, that would include things like, so some of our rules of engagement would be for you to be assigned to a task, you must be physically in the room or on the team's call and say, that's my task and I own it.

Because that's you taking, you're taking acceptance of that task and therefore you're taking accountability for it and ownership of it. And then you are the only person who can tell me the duration. You tell me how long you need because you're the only person who knows all the different ins and outs of the projects you're working on, your personal life, whether you can work late on a weekend or not, whether you've got the kids this week or not. Only you know that I don't do that from the outside, only you have that information. And then only you could tell me the things you need to do your work. So it's

not just enough to say that's my task is going to take me two weeks. I also need to know what do you need from other people for this two weeks can start? And by building our plans in a collaborative way, and by having the individual tell me what activities belong to them, how long they need, and what they need from other people, two things happen. First of all, they own that activity. They're going to start to hold themselves accountable for delivering that activity because

that's when they promise it to me. And I find most people want to live up to what they say. I'm sure we get some bad team members every now and then, but the majority of the people that I've dealt with in my 30 plus years doing this, people want to come to work and do a good job and go home at night feeling like they did a good job. So they want to do the work, they want to live up to what they have to say, what they promised you. The other thing that's magical about having people collaborate together and build these

plans is they get a much deeper understanding and not only a better piece of it, but how The other thing that's magical about having people collaborate together and build these plans is they get a much deeper understanding and not only a better piece of it, but how they fit into the overall plan. And they begin to see that, I didn't realize that this was late, it actually was going to affect five other people. Only one of them is going to push the project out. The other four people are also having an impact on their work. I didn't realize that. I didn't understand. Or now I'm able to communicate to the people that I'm getting information

from why this piece of information is so important and how do I use it. And if that's causing a conflict, we can discuss about how I might get an earlier piece of information that I can work with. So to me, those are the really the keys is collaboration and having those conversations and why it's so important. I'm just going to ad lib here a little bit. One of my most interesting roles that I had as an executive was when I was at Lowe's, I took over three functions

that you would seem would be separate, but actually were very interrelated. I was in charge of all data, so the chief data officer, integration and testing of all the IT that we were doing. And when you start thinking about those functions, they cut across any single initiative that you want to accomplish at Lowe's. And one of the things that used to drive me crazy

is the project managers would come in and they'd start slicing people up in 5% of their time, 10% of their time. We're going to put them two hours here, two hours here. And in reality, that just doesn't never works. That's not how people focus on things is in that way. Have you run across that type of scenario and how do you deal with it and what do you recommend. So you're describing i totally get in. There are really two philosophies that they want is what i call resource driven which is your describing in that we allocate this person next to any percentage of the time in that person for why percentage of their time.

an X and X percentage of their time and that person for Y percentage of their time. And the challenge that they do have in project work with doing that is the number of staff hours required and the duration of the activity are quite different. The example that I like to give, no matter what world you live in, you probably understand this, is changing the oil in your car.

If I go out on Monday morning and I spend one hour, eight o'clock to nine o'clock in the morning, and I take the oil plug out, I take the oil filter out, and let all the oil drain. And I come back Friday afternoon at four o'clock in the morning. And I take the old plug out, I take the old filter out, and let all the oil drain. And I come back Friday afternoon at four o'clock, and I spend one hour. I put the plug back in, I put a new filter on,

fill it up with oil. The staff hours on that is two hours. So if I was building my time back against projects, if I'm in IT, I'd be building two hours. The problem with that is, what that doesn't tell me is when can I drive my car? It's not after two hours. The problem with that is what that doesn't tell me is when can I drive my car? It's not after two hours. It's after it's at the end of day five. I started Monday morning and finished Friday afternoon. That's five days. Five days have collapsed and I can drive the car,

pick up the kids, go to the grocery, go get the dry cleaning. All of those things start at the end of day five, not after two hours. So two hours is important for resource balancing. From project work, Joe doesn't care it takes you two hours. Joe just wants to know, can I start my task on Thursday or Friday? Which is it? And that's why the duration piece is so important. So we put that back on the team members who say that's my task. The first question I asked is how long is it going to take you to finish on your workload? So I don't want you to assume a large availability because you're probably hard so thinking about all the other projects you're working on plus your day job because

almost nobody got hired in the company to do projects. They got hired for a function you know by the way project workers just don't want to get spowned on. So taking all that into account how long will this task take you? And then if I want to look at resources and look at resource leveling then I can also ask a second question, which is, what are the staff hours on this? And then I can look at resource plans, but I can manage complex projects without ever looking at the hours. It's really more about commitment iterations.

Well, thank you for giving us that insight. And I wanted to go back to the Olympics, given that we've got the Olympics coming up here in the very near future. When you think of some place that insight and I wanted to go back to the Olympics, given that we've got the Olympics coming up here in the very near future. When you think of some place, like you were talking about Brazil, for the Olympics we're talking about Paris. Since you're probably knee deep in this right now, what are some of the things that go into planning for an Olympics that listeners might not even be thinking about that become complications that have to be overcome?

Well, everyone is unique and different. So I will say that. It's, and everyone has their own philosophy, legacy they want to leave, whether you want to be the most sustainable one or the most user-friendly one or most accessible one. And we'll say that over the years, they one is just, it gets to be different. And not on, maybe batteries aren't the right word, but it's different and unique on each one. And to be clear, I'm only using,

I'm only doing one of the major sponsors activation of these events on that building facilities and things like that. I think it's, if you're one of the major sponsors, if you're one of the, inside of the stadium, then you're trying to get your brand across. You're trying to make sure people are drinking your product and see your brand everywhere. That's probably something people do realize, but there's a lot that goes into it before that. How do we make sure that the product is cold? Because if you're

doing it, people woke up, which is a lot different than the Olympics. If you're a soccer fan, let those people stay in the ball. Half time comes, everybody who were using wants to go something to drink and come back in and sit down. So you better have all your stuff pre-chilled. And that's on top of the marketing programs that go into place, the regulatory items you have to make sure are checked off. So it's actually funny because I think the way I describe it is look out at a party at your house. It's just the only thing that's different is scale. Right? If you're having a party at your house, you have to send out invitations, which we might call tickets. You have to get an RSVP list, how many products to go by. You've got to make sure your

products are cold in advance so that the beer is not high, trying to cool off for the last second. The wine is not hot, trying to cool off for the last second. You've got, if I go to buy an Abolition Out, so there's a political piece involved. Really, the only difference is your parties probably don't last 17 days like the Olympics do. If they do, please invite me. I would love to see one of these. And they probably don't have tens of thousands of people attend.

Again, if you do let me know. I'd love to come to one of those. So, but it's really, it's just scale. It's much like planning on a party you're having at your house, but it's just the scale is clearly much, much larger. I have always thought watching these things from afar, it's so interesting how 18 months before the event is supposed to be held, they are so far behind on creating stadiums and other venues that they need to.

And miraculously, I'm not sure how some of these countries pull it off because to me, I guess they're throwing a lot of people and money at it. Well from the stadium perspective I think it's I've seen this happen in some countries and again that's not the part that I work on but you think about project work is time, cost and quality and so the way that they pull it off at the end is sacrifice quality and increase cost so they'll get it done so So the country might finish a hotel or stadium or whatever. And I don't think I'm telling you this, but I remember being on one of the projects

and they were building a new soccer stadium. And we got into it the week before to put our equipment in, only discovered that the concession stands were not big enough for all the equipment. So here we are one week before the event. We've got to erect temporary stands. We've got to get permission on extension cords through the ceiling, plug into the back, all because they weren't sized properly. But what ends up happening is, and again this is from our client perspective, they don't have any control over that. It's just we're gonna move in, put our product in place, be

ready to go whenever you tell us we can go. And so that was, those are the kind of challenges. So what happens is it costs extra money because we had to create temporary stands. And of course it adds a lot of stress to your life. Certainly does. That is for sure. Clint, one of the things that is playing out right now on a global scale is Gallup is reporting that somewhere between seven to eight employees are disengaged and feel unfulfilled at work. What do you think are some of the things that are the root cause of this and how does an intentional approach to leadership help to create more engaging work environments? So it's actually a little disheartening to hear it's that high. Not surprised though.

I'm a big face-to-face guy, so I probably land up on the side of the argument of people should be more in the office than away. But I can certainly see that I'm coming out of the place where I got to work fully remote from home for multiple years and productivity was the same. Why am I having to come back into the office? So that may be leading to some of the unrest, if you will. So to me, you gotta strike that balance. And I think that you ought to be in the office every day.

I think that's ship of sale. There's no reason to come into the office from nine to five exactly every day. But I think there are times when face-to-face contact is helpful. So I think maybe that's every Tuesday, Wednesday, you learn the office. I don't know what that is for your organization, but there needs to be some amount of FaceTime.

Because what we've also found is when you're fully remote, you tend to be isolated. Zoom calls don't take the place of actual conversations, because I'm not going to be on a Zoom call with 25 people and be able to have a sidebar conversation with my colleague, because that means everybody here not going to be on a Zoom call with 25 people and be able to have a sidebar conversation with my colleague, because that means everybody here is supposed to be just having the conversation with them. There are some things that happen that you really only

get from the promissory discussions that happen when you run into somebody at a coffee machine, right? So I think there is something that asks them into play. As far as other things, I think it's a matter of trying to understand where people are. If they are going to remain remote, then which I think is part is okay as well. I didn't take more ownership as leader of that call to make sure because I see this happen all the time while I was

in call. And there'll be 10 people in the room and four people joining remotely. And of course, people in the room drive the conversation at the very end, you look over and go, so Clint, what do you think? And they're like, well, all the good ideas are gone because I couldn't chime in, because I was muted on the call. So now the intentional thing would be to look over and say, hey, let's start over there with our remote

participants and try to get their input first, so that they actually feel like they're part of it. Because what we find is if you're fully remote, then you do tend to fall off, and you do tend to feel isolated. So that could be something that's driving that as well. The other thing is just trying to understand who they are and where they are in their life. And it's more than just project work. And it's going to sound cavalier, but it's not to me. It should be sincere. It's, John, how are you doing? I mean, what's going on in your world? Just talk

about your kids from out and really try to get that engagement from them. So they do feel like on your world to talk about your kids from them, really try to get that engagement from them so they do feel like they are part of a company as opposed to this 1099 contractor out here banging my head on my own with no support. Yeah, and I think that's gonna become more paramount in the future because as you and I discussed in our episode, I really believe more and more people are gonna become

individual entrepreneurs where they're serving multiple clients and so they need to have more people are going to become individual entrepreneurs where they're serving multiple clients. And so they need to have that emotional investment to feel like they're part of the team. And that leads to my next question. What intentional practices can leaders implement to maximize that emotional investment of their teams in the projects, because I think that investment is part of the reason projects fail or not. You've got to get that culture of people invested in getting this thing out to fruition. So I think if I had to pick one single thing from a project perspective, at least, it would

be that a leader has the ability to listen and to actually hear. So it's when I can work with the team and show you something, prove to you that it can't be done and if your attitude is I don't care what that says, it can happen, then we're not going to be successful. Also, if you shoot the messenger, if I have bad news and you've created an environment in which the truth is unacceptable, then you shoot me because I got the message, then I'm going to learn my lesson and I'm just going to be quiet next time. I remember being early in my career and being I was actually observing in this particular planning session, my boss was leading and one of the guys was,

a new guy was beside me who was with that company. They were looking at the critical pad, then we take a break and he walks out and he's shaking his head and he says, hey, never going to happen. And I said, well, why not? He says, well, they're missing, they're missing one of my tasks. And he says, and the one they do have, it does not have enough time on it. I said, Oh, well, we should go back and tell them. He goes, Oh no. He says, there's no way I'm doing that. And I said, but why not? He says, because I've worked with Joe before. And I know for a fact, if I give that news to Joe, Joe's going to make my life miserable for the next six months. He says, what I'm gonna do,

I'm just gonna sit here quietly in the six months when my task is supposed to be done, I'll announce I need three more weeks or another month. And there's also a missing task. So there are two people clearly at fault. One is the guy should have stood up and just taken the beating he didn't deserve, but he should have just been vocal.

But the leader is created in an environment where the truth is not acceptable. As a project manager, I know there's going to be bad news. There's no bad news coming my way, then I know that one or two things is happening, either people are not doing any work or they're hiding it from me because there's bad news in every project. I often joke that we should call project management the theory of chaos because projects are chaotic by nature.

And I'm okay with the fact that things don't go well. As long as you tell me. And if you know something, I don't not bother by bad news, I'm bothered by bad news that you've known about for months. And you kept hoping the miracle would occur and you figured it all out so that nobody had to know. Because now when you finally tell me we've lost two or three months worth of time, we could have had to correct it. And now the only option I have left is usually pretty unpalatable. I'm doing something crazy like airfreight and cog re block to a construction site to solve a problem. Because you've revealed my ability to solve it.

You've given me a lot less time to fix the problem. So one is, I think, just creating a route where people are willing to be truthful, where the truth is actually welcomed and not just beat the messenger, but also be willing ask hard questions but in the end listen to what they're saying. I had a project once, I won't name the client, but they wanted to be the first major network to go all HD on their project, on their SINs, everything in high definition. And we're planning the project in April and the deadline they wanted was November of that year. And we did the math, we did the plan, we were on at the end of three days, we did not give them November, but the team could make April happen. And so we went back to

the customer, the terminal customer, and said, I know you want November, but here April is the best we can do, here's why, show them all the steps. And then they asked really hard questions, but they were good questions. Well, what if we gave you more people? And the answer was, well, it's not a people problem. It's a technology problem. We are the new equipment we need to be able to go to high def from what we have today. And there's only so much of it. And we're late to the game.

There are other people in front of us. And they said, oh, it's a money problem. Here's money so you can buy somebody's place in line, which was ultimately not successful. They basically said, go to the back of the line where you belong. But in the end, the customer, while not thrilled with the fact they weren't going to get November agreed and understood,

hey, April is the best we can do. The team is working hard, they're not shirking their responsibility. They thought about it, they really pull out of that frame to it. I recognize that while it's not the answer that I wanted to hear, it is the correct answer which is April,

and let's go with April. That was considered to be a successful project because the customer agreed to move the date to April because we did our due diligence. So I think for me, it's about creating the battle where the truth is acceptable, but then also listening to what you're told and not just saying, no, you can have it. Because the customer could have said all day long, it's November and hung up the phone and would we have delivered in November? No, because if you can't make it work on paper you can't work it work in real life, it's easier. So if I can't get my schedule to show

November I'm never gonna make it happen in real life. I think one of the most important jobs a project manager's got to do is have thick skin and be proactive in calling things out that they're going into a yellow status to bring people's attention to the issues and that they need to be solved. What drives me nuts was when I would be on these steering committees looking at these projects, you knew after you've done hundreds of projects,

the telltale signs that things aren't going the way they should, and yet the project is green, and all of a sudden the whole thing is red, and they're asking for money and more time. And to me, that is complete and utter project management 101, that that should never happen. Yeah, I think for me it's interesting the green. So one of the questions I was asked,

is that a mathematical answer? Did you get that mathematically or are you setting the color yourself? Because if you're setting the color yourself, I have a problem. I wanted to know, I want it to be coded so that if it's X number of days late, it's yellow and it's Y number of days late, it's red. Otherwise you can game the system. And I think the other thing that I see a lot of problems with in companies, they tend to overlaunch in general. They tend to overpromise overlaunch projects. And I always ask the question in my groups, so how many of you work in a multi-product environment and almost everybody raised their hands?

It's okay. Of all the products that are currently on your plate, how many are considered top priority? And everybody less, because every single one is considered top priority, which the true statement I can make about that is that none of them are. They're all the same priority. So one of the challenges that I see organizations have that they could certainly do better at and solve a lot of issues is truly prioritizing the projects and saying, this is our number one, this is our number two, this is our number three, supply the resources needed, number

one first, and then go to number two. Because if you take the attitude, they're all top priority, they're all the same prior. Absolutely true. Well, I'm gonna just share another story from my time at Lowe's. I remember I was promoted to take on all software development for the company.

And I started talking to some of the executives in the business to understand how people felt about the function. And I will never forget this discussion that I had with Scott Butterfield, who at the time was the head of corporate strategy. And he said, John, you guys are absolutely fantastic

at delivering projects that by the time they're delivered are completely useless. And this leads me to asking you, one of the most difficult things, I think, whether you're a project manager or just in a company is how to recognize when to let go of projects that are going to be unsuccessful. How do you recommend leaders be intentional

about identifying and making these tough decisions? That's a good one. I think that what ends up happening is as a team starts working on a project, we get invested, right? We got our blood, sweat and tears. We've lost sleep at night on this project. We worked much a weekend on this project.

And so the last thing we want to hear is, hey, we shouldn't be doing this project anymore. And I've seen this happen many times and the team would say, let's say the customer of this particular piece of equipment, one of the clients I work with is a SEMP conductors. And the same with the customer for that chill, just change your mind, it's no longer an option for us. There'll be some people on the team who will say, well, let's just go ahead and finish it and put it on the shelf so we can use it later.

What they're really saying is, I don't want to feel like I wasted six months of my life. But that's not the right answer. Because if you look at it, why would I want to spend another four or five months finishing this project for which you know there's no question right now? Instead, because that's just throwing bad resources out for good. So let's just put that on the shelf, table it for now, and we can always pick it back up in the future if we find another customer and we'll start from there. But it is hard. It is really hard to give up on a project that shouldn't be given up on. So one of the things that we like to do is we have a document called a project charter.

And in that charter, there's usually some kind of financial benefit to doing the project. What is the gain from this project? And once your customer goes away, you can see the gain is now zero, and you can see the burn rate for the employees involved in what the cost of the project is. It becomes a very transparent mathematics exercise. It says, if we continue this project, we are losing X amount of dollars per month.

Because in this team, we have five of the projects, by the way, that are behind. I could really use these people on that project or those projects to make sure that they are successful. And it's just, it the way, that are behind, I could really use these people on that project and those projects to make sure that they are successful. And it's just, it's hard, but the math says we should do it. And you have to try to, I think, soften the blow to the people who've invested that time and just let them know, hey, this is not wasted effort.

The first thing you're gonna see is I just wasted six months of my life. You know, we've gotten six months of really good work here. We've got some good electric property developed We're just going to put it on the shelf until we need it and let's take these excellent talents You have us moving away these other projects that are running behind so you can get those Back on track so we can deliver those successfully and get the revenue that we need and the property we need to move forward So that's it's hard, but you have to do it and clint I have one last question for you. And a lot of what we've been talking about today

is a little bit different than the typical lens that we have interviews for passion struck, which are more about individual growth. So part of the ethos of being passion struck is making deliberate choices for constantly choosing growth and to pursuing becoming the best self that you can be. How does your concept of managing by commitment tie into the ethos of being passion struck?

Ooh, that's good. I think that for me at least, and maybe I'm disjaded, but I do think that conversations can be transformational. And there's a couple of things. First of all, it removes, I do think that conversations can be transformational. And there's a couple of things. First of all, it removes,

it actually bubbles to the forefront, any issues that you and I might have. Maybe you're still irritated by the fact that I've made you work two weekends or whatever that is, right? So I have the conversations, I meet face to face or do the things that I live in my life, my work. It tends to bubble look through the time,

but we can talk about it, resolve it, I can apologize, we can move on and be able to be successful going forward. And to me, that's also a growth learning is that, okay, even though I don't necessarily see the end product, I probably am impacting other people. So how can I be more insightful about the impact that I am having? Have that conversation, talk to the person

that's waiting on me to finish my task, understand who they are, where they are. And I might find out that you don't need it for another couple of weeks because you're waiting also on some other piece of information which takes the pressure off of you a little bit. So I think by having the conversations and maybe doing something you're uncomfortable with.

As an engineer, most of us are uncomfortable with conversation. We like being in our silos, none of us be stereotypical, but I am an engineer, so I can talk bad about us because I are one. So we like silos, we like being around people that's like ourselves,

and you have to forge yourself out of that comfort zone, because project work, especially for my world, is teamwork, and teamwork requires we have conversations and we communicate with each other. And I'll close with this, when I teach classes, I might teach a class of 60 people in project management. And apparently what happens is all the engineers come in and sit together and they're all diving and joking

because they all speak the same language. They all speak the same technical language. They all have to take different ways in the college and they wear that like a badge of honor and they all think they get the same, they think the same jokes are funny. And then all the IT will sit together and they don't want to sit any closer to the engineers to the technical in crowd, they're bent. And then what happens is there'll be a few chairs

right down the middle, it's almost like a dividing line that are empty and then there'll be the sales and marketing team and just struck me as so odd. Here are the two groups and there's literally empty chairs in between, there's a dividing line of buffers on if you will. And so I dug into it and I like to tell a story now that I play devil's advocate when I'm teaching these classes and I'll say, well, let me play the role of the engineer. And I'm gonna be very extreme, so slow from the blow.

I'm taking it to an extreme, this sales story, so don't get mad at me. And everybody usually laughs and I say, so I'm the engineer and I'm looking at the marketing people going, man, but what do you do? As an engineer or if I'm a computer engineer, I'm designing code, when I'm done at the end of the day, you can see the widget that I've developed.

If you touch it, you can feel it. It's code, you can play with it, test it. It's tactile, it's visible, you can see it, it's tangible. Now you marketing guys, you have all these meetings, you have a line, usually at lunch, you have really good bunches, and you're always talking strategy and big, fluffy white clouds and blah, blah, blah, and you don't really get anything done. And then the marketing person would reply, well, wow, Clint, I had no idea you felt like

I added so little to the team, but let me help you understand that if you didn't have us giving you direction, you engineers are so far down in the weeds that you fall off the cliff running to the wall. You need us giving you direction. And the truth of the matter is, John, if you are a for-profit company and marketing is out there selling products, which engineering can't possibly make, or in your example, in Melbourne code that nobody can use anymore, we're not going to make money. And if I'm developing products that marketing can't find an audience for, we're not going to make money. And if I'm developing products that marketing can't find an audience for, we're not going

to make money. The only way we can make money is by pulling the people out of the clouds down a little bit, pulling the people on the weeds up a little bit, forcing us out of our comfort zones to have this conversation about where can we meet in the middle? So you want that. I'm sure we can sell a million of those, but currently that doesn't exist in the universe. It's physically impossible, all the laws of physics. What we can do is ask,

can you find a market for this? Having that conversation, I think that's gonna elevate us, make us grow as an individual, is by now, maybe I'm still uncomfortable with marketing talk completely, but they're not the enemy, and the engineer is not the enemy.

We work for the same company, we all have to do the same thing, which is make the company successful and make money. And what we do that as we're having these conversations with each other. Well, thank you so much for that, Clint. And lastly, where can someone go to learn more about you and your company?

Well, you can look us up at projectsuccess.com, my books are on Amazon, you can also reach me on my website at clintinbadget.com. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It was such an honor to have you on passion struck Thanks so much for having me John was great What an incredible interview that was with Clint Padgett and I wanted to thank Clint Zilker media and Forbes books for the honor and privilege of having them appear on today's show links to all things Clint will be In the show notes at passion struck com

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