The Vault Unlocked - Why Your Team Is Not Taking Action (It Has Nothing to Do With Process)

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

Most leaders add another process when results stall. They build a new workflow, update the SOP, send another all-hands, and wonder why nothing moves. The problem was never the process. It was never the system. It was what your team believed.  Jessica Kriegel spent two decades inside some of the most complex organizations in the world studying exactly this. She is a culture strategist, Stanford-backed researcher, and author of the USA Today number one bestseller Surrender to Lead. Her work sits at the intersection of belief, behavior, and business outcomes and the results her clients produce are not theoretical. A medical center in Boston went from 42 percent compliance to 97 percent in three weeks. No new process. No new hire. No new tool. A shift in belief. This conversation starts with the word surrender, a word most operators read as weakness and operate from fear of. Kayvon shares the personal shift that changed his lens on it. Jessica reframes it entirely. What unfolds is one of the most honest conversations about leadership, organizational culture, and performance that this show has produced. Kayvon and Jessica break down the belief-action-results loop that most business owners skip entirely. They name the action trap, the place where leaders get stuck asking what do I have to do instead of what does my team need to believe. They talk about accountability, not as a discipline tool, but as a personal choice to focus on what you can control. Jessica gives a four-question framework any leader can use tomorrow without calling it accountability once. If you lead a team, manage sales performance, or are trying to build organizational culture that drives revenue, this episode names what has been quietly breaking your results. This is for founders, operators, and executives who already run something real and are tired of managing the symptom while the root cause stays untouched. The conversation covers everything serious operators are navigating right now: team performance and employee retention, building a high performance culture, leadership development, scaling a business without breaking your people, sales team alignment, workplace culture strategy, and the psychology of belief in business decision making. These are not soft topics. They are the infrastructure underneath every revenue number worth talking about. Topics Covered Why process is the wrong lever when your team is not performing The belief-action-results framework and how to use it in practice What the action trap is and how most leaders fall into it The medical center case study: 42 percent to 97 percent in three weeks How surrender redefines leadership at scale Why accountability feels like punishment and how to fix that The four questions that drive accountability without the word Sales team and marketing team alignment How culture drives revenue, not feelings Kayvon's personal transformation around ego, surrender, and growth Looking to dive deeper into these conversations and connect with our host and guest? Follow Jessica Kriegel: Instagram LinkedIn X TikTok YouTube Website Read Surrender to Lead Get the Results Equation Builder Follow Kayvon: Instagram Facebook LinkedIn TikTok   Want to go deeper with Kayvon? Subscribe to the newsletter Book a discovery call Get your Revenue Engine Scorecard™️ Hire the right salespeople

Most leaders think surrender means giving up. I used to be one of them. Today's guest is Jessica Kriegel. She's a culture strategist, USA Today number one bestselling author, and the woman who will change how you think about leadership forever. Her book, Surrender to Lead, is not about softening your standards. It's about understanding that the leaders who drive the biggest results are the ones who stop trying to control everything and start creating real movement. We went deep in this one, culture, ego, the wall every founder builds to survive and then refuses to take down. This conversation hit close to home for me personally. It will for you too.

Let's unlock it. Jessica, welcome to the show. First, I just want to say, wow, congratulations. I mean, you just wrote a book, Surrender to Lead, which was in the USA Today, number one bestseller. Is that correct? Yes, it was. Wow. So I'm excited because not only obviously he has that book probably have impacted so many businesses, but there's a certain, when it comes to culture, I'm sure there's a lot that we can talk about in today's show, which I'm excited about because I think culture is everything.

And one of the quotes I always say is no culture is a culture. So welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit about the book. What inspired you with the book first? and, you know, why it got to, I mean, number one bestseller of USA Today, that's amazing. Congratulations. Yeah. Well, thank you. Well, I've been working on this book for years. I mean, it has been something that has been in the making. I'm a culture expert. So my world is workplace culture and how to drive results through culture, not the soft, touchy-feely side of culture, which is like, how to make people happy? Because I don't believe in that. I don't think it is a organization's responsibility to manage the feelings of their employee. But rather, how do you create a culture that drives results? And so I had a lot of different ideas of how to bring that message to the world. The way that I define culture is it is how people think and act to get results.

So if you want to shift how people think and act to get results in your organization, that's very valuable. And we have an approach to do so. And it is through your leadership that that happens. And leadership, let me give you another definition, is how to create movement. creating movement through leadership. And so we have this very specific methodology, which is a little bit counterintuitive,

on how to create movement to shift how people think and act to get results. And that was the piece that I couldn't figure out how to name. And one day I took a nap and I was listening to a podcast and I fell asleep. And then I woke up from the nap and the thing that was playing, because my podcast had stayed on, The thing that was playing was someone said, and that's the difference between management and surrender. And it was that middle of the night aha moment when I realized surrender was the perfect word to describe how you effectively create movement to change how people think and act to get results. And our research with Stanford's was, you know, is evidence of it and the hundreds of organizations that we help was evidence of it.

And we just needed the right framing. And so once that moment happened, the book was written within a couple months. It was done. So surrender. I mean, that's a big, big word. That's a powerful word. And it can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. When we talk about surrender to lead, what does surrender?

I mean, what does surrender mean to you? Well, let me ask you. Let's play word association. What's the first thing you think of when you hear the word surrender? Well, I'll tell you this. Up until about a week ago, I used to think it was weakness. Today, I think it's strength. Okay, what happened a week ago?

Yeah, I mean, exactly, right? I had a huge, I mean, it's not my, it's not about my story here. But yeah, I've had a huge, I'll tell you, transformational shift in internal transformation where I've realized the one thing that was stopping me from my greatness was my inability to surrender because I looked at surrender as being a thing of weakness, like nobody's I used to say this way. I mean, with every, every conviction I can, and power. I have in my bones, nobody tells me to surrender. I surrendered to nobody, right? And I actually

meant it. And I realized, wow, how's that working out for you? Okay, Vaughn? Take a love. I would love to hear this story. I know we're supposed to be talking about me, but I think your audience would be interested in hearing that. I had the same moment of realization five years ago. and once I did surrender, everything unlocked for me. And the results that I started achieving blew me out of the water. My co-author Joe Terry had the same experience. I think there are these moments in our lives when we realize what surrender really is. Do you want to share yours or should we move on?

I don't want to press you. No, I mean, you know, I love it. Like way to go. I'm doing my own podcast here. I mean, you're going to have to start asking me questions because there's a lot that went through it. but what I can give is the highlight of it was, especially if we're going to even stick in the business side, is I think for those who don't surrender,

there's a lot of ego attached to it, whether you know it consciously or unconsciously. For me, I didn't realize how much of my unconscious ego was attached to the idea of surrender. So even though I knew cognitively that, hey, like I should probably surrender, but I didn't want to is one thing.

There's a there's, I think there is a spiritual, um, transformation, I'll say it or, or relationship that has to happen before real surrender actually occurs. Because you can say, I believe you can say, oh,

I've surrendered. Oh, I've surrendered. Oh, I gave up. I surrendered, right? Uh, that's not the surrender I'm talking about. I'm talking about the internal surrender where it's your mind,

spirit, body, being, everything. happens where you actually let in. Like it's, it's, so for me, I built my entire life with a wall up. That wall served me when I was younger.

I needed that wall. I needed to protect me from the bullies, from the parents, from the teachers and even from, you know, my family members. So as a child, I built up a wall to protect me.

I might have worked when I was six years old. It might have even worked in my 20s. But in my 40s, when I have a family, and I have a business and I have employees, having that wall up, I realized in the last week, through a lot of transformation, that the only thing that wall was actually doing was stopping love from coming in and love for going out. And for me, I surrendered to the idea that I'm going to live my life with that wall down

or try to every day as it's obviously a work in progress situation. It is a daily practice. Yeah. So you had a similar moment to the one that I had, few years ago, I built my entire career on resilience and grit, discipline, determination. That is the opposite of surrender, right? It is, I know what's best and I am going to work my ass off to get there. And that does drive a certain degree of success. I mean, it did work. It worked for you, right? And it worked for me. And we got to where we are. And what I found was once the scope of

influence the people that I needed to create movement with expanded beyond myself, then the tools that I use to drive success at a personal level were no longer effective in driving success within a larger group because those people are in their own movie, doing their own thing, driving their own decisions and taking action that aligns with what they want to do. And so me bossing them around and telling them what to do and trying to control them is me overreaching. and it probably comes off as nagging and annoying. And it is coming from that place of ego. You are either leading from a place of ego and scarcity,

which is ultimately about fear, fear of losing which you have or not getting something that you want, or you're coming from a place of abundance and love and service. And which boss do you want to work for? You know, I want to work for the love boss. Yeah. And that feels touchy-feely. And I have always pride of myself on not being the touchy-feely one.

but the data shows that it actually drives better growth. When we measure growth through revenue, it actually works. It feels counterintuitive, but the data supports it. So trust your gut. Well, I think, I mean, I'm a business owner myself and the numbers don't lie. So the data proven that growth comes from revenue, I mean, it's pretty, to me, it seems like a simple concept. But there is, there was. I think it's changing.

I mean, I haven't, I've left corporate, I don't, 25 years ago for this reason. Like the culture of just corporation. Like, I'm not talking about individual corporation. I'm talking about the idea of America, USA, Corporation, and that culture itself that was created. It was, I'll just say it's not for me at all. As an entrepreneur, as someone who has their own ideas, wants to be creative, doesn't want to be put in a box, doesn't want to be a slave to the man. that kind of culture doesn't work for me. But culture is needed and those things that I hate, as I build my business, I go,

ah, I guess why they are needed because we need to have, well, A, I think a chief aim that everyone buys into. And we need to have protocols. We need to have the SOPs. We need to have those guardrails that people like live in or the system breaks. how do you work with, because there's two things we're talking about here, right? We're talking about dichotomy almost as we're continuing this conversation. And it's how do you work with the leader who doesn't want to go within?

Because as you know, in order to go and go further, you have to go within at every step. So you have leaders who don't want to go within, but they want to be able to create that culture that empowers the revenue to drive forward and everybody's on the same mission. Yeah, great question. So let's break you down. Whether you're an entrepreneur or in corporate America, you are trying to achieve a result. Whatever that result is. We'll assume that that result is revenue growth or it could be, you know, it could be EBITA. It could be quality improvement, safety improvement.

It doesn't matter whatever department you're in or whatever your goal is. You have a goal you're trying to achieve. And we know that results come from actions. People doing stuff will get you that result, right? And that is where most leaders stop and they're stuck in the action trap, which is they're just thinking, what do I have to do to get a result? What do I have to do to get a result? And that is the opposite of surrender. That is the grind of trying to force outcomes based on what do I got to do to get a result. To surrender to lead, the process is to zoom out and to ask the question, what motivates people to take action? What will make Joe, opt in to my result focus of growing this business or growing this podcast to have more listeners

or improving our safety numbers, whatever the thing is. And the reality is in my 20 years experience of consulting, people do not act in alignment with the process or the procedure. People will act in alignment with what they believe. And if Joe believes in the mission, if Joe believes that he is of value to this organization, and he will make an impact and the thing we're working on is good, he's going to do the work. So as a leader, your job is not to figure out what do I got to do to get the result, but rather what does my team need to believe in order for them to take action so that we can get the result?

And that's the missing element. So I'll tell you a story. We were working with a medical center in Boston, and the head of an emergency department was trying to get people to fill out this form paperwork for the next. next of kin information for incoming patients. And nobody was filling it out. Now, these are essential workers. They are frontline workers.

They have, you know, people in health care, they are first responders. They have a vocation. They care deeply about their work. These people were not quite quitting, but they were not filling out the form. And that was driving the administrators mad. So they were in the action trap. The administrator said, we'll throw a pizza party if you guys fill out the form. Nobody filled out the form.

Okay, we're going to train everyone on the form. one filled out the form. Okay, we're going to start having difficult conversations with you guys. You're not following instruction. No one filled out the form. They did all this communication plan around the form. Then they changed the form thinking maybe the form was a problem. And that is, what do I got to do to get the result? That's the action trap. After six months of effort, they were able to go from collecting the information 42% of the time to 47% of the time. Five percent improvement on the result. Now, it's like not nothing, but it's not great, but it feels like progress. So then people want to just keep doing that. We just keep taking action, right? When we came in, we said, what is the belief that

your team currently holds that is getting in the way of them filling up a form? And the belief was, this is a waste of my time. I'm trying to save lives here. I don't have time for paperwork, right? So we identified the experience that was necessary for people to change their belief about the form because all of our beliefs come from experiences. So if you want to change a belief, you've got to create a new experience. And so one of the most powerful experiences that you can create for someone is telling a story. Storytelling is super powerful. It's why podcasts are popular. It's why Hollywood makes billions of dollars, right?

They move us. They motivate us. So she told two stories. One of a patient who came in, they did not gather their next of kin information. She fell unconscious and she died. And then another patient who came in, they did gather his next of kin information. He fell unconscious. They called the doctor.

The doctor told him about some medication and they saved his life. She told those two stories for three weeks. And in three weeks, they were gathering the next upkin information 97% of the time. Wow. Wow. In three weeks. And it was free. Didn't cost them a cent.

So that's surrender to lead. Stop trying to force people to take action and surrender to the fact that you cannot control them. You can only control yourself. And what you can control is the experiences you're creating that may shift beliefs that will take them to new action, which will get you a result. And that's the unlock. That's, that's, you said something in that read the beginning where I'm like, refreshing. He's like their belief, they will only do the actions to what they believe. Now, I can imagine like my business for the last 20 years has been sales. So you can imagine

how much belief in salespeople is needed for a sales conversation, not only just to happen, but a conversation to happen effectively for a sale to happen. And it all comes down to the idea of belief. Now, as a CEO who stepped away from me, being a CEO because I hated every second of it. It's not who I was. I just think about where I look back and all the times I failed with the idea of vision and getting people to believe, how does a business owner running a smaller company, let's just say, listening on this podcast, maybe they only got 10, 20 employees, right? And right now he's stuck in this trap of just what's the outcome, what's the outcome? How do they make that shift to actually start,

thinking about how their employees believe, but most important figuring out what is it that they actually believe and what do I need to change to believe for it, like to help them believe a new thought or a new process or, as you said, just a different mission, I will call it. Great question. I'll break it down super simple without a lot of jargon so the people listening can just go do it tomorrow. Number one, get clear on the three most important results that you need to achieve this year. The three that if you get those three, you had a great year no matter what else happens. It's usually something tied to revenues, something tied to, you know, operations or efficiency, and then something tied to like maybe customer experience or something

like that, right? Figure out whatever those are for you. And then you get everyone in the room, all 10 of your employees, and you sit down and you say, these are the results for this year. What beliefs are currently held in this room that are getting in the way of us achieving those results. The negative beliefs, right? The beliefs that because we hold those beliefs, those outcomes aren't possible. So I think, you know, well, the problem is everyone, no one is sharing information with each other. And so I'm working in a silo and I don't have support. Therefore, it's going to be impossible to improve the customer experience. Or I'm not getting enough enablement assets from the marketing guy.

So when I'm trying to have a sales call, I don't have what I need. So there's no way I'm going to be able to get the bookings number, whatever, right? Identify the beliefs that are holding you back. And then identify the corollary to those. Okay, if the belief is we work in silos, what do you want that belief to be? I want the belief to be. we collaborate and communicate effectively or whatever the opposite of that belief is. So now your job as the leader is you've identified the results and you've identified the beliefs

that are getting in the way and what those beliefs should be. You name those needed beliefs and you repeat them and you repeat them and you repeat them. You become the chief repetition officer. Your job is to constantly remind yourself and the team about those beliefs and you recognize when people demonstrate those beliefs so that it becomes a story. Story telling, like we said, was the most powerful belief shifter. So you tell stories of people doing it. And that is an experience. Someone's like, oh, yeah, I see how that, I'll lean into that. And you tie it to the results constantly. So you can be intentional about creating a culture.

Instead of, you said earlier, you know, no culture is a culture. What I say is you're going to have a culture. The question is, will it be an accidental culture or will it be a intentional culture. And intentional culture is naming the shared beliefs we want to have and identifying, recognizing when people live those, repeating it all the time, giving people feedback when they're not demonstrating the belief. So you're, you know, there's some friction of, I noticed that you were not sharing that information.

That's not a demonstration of this belief. This is how you could demonstrate that belief a little better, give them some coaching, right? And then telling stories constantly. getting them all in a room. I'm going back there because I was thinking about it. Like you get them all in the room because how many times have I even tried that? And they're just sitting there and they're only telling you what they think you want to hear and not actually tell them the truth.

Like how do you break that barrier down where it is a safe environment where they can actually tell you their honest truth, you know, and their belief so that you can actually get to the route to fix the issue? It's a great question because this model also works at an individual. level, right? If they don't, if their belief is that they are not safe to share the truth with you, that's because you have created that experience for them. So you got to take accountability for that. So your job is to create a new experience. What experience do you need to create to do that? And here's how you do it. You walk through the front door. You use the language about yourself with this model. So what would that look like? You and me are in a room. And I'm like, hey, the belief I want you to hold is that it is safe for you to tell me difficult truths that you think I don't want to hear.

What experience do you need to have with me in order to hold that belief? Now, they didn't even have to admit that they don't trust you. They can just say, well, in order to have that belief, I would need to see X, Y, and Z. So then they give you one thing, maybe two things. And then you say, okay, if I do those three things, will that be enough to change your belief? And then they'll either say yes or no. And if it's no, well, what else do you need? And then you got to do that thing, right?

You've got to think you believe. That's the harder part right now is the actual thing you got to do. Yeah. I love it. So I'm going to ask the question, you know, the importance of culture more than ever today, especially in a world of AI, where we're going. And I mean, talking even with the outside factors that are happening in today's world, I'm sure it's taken a toll on businesses and people in the culture of businesses.

How can business owners stay on track and or understand the importance of culture more than ever in today's economy? So I think clarity, actually I know because we did research on this. The number one driver of results in terms of culture driving results is clarity. people can't help you drive results if they don't really, if they're not clear. And there's something that we put together. And we should actually, I can give this to your audience if they're interested. It's a results equation builder. And so your audience can get this, download this form,

and it will walk you through the process of building this one sheet that gives your team clarity on the things that they need to have. And so it has your purpose, which needs to be six words or less. It has your vision, which is, is in three to five years, what do we need to accomplish in order to say we've been successful? Your key results, which is the top three most important results you need to achieve this year, your strategic drivers, which is the big leadership bets you're making on how you're going to go about achieving those results. And then the cultural beliefs, which are the things we've talked

about, those three beliefs that need to be held by the team in order to drive action on those strategic drivers in order to get the results in the key results so that we can fulfill our purpose, which is our why. If you get clear on all that, then you've got this core narrative of who you are. And then you can tell stories about that. You can recognize people with that and give feedback when people are not like that so that you're constantly reinforcing the culture the way that you wanted to be to get the results that you want to get. And what we do at our company is every single meeting that we have, we start by reciting our results equation. We say it out loud. I'll be on three calls in a row. And at the beginning of every single, single one of those calls, we say it again because repetition is the key. I mean, I guarantee 99% of the people in your listening right now, they don't remember their mission statement or their purpose

statement for their organization. Right. So we're totally disconnected from the why and all the research shows that you need to care about the why in order to be effective, but no one even knows what it is. So therefore, how can I be connected to it? Well, then, I mean, that's a massive conversation right there. If we know that we need to be connected to the why and the people in our organization be connected to the why, but most people don't even know what the why is, the question is, well, why is people not being connected to the why? What is being broken or what's the break between the why that's written on a document and the why that lives in someone's heart and mind to be able to live out the why? Because this isn't something that they teach you in your MBA,

how to write an effective mission statement. And it gets done by committee by a bunch of executives in a hotel conference room in Napa. And they're just trying to get to five o'clock because they can do their happy hour thing. Or it was written by the founders 50 years ago and no one can touch it because they have to honor the family tree of this company.

Or, you know, HR crafted it or marketing crafted it. You know, why it's disconnected is because it's usually overcomplicated and it's never repeated. So we simplify it and then we repeat it constantly. And then the other thing that we do, and this is something I have always done, is whenever I'm interviewing someone for a job, the first question I ask them is, what is your why? In fact, on my podcast, that is my first question for every guest. What is your why?

And so in an interview format, they'll talk about their family or, you know, God or something important to them, right, which is their kind of why. usually they haven't thought about it and they have to kind of stumble around it, which is fine. And then I tell them our organizations why. And our why at culture partners is to drive results by activating your change. So I say, our why is to drive results by activating your change. You just told me your why. Do you see how if you came here and helped us with our why that would be fulfilling your personal why?

Because if so, this is going to be a great match. And if not, we don't have purpose fit. And purpose fit is what I think is really impactful, much more so than culture fit. Culture fit is like, do I want to get a beer with this person? Who cares? You know, purpose fit is, are you motivated to drive results towards this mission? Because me too. Let's go do it.

Right? It's totally powerful. I mean, I love it when in my organization, my agency, we had a, we call it the playbook of the company. But it was basically, it was who we are, where we're going, what we're going. we're trying to achieve and it was a document and it meant the world to me. And I basically, after the interview and everything, I would send them that and I'd say, I want you to read this tonight. And if you get something from it, if you feel something, you're going to do great here. And if you don't, no worries, but the culture is probably not going to work for you. Because

we had a culture, you know, we had a culture of the athlete DNA, right? So we were looking for athletes with like that had that DNA that show up, that know how to take the beatings that are not afraid to get back up and all of that, right? So I needed to ensure, especially in sales culture, right? I need to ensure that these people understood what they're getting into. And it worked. It was great. It did work. But the thing that wasn't there, which I think is very important, is the repetition. Yeah. They saw it once and then that was it. Can I talk about athlete DNA as a tangent for a second? Sure. I love it. I'm where you're going to, you're going to crush it. I'm going to crush it. Oh, I knew you were going to do this. I mean you were going to go back. Okay.

get ready. Ding, ding, ding. Let's go, ladies and gentlemen. Tell me something. What is the number one predictor of a high-performing successful athlete? Number one for me that I've just, that I've, that I've seen when I think of the athlete DNA, I want to be, I want to be very clear. When I think of my version of the athlete DNA, it's very much this.

Do they hate losing more than they love winning? Okay. that's a fair guess let me suggest one then you tell me whether mine is more important or less important than yours let's go my mine is they got to do a lot of training and practice so you get two athletes one of them does a lot of training and practice and one of them hates losing more than winning which one's going to win the race well yeah okay so I'm just trapping you in a fun thought experiment, play the game with me, okay? Yeah, obviously, yeah, the person who's doing a lot of training and practice is going to

probably win the race. Win the race. We're constantly using these athlete metaphors to say like that's what great leadership and what great drive creates. But like, we don't spend a lot of time in training and practice. Like, it's always, we're always in the game in business. We're always on the field as opposed to like running the drills, right? So it's so interesting to me that everyone is so into this.

And my co-author, Joe Terry, is a former NFL athlete. He is a, like, multi, he's done the Iron Man of probably at least 11 times. He's done Iron Man and Kona multiple times. His wife is also an Iron Man. Like, he is the ultimate quintessential athlete, okay? So I'm not anti-athlet. And he also wrote this book with me. So he also believes in the power of surrender.

But the thing I never get about this business translation for it is, but where is the training you know it's always go go go in business especially in sales and like I don't see the training happening anytime so anyway that's a tangent that's a little tangent um but that's also it's interesting you say that you have a you have a different belief than mine because you say where is the training well in my organization the training is every single day it's on the field we're trained no not on the field no no We're training. We have one hour training every single day.

Oh, well, there it is. Okay. So we have 20 hours of training before they even get onto the field that they have to do. I have a predictive assessment that I, that I've created sales fit. I'm going to do a plug, salesfit. That will determine if a salesperson will be successful. And it's in the job within a 96% efficacy based off of all the data of my agency and other. assessments that that I've borrowed off of.

So I can tell you. Yeah. So I think we talk about it after. But yeah, so any business, like I believe, my belief is you would be stupid to hire a salesperson without putting them through this assessment. Because all this assessment is going to do with the worst case scenario is ensure you that if someone goes through it and they don't pass, that is someone you do not want on your team.

Because I can't promise you they're going to be. be great because I can't control what your onboarding process is in someone's business. I can't control how much training they're doing. But I can give you on a silver platter someone who is going to be very effective in your business in a sales specific role. And then it's up to you as the business owner of how you onboard them and keep them motivated. I mean, that's a great plug.

If I was hiring a bunch of salespeople, I would go to salespeople. I would go to salespeople. Yeah. I mean, this is also, well, where did that come from? I just talk because I think it's important. 12 years of hiring salespeople. We've built over hundreds of sales teams, thousands of salespeople coming through.

And it was one of the most painful experiences as a business owner I've ever gone through, is trying to hire salespeople, specifically interviewing salespeople who shouldn't even be in the interview. What a waste of time for them, for my hiring department, for the whole HR. Like I just, I flipped it all upside down. Not corporate like, but I flipped it upside down.

Anyways. Well, let me tell you a story in my book in like chapter one or two. I can't remember which chapter it is. There's a story about a sales team that we turned around, which is, okay, they already had all the people on board, right? So you got what you got. Maybe you didn't do a great fit assessment. But it was a kind of, it was a software company and every salesperson was in charge of a

different product. So the executive team had this brilliant idea that they're going to, start doing cross-selling. And we're going to, if a customer trusts Joe with that product, he's more likely to buy this other product from Sam. So let's get Joe and Sam to share leads. And now we're all going to raise boats together. So they had a kickoff sales kickoff conference where they were like, okay, here's what we're doing. We're going to start cross-selling. And then they went back and they started saying like, okay, let's see who's cross-selling and who's not cross-selling and nothing changed. No one was cross-selling. So again, we went in and we're like,

what are the currently shared beliefs getting in the way of your sales team cross-selling? And the reality is the president's club trip was still based on the top 5% of performers. The dashboard in Salesforce showed who was doing best and who wasn't. And so every lead share was going to give an advantage to your competition. So it was never going to happen. The system underlying this sales team was encouraging competition. But this executive team had decided the strategy was collaboration and it just does not compute. That's actually, man, we have so much we can talk about because this is all about culture.

Like everything you're saying is all about culture. And now you're talking into a realm that I just kind of spent my entire life and decade and why I left corporate. Right. You want to talk about, you know, an example, a story of how terrible culture was. they had a belief. I went, I was brought into a new territory, let's call it, into a new province, a state in America, right,

to literally turn it around because the current belief was, if we all don't make our numbers, we will still get paid our bonus because we all haven't made it. So it makes it look like the territory was hard. That was a belief. How terrible is that? So then I come in as a young hot shot

full of piss and vinegar, full of ego way before surrender. And I turned it, I mean, I just disrupted the entire thing, right? But then not only am I not rewarded. So what happens is, is I do my math and I figure out my commissions and find out because I'm the only one in the company that did this, I figured out that if I was 133.7% above my target, I will not make an extra dollar. and it will start to affect my income for next year because they're going to move my budget up.

So I made it to the point where I added 133.2% of my target. And that was it. And what I did was, guess what happened? I worked one day a week. But I also left because I was bored. And it was like I'm not, I can't work hard because the harder I work, I don't make more money. I'm going to screw myself next year. terrible culture. And then if I don't work at all, I just sit back. Maybe we get paid a little bit,

but everyone gets paid. Broken. All of this is culture and all of this is broken sales systems and people not. And I think you just said it. Like I loved, oh my God, I love me. You said these people making decisions and just trying to get to the end of the day to go have their happy hour because that's all they care about. And they don't actually care about the actual mission of the business or the people in the business is the fundamental problem of corporate America. So we're going to start. And that's how you lose top. I had a similar experience, but I didn't quit. So I was really good at my job.

I was working at Oracle, a huge technology company. Oh, yeah. Kicking butt. And then I was there for a year. I loved my job. I was so grateful to have it. I thought I was getting paid really fairly. So I was as engaged as you can be.

And I was the top performer. And I had my first performance review a year in. And my manager said, you know, Jessica, you're like one of those millennials. you just need to bake a little bit longer. And I was like, what the hell does that mean? And so I asked, please, please expand. I'd love to know what that means to bake a little bit longer. And she said, well, you're like that kid that sits in the front of the class,

always raising their hand saying, pick me, pick me. It's kind of annoying because I was doing so well. I was identifying gaps in the systems and processes and trying to do process improvement and trying to help my peers and all that. And it was too much for my managers to handle because my managers were like new middle managers. And they were like, well, I don't know how to manage this. So I quiet quit. I was like the original quiet quitter.

I did not leave the company. I stayed in the company. I worked one day a week. And I went to school. And I got my doctoral degree secretly. And so that's the other option that you have when you're not being fulfilled in your work and you're a top performer. Either you can leave or you can just use your time elsewhere.

So we both just, okay, so we both just talked about stories about how two winners worked in these corporations that didn't serve our needs. How many other people that are, okay, this is so interesting because you, you, you didn't like the idea of the athlete DNA, but that is the athlete DNA right there, is do whatever it takes to win. And then if you're not getting where you need to go, you leave the team. You go to a winning team. Yeah, okay.

I'll give you that. or athletes when they get to the NHL, whatever, you know, the major leagues, what do they do? They just settle in. They just go, hey, I made it. We settle in. But then you have what? The top one percenters of all those athletes that don't settle in and they keep fighting every day. The Sydney Crosby's, the Tom Brady, you know, all these people, right?

I mean, you find, and I always say this. It's very interesting. I always say this. I go, listen, if my entire business was made up of Tom Brady's, we would fail. There's a reason why there's only one Tom Brady. There's only a reason. Yeah, they are hard to manage. Well, not, especially in sales, right?

So you want to find the right mix of people and the right mix of personality and all of that. But what can businesses, let's just talk about this, like what can businesses do today that they can look at and see who are, who, what players on their team are the ones that have the ability to win but have given up, have the ability to make change, but that are scared to use their voice. or this completely checked out. What can we do today to help a business who might have these people sitting on their roster? Yeah. So number one, you can identify who has the competency to do the job. So if it's sales, sales, right? But then also who has the potential to grow?

And that's in the eagerness, the learning, the curiosity, the extending themselves beyond the basic job decision description. and then there's accountability. I mean, if I could infuse one thing into my daughter to become the Tom Brady of whatever she wants to do, it would be accountability. And people hate accountability. People hate being held accountable and they hate holding others accountable because it feels like punishment because the only time we hold people accountable is when something goes wrong. So something went wrong.

Who's accountable for this? Who's in trouble? And when you're in a corporation. or in any, even if you're in, you know, a small business, when you are at fault for something that went wrong, you are at risk, right? I don't want to be the person that dropped the ball because when it's time for promotion or raises, I'm not going to be as considered. So we hide, you know, and we avoid accountability. So one of the things we talk about in the books, Render to Lead, is to encourage accountability is you have to change the definition of accountability. And the way

I think about accountability is it is a personal choice to focus on what I can control to drive the results. So rather than... I want you to stop. I think it's so important what you just said and I need you to stop. I need to say it again and I need to say it's slower because it is so important. The true new definition of accountability is. Accountability is a personal choice to focus on what you can control to drive the results. A personal choice of what you can control to drive results.

Yeah, to focus on what you can control. So how do you do this? Let me give you the steps to accountability now. First, you got to see what's going on. Okay, you've got a problem. There's an issue. Great. So see it.

There's four steps. See it, own it, solve it, do it. First, you got to see it, the context, what's going on. Then you have to own it. And that requires asking the question, what about this can I control? And there's so many times in business where there's a problem and we want to blame. We want to point fingers. That's not my job.

That's not my fault. I didn't see the email. I'm going to wait and see if this really happens. Ignore and deny. That's like the blame game. And so to take accountability if the definition is to make a personal choice to focus on what you can control is to say, what about this can I control? Forget the blame game. What about this can I control?

then you solve it from that space of thinking about what's within your influence. Now, what else can I do? And then do it, what can I do by when? So if you're, let me just give your, I know I've been talking for a while, but let me give your leaders for questions. You can ask your employees to drive accountability in your teams. So you're a leader. You got a bunch of people not taking accountability.

You don't even want to say the word accountability because it's a bad word. Instead, they come in, they got a problem. You say, what's going on? let them talk, then say, what about that can you control? Get them to focus on what they can control. Then what else could you try? Get them to solve it. And then what are you going to do by when?

And now they're going to do it. And you've just helped them take accountability without being the bad guy, without even saying the word accountability. Well, I also, what was going through my head when you were saying that too is also the old saying, right, is those who battle, those who plan the battle don't battle the plan. Say that again. Those who plan the battle

don't battle the plan. Yeah, right. Exactly. You're getting like so my death. I like I have this concept. I don't want to call a definition. I want to say my concept of what true leader, which I have yet and I want to be very clear. Like I am working towards trying to get to maybe I don't.

Is that the ability to get somebody to do the thing you want them to do, but yet make them believe, think, and feel it was their idea and they're excited to get it done. That's a good definition. It's similar to mine, which is to create movement. The one caveat I would add to your definition is to get the thing that you want them to do. If you focus on getting them to create the results you want to create, it's better because they might do it in a way you never would have thought about. It might be better than the way you would have done it. Amen on that one.

Amen on that one. And yes, and I agree 100% is to create the results so they can have the autonomy and the creativity within that to get it done. 100%. I love that. And you had the keyword belief in there. So to get the result, you said belief and to have them believe in it. Well, it is. To believe that they again, right?

It goes like if they don't believe it, they're never going to do it. if they come kicking and scream and it's never going to get done and it won't get done with the right creativity and execution. As you were talking about the five things that you can do right now, another quote that came out for me and I want to say it and I want you to tell me what it means to you when I say the fish rots at the head from the head first. Leadership cascades into the organization. Why is leadership?

leadership such I I it's hard for me because I know now I'm coming from a personal my own experience so I'm not I'm not being pragmatic here but like when I look at majority of corporate America or the even the businesses that I've worked with in small small businesses the leadership is such poison and they don't see how it's destroying their culture of the business yet They want to grow and get to the next level, but they will not address the thing that's stopping them, which is usually themselves. Because the system has been built to be one of competition and scarcity. So we started this by saying you can either lead from ego, fear, and scarcity, or love and abundance.

And the system of capitalism is one steeped in fear and scarcity. And so we all get trapped into that way of thinking because of the, construct. So you could be a great person who as a frontline worker and your new job thinks when I'm a leader, I'm going to come from love. But then you get up there and now your boss has higher expectations of you. And you still have to prove yourself because there may be three senior directors, but only one VP position. And so you're looking to your left. You're looking at your right. You're like, you guys are going down. And we are in competition with one another within one company. Even though the leaders put teamwork and collaboration on the value statement,

it is a system that has been built to compete within one organization. So we get trapped in it without even realizing it. It's a dysfunctional system. And so to come from love and abundance and service is the opposite of what we should be doing, quote unquote, to win. But believe it or not, it actually works. Like I was working with this one company. I did a keynote in the Bahamas. And And it was FinTech. And they had a sales team and a marketing team that were there together. It was like the sales kickoff. And they were in so much conflict.

I mean, the sales team was like, marketing never gives us enough assets. Marketing team is like sales never gives us until from the field. And they were both frustrated and in conflict. And I said, what would it look like to lead with love right now? To be of service, to worry only about what you can give and not what you want to take. and we split the team up into two, and I had the marketing team spend a whole bunch of time asking the question,

how can I serve you to the sales team? And then the sales team asking question, how can I serve you to the marketing team? And then, okay, so now we got a bunch of information of what the other side needs for me. Then you take accountability and you say, so the belief I want you to hold sales team is that we've got your back.

What experience do you need for money? us to hold that belief. And then they're going to say, well, I need you to give us these assets and turn these things around faster and blah, blah, blah. And then you ask the same question back. Well, the belief we want you to have marketing is that you are supported in the way you need to support us by getting you the things that you need, whatever, right? What experience you from us?

The marketing says, well, I need you to put all your requests through this portal instead of, you know, sending us emails ad hoc. and I need to be able to read the Zoom notes from your calls with clients so that I can gather data that way. It's like, great. If I do all those things, will you hold a new belief about us? And so you just come from service and you actually start listening and being less defensive instead of complaining, which is the blame game of all the things you're not getting. Music to my ears.

I've always said if I owned a physical, like if I had the business where everyone was in at one location, marketing and sales would be in the exact same room. In fact, marketing would be sitting beside sales and sales would be sitting beside marketing because those two have to work together for effectiveness. So I agree. And there is a cultural, I don't know where it started, but there is definitely a cultural belief marketing is against sales. Marketing says salespeople suck.

Salespeople say the lead suck. And it's just, it's not an effective. So any of my businesses, that's not how we ran. We've rather, we either run with the marketing team or we run in a different to a different business that wants to run with us as a marketing team because it's all one. And I think that goes to the whole all departments are one sales marketing operations fulfillment. I mean, it all has to be cohesive into one. I mean, we're we've we've gone way past our time here. I think we just touching the surface of so many things we can talk about. For people that are listening,

where can they get this book? I'm going to order it myself. Where can I find surrender to lead? It's sold wherever books are. You go to Surrender tolead.com and we will send you. Well, you'll have links there. You'll also be able to get down, download those, the results equation builder that we talked about earlier, as well as some other toolkits that you can use as you read the book to help you on your journey. And one last final question, circling it right back to you. What's your why?

My why is to serve God and others. Awesome. Thank you so much for being with us. Thanks for having me.