The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Leadership Is Overrated: How the Navy SEALs (and Successful Businesses) Create Self-Leading Teams That Win by Kyle Buckett, Chris Mefford

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

Leadership Is Overrated: How the Navy SEALs (and Successful Businesses) Create Self-Leading Teams That Win by Kyle Buckett, Chris Mefford Amazon.com An award-winning pair of executive consultants reveal why to be successful, businesses need self-leading teams, not just good leadership. “In a society so obsessed with leadership, why are we so bad at it?” Despite the countless seminars, courses, and management books designed to hone good leaders, over 79% of employees leave their jobs due to poor leadership. Why is this happening? Award-winning executive consultant Chris Mefford and retired, high-ranking US Navy SEAL trainer Kyle Buckett argue that organizations need more than just leaders. They need successful teams. Mefford and Buckett are passionate about how our leadership model has failed and spotlight a new work culture that actually works. In Leadership Is Overrated, they draw on the SEAL model and on their decades of knowledge and experience coaching industry leaders to answer the question: what makes a productive team? The surprising truth is that behind every successful team is a cadre of empowered, self-starting employees. In this revolutionary guide, Mefford and Buckett share crucial leadership strategies to help organizations revamp their work culture, throw out stifling hierarchical leadership models, and embrace a dynamic, results-oriented, and successful self-led team-oriented model instead.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com.

Welcome to the big show. 14 years, 1,400 episodes, going on 1,500 because I don't have anything to do with my bloody time. Make sure you further show your family, friends, and relatives. Go to iTunes there and give us a five-star review. Somebody wrote a really ugly

one-star review last week because they don't like that we had a guest on that was into a certain ex-president and i guess we talked about that and they didn't like it they gave me one star review but as you know we're we you know we've had people from both sides of the aisle on here so uh you know we're not really that slant of a show but geez we got a one star review from this guy and he was like this is a leftist show and i'm like you know i think one of the guys is running for president

right now from the gop we had on the show shortly ago uh anyway guys uh be sure to refer the show to your family friends and relatives and help me fix that one star rating and give us a five star rating on itunes i beg of you please uh go to itunes or go to goodreads.com fortress christmas youtube.com fortress christmas linkedin.com fortress christmas and all the other places we are in the internet we're talking about leadership today. One of my favorite subjects, so much of my favorite subjects, I wrote a book on it. And we've got two brilliant gentlemen who are going to be talking about leadership. And, well, I don't know, they may overthrow the whole premise of my book and whatever I've been doing since 18.

They are the authors of the newest book that comes out August 29th, 2023. Leadership is overrated. What? I wrote a book about it. I guess I shouldn't have. Leadership is overrated. How the Navy SEALs and successful businesses create self-leading teams that win. Kyle Buckett and Chris Mefford is on the show with us today.

They're here to talk about their latest book and all that good stuff. Welcome to the show, Kyle and Chris. How are you? We're doing great. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. Thanks for coming. We certainly appreciate it.

Give us your dot coms. Where do you want people to find you guys on the interwebs? Well, we're cooler than dot coms these days because we want you to go to cultureforce.team. Or if you're old school and you want to go to.com, you can go to leadershipisoverrated.com and find us there. There you go. So give us a bio from each of you guys. Give us a little bit of background, an origin story on both of you. I'll go first, Chris, because whenever I go after Kyle, I feel really insignificant and it diminishes me quite a bit.

His words, his words, his words, but I'm in business. I've been in marketing and leadership for 20 years. I worked at numerous organizations that have been voted best place to work. And I love it. You know, these days I do a lot of coaching and leadership mastermind groups and just helping organizations figure out, you know, how to step away from terrible leadership and find ways to generate revenue through good leadership and good culture and good organizations. And so many people want to talk about, you know, all the fun stuff that their business does, but they don't focus on how revenue is generated through great cultures and great leadership. And so they get lost. But I've done that for many years and been in marketing for just as long and great leadership. And so they get lost. But I've done that for many years and been in marketing for just as long and met Kyle. And here we are today.

There you go. Kyle, give us the lowdown. Yeah. So I had a wonderful career in the military. I retired after 20 years. And I was a Navy SEAL tactical leader. I got to do a lot of cool stuff, everything from single man loan operations all the way up to my largest operation, which was 800 Marines, 24 tanks, 23 helicopters, seven jets, and an entire team of the Army, Civil Corps and engineers as we were clearing a province

in Southern Caligas, Helmand Province. Holy cow. And a lot of things in between, right, over the years. And as well, I've started several small businesses, helped my wife run her small business. And what we found over the years and what I've gotten really passionate about goes back to back in 2000, which we'll get into, but just highlight real quick, Chris, is in 2011, I was tasked with taking a SEAL team in Afghanistan and going over there and trying to make an impact and change the culture in the region by working by, through,

and with the local population to try and establish democracy in the region by working by through and with the local population uh to try and establish democracy in the region right but uh the guys that i was uh working with had just come back from a very arduous very tactical uh you know in action action-packed deployment. And in their last two weeks of their deployment, their hero, their Captain America was shot down. His helicopter was shot down and he was killed. And so in comes Kyle Bucket and goes, hey, the guys, the people that just killed your best friend, that just killed your hero, that was going to be your commander that i was going to be attached to um those people we're going to go back in afghanistan and we're going to work by through and with them to uh to establish democracy in the region we're going to be living with them so i had to kind of a double you know culture shift in the sense that we had to try and figure

out hey how are we going to change this culture within the unit to then go and change, you know, an Afghani culture? And so I got very interested in it and started realizing, you know, I wish I would have had our book, hey, selfish book. But how do we refine and create positive cultures that attract great people? Right. Chris said, you know, we believe great people make elite teams elite teams make organizations elite and when you have elite organizations striving for excellence and mission the world's a much better place so we started nerding out on this concept of how we could do that and that's uh kind of what got us

here today there you go man that sounds like quite the party you having all that armory out there doing stuff uh i told you he should go first or second yeah yeah how do you follow that hey kyle today i impacted the culture of 22 people on the marketing team i i brought democracy to afghanistan yeah there you go you know we've we've had a we've had a number of military people are and me studying the military are the u.s military specifically uh it it it is amazing how we build or i don't i really shouldn't say we because i'm not in the military but america builds their military structure and their leadership structure and you see the fallacies of of leadership structure in the russia the ukraine war you know how they have a different tiered system of generals or whatever

the hell is they do uh drunken guys on vodka evidently um because it turns out they've gone from what is it the second uh most uh powerful uh army in the world to the second most powerful army in ukraine as uh secretary blinken i think said um so you guys call this thing uh leadership is overrated uh show me on the doll where leadership hurt you and why'd you call it that well i'll take this on first um you know the world doesn't need another book on culture and on leadership chris i mean you know that you you've got a whole show and made a whole career of this um so that's not what you do but as kyle and i looked around and we looked at places that you know weren't awesome or they weren't great and was you know it's like i you know i wasn't drawn

to kyle because it necessarily because he was this cool badass guy it was a navy seal that did all this incredible stuff i was drawn you know hey what are the seals do to keep all the bad stuff, all the bad people out of the organization and yet still remain world-class that everyone looks up to and they get there. And, you know, there's such a rigorous, you know, train they go through and all that, but that, that surely can't be the only thing that happens. And, you know, and I said, it's fascinating, you know, what good organizations do and how they manage and keep the bad things out and how they continue to, you know, attract good organizations do and how they manage and keep the bad things out and how they continue to, you know, attract top talent time and time again, you know, and why is

it survey after survey, year after year, when when people asked, you know, do you like your boss 85% say I don't, and yet we spend $166 billion a year in this country, $300 billion globally on leadership development. And so if that's the case, shouldn't everybody love their boss? Shouldn't every organization be thriving? Shouldn't everybody? And so we started to say, maybe this whole leadership structure that we've built, this whole pyramid of books and TED Talks and everything in between, from workshops to conferences, maybe that's what's broken.

And how we go about building leaders and creating leaders in this country is just to sell more conferences and books. And it's not necessarily to make the team great. And what the SEALs focus on is the team, not the leader. And the organizations I worked with and that I've seen that have been great, it's been really a focus on the team and not the individual. And, you know, and the organizations I worked with and that I've seen that have been great, it's been a really a focus on the team and not the individual. And so we just said, hey, you know what, what if leadership is just overrated? And we've made it that way. And so, you know, that's where we arrived at sort of a point on how we put this book together. There you go. Any thoughts you want to kick in there, Kyle, on that? Yeah, no, well said, Chris. You know, additionally, the one thing that has always been fascinating to me,

because I was so fortunate in the sense that I got to be raised by, you know, incredible individuals, tacticians, and leaders within the SEAL teams. And, you know, I became a student of trying to focus on, like, how do we continue to thrive? How do we continue to succeed? How does the SEAL teams continue to innovate and bring in new technologies as guys are retiring, right, as guys are getting out? And it really, it focused me and honed me into one thing very specifically that we talk about in the book, which is, you know, we focus on replacing ourselves. And it's a big piece of our culture.

A big piece of our culture is, you know, focusing on replacing yourself, growing the next guy or gal to come in and take over for you in certain areas. So that's another thing I just wanted to add to what Chris said. Kyle, why don't you go ahead? This is a great spot. And tell him what we actually wanted to call the book. I wanted to call the book. This is funny, Chris Voss. I wanted to call the book Kill the Leader.

Wow. And so this is funny. We're going back and forth with HarperCollins on this title, literally on January 5th. Oh, we're going back and forth, back and forth. And then January 6th happens. And Chris and I get a call on January 7th. Yeah, we got to change that name. No, absolutely not.

So we made chapter one, kill the leader. But the premise is, and Kyle will share this um you know the seals have this thing where as they practice getting ready for missions they'll they'll go up and say hey three minutes into the mission three hours into the mission you're dead and you're the leader and then they look to the rest of the team let me let me you know let me let me clean that up a little bit kyle so what i tell better seal stories than you we both know that please please so please save me we will we in training exercises uh you know as a trainer you know for my myself being a trainer as well what we would do in the exercises we would walk over to the commander on the mission the

officer in charge on the mission and say all right you, you just took a gunshot wound, you know, to the, to the heart or, you know, to the head or bottom line, you're out, play dead. And what it does is it forces the next in command, the next in charge to step up. And it does three things, really. It enables that individual to see, you know, what their merit is when they step into the role. It allows the, the team to see and understand, but then it also allows the actual leader who's now playing dead, hey, how good of a job have I been doing raising the next guy up? So it's a pretty great exercise that we do from time to time. There you go. Now you said that 79% of people don't like their bosses. You talk in the book about how a lot of people leave their jobs usually due to poor leadership. They don't like their boss or whoever's there, which is kind of a low number, actually, when you think about it.

When they pull my employees, 60% of them said they hated me 110% of the time, every time. Yeah, right. What is that from? That's from a movie. That's from Anchorman. That's from Anchorman. percent of them said they hated me 110 percent of the time every time that's it yeah right yeah what is that from that's from a movie that's right that's from anchor man there you go anchor man's a san diego guy just like us there you go 100 of the time uh so um you know the the thing about the military and i forget i believe there is a term for it but one of the great things about the u.s military is is they do what you guys talk about. Everyone is trained to where if there's a missing link in the chain of command or someone is taken out of position, that they can make decisions on the ground and they're not just lost in what to do in an operational theater or some sort of scenario where they're,

you know, like they just won't fall apart and be like, we just lost our boss so what do we fucking do and i think that's really brilliant is there a title is there a name for that i think i don't know i mean replacing yourself you know focusing on replacing you but in terms of like a specific nomenclature uh nothing comes to mind i'm sure that i'll get some comments later on uh some of my friends like hey dummy this is what it's called and i think i i think i've heard what it's called so i'm in the dummy list now well i'll just go in you know i was just reading the book citizen soldier about world war two world war two and it was like hey how do you take a group of teachers and farmers and turn them into you know know, a world class fighting group that, you know,

takes on the mighty German, you know, juggernaut that's already out there. And the premise was, I think we typically think of the leadership as this top down, staunch, you know, you obey every single order all the time, no matter what. And that's not really what America's military does is it's it teaches people how to solve problems on their own. So the Germans were unable to make those decisions because it was a true top down organization. And so they were afraid to make a decision because they hadn't been told what to do versus the citizens we brought in. We we told them there's a command for the sense of structure. But the reality was, hey, we're all solving problems together. How do we do this? How do we overcome it? How do we win? And that's, you know, I think the true nature of what brings success is when you focus on the team

itself. And you don't say, hey, I'm the leader. I have all the answers. I know exactly what we're going to do and when we're going to do it and how we're going to do it and who we're going to do it with. That's where leaders get into trouble and that's where they fail. And that's what happened. Then the team starts to hate them because they don't know what to do. They're embarrassed and they're too insecure. But you start focusing on the team and you say, hey, we're in this together and I don't have all the answers and I need your help. And we're going to figure this all out. And here's my role. My role is to go present and bring everybody else in and get us the resources we need. But you and the team, your role is to help me and all of us solve this problem.

It starts to change an organization. It starts to change the entire focus and really what it comes down to. Here's what's at stake, Chris, as Kyle was alluding to earlier. When people are disengaged and they're not fully focused, you know, 85% aren't fully engaged because they don't like their boss. They don't think they respect them. They don't appreciate, they're not appreciated by them. What that really means is they're not working at their peak.

And so if people aren't working at their peak every day, they come in and put 50% in, 60% in, 30% based on this data. The reality is your company is not going to thrive. And so when I talk about, hey, a lot of people want to talk about fixing their culture and they'll put a ping pong table and sort of say, hey, we play ping pong. Or pizza lunch.

Right. The reality is there's a financial cost. There's a people cost and there's an opportunity loss around all of this. And so the financial cost is often overlooked. And so in this book, Leadership is Overrated, where you can find it, leadershipisoverrated.com, we really focus every single chapter on, hey, here's the revenue that's at stake when it pertains to empathy.

Here's the revenues at stake when, what's at stake with empowerment. Here's the opportunity that's lost because your team isn't working at their peak. And then what I call opportunity lost, rather, is that people don't want to go into leadership because they see that leaders aren't respected. They see that leaders aren't motivating and they're actually demotivating. And so they avoid it. So good leaders avoid it. And so there's that opportunity that doesn't happen. And so all of that comes into play. And that's why, again, we think this whole thing is a broken industry. It's a class structure gone bad. And we need to reset everything and start from scratch and say, okay, what do we do that really works? And we believe it's when you focus on the team. There you go. And so in the title of your book,

it's there, Create Self-Leading Teams That Win. And I guess, do you have the same surmise that I do, that sometimes you're in organizations and they just, everyone just thinks the CEO is the leader. We're just like, I don't know, we follow whatever guy in the mountain says. And, you know, really when it comes down to it, everyone's a leader. Everyone can be a leader. You can be the guy on the street and something happens on the bus and you can be the guy who goes, hey, man, you know,

we're going to take charge of this group and whatever's happening is we're taking control but parents a leader right um i'm really surprised about how many parents don't think they're leaders um and maybe they're not because maybe they're bratty little kids around the show i've seen that what was that one uh show the nanny show um but uh so your your guys's thing is you know building out teams a side of organization and having having people lead them from there. Is that correct? Correct. Correct.

And we believe in leadership at every level. And I know it sounds very elementary and everyone's like, duh. But then we point back and go, well, hold on. Don't say duh. And then look at all the stats that Chris just rattled off, you know, 80% across America. And so what we really focus on is like we say in the, in the SEAL teams is you can have leadership at every single level, right? We, we focus on, Hey, when you get back from an operation, for example, right? You have to take care of,

first you have to take care of the team's gear. So that could be, you know, the vehicles or the maritime platform, the boats, whatever it might be, right? We have to take care of that, the team gear. And then when we're done with that, we would take care of our platoon gear, right? And when we're done with that,

when we're done with platoon gear, something that might be like Zodiacs that the platoon owns or something like that. Then when we're done with that when we're done with platoon gear something that might be like zodiacs that the platoon owns or something like that then when we're done with that we take care of departmental gear so maybe it's sniper gear explosive breacher gear you know you name comms gear whatever communication gear whatever then when you're done with all of that then you can take care of your personal gear. Right. So it, and, but the point of, and now on the reverse side, you have leadership at every single level, right? Like you have to make sure that your gear's done right. And then the next one, and then, and then it goes in the reverse. Right. And so we really preach, you know, in the SEAL teams that

you can have leadership at every single level that someone can walk over and go, Hey, boss, Hey, Buck, my nickname when I was, you know, a tech lead, Hey, Buck, your, your gears incorrect. Let me help you fix that. You know, for example, right. And, you know, you know, go ahead. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah. So teamwork, leadership teamwork leadership and there and then you guys talk about how to apply to that does a lot of the techniques you have in the book come from the navy seals and and your guys's experience then i would say i don't know if we put necessarily it's a good question i don't know if we put necessarily a ratio on it probably bad on me chris that mefford, that I don't know.

But I would probably say it's probably 50-50. Yeah, I think, Chris, what we wanted to do that was unique was we wanted to, you know, again, there are plenty of Navy SEAL books

out there on, you know, about great leadership. But what we wanted to really do is translate it into real world experience. You know, take the experiences that I've had with great organizations.

I worked at Dave Ramsey organization, voted best place to work at least 10, 11 times. I work at CCW Global now. I've been working with them and voted best place to work in our city for eight straight years. And so what is it that these companies do that is different? And how can we connect the dots

on what great military groups like the Navy SEALs do and how can we pass that along? Here's the reality. When you talk to leaders, they don't think they're the problem. 70% of leaders think that it's somebody else and that their team loves them and then that's it. And we know that works out because only 30% typically of people actually like their boss. And so there's this crossover where it's almost the same amount of people who, who hate their boss, their boss think actually thinks they like them or the boss thinks they're not the problem at all. And that's, that's an issue. And then the second thing Kyle, I want to tap into Kyle said is that, you know, I think most people think I have to rely on the leader. You know, this book is for a leader. But the reality is you have to

start where you're at. You could be part of the problem because you have three people in your grouping or your co-workers that you see treated poorly. And so you don't have a good example. So you think that's what leadership is. And so you just kind of do it. So, yeah, you need to start with the branch you're on. Like this is the chair you're in. Make the three people around you great. Acknowledge them. Tell them you appreciate them. Work together. Say, how do we work on this project together? And there's too much politics that goes on internally.

There's too many leaders that are too unwilling to give up control. And so we just continue to create this vortex of terribleness year after year, no matter how much money we throw at the problem. Hi, folks. Chris Voss here with a little station break. Hope you're enjoying the show so far. We'll resume here in a second. year, no matter how much money we throw at the problem. Over there, you can find all the different stuff that we do for speaking engagements, if you'd like to hire me, training courses that we offer, and coaching for leadership, management, entrepreneurism, podcasting, corporate stuff. With over 35 years of experience in business and running companies as a CEO, and be sure to check out chrisfossleadershipinstitute.com. Now back to the show.

It seems like a lot of people just give lip service to it. It's kind of like the people that buy books, and I'm guilty of this, buying books and then never reading them and thinking that somehow by owning the book you get osmosis. It's the people that always go to motivational seminars but can never get motivated. It's like you've been to Tony Robbins like 10 fucking times and you're still depressed.

Maybe it's not Tony Robbins you need in your life. Maybe, I don't know, whatever. It's funny. I feel like things like that, it's like motivation without instruction is sometimes useless. You got me excited. I'm ready, but what's next? I'm really ready. Nobody that buys our book will

not read it. We know that everyone who purchases our book will absolutely read it. It's too hard to put down for sure. There you go right i'm not i'm not serious if you can't see me um but it is what it is uh we can see you we see you and we hear you chris there you go uh so uh any thoughts kyle on that you know i it's it's an interesting I'd like to actually throw it back to you, Mr. Voss, is, you know, you've had a lot of great guests on the show. I guess that kind of goes towards the author dilemma, if want it to be in a digestible manner and you want it to be entertaining where people keep you know turning the pages as chris just said um so you know along that vein you know i'd put it even to you you like what was the challenges you kind of faced when you were when you were kind of framing yours out and ensuring that it was

when i was sitting there going no one's gonna read this shit i don't know you know my we had the same conversations my my luck with my book uh beacons leadership was um you know i've been telling these stories for a million years and and i and i'd hoed them and and told them and and some were interesting and i don't know more were interesting to me probably than others i don't fucking know um but uh uh you know trying to just the stories were already there the second book is the one i'm having fun with because i i can't rely on any of my stories that i've been carrying around for 30 years telling people at parties that were like really this guy um but no you know it's hard to frame and make him interesting you know leadership sometimes business is hard to talk about but you know putting into frames of stories uh and i'm sure you probably have a lot of stories from your navy seals day to to make it appeal

today that's what people love they love the stories they love you know seeing how that works and that's really what we do i mean's what the show does. We tell stories. I make up all this shit anyway. We got serious about that when Kyle and I started talking about this. I'm like, we can't do another business book that's just full of stats and data. While we have that, we've got really good stories about Aretha Franklin

and how she created her stuff. We've got stories about Icelandic soccer. We've got stories about monks and Mother Teresa. We've got stories about 19th century explorers. We've got stories about Icelandic soccer. We've got stories about monks and Mother Teresa. We've got stories about 19th century explorers. We've got, obviously, Navy SEAL stories and business stories as well woven in. But we tried to make it full of information, but also really make it fun to read. Some interesting things that people weren't aware of and people they know and situations they're aware of that they probably had no idea that that's the way that they were operating um go ahead well i was just going to say you know earlier kyle said you know leadership is overrated focus on the team you know don't focus so much on

yourself and it's like duh that's what you know everyone says so why does nobody do it but the reality is you know i worked for dave ramsey you know he's in the radio hall of fame we were a hundred million dollar company telling people to get on a budget. I mean, the easiest, a billion dollar business out of telling people to eat fewer calories than they burn. You know, sometimes it's the easy stuff. That's the hardest to pull together for ourselves. And I feel like leadership is that, you know, I,

when I've talked to people about the book and, and instead of, Hey, from leadership groups and said hey from leadership groups instead here's the title they they want to fight back oh that's ridiculous that's not true and in i mean it's part of the because they're so indoctrinated into the system um that we need to focus focus focus focus on the leader that they just can't possibly break free from that kind of thinking and they're part of the problem obviously and you know but i like what you guys did with the book with the leadership is overrated because it's catches and you go wait what and you know i've read a lot of leadership books i've been a

leader as ceo since i was 18 when i started my first company and lots of companies um and so i'm really over it i'm tired i want to go home. Um, but the thing is, is, is I still read leadership books to this day and, um, being able to look at things from so many different angles. And, you know, it's like one of those, uh, what's the old thing they say about the teacher, the teacher, there's more than the student. And so being able to look at something from a different angle or a paradigm, or, you know, how did the seals look at this? You know, we've had people on from the Air Force. We have people from the Army.

I hope that's okay with you guys. Shout out to both services. Both have saved my life. I'm forever grateful. My brother is a Marine. He sometimes has the whole like, there's other guys. I think he has issues with the Coast Guard.

And who doesn't, right? Sorry, I just lost the two guys in the Coast Guard. But, you know, being able to take things from a different angle, you get these epiphanies. And even now, I'll be listening to a book on leadership and I'll say, oh, okay, this is a different way to look at that. Or I never looked at it that way. And so I think it's a good it's a good thing to do because I'm a real out-of-the-box thinker I mean I'm always trying to get outside the box and trying to uh you know look at things from different angles because that's how

you can problem solve right oh yeah I couldn't agree more and you know I'll be I'll be very interested to learn and I'll give your listeners inside scoop from my perspective. When I initially set out to do this with Chris, I was really focused on developing culture, like how you can actually refine, mold it and custom create a very custom culture that you're actually desiring and so i will be very interested to see how many of our readers pick that up and garner that aspect of the book um from from how we framed it out because uh for me that was very i think very unique in what we uh in what we did i mean it's broken into really three sections on how you define it uh and then how you build it and then how do you sustain it um

not just around creating self-leading teams that win it's also hey how do you actually custom create and define a culture that you're looking for, whether it be, you know, high energy or a very chill, relaxed environment and on and on and on. So I'm really curious to find out. I think the Chris Voss listeners are going to be the ones that really pick up on that piece. Kyle, why don't you share? Kyle, talk to Chris. You know, whether you want to focus on your culture or not, you'll get a culture. That's a great point. But it's coming and it could potentially be one you hate. I can't tell you how many leaders, and it's surprising the fact that I can even say that, make that statement.

I can't tell you how many leaders have told me, I'm not happy with my team or I don't know what to do and I'm like you know you're the problem and the solution like you can't ignore it um and just and expect it to have this amazing great culture to happen you know Jim Collins said it best you know you have to choose to be great every day just like you have to choose to create the environment and the organization you want and so many people and leaders feel hamstrung. And I'm like, aren't you in charge? Don't you make the shots? Call the shots?

Didn't you start this thing? How did you let it get so far out of hand? And Kyle talks a lot about that and how you have to choose. And really, the SEALs choose to do that. Be great. We're not going to ignore our culture. We're going to focus on this is who we are. This is how we talk.

This is what we do. this is how we do it um to the point kyle i keep feeling like i'm stealing your story so jump in here please admit like which is you know hey the the seals don't practice until they do it right you know kyle has shared um we practice so it's impossible for us to get it wrong i mean that's a culture thing that comes through there you go i actually want to jump back because we just went right past it and i'm fascinated to ask mr voss what was the company when you were 18 uh my first company i fell into i grown up with my uh helping my father with this stucco foundation plastering cement stucco business and uh you know it was the thing to get my my mom to get us out of the house for the summer um and so i we i you know i kind of learned the business

from him with and i hated every aspect of it and uh the story was i was working mcdonald's as a teen and uh how do we get through this quickly and And someone took a, a religious guy took a shine to my long hair and my satanic Van Halen t-shirts because, you know, everyone knows satanic Van Halen's complete satanic, of course, the devil. I should flash some devil horns here or something. Do you, do we do? And so he took a shine to me and wanted me to get fired.

And I, and I outwitted him by getting, doing what the girls do and got a hair net. He wanted me to get fired and i and i outwitted him by getting uh doing what the girl's doing got a hairnet he wanted me to cut my hair and uh about two weeks later or something like that he caught me pulling my hair out of the hairnet realized that i i got him he's a bully so he fired me and uh so i went home told my dad i go i don't know what to do and i was supposed to go to college but my parents were poor it was going to be a pell grant so um he goes why don't you just go you know the cement stuff's in the back he moved on to some other businesses but he goes you know i got my account that the builders thing you know you can you know what to do just go sell it and do it i was like uh okay so i did it and you know he was really he was

really respected and what he did so i knew how to do it well and you know i went out as this kid and and you know here i am this green 18 year old i'm skinny as shit dumb as shit and uh i'm telling these guys i know how to do this and i know how to do it really well my dad my dad ran a good business with it and taught me well and so and so that these you know these salty motherfucking construction guys would be like, you've got to be kidding me. And I'd be like, no. And so I came up with this concept from sales.

I said, I'll tell you what. You let me do, give me a house. I'll go fucking do it. And if it's not done right, you don't have to pay me. And you tell construction guys that you don't have to pay them if it's not done right. They'll let you have the whole damn project. Because they weren't have to pay them if it's not done right. They'll let you have a whole damn project because they weren't going to pay you anyway.

So I did that and I scored a bunch of shit and they're like, holy shit, this kid knows what he's fucking doing. And so that was my first car. There was no sitting around going, I'm going to be an entrepreneur or any of that bullshit that we think about nowadays. I didn't even think I was an entrepreneur.

I'm just like, I don't know, I'm making a buck or two so there you go um i love it i started my first business in it as a teenager so i love hearing other people's stories yeah yeah i didn't even think about it you know nowadays like all these kids are like hey and you know back back then you didn't do online stuff. So you guys mentioned something that was really a great paradigm shift that you talked about earlier. And I'm trying to go back to it. But you talked about how – I think I've lost where it is. But I know there's something else that I have in there. You talk about how giving – I can't get it to flush back up.

There was something you talked about, though, that was a great paradigm shift in leadership. Do you know what that was? Well, there were a couple things. One is when we give the focus back on the team, Chris, it's kind of a paradox, we call it. If I give all the credit to the team and I don't take any credit as a leader, Kyle did it was amazing job. Chris Voss, the his radio show and podcast is one of the best ever he does the whole thing, you know, and I go on and on and on. And they say, Hey, Chris, good job. Nope, wasn't me. It was the team. Um, you know, the paradox is I actually look when I give all the

credit away, I actually look better. But what leaders tend to do is they want to say, thank you. I did do an amazing job. Thank you. It was amazing. Thank you. I did lead this team well. And so it sort of demoralizes the team because they don't feel appreciated. But the reality is you can accomplish both by giving it away. But too many leaders are so focused on themselves and their opportunities and their, in many ways, their arrogance and insecurities, that they're afraid to do that because they don't want to get left behind, which leads to a loss of empowerment for your team. Empowerment's one of the key ways to, you know, create a self-led team. And so there's no trust. And it just kind of, you know, sort of creates this spiral of frustrating.

And then all of a sudden he doesn't like the team. And so he lets somebody go. And now you've got to find someone else. And it's really just a matter of, you know, stepping up and empowering and giving acknowledgement and, you know, letting other people take the credit. You know, silly as that sounds as a leader, that is not what is happening across corporations, small businesses to big businesses across the United States of America today. We like to say it is, we like to dream up these boardrooms where we have this big leader who makes all the decisions and everybody loves,

but that's just a, that's just a Hollywood trope that doesn't exist. Survey after survey, no matter who does it or how many times we take it. There you go. And so you guys talk about the humble leadership approach and six practices that distinguish remarkable leaders instead of the leaders that you've been talking about

that are just kind of it's all about me sort of thing. Do you want to tease out any of the six practices? Oh, geez. This is a test. We're testing to see if you know what you wrote you want to throw them at us and um inspire power and elevate teams to new heights with humber leadership yeah um the six practices were uh listen more and talk less uh uh show appreciation uh number three was step out of the spotlight number four admit when you've made a mistake self-accountability oh and you know i talk about um i talk about one of my my mistakes in our, one of my big mistakes that I made as a leader with the SEAL teams. And thank goodness it was in training, but it was still a mistake. And if I didn't own that mistake and bring it to light, all it would have done is labeled me as a liar when the truth finally would have came to light. Number five was don't micromanage. And then lastly, the biggest

one is welcome the criticism. One of my favorite things, and this one definitely came from the teams. One of my favorite things around welcoming the criticism is after every single mission you know we'd come back back to what i was saying earlier about you know taking care of the gear get all the gear done put all your stuff away everything's cleaned off and then we all get back to the hooch um and if you know if it's a training scenario maybe we could crack a beer in the middle of afghanistan you get tea but uh you crack a tea or a beer in the middle of Afghanistan. You get tea, but you crack a tea or a beer open and everyone sits down in a circle and we just literally go around the circle and we go, all right, Kyle, your turn. And I go, hey, on building B147, I went into the second room

and I went left and I should have went right i don't know what i was thinking it caused joe to come behind me and stack up the train behind me the tactical element and it just jacked a lot of things up and i i'm so sorry guys like that was my mistake and everyone just removes their ego from that room from that moment ranks thrown out the door and we just go to town and in those moments like hey the new guy that's been there for two weeks all the way up to you know the oldest guy in the room is allowed to pick each other apart and just go yeah yeah just write it down let's all be better let's all learn from you know kyle's mistakes let's all be better. Let's all learn from, you know, Kyle's mistakes. Let's all learn from Chris's mistakes. And it's a very humbling exercise.

But because it's part of the culture, it's just, you know, an everyday affair. I love that, though, because it's self-accountability. It also teaches that, you know, the leader isn't infallible. And then, I mean, you you're that's a life or death situation if people aren't learning from mistakes in the in the u.s navy and seals that's a life or difference situation because if you're just kind of continuing to operate in your own blind spot la la land you know somebody's going to get killed or a platoon's going to get killed or a squad or whatever um so and go ahead. I just want to insert there.

I feel like what you just said is really the problem with leadership culture is there's nothing wrong with what you said. It proves that the leader is not infallible. They can make mistakes, right?

But we've put the onus back on the leader. The reality is in that situation, what is happening and what is the most powerful part of that is that the team sees we all need to fess up to our mistakes as quickly as possible so we can find solutions together as quickly as possible. And that's really the most powerful lesson there.

Simply the leader owning up to being normal and doing that is important. But the real lesson here is the focus is on the team because it teaches the team that they need to own up to their mistakes as fast no matter their rank um so that we can quickly solve issues and move on and not hide from them which is what a lot of leaders you know typically do they definitely do and then you just end up with piles of what i call scotomas i think i got that from tony robbins blind spots where people are unaware of what's going on as a leader, if you're not aware of things going on in your organization, or if people are just hiding stuff. One of the things I read years ago was, I forget where this is coming from,

but it was a book about, I can't bring it forward, but it was about how to build a learning organization. I forget guy who wrote it he wrote two books on it and it was it was about building an organization that learns that commit mistakes and learn from them as opposed to you know like oh shit we shouldn't tell anybody you know uh who broke the copy this week or something you know um and uh you know there's a famous tom watson i think it was tom watson, you know, there's a famous Tom Watson. I think it was Tom Watson of IBM. It's a famous story from IBM where a vice president loses like $12 million on some, you know, some, I don't know, whatever he approved.

And he walks in the CEO's office and goes, hey, I'm probably here to attend to my resignation. He's like, hell no, we're not firing you. We're not letting you quit. You just cost $12 million. We just educated you with $12 million. We're not losing you. You learned something.

That was a costly lesson. We got to get our money back. We want our money back. And so it's interesting there. One question I had, this is what I finally came back to. That's radical. I'm trying to remember. Very radical.

Very radical because I'm not sure i would do the same i would be like i'd be standing by the tree shredder by the lake and margo going i don't know about uh let me think about it so um step into here uh so uh one thing i wanted to ask you guys about because you guys talk about building small teams and it you kind of hit me with the paradigm one of the things that i believe in is the same thing you guys do believing in culture setting an environment and if you don't set that out front that's what i love that's what i was trying to get back to you guys said if you don't set a culture if you don't set an environment if you don't set a healthy you're gonna have you

know they're gonna set it anyway and it's probably gonna be toxic and it's gonna be ugly and that's that's like you should guys can have a shirt for that. If you don't set a culture, one will set for you. That's right. But what do you guys think about this? When a leader can set a culture from a very high point, is there a way that that culture can get misaligned, misinterpreted by having all these small teams? I guess that's a devil in the details question for you.

You know, like if one leader in the small team decides that he's going to just create some other fucking culture. I mean, yeah, the answer is yes and no, right? Yes, it can absolutely happen. That's such a great question. It absolutely can happen but you know it goes back to what you were kind of getting to you know just a minute before was around you know that radical if you will thank thinking um and then how is that radical thinking supported through rituals you know are the rituals uh reinforcing the culture? Right? And we talk about it. But what kind of rituals do the small teams have that then now reinforce the culture?

And are you allowing those rituals to improve and they're not growing and dying on the vine or they're not becoming archaic or they're not becoming stank, for lack of a better word? Are you literally allowing those team leaders and those teams to improve on the rituals and then ensuring that, hey, this is translated throughout the other teams when it is a real big improvement that could actually reinforce, you know, the culture or the culture improvement, as I like to say. Does that make sense, Vaughn?

Oh, yeah, totally. Well, I'll throw in too. I'll just throw in a little aside. You know, I think that there's two sides of that. You know, I think the question you're asking maybe is, hey, what happens is the cultures are misaligned in different parts. You know, you've got that. And so how do you do that? And then the second part is you generally have some core values that the whole company operates under. But I think it's okay for you and your department

to have additional values that you operate. Hey, when it comes to my marketing division, here's how we operate. You know, we're not, we don't just take orders to do things. We also think about how to push and promote things out. And, you know, we have fun we don't just take orders to do things. We also think about how to push and promote things out. And, you know, we have fun. We we take each other seriously. We use our strengths to lift each other's weaknesses versus, you know, complaining about each other's weaknesses. Kyle has this. Chris has that.

Let's just tap into what we're good at and and stop focusing on what we're not good at. And, you know, that's the core value that we have that maybe is different from what the whole company operates under for that. But as far as getting everybody on charge, I mean, Chris, you bring up a good point. And it is a it's a mighty task. Because if you don't have the senior level leadership on board, you probably will end up with sections and pockets that don't fall in alignment. And it's frustrating, as we see, I mean, that's why the state of leadership in America is so broken. But the reality is you have to focus on your, where you are, you know, whether you're, you've just been hired out of college and you're an intern, you have influence over two or three people around you, how you do, how you act, what you do and how you say it. And people will notice that, you know, if you're a senior

vice president, you have more influence. And so you have more responsibility to make sure all those around you are on the same page, but it's not, you know, you can, people will notice and say, I want more of that. How do I get more of that? You know, what are you doing that's different? Can you come over here? I want to, can teach us how to do that. And I think you'd be surprised and leaders would be surprised that if you step in and start to do those little things, people notice and they notice in a very, very positive way. I love it. And I like the good, good. I'd like, you know, one other thing too, that we that we kind of frame out is certain things don't necessarily matter. So it's finding that balance of, hey, what ritual can we reinforce and empower as opposed to what specific ritual can you leave to the individual?

A great example, a great example, I believe, is a ritual before a mission, right? A Navy SEAL mission, right? Some guys will write a letter home to their wife. It won't get sent. It'll be just printed out and put in an envelope. Some guys will recite some Bible verses or take a cross underneath their kid or a flag in between their body armor and their chest um and and my point why i bring some of these are just some examples right you can obviously just your mind can think of others but

my point is is like we don't have to state hey there's only one ritual allowed for this thing right like that doesn't need to be stated. What matters is, you know, the very specific mission planning, for example, or back to what I was saying earlier, that the after action review where we, you know, criticize each other and humble each other in a good way. But I just wanted to add that in.. I was going to say, please, please. That's what I do. I round out everyone's ideas at the end. And then I put a bow on it or I try to, I swing for the fences. Sometimes they miss. And sometimes I do too many segues. So I love the ritual thing. Like you talked about where you sit down post mission and you're criticizing

each other in a, in a, in a constructive sort of way. And you, and you, and you, and you push criticizing each other in a in a in a constructive sort of way and you and you and you and you push for self-accountability and i i think i i'm i'm envisioning that in the business office where people sit around and go uh you know hey uh you didn't do your tps reports this week and maggie maggie says yeah i'm sorry for bringing fish in for the microwave this week and you know that sort of shit um sounds like an episode of office early when it comes down to it. But no,

I love the whole rituals idea. And maybe that's what more CEOs and leaders need to do is that you say, we want to establish culture, but also what are our rituals? Right. I think like a good, a good example, right.

Is a lot of companies, public, public companies will get ready for, you know, quarter release, right? And then it's done. And then they just watch the market to see how the market reacts, as opposed to sitting down and doing their own internal AR and saying, hey, what can we do? What could we have done better? How was our call? How was the CEO while he was on the phone? What could he have done in his vernacular, in his presentation, in his voice, in his tempo? I mean, and on and on and on. I think, honestly,

little sidebar here. I think one thing that going back a little bit that uh elon musk actually did recently at i think it was april or may it was q1 uh investor day he got up and it wasn't all about elon he had like 25 for tesla excuse me for tesla he did he had like 25 of his senior leaders on stage with him and he wasn't even holding a mic like they were holding the mics right and he was just there supporting them and and uh you know championing them on it was it was pretty interesting and pretty cool to watch and then it's and then it's funny it's it's kind of sidebar now i'm going down rabbit holes uh but it was kind of funny to watch how uh the analysts of wall street completely you know they they gave him a couple of them

gave him good props for it but not too many yeah it's an interesting thing we'll see how x works out those of you watching years from now yesterday he uh yesterday today he's changing it from twitter to x which is an interesting brand new decision um so this is going to be a great book on leadership like i say i i love reading leadership books because there's always something that I'll end up reading or some things I'll end up reading that bring me a new paradigm or a lot of times too. It's the reminder. You're like, oh shit, I forgot about that.

I forgot about that aspect. I got to go back and work on that. You know, that's, it was a problem I used to have where, you know, it's, I think it was, is it John Wooden, the basketball coach, and he used to always say to his players, hey, you know, great layup and great slam dunk, okay, buddy, but you can't shoot from the three throw, Mr. Shaq. So let's see you work the basics, get back to basics. And so being able to read about leadership and get back to the basics,

see things from a different paradigm makes all that a thing. So thing so thank you very much gentlemen for coming on the show i really appreciate it thanks for having me welcome can i do a teaser yeah go ahead please do hey here's the here's the first paragraph of our of our book how did a group of 19th century explorers survive a deadly winter in antarctica trapped in ice no working instruments to guide them and a sunless existence that turned men mad. It might have had something to do with penguins. Ah, penguins. Read on.

It was a good lesson. Hey, this has been great, Chris. You've asked some amazing questions. I think that Kyle and I like to be challenged and, and our conversations that we do with the media, such as you. And, um, we always, uh, you know, circle up afterwards. And I know that when I circled with Kyle, he's going to say, uh, Chris Voss, he asked a lot of good questions. Are we going to have a circle meeting? We're all going to be self-accountable after this. Yeah, we can do that. That'd be great.

It was that one moment that Chris forgot me, Chris forgot the question that he was thinking of that for a while there and setting up. Um, but we got back to it. So I was glad that we discovered it. Uh, funny wrap up. I'll just soapbox to the end here.

Uh, funny wrap up. I went back to that manager who fired me two to three months later and said to him, I now make more than you did. Thank you for changing my life. Thank you for fucking firing me. And I shook his hand. I was honest about it. It wasn't a fuck you. It was like did thank you for changing my life thank you for fucking firing me and i shook his hand i was honest about it wasn't a fuck you it was like thank you for changing my

life and i had no idea how much he really changed my life by putting making me self-entrepreneur because you know once you get that drug you're fucked for life and i am so just sorry i can't tell how many people i've let go they're like thank you you for letting me go. We think that people would feel awkward. What you've done is you free them to go actually pursue what they were really meant to do. They hold on to you for so long that you're hurting them and they're hurting you.

That's the favorite thing I'd say to all my ex-girlfriends. You need to go and fly. Find what the fuck you want. I hope you find it. I don't know if you can attach it to all your exes, Chris, but possibly. I've got a lot of exes. And then they always say,

you'll never find another woman like me. And I'm like, that's the point. Anyway, guys, give us your.com so people can find you guys on the interwebs. Leadershipisoverrated.com I've been single for 35 years i've never been married wife and kids i'm single man i've dated all my life so i'm stuck with it uh i've seen it all um and do we get everybody's.coms yeah we're the talent out there

together there you go you guys are uh you guys are a pair all right well uh thank you very much for coming on the show uh order up the book wherever fine books are sold. Leadership is Overrated. How the Navy Seals and Successful Businesses Create Self-Leading Teams That Win. Comes out August 29, 2023. Thanks for joining me on the show with my audience. We certainly appreciate it without you guys. Hey, go give us five stars over there on iTunes. Go to goodreads.com for just christmas linkedin.com for says christmas youtube.com i

already did youtube anyway you know where we're at fuck it you've been here for 14 years thanks for tuning in be good to each other stay safe and we'll see you guys next time