Your Transformation Station - 60. YOU Have Not Learned "Organically" Mark Herschberg w/ 'Favazza'

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

Esteemed author of The Career Toolkit, and professor at MIT, Mark Herschberg, also known fondly as “Hershey”. Mark will discuss the essentials of The Career Toolkit as well as practical tips for getting the job you want and learning the skills that you haven’t learned organically. Support the showPODCAST INFO:Podcast website: https://ytspod.comApple Podcasts: https://ytspod.com/appleSpotify: https://ytspod.com/spotifyRSS: https://ytspod.com/rssYouTube: https://ytspod.com/youtubeSUPPORT & CONNECT:- Check out the sponsors below, it's the best way to support this podcast- Outgrow: https://www.ytspod.com/outgrow- Quillbot Flow: https://ytspod.com/quilbot - LearnWorlds: https://ytspod.com/learnworlds- Facebook: https://ytspod.com/facebook- Instagram: https://ytspod.com/instagram- TikTok: https://ytspod.com/tiktok- Twitter: https://ytspod.com/x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

companies, they don't want to change what's already working, but they're looking for the person that would pioneer new ideas and innovation. So why is that such, why is that such an issue? It will depend on a particular company. Certainly, companies are all inherently risk adverse. I say, oh, no, we're risk takers here. You might be, but still, you want to minimize your risk, even risk-taking companies. So if something's working, they might be hesitant to change it, but they want that capability. They want to know if something does change, some external force, global pandemic hits or their industry changes. What are the odds that's going to happen?

They want to know we have people who can adapt and change. But of course, the people say, I really like innovating and changing, aren't going to be very happy in a job where they say, That's great that you can. But hold the fort for now. How can you create a transformation in others if there's no transformation in yourself? Join your host, Greg Favaza, as your voice on the hard truths of leadership, your transformation station connecting clarity to the cutting edge of leadership. As millennials, we can establish change.

not only ourselves, but through organizational change, bringing transparency that goes beyond the organization and reflects back into ourselves, extracting, extract, actionable advice, and alternative perspectives that will take you outside of yourself. Mark Hirshberg, welcome to your transformation station. How you doing today? Thanks for having me on the show. I'm excited to be here. We are all excited. I'm speaking for me. and the audience that will be listening to this episode. You've written a book that's called The Career Toolkit,

The Essentials, Skills for Success that No One Has Taught You. So I have been looking over this book and, wow, it has really good fucking advice. Well, thank you. It comes from 20 years of having taught this at MIT, from having used this and training my own teams and mentoring other people. So people of all ages and backgrounds. So although the topics were first created by research we've done at MIT as to what's needed,

it comes from 20 years of battle-tested experience of what matters and how to effectively teach these skills. So thank you. It's nice to know. It's all paying off and being helpful. Now, before we go into it and share some of the nitty gritties, Can you share with the audience what you do now and some of your background of what you've previously done? I have a very interesting background. I, for the most part, do tech startup companies.

And I've done the classic early startups. I've done Fortune 500s. I've done all sorts of different companies. I've been a consultant for a while. I helped start the class at MIT. I helped start another class at Harvard Business School. But I've had this parallel career. Because early on, I realized as a software developer and said, you know, I want to be a CTO, a chief technology officer.

But I realized that to be a CTO, it's not just about being the best programmer. Yes, I had to understand technology. But then there were all these other skills, leadership, communications, negotiation, team building. And no one ever taught me that. That's not included in most college programs. So I knew if I wanted to become a CTO, I would have to develop these skills on my own. And as I trained myself up in those, and we didn't have great podcasts like this early in my career. So there's a lot of doing it on my own.

As I developed these skills, I realized these are not just for the leaders, not just for people at the top of the hierarchy. These skills help everyone from the most junior employee up through the CEO. So I want to train my team up in these skills. And I began to train others. And doing so, I developed some content around the same time MIT had gotten feedback from companies. to hire our students. They said, look, we love your students, but we want to see these skills, the leadership, communications, team building. We can't find this in anyone we hire. And they didn't just mean MIT students. They didn't just mean college students. They meant everybody, but they can't

find these skills because, again, they're not taught. So MIT wanted to put together this program, referred to as the career success accelerator. And on hearing this, I said, you know, I've been working on some content. Can I help out? So I helped to create the class. I was in, and invited to help teach the class, which I've been doing for the past 20 years. So I have this parallel career. I have my day job of building tech startup companies I've done for many years. But in parallel, I've been teaching this at MIT and elsewhere. And now I have the book and the speaking that I do on these topics. Wow. Okay. There is a lot right there. I want to backtrack. Something's really caught my mind that I want to address. So in your time, as you were making your way,

up this ladder of just finding your purpose, your specific job. I get it. Like right now, we need to have a degree. Like, that is the new standard. It's a four-year degree. But I faced this issue when I transitioned down. And the issue was that I would apply. I spent two years applying for different jobs.

And I have a standard because I worked, I was 17 different jobs previously to the military. and then afterwards, after five and a half, transitioned out, I wanted a decent paying job that I could utilize and feel like I'm contributing value to a certain type of place of employment. I could not find anywhere because it was just the issue of you don't have a degree. Like I had an associate's degree at the time, but no, they all won a bachelor's. even though I have the experience to lead people to step up and do whatever it need. I need to do to do something. So when I look at this, I just see, if I really look at a degree, I just feel like it's just learning the terminology. And that's it.

Everything else, it's a developmental role. What do you think about that? This will probably surprise you, but I think we have. too many people getting a lot of college degrees these days. Now, I've worked at some top universities. I have my degrees from there, but I don't think college is necessarily the right answer and it gets overutilized. Now, I do believe very much in education, but we have to have the right education. The correct use of college, in some cases, certainly for science and engineering, or if you want to go into history or certain professions, you just need that deep intensive knowledge. If you want to be

historian, you really need to study years of history and a couple years of high school, U.S. history, world history, that doesn't cut it. You need to think about how do you focus on history, how do you look at the patterns? If you're an engineer, you really need to learn engineering and learn the equations and see how to apply it. And you do need a college environment for that, whether it's a traditional four-year broad degree or whether it's just a specialized program focusing on those types of engineering skills, you need that education. Where I think it gets overused is it's become the standard for middle class. As you noted, everyone just said, well, you need a college degree.

And I've seen far too many people get a degree that really wasn't appropriate. I don't mean necessarily the philosophy degrees. And there's, look, there's value in getting a philosophy degree. It really does teach you how to think, and that can be applicable in many areas. But I think about people I knew who went to good schools, very expensive schools, and then wound up becoming a secretary or managing a local retail store. Great jobs, but I don't know if a four-year bachelor's degree was the best training or best investment of money. In fact, if you're going to go and run a local retail store, store. I think a what we would traditionally call a vocational degree, a degree that said,

forget about taking a class on Shakespeare and a class on world history, but rather, here's some basic accounting. Here's some basic HR. Here's some basic marketing. Here's some inventory management. Here are the practical skills that are going to make you effective in doing this. I think that would be more effective for people. I would like to see us do more vocational training. And I don't just mean, oh, plumbers or auto mechanics, software engineering is becoming more of a vocation for many, not all people. And I think that's a good thing. So we need to expand the types of vocational education we have. That's not a broad four-year college degree, but that is a specific set of skills to certain jobs. I also believe the concept of you're going to get

this four-year degree and then you come out and good, now you're all set for your career. No, we need more continuous learning that we get into the mentality of, I have to keep learning. That might not be every year, but it might be some part-time every few years. Maybe it's even every 10 years you do an intensive three-month training. I don't know the exact numbers yet, but we as a society need to shift. And that means our schools, that means our industries, that means financial aid for this type of program. we have to shift to support more of a continual learning model and not just, well, you did your four years, you checked the box. No, I definitely agree.

Like, we do need to pivot away from the degree and essentially look at just getting the certificate for that particular thing that you are going down, whatever path that you're choosing. And I believe, like, with all the colleges, they're starting to do that with online schooling and kind of. allowing people to, yes, relate it with their schedules, of course, but they're starting to tailor that now. That's from my experience with doing my online schooling. It's starting to get more specific. And with learning how to just critical look, like learning how to think critically. One, your book covers that with all the questions. That's what I love about it. It reminds me of the Paul and Adler's critical thinking wheel. Yeah, and a lot of the book, there's some reflection.

It's not just here's the things you need to do. It's here's how you need to approach the problem and different questions to ask and different ways to think about that's going to help you do what is right for you because there's no, do these three things and magically your career will work. Yes. Yes. No, I definitely agree. And millennials are now the majority.

of today's population and we are driven off a sense of curiosity and wanting to learn. And yes, we do need consistency and constantly learning. You can tell when you're having a conversation with someone, if they haven't been consistent with improving themselves because their philosophy about whatever the subject is, it's completely last generation. It's like, no, that's not how it works. Everything's different. But with the podcast, we're focusing on embracing our vulnerabilities as our authentic selves.

We're redefining a new standard of leadership that's bringing clarity to culture and organizations. Now, with your written work, what can we start off with that will really hit home with what we're trying to accomplish today? We can go in many directions. We can talk about how to create. and execute your career plan. We can look at specific skills, leadership itself, or get into communication or negotiation or how to build a network to support your development, your leadership, how to create the right approach to your job, the working effectively skills in terms of managing and motivating other people, even if you are not a manager yourself or understanding

the corporate culture and corporate politics. We can talk about interviewing and how actually a lot of companies really screw this up. We can focus on ethics. So we can go on lots of different directions because all of these together really combined to holistically make us more effective in our careers and our lives. Okay. So I had an idea where I want to go. But then you said interviewing.

And now it's like I really want to hit home. I want to start with that because I've had a lot of shitty experiences. After I transitioned out, I applied to. hundreds of different jobs. And I maybe gotten three interviews, a guaranteed position with law enforcement. I know I think I love law enforcement, but I'm not looking to tack on any more trauma

on top of my military. What I'm looking for is to grow mentally. And when I went to these interviews, I just, I could just feel it in the body language when they read me on paper like, oh, you're great. You must be awesome.

And then when I'm there, it's like, oh, you're kind of scary or something. I don't know. It's just like I have that presence. It's like, is that what people are looking for today? Companies? Are they looking for an individual that has presence that will take charge of a situation that will carry out whatever needs to be carried out, but also has the ability to be empathetic on the side? They may or may not, but most often they don't even know what they want. And so this is the problem.

Most companies, when they say, okay, great, you've joined our company, you're part of it. Hey, listen, I have a new candidate coming in. So why do you sit down and interview this candidate? That's literally what they say. You're part of the interview team. You go interview that candidate. I've given you no background, no training. But I assume, well, you know the role you've been before and you've been doing it.

Go figure it out. Can you imagine if we said, hey, you're 16 now. I know you've ridden in lots of cars. So here are the keys. Go take it for a drive. That's how the Army does it. I mean, the Army at least has a manual for everything under the sun.

There's at least a process you can fall. But our companies don't, right? There's just no guidance. Now, at every one of my companies, I sit down and say, this is how we're going to interview. I guess all on the same page. And begins by saying,

what are we looking for in this role? They say, well, okay, I get it. If I'm hiring a software engineer, Okay, well, I don't care if you play the flute or not. I care about, do you know, Java software skills, right? Okay, good. That's not really insightful. But what else might I need?

If you are a software developer, are you going to be working primarily by yourself? Is it going to be a team of a lot of people? Will you be working very closely with one of the non-technical teams at the company? Because maybe you need a lot of their input to develop the system. are you maybe in a role that's very customer facing because we deploy it and we have customers who have issues and so I need customer facing skills. Are we a company that has lots of meetings or little meetings? And if you're in lots of meetings, how is important is it that you participate versus you

just sit there and listen? So we can say, okay, software engineer, I know you need to write code, but there's a lot of solity in that of what specifically you need to do. When companies say we need a leader, oh, this is a CISO, this is a C. in your position, we need a leader. Okay, what does that mean? Is that a leader who can transform because your company is undergoing a change? Is that a leader who can step in? Because this team is really demoralized. There's been a lot of setbacks and layoffs and failures. And we need someone who can rally the team. Is it someone who just takes a good team and just keep steering the ship?

Everything's good. Don't rock the boat. Those are all different types of leaders. And if we're not clear on what we want, then when you go and interview someone, you say, oh, yeah, seem like a good leader. He was really rah, raw, inspirational. He's going to light a fire under the team. And I'm thinking, our team doesn't need a fire under them. They're doing okay. In fact, he might even be a little too hardcore and push them and disrupt what's working. So we need to be very specific in our interview process. What are we looking for? And not just leadership, what does that mean? And then how do we assess it. Because to your point, people would meet you and say, oh, he's really intense. But was that just a vibe? I read some body language. Or was that, okay, let's talk about what you've done. And does that help me understand how you are as a leader or whether you can solve this type of problem I have? So once we know what we want, we have to create an interview process that specifically elicits your capabilities in those areas. And that's the second piece companies don't do. They say, I don't know, ask a bunch of questions. So yeah, it seemed like a leader to me. But let's understand why.

So let's touch on a couple of things on that real quick. So you are covering transformational leadership, servant leadership, and I believe autocratic leadership is what you were referencing earlier on the types of leadership. And what bothers me is the fact that companies, they don't want to change what's already working. But they're looking for the person that would pioneer new ideas. an innovation. So why is that such, why is that such an issue? It will depend on a particular company. Certainly companies are all inherently risk adverse. I say, oh, no, we're risk takers here.

You might be, but still, you want to minimize your risk, even risk taking companies. So if something's working, they might be hesitant to change it, but they want that capability. They want to know if something does change, some external force, global pandemic. pandemic hits or their industry changes, four of the odds, that's going to happen. They want to know we have people who can adapt and change. But of course, the people say, I really like innovating and changing, aren't going to be very happy in a job where they say,

that's great that you can. But hold the fort for now. For the next year, two years, three years. No, no, keep as is. I know you're excited about innovating, but we don't want you to do that because we like where things are. But we'll let you know when we're ready. Well, that's not a good fit.

And that's not something that you ever talk about in the interview process because you don't say, well, here's where we are and here's when and where and how we might innovate and tell us when and where and how you like to innovate. And let's figure out if we're aligned on the same page. But we don't get to those types of questions in the process. We just figure out, can you innovate? Okay, yes, you can or no, you can. If you can, great.

But we don't talk about where and how that will apply to this job and whether it aligns to your goals. So that really touched on a lot of things here that's interesting. But what bothers me is that people can just get a job anywhere. I can literally master the definition of what they're looking for and just put it on paper and say, this is it. I know this is everything. But what it comes down to is the personal character. Because I feel like if your individuality doesn't align with their mission,

vision, values, and the purpose that there isn't really, there isn't a place for you. But what I find that it's hard and difficult to grasp is they don't even believe in the shit that they're selling. This can vary a lot from one company to another. There's the famous airport test or the guy I'd like to have a beer with. And too many people say, okay, I just spent the last 45 minutes interviewing you. hey, would I want to get a beer with you? Yeah, you know, I think I would. So yeah, you'd be, you'd be great. Let's get him in. He'd be a good guy. Assuming you had the basic qualifications for the job,

but yeah, he's good. And maybe that's relevant. Maybe not. Just because I think you're a good guy get a beer with doesn't mean you're the best candidate for this job. But unfortunately, because I didn't have a clear metric of, let's where I understand, does your leadership align, Does your innovation aligned, do your communication skills align? Does your work in this space align to really the work we're going to be doing going forward? Yes, in broad strokes, you're an accountant, we need an accountant. But is that the right type of direction we're going given what you've done in the past? We don't go deeper.

It's go, yeah, he knows accounting and, yeah, I could see myself hanging out with him. And so that's not sufficient. We have to be more detailed. Now, on the other hand, you can imagine. So there's a classic airport test. The airport test, it's been attributed to basically every company under the sun. I don't know who first came up with it. It's if you think back to the 1980s before we had the internet era pockets and when airports were these really boring places,

say, well, you're out on a client engagement and it's Friday afternoon. You get to the airport at 2 o'clock, but your flight is delayed. And this is some tiny regional airport. There's nothing to do when you're stuck there for four hours. Do you want to be stuck with this person for four hours? because certainly if you were a consult in the 80s, at some point, you wouldn't be stuck in the airport with that person. And that can matter a lot because we're spending time together as a team and it might be important to get along with each other. It might not matter at all because, hey, we're just spending time together doing work and, yeah, okay, you're not a horrible guy.

You're not a jerk. But we don't have to hang out outside of work. But it will depend a little on the company culture because there are certain companies where everyone, one's a friend and a buddy and they go to each other's barbecues on weekends and they got the company's ski trip and each other for years. And then there are companies where, no, it's just a job. In that first company, you know what? It does matter if you're going to go hang out on the barbecues because if you don't, you're going to impact the team cohesion in a negative way. And that's relevant. In that second company, you know what? As long as you're competent, as long as they can work with

you, get the job done. Who cares if your best buddies are really clicked or not? as long as you can be effective. So there's a range of possibilities, but it's important for a company to understand what they need and then assess for that if it's relevant. Beautiful. Right there, you set me out for a good segue that I want to cover. So with as far as companies, like with the culture,

with them hanging out with each other on the side that, yes, I get that. It builds camaraderie, definitely military all the way. what could be the potential issue for leadership that is hosting say a barbecue is it's a fine line between professional favoritism and favoritism so how should leaders maintain their authority we can say that and having that place of hey this is what we do to of course, build and collaborate and just to establish and maintain that cohesion, but also still maintain that authority when they're at work. It is fuzzy and there's no one right answer. Certainly in the military to go to your background, there is a very clear rule about federalization. Yes. The officers had to be separate from enlisted.

Yes. And while we don't have to be quite so strict in a company, there are some boundaries. When I was younger, when I first became a manager, I was 26. I wasn't that much older than the other guys I was managing. And I remember, oh, I have my annual Halloween party, you know, whole company, you're all welcome. And I didn't set clear boundaries, not just because why I might have to fire these people one day, but because I do need to be perceived as the manager, as the boss. And if I'm just perceived as their peer, which at the Halloween part, not say, oh, I'm getting drunk and passing out, but still it's, okay, we're more peers. Then I lose some of that authority because no one says, well, that was at home. This is how we see you. But at work, we see

you differently. In front of those people, I always do need to be the boss on some level. Not to say you can't be friends with the other people. And I've been friends with people have reported to me. I've been friends with my boss. And it's not as strict as a military. But there is still that relationship and you need to make sure that is always clear. You also need to make sure if you are the boss and you're doing the barbecue, some people won't be able to make it. Maybe you're doing barbecue Sunday afternoon and that's when certain people go to their church. And so it's not nothing on you or maybe they just don't like barbecue or they don't like

hanging out with you outside of work. They're very, hey, you know, this is my family time. you have to make sure it's not counting against them. And it's easier to say, oh, I always hang out more with Bob and Jim because they come to my barbecue as I see them outside of work. But it doesn't mean Carol might not be the better person for our promotion. You have to make sure you're very clear on who gets a promotion and why. And it's not just because you like Bob and Jim better.

Now, what you can't separate is you might know Bob and Jim a little better because you've spent more time with them. And so it's very important. And if you recognize, you know, spending more time with Bob and Jim, I need to make sure I am at least able to assess Carol. I don't have to go minute for minute and spend more time with her, but make sure I can give her an equal assessment to the two of them. No, I really, I like that. And now we're going to transition into with organizational culture. Okay.

So with leadership, it's now becoming apparent that leaders are now utilizing love. as as the foundation to what is making them the authority because I know through my experience as an individual as a sergeant in charge of soldiers I was their their parent, their doctor, their nutritionist. I was just a shoulder whenever they needed me. I was there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Now it's becoming a parent in all organizations that that should be the type of of individual who is in charge, but not to that full extent, by all means.

So in your experience, what do you think about that with leading with love? Love is a very broad term that can be interpreted in different ways. Yes. I will say as we look at the motivations, and every person is motivated by different things, but when we look broadly and generationally, you have on the one hand the baby boomers who just said, well, I want a job. And okay, I show up. I picked my industry. I start in this job, and I wait my turn and work hard and get promoted. And I'm just looking for this relationship with my company where I work and they give me money. On the other end, you have millennials who are

a lot more mission driven. It's not just about money. And they say, I care about what I'm doing. And that might be what the company does, how it impacts the world. It might just be the the culture they work in or their relationships with other people in the company. And so it's not just that transaction of, you give me money, I work. There's a different value proposition. And that is totally fine. In fact, no one works just for money. We also work for other benefits, whether it's stock options or how we develop and grow as a

person. And if that culture and community is part of it, that is totally fine. recognizing that there's this generational shift to having more of that softer return. That's probably not the best term for it. I'll say cracking down on that hierarchical approach that's going down the fucking channel. I think we're getting rid of that because it's a bunch of nonsense. And I also wanted to say this because I forgot to bring it up about the, what do you call it, with the airport thing.

I mean, with everybody standing around and just for four hours, nothing to do, well, shit, that said the 80s. I mean, everybody was smoking at the time. So I could definitely see there's some communication going on because when people can relate with some sort of scenario, then they start to interconnect. So I just wanted to put that in there. Yeah. I think we have to recognize this is what people want. They want more out of their company.

And we as leaders, if we want to attract and retain a modern workforce, we have to provide what they want, which includes more of these other things, more of these intangible. that's not just here's your money, here's your promotion. So I think that that is the trend. Now, where that boundary is and how much to your point of you were the parent, you were the nutritionist, you were everything. Yes. We don't have to do all of that. But it's probably more than what we've done 20, 30 years ago.

Yes, agreed. And that's why I appreciate that the selfless service, I feel like everyone should do that just to get a real understanding of what that means, any kind of self-a-service. But with that mentality, it allowed me to see things on a completely different level and to essentially wear my heart on my sleeves when I'm managing someone, when I'm leading a team. And that is what forces me to be the one that wants to go first in front of everyone. So if I can't do it, shit, I don't expect you to do it. But I'm going to do my very best and be 100% and physically fit, mentally fit whatever way possible to make sure the job gets done.

So setting that standard will be illustrated in my actions. But with tactics in your book, let's transition into that. What are some tactics that is needed in today's organization? Well, this gets into some of those specific skills like communication network. working, negotiating. And here's the thing. Here's how to think about these skills. We're going to use negotiation as an example.

Suppose you are 25 years old and you got a job offer for $60,000. If you say instead of just taking that job, I've learned to negotiate. I'm going to go back. I'm going to negotiate that offer. And using techniques in my book or elsewhere, you get $61,000. You can imagine a thousand dollars more. You don't have to be the world's greatest negotiator to just get $1,000 more. So you go and negotiate and you get $1,000 and you stay in this job for the rest of your career, the next 40 years.

That one five-minute negotiation just got you $1,000 more for 40 years. In five months, you just gained $40,000. That's amazing. Yeah. I think about, wow, like all I have to do is. just get a little better, read one book, listen to a few podcasts. And oh my God, it's going to give me $40,000. When you think of this, you say, wow, why haven't I done this already?

Now, of course, you're also thinking, well, there's no way I'm staying in a job for 40 years. You're going to have raises and promotions and other jobs. And you're going to negotiate more than just $1,000. If you learn to negotiate, it's not about being the world's best negotiator, just about getting a little bit better, you can add tens of thousands of dollars, even hundreds of thousands of dollars to your lifetime earning. This is incredible. And it's not just about money because you're going to negotiate for other things.

In fact, you negotiate all the time with your coworkers, with your boss, with your spouse. You're going to be so much more effective. And now here's the big secrets. Easy to do this with negotiations. We can do the math. We just did. Okay, more money times a number of years. Great.

If you get just a little bit better at leading or a little bit better at community. or a slightly bearer network, any of these skills, just get a little bit better, that's going to have the same compounding effect on your career. No one's going to say, oh, hey, you're a slightly better leader. Here's $1,000 more. But by being a slightly bearer leader, you're going to get opportunities for bigger and better projects. You're going to be promoted faster.

You're going to get certain jobs, which will, of course, translate into more success and more financial awards. So with any of these skills, don't think about how am I going to be a great leader like whoever your role model is or becoming the world's best negotiator. Just get a little bit better because by being a little better, it has this massive compounding effect the rest of your career. And it's going to have a huge return. Yes. With Atomic Habits, James Clear, fucking fantastic book illustrates that 2%, or 1%, no, 2%. No, two.

Two percent. Anyways, that's a fantastic approach is to just those little marginal gains can lead to a compound effect with negotiation. So what I want to look at is with negotiating, yes, when we negotiate, we also negotiate our decisions, our actions. So if we're constantly consistent and deliberate in our critical thinking of what is the right choice, it could be malleable and automatic. What about with individuals that were, they didn't stay at that place for 40 years, but instead, they pivoted when they saw an opportunity. And what I mean by that is for me, previous to the military, I worked at 17 different jobs. Okay. If I was applying to any kind of company at this time, they'd be like, holy shit, dude, you're not going to stay here.

You're not hired. that that could be the reason why. But what I see it as is when I was working, I only got to a certain level, and that organization wasn't teaching me anything any further. At that point, now I'm going to make decisions. Do I stay here and be like an individual who will spend the rest of his life here,

hoping that he will get something out of this and continue to grow? When intuitively, I just can feel it that it's now plateaued. And now I'm going to take action and find an opportunity where they will give me a chance to grow even further. And that's certainly we're seeing a little more of that. Now, a common misconception, by the way, is that people used to have lifetime employment at jobs. That was always a myth. People change jobs about as frequently as they do today.

Now, a company might look at you and say, well, this guy's changing every nine months. And you may have a legitimate reason to be changing. In fact, I used to change jobs quite a bit earlier in my career as well for somewhat similar reasons. In some cases, I worked at startups and a startup might zig. I say, you know, I really want to be zagging right now. That's great that you're zigging. That's what you should do. But that's not the direction I want to go.

And this is no longer a fit. But a company might still say, well, look, I get that. But still, it looks like the odds are we're going to be zigging or zagging in the direction you don't want to go. and you might leave in six or nine months here. So we'd rather hire and invest in someone else. And that's a reasonable decision on their part. Certainly a company, once they hire someone, should recognize we want to retain these people. And that means understanding your individual motivations and goals.

I have a conversation with everyone I hire. I talk about what's your career plan? Where do you want to go? Not just the next year or two, but even beyond that. And I know beyond that at some point, maybe it's in two years, maybe five, maybe 10, beyond that means not at this company. And that's okay. I have helped people leave my team and leave my company what is no longer a fit.

But if we can have these open, honest conversations, that's great. And at times I've been able to buy more time by saying, okay, I get that you want to leave. Listen, can you give me six more months and here's why? And I'll make sure we're getting you at least start down that path you want to get on. and we find that balance. We negotiate. So it's important for us, all of us, as a hiring manager, as a candidate, and anyone who runs a company to create that culture where you can have these honest conversations, which at times mean, hey, you know what? At some point, we might not be together in the future. And that's okay because jobs are short, but careers are long. And we really need to focus on the career. As individuals, we need to recognize, even if we're not going to work together tomorrow,

we are today, not tomorrow. Maybe we will again the day after that. And so we have to take these longer-term perspectives. So I get why the company might do that. It means they didn't really think about the earlier companies didn't think about why this was going to happen and address it. But now the current companies will say, hey, you know what? There's potentially a risk here. So then what would be, how would be able to highlight?

this for companies that do handle HR process with interviews and they come across a candidate who's like, we can use me as the guinea pig here. For someone who has so much experience that, I mean, has a degree, getting another degree, but they have this record of just pivots, I mean, in different direction from state to state. I mean, what could they do to ensure they're not passing up someone that they're going to regret. I don't put a lot of faith in HR hiring at big companies. And I know I'm stereotyping a bit. Keep in mind, even whether it's a big company or a small company, most resumes are interviewed or about or reviewed for about 15 seconds each. I do this myself. I have a stack of resumes. I glance at them for 15 seconds and they go on the yes, no, and maybe piles.

And that's my first decision. And honestly, if, you know, I look and say, well, has great skills, but there's this one possible concern because he moves around a lot. But then they have these 12 other resumes that also seem qualified. I don't have that concern. Investing EU doesn't seem like the best use of time to bring you into for interview. I have 12 less risky candidates. The way you can get around this is this is where our networks come in. Because if you get introduced to the company and someone says, hey, this is my friend.

I know it looks like he's moved around a lot. There are reasons for that. He is worth talking to. Anytime someone brings me a resume on my team, okay, that person gets an interview. I'm going to invest time because he has been vouched for. You've told me he's qualified. I trust your judgment. That's why I hired you.

So I'm going to trust your judgment here. Doesn't mean he's getting the job, but okay, he gets the interview. And at that point, you can address during the interview process, hey, here's something that you're pricing on my resume. Let's talk about, let me address it and help you understand. Okay, given that what concerns, I'm not saying this is the first question out of the gate, but what concerns might you have and how can I address that further? Okay.

Interesting. Yes. No, that's what I would think would be the case is handing it off to somebody who is already within the system that could integrate that in. So if we were to look at just leave. leadership in today's organization. What should that look like? What is the deficit? Should it be servant leadership?

What should they be doing for leading a team? I am a big believer in servant leadership. One of the things I say in my book is I always think of the org chart upside down. If you think of a standard org chart, it looks like a pyramid and you've got the CEO at the top, followed by the executive team, followed by your middle managers. I reverse it. And here's why. If we got rid of all the executives, all the managers and you just had the individual contributors, the company probably isn't going to run very well.

It's going to be disorganized. It's going to be chaotic. Things will get done, but poorly, badly. On the other hand, if you kept all the management and got rid of the individual contributors, what the hell are we doing? We're just seeing in meetings and sending emails. We're not badly run. we're just not doing anything.

The company is about the work of the individual contributor, whether you're writing code or sending invoices or creating marketing campaigns. You're the people getting things done. And we as managers, our job is to make as easy as possible for you to do your jobs. And so that's really how I think about managing and leading in an organization. So I very much take that servant leadership view. That's not to say we don't incorporate other styles of leadership. I might have to inspire the team.

I might have to transform the team. I might have to do other things in a particular moment or for a particular period. But I think in my mind it's underpinned as my job is to let you do your job as effectively as possible. I like that. Yes, I definitely agree with servant leadership. that should be happening everywhere. Now, Mark or Hershey. Yes, this is his nickname, by the way.

Ever since I was five. What's the difference between a leader and a manager? This is the classic question that everyone likes to start with. In my book, in the Career Toolkit, I have different chapters, some on leadership, some on management because I very much focus on a wax on, wax off type of training. I hope everyone gets that reference. If you don't know it, you need to go watch the karate kid. Because I really want to look at that fundamental before we can put it all together.

And the most succinct way I can describe the difference is a great quote. I think this might be from Grace Hopper. I can't remember for certain who said, nobody ever managed men. into battle. And that to me really defines the essence of leadership. But now here's the thing. However you want to define it, through that quote, through other things for an extended discussion, at the end of my section on leadership and management, I ended up by saying

good leaders manage, good managers lead. At a given role, you might be doing a lot more of one than the other, but generally the people who know how to do both are most effective. So in the book, I will look at, this is leadership, this is management, but in the real world, you can say in basketball, this is passing, this is shooting, but you don't just say, well, I'm just, I'm just a passer. You guys do the shooting, right? You're doing it all. It's just how much you do and at what particular moment. And that's how we need to think about the two. Wow. That's, that's really on a different level that I was not expecting. I like that that really hits home with what people need to understand the difference between a leader and

an individual and I came across your writing with the it was when somebody's going in for an interview like there's one thing that a lot of people don't take in consideration is the they're not they're always being interviewed that's before even the interview starts can you cover that a little bit. Every one of us is interviewing. I am interviewing right now this second. I don't know with whom. I don't know for what job. But right now, there's a bunch of people who are listening, and they are getting an impression of me. It might be a positive impression that they say, hey, we need to hire a CTO, a CIO, we need this exec. And there's this guy, Mark, and he sounds really smart. We should bring him in. Or you might be thinking, that guy, Mark, I don't know,

sounds like he's full of BS. Oh, he applied? Yeah, no, don't even bring him in. Positive or negative, you're getting some impression of me. And all of us are doing that. Now, it might not be on a podcast. It might be because you're at some event. Maybe you're doing a talk.

Maybe you're just at a conference and meeting people, but they're forming impressions about you. Even with your coworkers, I've had people who I've worked with in the past. And when it comes time to now, I'm hiring at a new company and this person applied, do I need to do an interview? I worked with her for three years. I know just what she's like. I don't know. Tell me about your experience and how are you working with others. I've seen that for

three years. She was interviewing for those three years for this future job, neither of us knew about. So all of us are interviewing in some way. Now, don't get paranoid. Don't walk on eggshells and think, oh my God, I'm interviewing and everyone's watching me. And certainly with friends and family and coworkers. You're going to have a bad day. You're going to say something stupid. Something's not going to go well. No, there's that one day where she did this. No, it's fine because there's all the other days where you were great. So don't get overly concerned, but recognize that we are all projecting information about ourselves. And that sense, we are interviewing. We just don't know with whom or for what yet. Yes. No, that is fantastic. And it also applies to our brand. I mean,

every time people see it, they already understand the image behind it when we portray ourselves in public. So that I love that. There's another thing that you've written about in your writing. And it's, okay, people within an organization. Now, if we were looking at those that are at the bottom that are not a part of the executive teams, they don't have a good grasp on the big picture. Why is that? Some of it is because the company doesn't do a good job giving out all the information.

Some of it is because many people don't care upon the effort for it. And some of it is just even when the executives try to share it and the people below try to absorb it, you think of that classic game of telephone, right? You play as a kid and you're always in the ears. It's just hard to get from the very. top the same message dispersed to the whole group. So all these things can come in and really kind of harm the ability to transmit that information. But I fully believe all of us should work to understand what the organization is about, what the strategy is, who our customers are, where we're going,

how the industry is changing, how we're going to fit into that future. And as an executive, as a manager, as a leader, you need to work to convey this to the team as a team member, I really encourage you to grow to understand this. You can say, look, I just want to be an individual contributor. I just want to sit in my lane. And okay, that's fine. But the reality is your job, your company, your industry will change. Yes. And if you don't understand how you're delivering value today, when it changes, you might not realize how you need to deliver value tomorrow. And then if you're not, that company, no longer needs you. Exactly. And if you do understand that and you see how things are changing,

you know how you deliver value, you can even say, I have an idea how I can deliver more value tomorrow. And those are the people who get promoted. That I like that. What is actionable items that leaders can do to build a real line of communication with their workforce, whether it's down below them, but also up above them. I'm a big believer in having town halls or all-hand meetings, or whatever you want to call them, and we can do it at the corporate level. You can also do it at your department or division level,

whatever organizational structure. And it might even be multiple, right? There might be a company one. You might have a department one. When I do these, I also make sure, now part of my job, as, for example, a CTO or CIO, part of my job is to say, okay, you all report to me. I know we're focused on this area, but want to make sure you understand the context

in which you're working, that bigger picture. I'm going to bring in what I'm hearing from the other departments and how that impacts us. I will also sometimes bring in, hey, for our monthly meeting, I brought on the head of sales. I brought on the head of finance. And she's going to talk to you and give you her perspective on what we're doing and why and how it relates to you. So I'm not in the middle.

I'm not playing that telephone. Hear it from the horse's mouth. And so you want to create those connections. It's also helpful to build your internal network. And this is something so many people don't really think about. We think of networking as, well, that's how I get a job. Therefore, I want to meet people outside my company. I don't need people in my company.

I have a job there already. Other people at different companies. But your internal network, you can do a lot of things. But one of the things they can do, he can get you information. and perspective. Because if I say to my team, okay, look, we've got this new strategic direction the board wants to go in,

and here's what it means for us. And I'm going to do my best to convey it. Maybe I get it wrong, or maybe I just describe it a certain way, or even just the choice of words that I use, you perceive it a certain way. And I have a limited amount of time to take this really big strategy

the board may have spent months on and convey it to you in 30 minutes on that meeting. But if you have friends in a different department, those friends might have heard a slightly different message. Still, hopefully, all going in the same direction, but how that's going to play out or what it means for some of the other departments and how that could even affect your department.

So by having this internal network, you're going to be exposed to different versions of the message and you can compose a more holistic view of it. So creating that network is going to help you gain a better understanding. I really like that a lot, right? They're just establishing resources within that is your internal network. So I never heard of it like that, but just getting a different view. I looked at it as just outside information from my job that I can utilize and apply that would help me be a master at my position.

Because then if I know what they know, then I feel like I can do things just a little bit better to ensure that this individual is getting better quality because I know what to expect. and so on and so forth with the people around me. But what I also like is this the communication with your employees, but also with the people above, having that open line of communication. For me, if I was working for someone who actually brought me in and laid it out for me, Barney style, if that's what we'll call it, that's going to motivate me.

Because now that I can see the bigger picture, now I feel like I'm making a difference. And I think that's going to be more true today that has been the past. Because again, it goes back to generationally, millennials tend to want to be more focused on the mission and the impact. And so by seeing that bigger picture and understanding how the work you are doing ties into that, help you understand how you are generating this impact, and that's going to motivate your team. So absolutely, I think we should do more of this, not just because it helps people be more effective, but also it's going to motivate today's workforce. Excellent, excellent.

I all above, agree. Now, let's transition to our closing. I have a few closing questions. One would be, what is some actionable advice leadership can take, right now to refine the standard today? I'm going to teach you how you can elevate not just yourself, but your entire team and organization. Fuck yeah.

These are techniques that we use at MIT. Techniques are used at the top business schools. The thing is what we cover in this book and in the class, leadership and communication and networking, these are different than how we've learned other things. you want to learn algebra, how did we do it? Well, the teacher said, here's a quadrarch equation. And you say, okay, I get and you practice it. And now, when do you use a quadratic equation? Well, anytime someone shows it to you, you say, oh, I know how to solve it. I recognize it. That's easy. If I'm going to teach you, here's our new expense reporting system, when do you

use that any time you have an expense report? It's easy. But these other skills, there is no formula for leadership. There's no form to fill out to effectively communicate each and every time. It's more subtle. And you don't know exactly when that's happening. You know when to use the expense report. You don't know a 2.17 p.m. next Tuesday. That's when I have to lead. So it's a very different approach. And I would do an analogy to sports. I can teach you accounting or the quadratic equation by saying memorize this and you do it. I can't say, here are the rules to basketball. Great. Now you know what to do. Go play. Yes, start with the rules. But then what happens. Well, you have to practice. Now, practice can be doing drills. Practice can be scrimmage games.

If you're playing at very top level, you might even run the tape. Watch how you're playing. Watch how your opponents play and learn from that. And there's no, okay, I went to a basketball clinic for two days and now I'm an expert. But we do that with these skills. He's, oh, we send you to that leadership training last month for two days. Aren't you a leader now? But no, like basketball, you have to keep going. So how do we do that using as techniques that we use at MIT and elsewhere? Create peer learning groups. I recommend groups of about six to eight people, but you can do larger teams.

I talk about how. And all this, by the way, it's on the website, on the Career Toolkit Book website and the resources page. And we'll go over that, I'm sure, a little later. You can create these peer learning groups. And you put people in these small groups and say, here's what we're going to do. we're going to take some content. So if you use my book, for example, you can say, here's the goal.

We want to work on leadership. We want to work on communication or we want to work on just skills broadly. And I break down, here's how to chop up the book and say, we're going to read these 10 pages over next two weeks. And then we come together and discuss it. And it's in that discussion. As you and I are saying down with other people and I say, okay, you know, this was something I read in the book.

I'm trying to think, how would I do that? You say, well, let me give you an example for. when I had a challenge like that, and here's what I did, here's what worked or here's what did, and we all learn from it. There's no way to practice leading, right? I can't say a team, I'm going to lead you for the next 10 minutes, but this doesn't count. It's a scrimmage game. It doesn't count. We're going to lead and then pretend it didn't happen. But through this discussion group, as you're trying to face a leadership challenge and I try to help you through it and vice versa, that's how I get my practice leading. That's how we can start to learn. And now I

mention you can use my book for this, but if you don't want to use my book, you don't have to. I list a whole bunch of other great books that I like on different topics or pick your own books you like or some online videos or articles or use a great podcast like this one and have everyone on the team listen to one of these episodes and then discuss what you learned on the episode. The key is that you take some starting seed content and that's that discussion where you're really going to understand it. Just like you learn what basketball is, but it's in the playing of basketball and the scrimmage games and those drills that you get better at. So doing this, you can help not just yourself, but your whole organization.

And if your organization doesn't do this, if HR, if your leaders, no, I say, no, we're not interested, even though this is no cost, right, set up your own teams, you can grab content like this podcast for free. Well, you can go do it yourself. Create a local meetup group. Create some local communities and break yourself up to these groups and have these discussions. So you can do this on your own and it's going to help you and help others around you and help your whole organization. I like that.

But I also, I want to fight that a little bit. I want to poke it. Okay. I want to dig in there. Please do. Yes. So with establishing a peer group, all right, and then reading about it and going over it, okay, that's great. I think that's fantastic to get your brain to start thinking of solutions to a problem.

but what about having somebody take action? I mean, with the military, we did very similar things, but we also did it in an actionable way. Like we would do dry runs or rehearsals if we're going to enter and clear a room. We would constantly do that. Just do it dry with no ammunition. Then with blanks. And then we would use live rounds.

I feel like having those rehearsals can prepare you to be able to act the moment or even before the moment occurs because we recognize patterns. So we can almost intuitively feel what's about to happen before it occurs. What do you think of that way? So this is where suppose I have with my team. Okay, I've got the orders from above. We're going to do 10% layoffs. and then you have to tell the rest of the team, hey, we got to work really hard this quarter

because we have this new initiative. If we hit it, everything is going to be gravy. Okay, so I have to say, some of you are leaving. That's going to demoralize everyone else, but let's all pull together and work hard. I don't have a direct way of practice. I can't say, okay, team, let me give you this message.

Ooh, I screwed that up. Everyone forget what I said. Let me try it again. So the practice we can do is in that group, in our peer group, we can say, okay, listen to everyone. hey, I'm going to give you the message. We've been learning communication.

Let me try it. And you all listen, give me feedback. Or each you can say, you know, I have similar situation. Here's what I did. Here's what I did. Okay, those are good notes. I'm going to incorporate that. And I'm going to think about that.

Then maybe I do a practice with you guys. So this group is how you can work with each other. I'll give you an example. And I do this myself. I'm part of the New York CTO club. Many of us were a peer group of CTOs, larger than six people. We don't follow this particular process I laid out. But people say, you know, I've got a difficult board member.

I have a new CEO who doesn't understand the value of what we're doing. I'm not sure how to address it. Guess what? Someone else in the club, usually multiple people, have been a similar situation. And we share, here's what we did. Here's what worked. Here's what didn't work. Here are things to think about to assess your particular situation.

And that just helps you. It's not that you got to practice the exact thing ahead of time. but it made you better informed, better capable of recognizing those parents. Hey, look out for this. And so it's going to help you be more effective. And you can do that with these peer learning groups. Okay. That's much better.

So I just wanted to frame your approach a little bit. I love being challenged. Well, my rules is anyone can challenge any idea on my team, including especially my own. Because if we don't challenge ideas, bad ideas sit there and move forward. Exactly. Exactly. What is a CTO? A chief technology officer. I was thinking of something completely different. Yes. You brought this up already. Yes. So that is fantastic advice right there. What is some good advice to follow and what is some bad advice to avoid for leaders, individuals today that really want to. make a change in their life right now. Some good advice to follow is listen to those around you.

No matter how strong a leader you are, you just don't have the time, the bandwidth, the energy to really assess everything in today's complex world. Other people will have different perspectives and you want to get that in, including perspectives that disagree with you because you want to see it from different angles and that's going to help you be a stronger leader and create stronger decisions. some advice to avoid. I'm sure there's so much bad advice out there. I'm going to go with, this will be an upcoming blog post on my website.

There's the famous adage, well, most communication is nonverbal. That is utter bullshit. That is taking a research paper from the 1960s and misinterpreting what it did and far more broadly applying it than what the research really intended. So when people say, oh, yeah, well, most communication is nonverbal. They're paying attention not to what you say, but how you say it. Certainly your body language, your tone, those things do matter, but they don't overwhelm what you're saying.

So to focus on the content and the message, because that advice is totally inappropriate. So let's look at that. I'm not going to let that one get away. So with nonverbal, like, I've thought the exact same thing, but I feel like there's more to it. Like, is what today, yes, we are more virtual. So I can understand with nonverbal not being as much of an impact versus everything else as far as tonality, emphasis. But what about perception of how others are, are you referring to that, the perception of how others are feeling? or thinking towards the message that you've delivered?

Could you go a little deeper into that? Well, that I'm just referring to this misunderstood research paper just said, oh, your body language and tone matter so much more than the words you use. Okay. And that's wrong. But you raise a very interesting point. As we get to a hybrid world, a virtual world, we definitely have different levels of bandwidth. And working in tech, I've been doing.

doing this for 20-some years because I've been virtual companies, hybrid companies. I've had teams halfway around the world where all we had were phone calls because you didn't have a lot of video conferences 20 years ago. So we take it for a while. A cryptographer, right? I work at different startup companies, but my graduate work was in cryptography. So I've done a lot of cybersecurity. Here's the thing to remember. Obviously, when we're face-to-face, not only do we have the words, we do hear the tone, the body language, even that mood we can feel. Now, we get some of that. We're looking at each other on camera. And so I can see your facial expressions. We hear tone. And then, of course, in email, well, you might not even hear tone, although certainly if you know

each other, you can detect tone. Like, okay, I know that's you joking around. And so we get different levels of bandwidth. And that's not bad, but we have to be conscious of it. And so one thing, particularly in this virtual world for Lears to keep in mind, is that when I do have to give some of those talks like, hey, 10% of you will be let go, but the rest of you, rah, rah, let's get together and make this happen. When I do it in the room,

I'm going to feel that mood. I'm going to feel as I deliver the bad mood. That bad mood, how's everyone responding to it? Right. How are they feeling? And if I just go, okay, now let's talk about the good news,

the excitement. whoa, like, can't go that quick. I feel like, okay, I'm going to have to now transition you into a different mood and get you into first a neutral mood and then the positive mood. And as I'm doing that transition, I can read the room and feel how are people who are fine. Oh, I don't think they bought into it yet. So before I do the excitement, maybe I have to spend a little more time getting them out of the disappointment. When you're talking to a Zoom call and you're seeing a bunch of thumbnails and you just can't feel that emotion,

and half the people might even be distracted anyway. You can't tell because there's 60 people on the call. You're only seeing some of them in small pictures. You can't read them as well. And you don't have those connections. So that's just one example. But as leaders, and this can be true in a one-on-one situation or in a broad group situation, we're not always going to get the same amount of information because of that

more narrow bandwidth. And so we have to be aware of that and respond appropriately. So what would be, last one here, what would be a strategy or just a tactic for those that are in charge that are trying to virtually read? For me, like I think it would be, it would just be best just to be direct to the point and say, this is what's going on, this, this, and this. Is there any issues with that? When you have to address a large team, you have to do them, whatever way is appropriate. and hopefully you have some sense of the people and how they might respond. But after that, I think it's important to then connect to people in smaller groups.

Because if I am looking at four or five of you on the screen, okay, it will be easier to sense what's the mood of these few people and how are they responding. Let's have a smaller discussion about it. And it's a lot more time on our part as leaders, but that's what we have to do in current circumstances. Okay. I like that. That really highlights the theme here as far as the type of leaders that we need to be and how we should be communicating. Because, God, there's one more question. It just rose.

All right. So with employment, with the workforce, for those that want to grow in their position, they want more, what can they do as far as reaching up and out to their leadership? to learn how to be a better individual, learn how to be a leader in a sense. At the risk of sounding self-serving, certainly the content of the book developing these skills, learning how to approach some certain ways, how to think about them, and how to follow through the action steps in the book, that's all going to help you be more effective, having frank conversations with your manager or HR or whomever is appropriate about where you want to go in your career and what you're doing to get there and what they can do to help you.

will also help. And then, of course, it's not just my book. It's, again, keep listening to this podcast, find other resources online, and continue to grow and develop. Because it's not about being perfect. It's just about getting a little bit better and the impact that's going to have on you. You've been listening to Your Transformation Station, your voice on the hard truths of leadership. We hope you've enjoyed the show. We hope you've gotten some useful and practical information. sure to like, rate, and review the show. Remember, your transformation station is on all major platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and YouTube at YTS, the podcast, and visit the website at YTSThepodcast.com. Till next time. Life lock, how can I help? The IRS said I filed my

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