The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Thom Dennis Founder & CEO – Culture Change Coach and Facilitator

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

Thom Dennis Founder & CEO - Culture Change Coach and Facilitator Serenityinleadership.com

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, this is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com.

And now a man who's a millionaire buying eggs in the 2023 egg crisis of America here going on. A friend of mine just bought a whole flat of eggs and I think spent 50 bucks or something. Something crazy like that. It's a good time to be a vegan-ese if you aren't already. I haven't noticed because I don't eat eggs much. But yeah, wow. Okay. So you can now put eggs evidently in your 401k portfolio. But something tells me those eggs are just as good as investing in FTX. We're on with Tom Dennis. We're going to be talking to

him today. He's a co-author of a book, two books actually, The Art of Risk and Reward by Shelley Organson. And he contributed that book and another. We'll be talking a little bit about that. And we're going to be talking to him about leadership and business and everything else that goes into it. Tom is a change agent with skills and strategies. He's got a master in it. Expertise is a certified facilitator accredited by the CQ Center and an NLP master practitioner. He's got 17 years experience as an officer in the Royal Marines.

And having worked extensively around the world, Tom brings all of his experience together as CEO of Serenity in Leadership. And as a speaker, facilitator, and change agent, consultant, and educator. For the last 30 years, his career has been dedicated to facilitating transformation through organizational change. He is passionate about resolving the breadth of issues around good leadership and strives to bring healing and renewal in the face of dysfunction in the workplace. Welcome to the show, Tom. How are you?

Chris, thank you very much. I loved your introduction. You've got to stand up and dance when you hear that, haven't you? I do. What's nice is it brings a great pace to the show. Most great comedy and entertaining shows, there's kind of a pace. And so it sets a great tone and pace for the show. So welcome to the show.

Give us your dot com so people can find you on the interwebages in the sky. It's serenityinleadership, all one word,.com. There you go. There you go. So talk to us a little bit about your life path. What sort of journey did you have, upbringing, and what made you get interested in leadership and principles and business and stuff wow um so uh i was very formed at an early age because i went to boarding school and uh that uh

you know the some of your listeners have probably heard about the the british system but it does actually form people not necessarily well but it certainly forms them and you can see that in amongst british politicians in particular um so uh i i went through that and then um i uh i became a lifeguard for a while which influenced me very much um later on but then i i decided to try and be a pilot so i um went to commercial pilot license um pilot school and uh halfway through i i think i probably scared my instructor a little bit too much because they invited me to to leave so i i uh i went into industry i found the dirtiest nastiest job I could do, which earned me enough money to carry on flying

because I didn't like somebody telling me I couldn't do something. So I carried on flying until I got my private pilot's license, but then really it was a bit too much. So the business took me on, and I learned all sorts of things about being a manager, and they sent me to school and one of my old friends who'd been um at the the lifeguard lifeguard with me in the swimming pool he joined the Royal Marines and he came back and I just saw a different person I mean he was completely transformed and I thought well that's that's pretty cool I think I could do with a bit

of that so um I uh I walked into a recruiting office, which was just around the corner from the school they sent me to. I said, what does it take to join the Royal Marines? And he said, are you crazy? I said, well, probably. He said, right, well, come in and sit down. And we started to talk about it. So I joined and ended up spending 17 years there.

Wow. Which was brilliant. You know, lots of adventures and moving around the world and doing various things. And so I left in 91 after the first Gulf War. And I'd been teaching at Greenwich at that time, leadership. And so I thought, well, what do I do? So I joined the only coaching company in the country at the time and trained as a coach and then developed from there.

Set up a business, didn't go too well. Set up another business, went slightly better and so on. And then having done all this coaching and facilitation, I thought I better go to school and find out what it is that I've been doing all this time. So that's when I did the master's degree in change agent skills. And that took me into coaching facilitation and um changing cultures and it's just developed from there um over quite a long period of time serenity and leadership came later really after a lot of explorations i did around exploring um the masculine and the feminine and how, as I see it, the feminine is very suppressed in both men and women. You know, it certainly doesn't apply to all women, but an awful lot of very successful senior women have got to the top of organizations by being more of a man than being themselves.

And so I'm looking for ways to bring back the feminine because I think that's what we need. Really? In leadership? In running tribes and stuff like that? That's very interesting. You know, work in the kind of fields that are highly successful, I mean, it's a pretty masculine thing to be in those. I mean, you can't have emotion running those things, so it's interesting.

How long have you had your company now, Serenity Leadership? Well, Serenity Leadership grew out of the original company, which was Phoenix Obsidian. Between the two of them, it's been 28 years, I think. Wow. Yeah. You guys have a lot of people that work with you there you have a lot of employees uh not many employees we we use um associates i i okay i prefer that because i can bring in the particular expertise for a particular job there you go there

you go yeah so what do you find most companies are struggling with or maybe what leaders are struggling with nowadays? Well, I think there's a lot of new challenges that have come. It's really difficult to be a CEO. You're beholden to the shareholders in particular and what shareholders require, which is normally very short term, is not actually necessarily what's good for an organization. But on top of that, we've had the pandemic, and then a lot of employees have reviewed themselves and said, well, do I want to work in this way anymore? And a lot of them have said, well, actually, no.

And a lot of the sort of the the 50 year old up upwards have said i've got enough to live on i don't need to run anymore yeah so i'm i'm off so there's quite a large chunk of people um in the older well older um generations who um have been lost to the business to business and and so um ceos now they've got a they've got to look at what is hybrid working and and how do we manage all these people who want to work from home and how do we make the business work um and i think you know some people are very stuck and they want to go back to the old ways, and there's an awful lot of people saying, well, actually, no, I want to do this differently. There's a big push in that way.

On top of that, you've got things like mental health and well-being, which nobody talked about 10 years ago, frankly, but now it's a huge subject. You've got,, and I think a lot of CEOs have really resisted that. I don't want to talk about that. It takes me away from the business. I need to attend to the figures. I need to make sure that things are functioning. And so they're being forced to look at lots of new things. And it's like society is pushing organizations and corporations, wherein not that long ago, it was the other way around.

And so that puts a lot of stresses on ceos yeah definitely i mean the model has really changed with covid uh you know i i work remotely you know doing what i do since 2004 so i was used to doing whatever i want whenever i want but uh you know suddenly everyone joined me in the Zoom world and working remotely and online. And I'm like, well, welcome. I mean, I've been doing this. I'm kind of used to it. And now

everything's turned upside down. I imagine over in Europe where you're at, you guys are struggling with the same thing with the remote workers, workers that don't want to return to work, et cetera, et cetera. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I think it's, well, I don't know about all countries, but in many, many countries, you're having this shift.

Yeah. Meanwhile, you've got people that have 30-year leases. They sign on their office buildings. They're sitting empty. I saw one company that they signed a 30-year lease and they forced all their employees to come back. Their employees are pissed and they're having to deal with it. But what are they going to do? A lot of people never saw this thing coming. but that's the way change works, right? It certainly is. I always took my hat off to Wimbledon, the tennis tournament there. They were one of the very, very few companies that had pandemic insurance.

Really? Yes. Pandemic insurance? I didn't know. I would have bought some of that. Well, you know, there was a book I quoted on another book

because I couldn't remember the name of the book, but it was called Inevitable Surprises. And in that, you know, if you think about that, inevitable surprises, they're things that take people by surprise. But actually, if you think about it, it surprises, they're things that take people by surprise. But actually, if you think about it, it's bound to happen. And there was a chapter in the end of that book, which was all about pandemics.

Wow. So, you know, some people saw this coming. Yeah. In 2004, yeah, the World Health Organization for the last 20 or 30 years have been hearing them say that there, you know, there was a pandemic coming or something that would be really scary. Like, you know, some of the movies we saw that were very apocalyptic. Uh, I remember in the nineties or 2000s, I watched a movie, it got some, you know, virus with monkeys and, and, you know, everyone gets the disease dies and, and, uh, you're just like, holy crap. And so when the pandemic started, it really was going on. What do you think about the younger generation?

What are you seeing in the younger generation with millennials and Gen Zs in leadership? Are they getting it? Are they adopting to it? Because their versions, especially with the Gen Zs, is a very different work ethic. Yes, it is. And how do you view that? If you can call it an ethic, I don't know. Or, it is. And hallelujah for that. If you can call it an ethic, I don't know. Or call it working.

I'm just kidding. I'm kidding, Gen Zers. I'm teasing you. Well, I really respect them, actually. I mean, I try and have an intern working with me, and I love doing that because the challenge and the thought process they bring are so different to the older generations. And, yeah, they're far less compromising.

You know, they want to – and I think a lot of organizations are having to learn that. You know, people being recruited now are actually saying, well, what's the purpose of your organization? I need to know what your purpose is because I need to get behind it. If you don't have one or your purpose is just to make money, you can sing for it. I'm going somewhere else.

Yeah. It's interesting. And they don't want to work one job either. They want to flirt about the thing, the company website or the company jobs. And my friends that hire Gen Zs, they're like, you hire them for one job, and they want to do a bunch of other jobs. And you're like, no, this is the one you do, and then you earn your way to the other. So it's kind of interesting, and it's going to be interesting how we saw what the millennials had in effect. And a lot of the electronic and apps and different

things we have the way we work now come from the millennials. So it'll be interesting to see what they're contributing is. Does leadership seem to be a lost art? Because sometimes when I talk about leadership to people, they glaze over a little bit on me and or if i ask them what their leadership techniques or behaviors or skills are sometimes they get a blank stare like i don't know i just kind of do what i do i don't really think about it how interesting um do you find a lot of leaders that you work with uh they know their leadership style they know how they're applying leadership and stuff? I think that fundamentally leaders that are going to be successful in the future have got to know themselves. Yeah.

And that's something that I think older leaders or managers have not applied themselves to. So you find that some successful leaders know themselves very well but they haven't worked at it it just happens that they they've got that naturally but there's a huge amount of i was writing something about dysfunctional leadership the other day someone was asking the question you know how do you handle a dysfunctional leader and it's like these these people are um blind and deaf to what's going on around them. And what used to be acceptable just isn't anymore.

And so I really think that leaders who, well, people who aspire to leadership have got to explore themselves. What are their beliefs? What are their values? What drives them? What's their purpose in life? And how does that resonate or not with the organization they're working with? You know, you get all these organizations who have all these, they do this, they spend a fortune with one of the big consultancies and they put all these values up on the wall. And then one day people come into work and they look at this and they say oh is that my value i didn't

know that you know and and it's a it's a utter waste of money and time um so you've really got to enroll people and and it's much easier if they've got a sense, a sight of what drives them. And I think the younger generation are more conscious of that. That's interesting. You know, and it's true. There's a lot of insightful stuff you have to go to be a leader. I think some of the leaders I talk to when they give me that blank back, they kind of have a toolkit they're working in their mind,

but they don't really think about it. It's kind of become second nature. Like it has for me. I mean, I can build a business in my sleep. I mean, the modeling and everything. I just know what to do. I don't even think about it anymore. And I've had people say that to me.

They're like, why are you doing it this way? Do you think? I just know what to do. Yeah, I'm 55. I've seen it all. But a lot of leaders, I think at some time in their career, had to be introspective, had to really think consciously about what they were doing and what works. And I think after a while, they kind of get into subconscious mode and know what works.

But it's always important, I think, to revisit that and to constantly be aware of what's going on and, of course, changes in the environment of leadership. I know a lot of my friends that are leaders, you know, like the newest generation or like COVID coming in, they've got to adopt or adapt to that. That's the point. Everyone throws around the word agile these days, but I think leaders do have to be agile. You know, in the old days, you could have a structure, you could have a process, and you knew how to do things. But actually, things are moving too fast now. You can't depend on solid structures you've got to be much more flexible and be able to to to move it's you know it's like the old old um metaphor of the the the tree uh and the reed you know the reed bends in the in the wind um and eventually the tree may fall down um so I think, yeah,

leaders today who are being successful are much more fleet of foot. They're much more agile. There you go. There you, I mean, you have to be when it really comes down to it. You know, some of the things you've talked about too on the internet,

how to create a culture where it's safe to speak out. Talk to us a little bit about that. There was an article you did for thehrdirector.com. I did. You're right. It's, it's, I think in the old days,

you arrived and your contract was do the work, we'll pay you for a certain amount of hours and you go home. And we, you know, the management, we led. But today it's much more, as we've just been talking about, the younger generations, there's that sense of, well, what's my part in this? And you said some people want a couple of jobs. They want to be moving on in some way. So it's creating a culture where people feel safe to actually say, hey, this isn't working, or this isn't working for me.

And as I say in the old days, they tend to just be shot down. But what I found a lot is creating an environment where actually you can create a space where people can come and say, this is working for me, this is not working for me. I have an issue with this person and I want to address it. I want to be able to work through it. I think in the old days, so much was hidden. And actually, we're learning that the more open we are, the more transparent we are, the more effective we are. To leaders, I mean, how important is that as an aspect as a leader to be transparent?

I think it's really important. I think it's really important. And that comes, you know, Brene Brown, she talks about vulnerability and all that. But when a leader can stand up and say, hey, this is the situation, this is what I know, this is what I don't know, and this is what I propose to do about it, that sense that, you know, leaders in the old days sort of were very ego-driven and they felt like they had to show that they knew all the answers yeah because otherwise um people wouldn't follow them but actually and this takes us back to some

of the feminine traits that really are needed that have been sort of excluded is this ability to say i don't know i don't know all the And actually, the best leaders are good at that, and what they do is they surround themselves with all the people who are good at the things that that leader is not. So you have this setup of people who work together. It's a team. It's a team.

And yeah, I've seen a lot of teams where actually the leadership of the team revolves. And it's like they sit together and they say, right, this is the problem. Who's the best leader for this? And somebody says, well, actually, I've got some experience in that. And then they lead until they say, well, actually, I'm now a bit out of my depth. I want to put it back into the middle. And somebody else picks it up. Hey, what an amazing way to lead.

You know, it takes so much ego out of it. You don't have to be proving things. You're just, as a team, producing the best result. That's interesting to me. You know, I learned this as a CEO years ago. I don't have all the ideas. I thought, I kind of went through that phase that you mentioned earlier where I thought I had all the good ideas, was smacking all the balls out of the park, and then I somehow started hitting foul balls. And I realized that I didn't have the corner on all the greatest ideas in the world.

As a CEO, I didn't have all the great things. And then it became, you know, learning to be as a leader to curate and to listen to my things. You know, one of the mantras we had around my office that I stole from somewhere, maybe Tom Peter's book or some sort of book, but basically this mantra, maybe it was a friend or a business friend, but there was a mantra we took on, several mantras we took on. One was, the only stupid question is the unasked question. And so it really encouraged people to come forward and ask questions if they didn't know something. Because the worst thing you can work in is an environment where you're damned or people

look at you funny or think you're stupid if you go through training and then you don't ask questions anymore. And the one thing I learned the hard way is the person who doesn't really understand their job well is the person who's going to break something and cost, you know, a machine to cost you $30,000. And they just somehow didn't get it in training. And there's some people that just don't get it, and they need different ways of training or or facilitating or whatever but around my office uh we used to say the only the only unasked question is the the only dumb question is the unasked question so you're stupid

if you don't open your mouth and and tell us you know what ask questions or why do we do things or or whatever and that created a pretty good environment for us because people could come forward without being shamed. There wasn't like this, oh, you didn't learn that in training, you idiot. There was like, okay, well, let's get you up to speed. Let's try this as a training mechanism. Okay, here's what we do. The other thing is I used to explain to my employees, it wasn't so much a like, go there and do this, work this machine that way. We'd explain to them why we did that and why we'd established that

process, if you will. And that ended up being really smart because since people understand why we did it that way, they were more comfortable with it, but also they could maybe make nuances or innovations to why we did it that way. Cause they'd be'd be like well the way you've set this up is kind of silly chris you should have put you know abcd in this order instead of dbcd you know in this order and you can save more money or you know be more efficient that way i'm like great you know and so we try to encourage that that i think it came from the phil film that book um the fifth discipline um where we try to create a learning organization. Yeah, but you were not just creating a learning organization. You were creating an organization where it was safe enough for people to speak up.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We did want it to be safe because, like I said, the one guy who would always break something, burn something down, or cost me a fortune was the guy who didn't fully understand something in training and or you know he just he just needed more or she needed more data or information and uh sometimes they just needed maybe some training that was more specific to them uh they say some people learn from training you know there's some people learn kinetically some people learn visually some people learn auditory wise, you know, sometimes you just have to go, okay, well, you know, what do we need to do to drill this into your head and get you to fully grasp it? That's right. There you go. One of the things you wrote about too that I was really

interested on is you wrote an article talking about 10 leadership trends for 2023. Let's touch on some of that because I think that's pretty relevant to the future of what's going out. One item, the first item you talked about that I love is visionary storytellers. Talk to us a little bit about what that is and how a leader sets that tone. Well, I think storytelling is enormously powerful. People can relate to stories far more than sort of instructions

and that kind of thing. And laying out a vision, if you can paint a picture, then people can engage with that. And it's something that they can position themselves in, you know, and see them. So they can or they can't see it. Either way, it's a good thing. See themselves in the future. So, yeah.

Again, it's about the enrolling and getting people on board. And as you've described, if they don't understand or they say, well, hang on a minute, does that actually make sense? It invites that kind of dialogue, which is really constructive. Yeah. You quoted a gentleman named Dean Carter who led HR and shared services, and he said, a leader for me is someone who has a compelling view of the future, and their way of looking at the future is very compelling to align behind.

They always know their vision has to be possible, and the team needs to be able to clearly see their actions that get to be taken. You know, that's so important to me, and I think that's what the big part of what a leader does. You know, he sets a tone, he sets a vision, he sets a goal, he sets a destination. You know, Steve Jobs going, we're going to build an iPhone. And one of my friends was on that team,

and, you know, Steve Jobs is asking people to, you know, put a fully functional giant phone into this little space, a fax machine, a mail thing, a typewriter, a video cassette recorder, a camera, all these sort of technologies into this tiny little space and then make it work. And even when he unveiled the iPhone, it was still crashing software-wise. It didn't crash from on stage, but the people that built it knew it was crashing. It was like just half a miracle it didn't crash on stage. You know what he did there? You know, each demonstration he did, he had a different phone,

so he went to the un-picked up. But he did hold the one phone and went through three to four motions or three to four openings, and it still didn't crash. It was crashing after the third. And the team was sitting there terrorized. They were just like, holy shit, that's going to crash. It was the one time it didn't crash, actually. So it was insane. But his vision and his ability to motivate people to go,

you see that mountain there? We're going to chop that thing down, and we're going to go right through it. And to get people excited, motivated, to care about something that almost seemed impossible. And most of your great leaders do that. There's seemed impossible. And most of your great leaders do that. There's something impossible, you know. America at one point was the country that, you know, was the last one that wasn't involved in World War II.

You look at Churchill, someone who stood up and said, you know, we'll fight on the landing beaches, we'll fight on the seas, we'll fight on the oceans, whatever the cost may be, we, you know, we'll just, we'll just keep fighting. You know, without his sort of moxie, you have to wonder what would have happened with the European government if they would have fell, if they would have fallen or folded and changed the face of history. And so, you know, there are all sorts of different sites that you can do, but I love that. And I think most leaders should understand that. They need to have a compelling view. You know, you mentioned earlier about how people put their values up on the wall at the

company and the people go, okay, so is this what we're supposed to do? I think it's funny. A lot of companies will put that, you know, big PR messages about how these are our values and this is what we do. And I remember my early days as an employee, I'd sit and look at people's PR thing and be like, our leader's a lying asshole. Like, all the values that you put here are a joke. Like, this company is the complete opposite of everything here that you posted. And the leader is untrustable. He's, you know, he's running a high school popularity contest management style rather than, you know, a true leadership business sort of style. And, you know, it's just a farce.

It's gaslighting what you put up here. Yeah. And some companies do that. Well, they still do. Some still do.. They think they can PR their way. Some still do. Yes, absolutely. They think they can PR their way to, I don't know, efficiency. Yeah.

But you mentioned Steve Jobs, and before that you mentioned Dean Carter. I mean, that interview I did with him was just so amazing. What a fabulous person he is. And some of the stories he brought from Patagonia, which was just set up, I mean, that was set up by a guy, Yvon Chouinard, all those years ago, because he felt that the pitons that people were, he was a climber,

and the pitons that people were using weren't, they were destroying, well, actually, that was the second stage. But he just felt that they needed to build better ones. And he had just attracted all these people. And, you know, one of his early books was Let My People Go Surfing. Because he just, you know, and one of the stories that Dean talks about is, you know, within a week of arriving as the head of HR, he had to go to one of theiriner, who's the wife of the founder,

and say, look, we're about two months behind. And she said, okay, then you need to put a message out across the whole company that any woman who is nursing is now on full paid leave until the facilities are ready. There you go. There you go. There you go. That is purpose. That is, that is vision.

It is strength of leadership and determination to, to, to live according to, to your values. Fabulous. You know, one of the, one of the blogs that you guys – I'm sorry.

I think you're breaking up. There you go. One of the blog posts you guys talk about – in fact, I probably shouldn't have mentioned this when I was mentioning Churchill and different things. One of the blog posts you guys have on your website, you talk about Zelensky and the leadership role model of Vladimir Zelensky in the Ukraine. You know, I mean, here's a guy who's living his leadership. I mean, you see him and, you know, he's camped out with his military folks. He's wearing the uniform. He's not dressing up. You see a complete difference between Putin and Zelensky in their approach.

Here's Zelensky. He's in the hospital shaking hands, very Churchill-ish. You see him out in dangerous zones putting his life on the line. I think we all know his life is on the line, uh, and that they, the Russian government would love to take him out and he's not shirking from it. He's owning it. And, uh, and so you're seeing that from a very, uh, real thing and he's very engaged. And then you're also seeing the disengagement and kind of the folly of the Russian leadership. And it's almost like a leadership sort of opposing views to take a look at.

Yeah, it's fascinating. Putin with his enormous tables. Yeah. And everybody's sort of a mile from him. And Zelensky, who's there. And I don't know. You know, Zelensky came to the U.S., didn't he? And he spoke, was it to Congress?

Yeah, to Congress and stuff. And the number of people who criticized him because he wasn't wearing a suit. And it's like, hello? You know, this man. This man of war, in war. Yeah. And good for him. Good for him.

Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, the worst thing you can do is show that you're disconnected from your people. And so, you know, if he was to walk around like Putin in suits and, you know, clean and, you know, living in whatever mansion, you know, Putin lives in. You know, meanwhile, here he is in the, probably the basement of wherever some, you know, military building, probably sleeping on not the best of beds, you know, not leading a life of luxury. He's not sitting there eating, you know, I don't know, whatever, you know, steaks and, you know, having a good time. You're not seeing him out having a luxurious life. You know, this is a man who is betting on everything.

And he's doing... Go ahead. Sorry, also he's a communicator. Every day he's communicating with these people. Yeah. And sometimes he's got bad news, sometimes he's got better news, but he's, again, there's humility and there's transparency.

Hallelujah. That's, you know, that's leadership. Yeah. And, I mean, you see this little country that certainly doesn't have the sizable sort of army and military of Russia, but you see the real difference in leadership applied between those two, you know, dichotomies of opposing vision. And it's extraordinary. And it's amazing. It just shows what a leader can do, you know, I mean, if he's got the tools.

And certainly him being able to communicate like Churchill. You know, Churchill's one of the biggest problems was trying to drag the U S into the war and our resistance to it. And, you know, he, and that was his bet. His bet was he could finally convince us that, that we should, we should end the war and that we would eventually come to him. You know, you hear it in his speeches where he's like, he's like, you know, if we can get the, I don't know, I can't remember if you refer to it as the West or the New World, I think it was he referred to it as. I'm a big fan of Churchill. But, you know, having that vision, that's what Zelensky did, is he went out to everybody and said, hey, man, you know, this affects us all. We're all, this is everyone's war. This is, the world

is in this. We all need to, we need your help. You can't leave us, You can't leave us to flounder. A lot of people, most leaders you don't see do that, especially in little scuffles that happen around the world. I think it's a real lesson in leadership. He really inspires me with what he's done. Yeah, I agree with you.

There you go. You talk in some of your other articles, your article about 2023 10 leadership trends, about some other things. Walk the walk, superb tacticians for the future, nurturers, I guess, reducing toxicity and burnout in the workplace, high culture intelligence, building better teams, innovators, empowers. Anything you want to touch on there well i i i uh i mentioned that this this business about um the masculine and the feminine um there's uh there's this guy i don't know how big he is in the US. I think he is probably, Andrew Tate, who, he's a remarkable person. But he's talking about masculinity and how it's missing because we've all gone woke

and we're, you know, just want to know about people's feelings and nothing else and it's it's a it's it's very complex and he makes it sound very simple and therefore it's very palatable to the millions of people who are now following him but it isn't it isn't so simple uh and actually um what we we need is a is a is a combination of the masculine and the feminine. And he's very disparaging about the feminine. Everything's about a fight. And actually, that is an old paradigm.

It's not about having a fight. We don't have to beat anyone else if you look as a leader all i need to do is be a better person than i was yesterday yeah so i'm in competition with myself or i'm setting myself standards but i don't have to beat joe next door i you know that that is that that is a um a waste of energy and so um one of the things that we're really, certainly in this country, and I think probably in the US as well, there's so much talk about now bullying and harassment

and there's scandals coming out almost every day in this country about policemen, rapists, and all this kind of thing it's horrific and um uh one of the things that really sets me on fire is helping organizations become safe and and um that requires the feminine to come in and stand by the masculine the functional ones not the dysfunctional ones and um so when you mean dysfunctional traits you mean do you mean traits when you say dysfunctional ones or functional ones yeah absolutely like Yeah, absolutely. Like human nature traits? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You know, actually, and this is probably some of your listeners are not going to like this,

but just driving for success, just for success's sake, is not helpful. helpful and you know if you look at leadership and and a lot of very successful in monetary terms leaders um they're driven in such a way that actually at some stage in their life and this is what we you know we've created a retreat for this, is for leaders to go in and explore themselves because however successful they are, somehow they don't feel like they are successful. There's this void, this hole inside them, which is why you get so many leaders who are addicted to drink or to drugs um and um you you look at these these massive dysfunctional super rich families and it's like no you've got to start exploring what's driving you and and typically it's a very early experience it's the the father that did something that that you know just clicked

you know in in the child or the mother or the teacher and um what what i'm really sort of keen on doing is helping people look at themselves much more deeply and say ah okay now i can see where i'm driven like that i didn't need to do that it was something that that was suited me as a child but i don't need to satisfy that driver anymore and through that exploration you can get an inner sense of peace and i tell you what, leaders who have an inner sense of peace are way better leaders. And they are followed by people as opposed to having people dragged behind them. I can see that. You know, I mean, Steve Jobs was a great leader, but there was also a dark side to him. He's known as a credible asshole.

He was a credible asshole. And he was a bit almost too driving. And it's kind of interesting. I've seen, I remember seeing this dichotomy when I was growing up, watching leaders learning from CEOs. There were some leaders I knew that they were incredible creators and drivers and successful, but very shortly behind them was this almost snowballing crash of a landslide of destruction that was chasing them. You know, you see that sometimes in politics.

You see that sometimes in great leaders where they're creating a lot, but sometimes the mess they make with the creation they do almost overcomes them. And sometimes it does overcome them where it catches up to them. Um, and you know, you can say, wow, you built,

you know, look at like, look at FTX, the, the big Bitcoin thing, you know, everyone vaulted him as a great leader. He's putting the name of his company on,

you know, arenas and stuff and, and meeting with successful people and, and hobnobbing with them. And he has a mess and no one knows about it and it's slowly you know everyone's like yeah you create a billion dollar business blah blah and he has a mess that's chasing him that somehow he's created and it's speaking and it's growing just like a landslide yeah and uh eventually it overcame him um yeah so whatever mistakes he made

and so you can be a great creator you You can be a great driver of success. What are some, I mean, there's some distinct differences between masculine and feminine. And someone had asked me years ago, a couple years ago, when I wrote my book, what the differences were with leadership, between leadership and men. And I'm like, well, I just wrote a book that basically talked about leadership. And I think if men and women both apply those principles, they'll be successful. I didn't write it from a sexual orientation sort of thing where I said, well, women do this or men do that. But the principles I outlined were just what any successful person can do to achieve.

And so it got me thinking and I really started studying, like you talked about, the male and feminine, the masculine and the feminine. What are some traits in the feminine side do you feel that men need to pull over or women need to utilize in the workplace that are good, the good traits, as you mentioned? Well, compassion is one. Empathy is another. Yeah. Listening.

You go into a boardroom and watch the one woman in there try and get a word in edgewise. And the only way they can do it is by forcing. And that's one of the, if you like, the dysfunctional masculine parts. And just to be clear, when you talk about masculine and feminine, when I talk about it, I'm not talking about men and women. We all have a masculine and a feminine side. And what I'm interested in is what could you be like if you were fully expressed in all of your good traits,

as opposed to having to adopt ones that are not yours in order to survive or to thrive in a particular environment. That's the thing. You know, because I think a lot of societies are very dysfunctionally masculine oriented. And a young man who's tried to sort of express himself in some way finds himself, you know, don't be a pussy, don't be a wet, don't be, you know, and it's like, no, allow that person to express themselves in their way. I think there's this need to conform, to belong, to feel that you can belong. And people bend themselves in order to do that. And we lose so much.

It's like disabled people, people who have a disability, I think is probably a better way to put it. They get turned away from so many organizations to work, and yet with just a small adjustment, they could have the skills of that person, which could be actually perfect for a particular job. So let me ask you this. Let me play devil's advocate on the other side. One of the aspects of

the feminine side is egalitarianism, the equality. It's socialism, basically. Everyone has to be equal. Everyone has to get the same. Everyone has to be supportive. How do we keep that from bleeding into an organization where we become a little bit too huggy,

a little bit too concerned with each other's feelings, as opposed to we need to get some shit done around here. Like we need to go accomplish it. We just can't sit around and be in our feelings all day long and talk about, you know, you can't be huggy. You can't be huggy anyway. And, you know, HR is not going to like that. But, I mean, is there – basically what I'm asking is,

is there a point that we become a little bit too feminine in an organization where, you know, we're not getting stuff done, we're just being too huggy? Well, you used the word egalitarian, and that was an interesting word to use, I think. Because, you know, you talk about DE and i diversity equity and inclusion um i think it's not about egalitarianism but it is about equity so in other words if somebody man or woman or whatever is doing a job they should get the same pay for instance um and an awful lot of organizations use the excuse that it's a woman, for instance, and therefore they get a lesser rate of pay. Now that is wrong, in my view.

It's wrong. But then you went on to say, well, if there's a situation and we've really got to drive to do what's necessary. I don't think that's – there's a time and a place for everything, you know. And I think sometimes when someone says, right, let's do it. We've got to do this. There's a problem. Let's solve it, let's do it. We've got to do this. There's a problem. Let's solve it and get on with it.

And actually, sometimes you get the little lone voice that says, excuse me, are you sure that's the problem that we need to deal with? Exactly, yeah. And they go, no, never mind that. We're going to solve this problem and of course what a lot of organizations do is they ricochet from solving one problem which creates all sorts of problems to solving those problems and you know they never actually get to the root of something um where actually the where i think the feminine would say is let's just reflect for a minute and let's make sure that we are solving the right problem and um so i think from that point of view it has a power that has a place but you know when

when there's a fire in the office you don't sit down and say right um this this is beginning to feel uncomfortable i think we should all discuss what we should do now you know you say no the bloody alarm's going out the door yeah i mean to me that still falls under logic and reasoning uh i mean one of my one of my ceos taught me a long time ago he he always had this one asshole negative guy on his board and i go to the board meetings and and i'd be like oh god it's john again and john would go off about how you know he was negative nancy basically um where you know whatever the idea was he he had a problem with it he he would know what was wrong with it and uh but and it was you know it was draining sometimes because you're like and so i went to him one time my ceo friend i went why do we keep having negative

nancy john come in the board, man? I'm really, he's like a tuber. We used to call it back in the day, you know, someone who tubes people out and direct depresses them. And, uh, uh,

and my, my CEO friend said to me, he goes, Chris, anytime you build a board, cause he really helped me become a CEO. He goes, anytime you build a board,

he goes, you want the one that one of goes, you want one of those negative Nancy Joes on there because that guy is going to be wrong many of the time because he's so negative. But when that guy's fucking right, when he's on the money, he's going to make you millions or save you millions. So you want to listen to him. You want to collect his thing. But to me, that's logic and reasoning. Logic and reasoning is very masculine, and it says, okay, what are the best ideas? How do we collect these? Okay, so you've reasoned this, and you have a different concept of what it takes, like you mentioned earlier, to solve the problem.

And we're the wing of ideas, the Brent Franklin thing of drawing a line down a thing, where there are pros and cons, that sort of thing. To me, that's logic and reasoning. It falls under that. But I understand what you mentioned with having the empathy and caring. I think as a leader, if people don't get that you care about them, that you have an intrinsic interest in the value of them and their success as a person, especially now with these new generations, it doesn't make that lot of a difference. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on with corporations around the world

and stuff that we need to do. Anything more we haven't touched on? Because we're having a great discussion on leadership. I love this. Ah, leadership. Anything more you want to tease out about who you guys are and what you do and how you do it? How can people work with you? What are the sort of clients that you usually work with?

I mean, people that might be listening to this on our LinkedIn channels and stuff, how can people reach out to you, work with you, and what is your ideal client that they might be up for? Well, fundamentally, we work at three levels. We work at an individual level. So that's one-to-one coaching, executive coaching. You know, when you're at the top of an organization, it can be very lonely. You know, sometimes there is no one to share your sense of indecision or not when you're not quite sure. So a coach can really, really help with that.

And so I love doing that work. I have done for the 30 years I've been running that business. Then at the team level, there's team coaching. But really what I love doing is facilitating. So I would speak to the CEO and say, right, you're going to have an off-site. You're going to talk about your vision, your strategy, or something's going wrong you need to deal with. And what I'll do is enable the CEO or the chairman, whichever it is, to be a part of the meeting as opposed to feeling like they've got to run it. It takes the weight off them, and then they can be just part of the process.

So I love facilitating those meetings. And also, typically what they say is, my God, this is the first meeting where actually we've stuck to the agenda and we've got to the end of the meeting and covered everything that we wanted to cover. Without an external, it can be really, really difficult. So I can introduce that kind of discipline. There you go. There you go.

So what's the best way for people to reach out to you and talk to you about working with you and your services? Well, I'm on linkedin um tom with an h tom dennis and um i'm uh i'm delighted to to hear from people at tom thom at serenity and leadership.com um and uh yeah i mean i I think one of the things that's really developed in me is this sense of how can I be of service? I want to help organizations be safer and happier places for people to work in. And, you know, as we say, organizations thrive when people thrive. Definitely. I mean, like I mentioned earlier, if a leader doesn't, you know, have his people's best interest, they're not going to feel that they're a part of the journey, they're a part of the vision.

You know, you can, and I think, you know, one thing that companies miscommunicate horribly is, you know, I saw someone joking on LinkedIn one time with a meme saying, you know, companies need to walk around, need to quit saying we're a family and everything when, you know, you can lay off, for example, you know, Microsoft's laying 10,000 people off this week. You know, you need to quit selling the bullshit that, you know, we're a family company and we're one big family kumbaya and then you go and ask 10 000 people you know you don't you don't fire off huge parts of your family because i don't know turkey the thanksgiving turkey didn't turn out right or something

no i mean that's that's interesting from a from a systemic constellation point of view um uh you can leave an organization but you can't leave a family yeah um but i've tried the same time um to call your organization a family is a very dangerous thing yeah um because look how dysfunctional most families are yeah i've tried to leave my family you know they're all mormons so get me out of here no i'm just kidding i love my family at least some of them. And some of them love me and not all of them. But, I mean, I'm an atheist, and so they don't love me as much. It's a religion thing.

What can you do? But, yeah, you can't choose your family. But, yeah, running around with that acronym and then behaving the opposite of that way is like we talked about earlier with the, you know, when people post their morals and ethics of the company, it's just like, what is this? Like, it's this farce that you posted here. Yeah, and cynicism, you know, it used to, I think one of the things that we talked about,

the younger people are much less accepting of an environment where there is this dissonance uh between what what senior management is saying and then what they're acting out yeah it's just and people walk with their feet now yeah so i'm not gonna i'm not gonna work with an organization like yours i'll go somewhere where i can i can feel that what i'm contributing to actually is making a difference. Yeah. It's almost like, I think we're slowly moving to more and more of this. You know, people used to tell me that we,

we go to this society eventually where it's not, you know, it's a, it's not about the hardware work of, you know, you know, when I went to high school, I learned leatherworking,

woodworking and machine shop, you know, for metal. And boy, those skills really paid off. But I, you know, there metal. And boy, those skills really paid off. But I, you know, there was things I learned from them that were important, uh, in, in the moxie of my personality or development or, or learning, or I don't know. I, I just always worried in metal shop because the metal shop teacher was missing most of

his fingers from looking at him going, I'm not sure I want this as a career. You're not an advertisement for someone to be successful in metallurgy. But there were people that liked that and excelled at it. Everyone's got a job. So we moved from this. I was in an environment that grew up where U.S. Steel was number one on the Dow Jones as the top most worth business in the world. You know, now we're in an environment where some of the top businesses are into electronics and more intellectual-based stuff.

Even like Microsoft doesn't sell a hard copy of their software so much anymore as they do, you know, this very soft cloud version of their stuff. So, you know, moving into this environment of entrepreneurism where we all sell ideas and consult each other as opposed to we sweat in some, you know, factory, getting dirty and nebestis and everything. And so people have talked about that, and it's almost kind of like we're progressing that way with Gen Z. You know, they want that purpose. And a lot of things you see in entrepreneurs is they want a life that they feel makes a difference. You know, they're finding their

purpose in life. Um, and you know, and, and it's their purpose, you know, I mean, maybe, maybe I'd be more successful. I worked at IBM, but, but to me, I wouldn't trade my purpose for the world. No. And that's so important. But it's interesting. I was talking to the CEO of an oil refinery not that long ago, and he was saying, I'm having such trouble recruiting really high-grade graduates now. He said, because they just look at the oil industry and they

say no yeah yes you know and yet you know it's a great industry it it has to die off and um but you know i i think people uh tend often not to realize the depth and the extent of oil and how many products actually are based on some. And so it's not just about electric cars. It's much, much bigger than that. So anyway, it's a big challenge for him. Definitely, and a big challenge for every employer nowadays. I don't, I'm not sure what's going on your side of the world.

I'm sure it's closely the same, uh, line after COVID. Like you, you mentioned earlier in the show, a lot of people have retired and left the market that were the elderly folks, even people in my age group of fifties, uh, to cash out their 401ks and said, fuck it, I'm going to go live my purpose. You know, I mean, there are men who realize that we tend to die off around 60 and 70. Women outlast us in living. And some of my men friends just said, fuck it, I'm cashing out my 401k and living my life

because I'm not going to live to enjoy this damn thing. And they may be short-sighted. They may not be until 90 or 100 and be like, oh, shit. But, you know, I think the world that we live in where, you know, we need to find purpose, you know, it's kind of interesting as an economy. A lot of these young people,

especially the Gen Zers, I think two out of three Gen Zers see themselves as wanting to be TikTok stars. You know, we have this helicopter parenting generation, the participation trophy generation. Certainly the millennials here in America have one of the worst futures of ever because their styles of leadership and business working didn't work out for them. And it hasn't. Their retirement funds are dead for the most part.

And so there's a real concern what their future is. Gen Z is following with a more lackadaisical, if you want to call it that, I'll call it that in my opinion, sort of attitudes in this whole kumbaya egalitarianism of the participation trophy. And that's really what that comes from, from their raising. So I'm kind of concerned. You know, it may be that the reason I'm saying this is that maybe that oil executive, the reason he's not getting people, and we're seeing this in America,

you know, you guys have a different trade system there in Europe because you teach people trades very early on and kind of identify what they're good at. Here in America, we just throw everything at you and teach you everything that you'll never use in your life except for, I don't know, how to wipe your own butt. You know, to me, my schooling, the most important thing I learned was how to do QWERTY typing on a keyboard and, you know, not have to sit and henpeck. That's the most important thing I got from my schooling and the most valuable return on investment. There may have been other people that learned stuff like doctors and I don't know, maybe they went to English teaching things.

But for me, that was the most important thing. And a lot of it was bullshit that I didn't need to be taught. And over in Europe, you guys are better at just getting right to the point of treating people what their skills are. But over here, the participation generation, they all just want to be YouTube stars and Twitch stars and TikTok stars. And so a lot of the blue collar businesses like your friend in the oil business and a lot of, you know, I've even got people that have been on the show that do robotics, but they do industrial robotics.

So the robotics is a technology where you're dealing with computers and you're dealing with the very intellectual property of coding computers and repairing them. But the robotic, and these guys can make $100,000 to $200,000 a year. And it's very specialized where it doesn't take a lot of training, but once you know how to deal with the robots and stuff. But the robots are working in highly industrial facilities, even like welding and different things like that. And the newest generation doesn't want

to work in those environments. They see those environments of, you know, the old type we talked about earlier, like the US Steel and the dirtiness. But they're still like, you know, intellectual groundbreaking technology environments, but they have that sort of attitude. And sometimes I wonder how much of that is, like what you mentioned earlier, that whole sort of, you know, well, that's oil, that's a bad industry, or, you know, this is a dirty

sort of warehousing manufacturing sort of thing that we don't like anymore. It's a lot of work. We don't want to get our fingernails dirty. Or it's more that participation trophy thing where they just want to be... Over here, they just don't want to be influencers. It's kind of crazy. You're like,

you just want to be influencers? How much does that pay? Is that a job that's got a great 401k? I don't know. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, but that's just kind of some of the interesting things I see going on over here. Yeah, I suppose I'm more activated by not so much what people are aspiring to do. Yeah, and there's lots of people who want to be in influences and that,

but I think it's more about what is the influence on these people and the, um, the, the, the, this, I talked to a little bit about it earlier that this need, this,

this elemental need that we have to belong to feel that we belong. And, uh, i think social media is extraordinary in how it's drawing people in so they they feel that they're part of a group and that and yet that and then they become extremely influenced by that and the whole way that social media is structured is that you just get more and more stuff that accentuates and amplifies what you're looking and seeing and any contrary view is just uh eliminated so you don't you don't get any of that and i think that's very dangerous because it it adds to the polarization which is

pretty awful on both sides of the at now. And where was it? Yeah, Finland. Finland now, they're teaching children from a very early age at school to question social media and to look for second opinions and to check the veracity of things that they're reading. I think that's amazing.

And what that's doing is helping people to be independent and be independent thinkers as opposed to just seeing something and it sort of fitting with a paradigm that they're in. I think that's super scary, that bit. I really like that idea. We need to teach critical thinking more, especially, I don't know, on your end of the world, you guys are pretty smart. Britons are always smart, in my opinion.

Over here, we're just a bunch of idiots running around, drunken idiots half the time going, you know. My Canadian friends go, oh, geez, do we have to live next to you people? That's a joke, folks. But, you know, I mean, go, Oh geez, we have to live next to you people. That's a joke folks. But you know, I mean, we, you've seen us lately.

I mean, yeah, well, I, I, I lived in the U S for six years and I, I, I loved it.

Um, and, um, yeah, but the thing is, it's a big place and you get all sorts. Yeah. Um,

and, uh, I think your media is pretty, pretty messed up. Well, we're a melting point of idiocy. I mean, smart ideas. Did I say idiocy? I don't know.

We're a melting pot of, I don't know, whatever. It's all bubbling and boiling, and we're an interesting group of people. But, you know, I mean, we've done really well. I mean, what is it? For about since the 1940s or 50s, we've been known as the asshole Americans. So we own it. Us damn Yankees.

What are we going to do? But we did steal off one of your royals. So there you go. We're still stealing stuff off you guys. That is a subject. 250 years. The Queen's like, not again. We got fooled again. Damn it.

Damn it. The Who was right. Pete Townshend. Thanks. We don't get fooled again. I'm not even sure that's what that song was about, but I think it was. I think it was about the American Revolution, wasn't it? I don't know. Okay. Well, you can call. Pete's over on your end of the world. I think it was about the American Revolution, wasn't it? I don't know. Okay. Well, you can call.

Pete's over on your end of the world. I'll let you call him and ask him. Well, it's been wonderful and insightful. It's been a great discussion, Tom, about leadership and companies and some of the things that people have to address and leaders need to address what's going on in this new world, this new future. Like you mentioned, a lot of a

lot of my fellow leaders are struggling with the gen z thing but you know this is the future and they're probably going to bring changes that hopefully make things better and if not well now i believe that i i believe that they will i i really do believe that they will but this world has got to go got to go through uh i mean it's like we're a snake's um shaking off an old skin yeah uh and uh it's going to take some years yet and they're going to be bumpy hard um challenging years but then i really think that generation will will come good it will be be interesting. We have fewer men going to college than ever. We have a lot of women. There's interesting dichotomies going on with shrinking

populations. China saw its first drop. Japan as well. Japan is really in the spin-out cycle. No one's getting married. No one's having family, no one's having kids. Even in Europe, you have more women in Europe that are single over the age of 30 that have never been married, no kids, than are not. So we have some kind of general relational things that are going on with what's happening. And you know, here in America, you know, there's a lot of

hypergamy where women marry up and they marry guys who are earning more money and provide and providers. And so without these young men going to colleges, they're not, you know, they're not going to be the higher earning guys. And now we're seeing like very large companies that are, that are saying, we're not going to large companies that are that are saying we're not going to require college education anymore they're recognizing that that the systems are changing even our colleges are now under assault where they're realizing that you know everyone's kind of woken up to the fact that the amount that they were charging for colleges here in in america um didn't equate to a return on investment and turned into almost a

lifetime of slavery and indenture servitude towards a payment for your college education. So it's kind of interesting journey. Terrible, terrible thing, particularly that the interest rate that they, they, they charge,

which I, I've never seen the logic in that. I'm sure there is one, but I, no, there's no logic to it. I'm sure there is one, but I, poof. No, there's no logic to it. There's profit. We have what's called unbridled capitalism in this world. You guys should try it over there sometime, but don't.

It's good to have balance. It's good to have some things regulated. It hurts. Yeah, it definitely does. I mean, the smarter you can make your population, the better, but some politicians like dumb populations. Anyway, really insightful, Tom, to have you can make your population, the better. But some politicians like dumb populations. Anyway, really insightful, Tom, to have you on the show. Great to have you.

Gibboushire.com so people can find you on the interwebs, wherever you want people to follow you. Serenityinleadership.com. And my email, tom, T-H-O-M, at serenityinleadership.com. I'd love to hear from people. People may have agreed or disagreed with things that we've said. It would be really nice to

or really interesting to hear what this conversation, which has been great, has evoked in people. There you go. I'm sure we'll get the comments, especially on YouTube. We always get those. Sometimes they're insane. Sometimes they're not.

Social media is always one of those things where you get the comments like, you're stupid. Then they'll cite something about aliens or the flatness of the earth or something. You're just like, okay, well, there's you. Welcome to the world. Anyway, Thomas, it's been great to have you on.

Thanks for being on the show. There you go. Thanks for being on the show. Thank you, Chris. Yeah, brilliant. There you go. And thanks to my owners for tuning in. We certainly appreciate you guys being here. Without you guys, we wouldn't bother. We just wouldn't even bother. Well, I'd probably bother with Tom. We'd sit and have an intellectual conversation.

But we're glad you joined us. In the meantime, before we show your family, friends, and relatives, go to goodreads.com for Chess Chris Voss. The big 130,000 LinkedIn group. The LinkedIn newsletter. Follow that. The Chris Voss Show on LinkedIn. We just launched one of our new shows. We should talk about that. I just launched yesterday called Las Vegas Podcast.

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