Challenges of the C-Suite with Edgar Papke, Episode 32

Hello everybody! I think— oh good, did we get the sign saying that we're live, Edgar?

Yeah, I see it.

Oh, okay, because it just flipped so fast. Hi everybody, this is CB Bowman. You know, you know, right? Everything is live and real with me. No, I missed the signal that we were on. What the heck? Anyway, I am so glad we're running a few minutes late. Oh my God, what are you gonna do with CB? You just have to love her. What could I say? So this is Tuesday, so we have Challenges of the C-Suite. And today, well, you know, all of my guests are special. special, but I've got this handsome dude who has written so many books, right? The 3 that I'm going to talk about, I've got them right here, but I'm going to focus on one. To Alignment: Linking Company Culture with Customer Needs for Extraordinary Results. How about that, right? Then we have Innovation by Design: How Any Organization Could Leverage Design Thinking to Produce Change, Drive New Ideas, and Deliver Meaningful Solutions. And you all know my background is design. I'm a graduate of Parsons School of Design. That was when I was a young blood. And then I went into the real world of business. But here we go. Here's the next book. Oh my gosh, I can't hold these things up correctly. Whoops. There we go. Innovation by Design. And the one that I want to talk about is—

And you asked me to be funny.

Well, my audience knows I'm a hoot. Here we go. The elephant in the boardroom. And guess what? This doesn't just apply to the boardroom. This applies to your being a leader. And leader not only means your clients. If you're a coach, you're a leader. Can we talk? That's my secret for today. Coaches have to realize that they are leaders. So without further ado, I'm going to introduce— well, oh wait, I have to give disclosure. Edgar is one of the members of the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches, which you know is my company. That doesn't make him a bad person. It makes him a good person. So without further ado, Here we go. Over here, Pat Keye, and I am so excited to have him on the program. First, Edgar, let's start from the beginning, and you promise me you're going to be funny. Okay, how did you— what did you— how did you— first of all, how do you sit and write 3 books? But let's get back to that first. Tell me about you growing up. Tell me about your parents. I want to know it all so I can figure out why I'm not able to write a book and get it out. Yes.

Yeah, I have a— I have at least looking back on it, we all have our unique experiences of life and my early experiences still to this day. And I think this is a case for most of us and we may not be conscious of it. My experiences very much inform my work. I'm an immigrant from Germany, so my early experiences in childhood were pretty much of being the outsider. And I think when you come from the outside, it really solicits from you your ability to observe, to observe, you know, how to be included, how to fit in, what are the rules of engagement, the new environments that you find yourself in, which of course has so much to do with the work that we do in coaching leaders and coaching executives and in building relationships overall in business. And so, that informed me a great deal. So, I'm an immigrant from Germany. My parents came over. The storyline is on the boat across Ellis Island and all that good stuff. And we settled in New Jersey. And 2 brothers, one of which is also a psychologist, an industrial and organizational psychologist over in Germany. And he moved back to Germany eventually. And I'm here. And we, for the most part, we still talk about those early experiences and how they inform our thinking in our world today and the work that we do. So, I grew up for the most part and had a variety of interests. I am certainly a creative, an artist by trade looking at it, which is why I think that business is the most advanced art form that we participate in as human beings. And so, I see everything through the lens of emotion, creativity, human-centered ways of thinking. My first career was as a high-risk insurance underwriter. Working towards the end of my career there, it was all about high-risk global Lloyd's of London type risks that you might be thinking of, just really outside-the-box thinking, creative ways of looking at insurance of all things, which is a pretty, you know, actuarial-driven science for a great deal. And then—

Edgar, I worked in insurance. One, one of my multiple paths, and there's no creativity in insurance.

Oh yes, there is. You try putting together a policy for Pete Rose or the baseball strike insurance or for Barry Manilow's hands.

Oh, okay. Well, that, that is the creative side. I was in the P&C side. It was like boring.

Yeah, yeah, I was, I was primarily involved in the casualty end of things and the high risk. Oh, but yeah, so, and maybe it's the lack of creativity. I got bored with that, so I, I wound up going to the Culinary Institute of America. Yeah, so I got a degree in culinary arts and became a chef and an executive chef, and I did some restaurant touring and, and, uh, and did that for 10 years.

Wait a second, I used to own a catering business and my husband owned a restaurant. Can we talk? What is this?

Well, there's still, there's still a catering business that I founded in New York. I think it's still operating. Last time I looked is Gala Occasions Catering. So that was a business that I founded. And, um, that— so, uh, Gala Occasions, I think it's still there.

Occasions, yeah.

So it's—

that was my competitor. No, we were good.

We were really good. So, uh, yeah, so I was a chef and, uh, it started, started going down the track of this celebrity chef. doing television and all that. And then realized that it took too much of a toll on my family life. I wasn't spending enough time with my family and quite couldn't. And I wish I had a really good coach back then. I do, looking back on it, because I probably would have manifested the life I was looking for in a much better way. Instead, I just walked away from it. And then my brother, he said, you know, you ought to do some assessments, see where your interests and where your where your talents lie. And they all pointed to my being a psychologist. And I love leadership. I love business. So, it was a natural place for me to migrate to. And yeah, you can tell by looking at me, I'm kind of getting old. And so, I made that transition back in 1989 and been at it ever since, just exploring the world of business and leadership and just absolutely loving it.

So where did you go to school for this?

I wanted to go into school, Regis University, where I'm now an executive in residence at the, uh, at Anderson College, so in their Innovation Center. So I do some teaching.

Are you in Colorado?

Yes, I am, right down the road from you.

You know, I cannot believe the synergies in our lives.

That's kind It's quite interesting, isn't it?

You're gonna have to come over and have a cook-off with my husband.

Oh, I don't know about that.

Well, culinary arts, what was your specialty?

Um, well, the, uh, in a review back in the day, the New York Times said that I was the new breed of American chef in terms of a modern American cuisine that was emerging. Now it's called farm-to-table.

Oh, whoa.

Daily changing menus, you know, all of So that were, you know, whatever was coming in we'd use. And that was primarily. And so the catering was relatively speaking upscale and white tablecloth kind of work.

That was, what is her name, Berkeley Heights in California.

Waters. Alice Waters.

Alice Waters, yes.

Okay.

Fabulous.

Great restaurant. Great restaurant.

Absolutely great restaurant.

Yeah, one of her sous chefs came and, uh, and worked with me for a while. Yeah, so yeah.

Oh my God. Oh, we're definitely having a throwback. I'll cook the soul food, my husband will cook the Italian, and you go for the American.

Well, yeah, I don't know. Modern American is, is truly a You know, when you think about your melting pot, at least that, that's in reality a melting pot when you think about what you can do with food and how you can bring different ideas and flavors and textures. And I, you know, it's just, I could do some really, you know, I have a lot of fun with curries and Mediterranean, you know, origin ways of thinking about food and Yeah, I'm all over the map.

So what did you grow in your garden this year? I bet I had you beat.

Actually, we, for the most part, and it's been quite a harvest this year, focused on our grapes. And so I harvested— it's interesting, I took about 50 pounds of muscat grapes and cooked them down and strained them a couple of times, etc. And wound up with, um, let's see, uh, 8, 16, about 18 8-ounce jars of jelly. That's just absolutely unbelievable.

Okay, where are you in Colorado? I'm coming to get my jar.

Just outside of Boulder in Louisville. I'll save you a jar because they go quickly.

We are so near each other. This is—

Yeah, you're in Windsor.

Yep. Yes. Yeah, and I have to come down to Boulder to have my car fixed. So in my garden this year, for the first time, I grew carrots and beets. Of course, the standard zucchini and squash, and for the first time, butternut squash and gourds. That's because I picked up the wrong plants.

A lot of fruits.

A lot of fruits and Lots of heirloom tomatoes. Yeah. Eggplant, of course, 3 different kinds of eggplant.

I love Japanese eggplant.

That's what we did. I love it. I love it. Did the Japanese, the white didn't do so good. And then I did like pink kind of thing. Did different kinds of tomatoes. And The thing that was an absolute failure was corn.

Corn can be tough though. Friends of ours, we had about a dozen ears that they gave us of their sweet corn. It was just fantastic. But yeah, I think you have to have a corn capability for that. There you go. There's a cookbook on corn you can write.

Yeah, right. The bees loved it. Brought in a lot of bees. I could have started a hive collection. But anyway, let's get to talking about work.

Hmm. Okay.

The elephant in the boardroom. First of all, tell me, you're a coach. What type of coaching do you do?

Yeah, that's a great question. Well, I focus all my work on alignment. So I look at— I think the That at the end of the day, alignment is a great predictor of success in all aspects of our lives. So, at a personal level, alignment to our values, our beliefs, our vision of who we want to be and how we want to lead life. And in our relationships, alignment of expectations we have one another. I mentioned in the book that unspoken expectations are the slippery slope to resentment, anger, distrust. So in relationships and marriages, family systems, and of course, in teams and groups and business. And then in a broader perspective, alignment of the customer experience to the purpose of the organization and its values and how that shows up in the customer experience and how that shows up in cultures. I work under the premise that an aligned culture means that The way that we behave towards one another in our teams, our groups, our organizations needs to be in alignment with the human and emotional experience of the customer because everything is emotional. So across those different elements, I pretty much work with the threads of human experience and threads of human emotion, which are the motivators of our behaviors. So, in answer to your question, in my work, I go across all of them. And so, my work's very unique. I work with families. I work with couples. I work with leaders, teams. I work on design and brand and customer experience. I'm across all of those.

So, you actually answered my next question. We hear The word alignment used so much in business.

Yeah.

And I think that there is— I don't know that there is really a clear definition, number one. And number two, we think about when we hear alignment, we think of like Fortune 500 companies. And so I want to talk about, one, a clear definition, 2, I want to talk about, because most of our audience are solopreneurs and entrepreneurs, um, and you know the new group that I'm starting this week, the Power Pack Women, uh, they will mostly be solopreneurs and entrepreneurs. How do we bring such a huge word into small business? How do we define it for us is the question.

Yeah, so I think we begin again the premise that alignment exists everywhere, and so it does become very contextual. It would be that it's specific to the context. So the overarching idea of alignment is that all parts create a sum. that creates, for lack of a better term, something that's harmonized and that comes together. And so there's a uniqueness that we could apply so that we can see in a broader perspective alignment for, say, a Fortune 200 company or government. The true alignment framework is used by the country of New Zealand for its global economic expansion. So you can even see it globally. And we can see it at national levels as well. So you can see it in different ways. And so it becomes very contextual, which means that there's a story to be told. And as you know, the power of storytelling really is about the characters and who's engaged in the emotional qualities that we participate in a context together. So I think overall, and maybe one of the complexities or actually simplistic ways of looking at alignment, is that it applies uniquely to the context that we're applying it to. So that an entrepreneur, it's alignment to what really motivates them and what drives them and what their personal purpose and passion is. And so as a solo practitioner or as an entrepreneur of a small enterprise, it means understanding how I'm bringing myself to my work. And what my purpose and what my values are and how those show up in everything I do, including the story of how I provide a product and service to the world that brings value, that brings value and fulfillment to the customer.

So can we say alignment is ensuring everybody and all things related are on the same page?

That's a nice definition.

Yeah, but if we can say that, is there a breakdown between alignment and creativity? In other words, if everybody's on the same page, all parts are on the same page, it's almost like— forgive me for saying this. Oh, I forgot what the term is called, but it's almost like saying I have to hire a Black person because I'm Black and I want that— I want to have that synergy. I want somebody who looks like me, sounds like me, and understands me. But that doesn't allow for creativity. It doesn't allow for expansion of thought and ideas, right?

Yeah, or the expansion, right, or diversity of thought leading to expansiveness of ideas. And yeah, I think that's—

Status quo theory. That's what it's called, status quo theory.

Yeah. And I— there is— I think that's a conversation. In other words, because we're all alike in so many different ways, I think the creativity is that we all bring our uniqueness and we all have a clear understanding of where we're going together. our purpose, our shared passion, vision, and that we're all able to bring our diverse ways of thinking and looking at life. And yeah, there's certain natural synergies that exist among groups. I think it's part of the conversation to be able to acknowledge that. What I've discovered in all of my work and my basic premise around alignment is that every time you have a misalignment, you have an opportunity. And misalignments show up in a lot of different ways. Primarily, they show up as conflict. And I also look at conflict as the natural tension between our current state and the desired future state. So that tension actually presents the opportunity. So we can talk about who we are and talk about our individuality and our likenesses, as well as our diversity of who we are and how how we think, and have a conversation of how we bring that together in alignment to our shared purpose, outcome, vision, whatever it is we're pursuing together. And so, I think for a lot of people, they look at misalignments or differences as being problematic. I actually look at them as being the opportunities that we have right in front of us that we very often resist or push up against instead of inviting.

So for those who are coaches listening to us, and we have a lot of coaches listening, there are 2 areas, it appears to me, of misalignment. One is with the client themselves. Wrong client.

Yeah.

The other is depending upon the methodology that you use to coach, Right. There could be misalignment in the coaching style or methodology.

Yeah.

How does a coach resolve this in order to continue to grow business and not necessarily have a bad reputation?

Well, I think it begins with—

I threw a lot at you just now.

No, I actually have a— I do have a response to it. Is that I think in my experience of coaches, in a lot of service industries overall, I think there's a lot of the talk is, well, I'm able to say no. Or if it's not a good fit, I'm able to recognize that. Not every good customer is a good customer. Not all revenue is good revenue. I remind companies and businesses of all sizes that day in and day out. in my work with them. You've got to find right customers. So I know that this is kind of right in alignment with that, is that I think the questions you just posed, you have to be able to bring into the conversation with your clients to say, look, we need to get to know one another because what I might propose may not be in alignment to who you are, or that my thinking, because I may have certain bias and certain ways of looking at things. I mean, we always bring 2 things with us in every business relationship. One is a way of defining our past and how we achieved success. So, we naturally advocate our past successes into the current context. This is the way to do something. And the other one is we advocate naturally on who we are without very often realizing it. What motivates us, what drives us, what our desires and needs are. So I think opening the door to a conversation that says, let's explore this and let's take a look at what alignment looks like in our relationship and let that be the guide. Let's create that kind of alignment. And if that alignment isn't possible, then I think we need to be in alignment on recognizing that and understanding that this may not be the ideal relationship. Trust shows up in different ways and different dimensions. We're researching this right now in terms of what alignment of trust looks like in organizations, which is just wonderful to explore because we use the term so often.

Hold on. Oh my God, I was set to ask you a different question, which is to talk about alignment and branding.

Oh, that's a great one because that speaks to trust too.

Okay, so let me go remember that, you know, because sometimes I have a little COVID fog going on. Um, it's hard for me to even get the words out. Trust it. And I'm not talking as a consultant. I'm talking as an employee. Trusting your company? What the heck are you talking about? Well, I can walk in the door. I was what? I find myself out on the streets. Come on now.

I was just fascinated by it earlier today. I chimed in on the— I'm attending bits and pieces of the Fast Company Innovation Festival, which is just wonderful, absolutely wonderful. And they had an executive part of a panel. And the executive was asked, what'd you learn through all of this, your experience with COVID And the executive said, well, my big learning is that everything is emotional. There you go.

Oh my God, that is hysterical.

I love it.

That's a new concept in life among you.

So I'm thinking about that and I'm saying, well, yeah. So, and, you know, a key aspect of our emotional connectivity and relationships is around this idea of how do we trust one another? And trust really is about how do we get our unspoken expectations, our desires and needs met?

Well, wait a second. I want to be clear about something because I don't want to get into trouble with the audience. I am not talking about trusting your significant other, your friends. I'm talking about trusting an organization. I want to be real clear about that.

Well, the same thing shows up in our marriages and partnerships and shows up everywhere.

Oh, no.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm not buying that one.

No. Well, so it turns out that there's 3 distinct dimensions that you can see at play. And they're important because a lot of even when we think about diversity inclusion and definitions of equity kind of come right at this. So one dimension of trust is whether you listen to me, whether I'm visible, the underlying fear of being ignored. And so the dimension of trust is, are you listening to me? And In our self-concepts, when people listen to us, that's the indicator that we have value. That I have self-worth permeates from the idea of, you know, are you listening to me? Are you giving me the attention I deserve as a human being? That's the core of all mutual respect. I can't understand mutual respect. I define as you treat me the way I want to be treated and I treat you the way you want to be treated. That cannot happen until I understand who you are. And I don't know you and don't understand who you are until I listen to you. So, trust through that lens. Then, another form of trust, and this one we use a lot in organizations, is the definition of trust is, I know you'd get the job done and you'll do it right, which is a trust in somebody's capabilities, skill sets, competencies, know-how. And we talk a lot about commitment without realizing what we're really talking about commitment in organizations is, will you keep your promise to getting it done and that you'll do a good job? So, we have that form of trust. And so, here you start even looking at the semantics of other words, how we can miscommunicate respect, different forms. And then we have ultimately, The trust in that you're being truthful, that you're being open and honest with me, and vulnerable. And intimacy and vulnerability all stem from that. Now, I just want to add one piece to it that's really important because this is some of the work that we're— at least I'm working with leaders and some of the work we're looking at is that vulnerability is most often associated with how we express our truth. Our desire or ability to be intimate and open and authentic, right? We use the word authentic a lot. It's a safe word for saying truthfulness. So, being authentic. And you look at that from the other aspect of it, of intimacy. How vulnerable am I being as I listen to you? And this in coaching leaders is, I think, essential. In other words, we have our biases. We have our ways to filter, to screen in terms of how we listen and how we accept a fellow human being, another person. And I think as leaders, we have to be able to understand that vulnerability isn't just how I express. It's how I hear with openness, how I accept you as a fellow human being to enable you to be open and honest with me without my rejecting you or rejecting your thoughts and ideas.

Yeah. Going back a moment and being quite serious, I think that so many things have happened as a result of COVID Yeah. One is that leaders realize that their employees, for the most part, and for most leaders, there is no trust. They're trying to figure out how to resolve this and still remain as a figurehead, basically. And so it seems to be a conflict going on, which is I have to be this strong leader figurehead, but now I have to show trust, I have to show vulnerability, I have to show that I'm listening, I have to show that I see and hear you. And then that conflicts with our laws, right? Which say you can't say this, you can't do this, you can't ask how a person is feeling or why they're out sick or show any kind of deep compassion for the person. So we have all of this stuff going on in our heads. It's really hard for leaders to figure out What space to play in, in terms of relationships.

Excellent. Yeah, that's really good. Yeah, and one of the things is to be intentional. I think it's, uh, it goes back to being able to make statements of intention of the relationship.

You know, without knowing what your intent is, and when that's conflicted by all this other stuff that's going on, Yeah. It's causing a big dropout rate in our leaders and organizations.

Yeah, understood. I agree. I think that what I'm getting at with the intentional piece is, what's my intention for the relationship? Then to be able to— I think asking specifically questions doesn't do us as much good and leaders as much good as asking the broader questions of, what would you like me to know? What's important to you that I know? It's much like very often— you mentioned branding before. I find that all too often companies, organizations, and especially smaller, medium-sized companies, you'll see this happening. They internalize the conversation of brand and customer experience instead of going out and asking the customer, what do you need? Or What do you need to build trust in our relationship? What's important to you? So we don't— I'm not advocating asking specific questions. I'm looking at the intentional value of opening up the conversation in that way.

Well, now you lead me to, I think, a different issue. So when I was in the marketing space, the push marketing.

Yeah.

Now we're looking at pull marketing, which is trying to find out what the purchaser actually needs versus telling them this is what you need, right? And so there is more trust in the consumer because the consumer is feeling heard and seen. But I want to go back to this issue of trust because, you know, you broke it down very nicely. And I think that the one area that leaders are succeeding in is believing that the employee can get done what they say they're going to do. That's been existing for a while.

Mm-hmm.

I'm going to trust that you'll do it. Otherwise, you're no longer part of the company, right? I put it nicely.

Yeah.

All of these other areas—

Move up or get out.

Yeah.

Sorry, McKenzie.

But we know it to be the truth, right?

It is.

All these other areas of being vulnerable, being truthful, um, you know, telling me what you need, this is all really new regardless of the size of the organization, regardless of even if it's a paid employee or a volunteer. I know that, well, I don't really struggle with these things being the CEO of ACEC because people just understand that when you get old, you just say, you just tell the truth. I don't know. I enjoy the age of wisdom. Let's put it this way.

Yeah, well, that, that ties to something, I think, where you're going with this. I'll, I'll wait. Go ahead.

Yes, but, um, when you're speaking about new entrepreneurs, new solopreneurs who haven't had that, you know, SaaS wisdom they haven't figured out how to develop it yet. Where do they go in sticking to their true north and seeing and hearing the true north of employees? Because that's when it comes out in your branding too. Yeah. So what do you have for these younger folks, younger business folks?

That's a great Yeah, a framework. So, the main piece of feedback on the True Alignment framework is that it gives teams, organizations, leaders a shared way of looking at their business. Everything, the customer, the brand, the culture, right on through in a holistic way to look at the business and have a shared terminology and framework through which to have the conversations. The number one conversation of business is alignment. And so, having a framework for that allows then in the coaching to much like coaching a sport or anything else, building frameworks and ways of seeing something allows people to see it and allows them to see what their challenges are, to innovate, design their solutions, a framework and a measurable observable means to do that becomes key. So I think one of the starting points is, you know, let's build a framework and to better understand you in relationship to your business, the people in your business, your customer, what your branding is about. And let's use that framework to answer the questions that you have and that will show up. I think that's probably one of the pieces about even my experience at the university is people are lacking those frameworks. You can get those and they're more accessible now than they've ever been. You can find pieces and elements of frameworks. Being coached and having someone to work with in applying those, That becomes my role or our role as coaches. I mean, that's what we do. We bring frameworks and ways of thinking and looking at life and business that people can bring to life for themselves. And I think that becomes key.

I think you're absolutely right. I remember back in the day, and I think my voice is a little weird today on the show. When I was a career coach, how I started in the business side. People would say to me, I don't know what I want to do next. And I would say, write your resume. And they said, I can't write my resume. I don't know what I want to do. And I would say to them, no, you're writing your resume to create a framework to understand what you've accomplished.

Mm-hmm.

And from that, it will lead you towards a decision of where you want to go. really closely explore where you've been. And I recently, you know, even coaches need coaches. So I was talking to my mentor about the many things I'm involved with. And he said, and I was starting to work on my own personal website, which is CB Bowman Consulting. I said, well, there's just so much, because I was envisioning myself as a coach. And he said, but CB, you're not a coach. You've moved to the different level, right? And I said, well, what am I? He said, you're a consultant. And I said—

That's interesting.

That's interesting. That's exactly what I said to him.

Yeah.

He said, why don't we take a look at the problems you've been solving for people. And I did that. And I said, holy crap, I'm a consultant. And he said, now, what's your— and I'm going to remind you, my background is marketing, right? And, you know, it's the shoemaker going barefoot. And he said, what's your— what do you want to be known for? And I said, Oh. And I had to stop and think. And I said, well, what I do is I take complex problems and I solve them simply. He said, well, that's it. He said, it's not more complicated than that. And I said, holy crap, that's it. And, and after that, everything flowed.

Yeah.

Website was easy to do. People started calling me to say, hey, I've got this problem, can you help me with it? And I thought, wow, the role of a coach, the role of a mentor, right? And the most important thing is, as we're going to get to now, is it was the correct brand for me, right? And so I think But the work that you're writing about the correct brand, and I looked over because I want to make sure I have time to talk about the elephant in the boardroom, particularly page 179 about fearless exploration and inquiry.

Fearless exploration, that's actually been adopted as courageous conversation, brave conversations over in New Zealand. That idea.

Oh, I love it. Okay, so I just want to end that first part and say I think it's really important to work with somebody who gets you, um, that sees the alignment. Because sometimes, especially as a solopreneur or entrepreneur, you don't see the alignment. You may be working with others in the alignment space, but you don't see your own alignment. And the first thing to do to get there is to work on building your website, your resume, your bio, yourself, with somebody there to listen to what you're tossing at the wall.

Yeah. And to ask you to look at what you've just tossed against the wall and help you make sense of it.

Yes.

Very much so. Yeah, I truly— and I think we're at a place in our development as a society, as a global business society, where we're with everything that we've created as we move through the Industrial Revolution and then information and technology and where we are today, the, you know, information age, technology era. And now what we're looking at, I think, is we've come to the place of the age of awareness, which is that all of this work is somebody helping you to be aware of what you're throwing against the wall, awareness of your own alignment and misalignments.

Yes.

And this is the work of today, because with everything we've created, humanity right now, I believe, is asking the question, what do we do with all of this? And we better become more aware as human beings Else we're going to, you know, we're going to go down the wrong paths.

What's your epitaph? And we need people like you. And we who help others particularly need people like you. Because— and my mentor, who I won't give his name out because everybody will be calling him— we need people to help us see beyond ourselves, to be our mirrors. Help us see where the alignment is because it's there. It's truly there. When I think about big companies like Jeep, and I think my audience is tired of hearing me talk about this story. I think there is more misalignment in the big companies because there's just so many fingers to point to.

It's economies of scale.

Exactly.

Just in a dysfunctional way.

Exactly. But I think the most important thing that we're saying to solopreneurs and entrepreneurs is to really take the time to identify the alignment for yourself, your strengths, and know what you're weaknesses are and talk to people about it. It's not something you can necessarily solve yourself.

Yeah. And I think that's really helpful just to say it that way, to look at the strengths part of it. Because every misalignment allows us to see what strengths we have to create alignment. So we spend so much time, and I know that in the world of coaching, you see this so often. So much time is spent on what are my shortcomings? What am I missing? How am I failing? As opposed to being able to look at it through the lens of, yeah, well, this is the opportunity. Let's look at the strengths. Let's look at where the alignments in your life can manifest in your work, in your leadership, in your business can manifest and capturing those.

And to re-quote Dr. Timothy Clark, who, if you haven't seen my interview of him, He's an amazing guy, just like yourself. As he says—

Oh, that's kind.

Every crisis, there's where your star to success is, you know.

Yeah.

You just have to— it's there now for you, right? Uh, I do want to talk a minute about your music.

Oh yeah.

And I'm going to introduce— do you know John Baldoni?

Yeah, I know John. Well, I know him through the ACEC.

I was just gonna say, I want to introduce you to John because John also loves music in his work. There's a couple of people I've been meeting now. Tell me about— do you use your music in your work, or?

I do. I use poetry and music depending upon the context, the audience, and also, you know, we're What the work we're doing is. So yeah, I do. I'll use it in couples retreats. I'll sing songs and break them down and talk about the content. So I can write some pretty introspective stuff. And a friend of mine said, it's kind of creepy. You're the Leonard Cohen of business. You better be careful. That's so cool.

I love it.

So I, yeah, so I'll use a guitar and sit down and sing a song as a way of making a reference or opening a door to a deeper, more intimate conversation. It's amazing what happens when you sing a song that solicits essence of human soul from people and how they respond and how they react and how they open up. So yeah, I enjoy doing that.

Well, I'm gonna put together the trio, you and John and a guy by the name of Johannes Fletcher, who writes, and he actually re— I forget the term that you guys use, but he redid Tina Turner's song For My Wedding.

Remix?

All right. Right. And, um, he He's just brilliant. He came to ACEC and did a Saturday session, a fireside chat with us. And he taught members— excuse me, how to— my allergies are acting up— how to use song, how to actually write a song based upon what we were thinking and feeling. And it was just brilliant work.

Wow.

So I'm going to put the 3 of you together.

That sounds like— that sounds good.

You know, there's so much I can talk to you about with you, Edgar.

You want a recipe?

Yeah. Intentional inquiry. Oh my gosh, that's a powerful statement, just those 2 words. And then you can find it under the chapter of fearless exploration. Tell me about the concept.

We listen at different levels and you're probably familiar. I call it distant presence. We can look right at someone and not listen at all, or we can engage in what I call persuasive rebuttal. As we know as coaches, the but, but, but, or the nos.

Distance, wet listening.

Yeah, and then there's persuasive rebuttal. And then there's more active listening, which I call that I'm checking in to make sure that I'm hearing it correctly, the active listening, or really what I'm doing is looking at and testing my own translation the way I'm hearing it. And then the highest level is what I call fearless exploration, because at that level of listening, and this is where the vulnerability of listening shows up, at that level, I'm aware of my own defenses. I'm aware of my own fears. I'm aware of my own fears that get in the way of my really hearing you. And what I do is I acknowledge those in my thoughts and my feelings. I acknowledge those and I move past them to really focus on understanding the other person. And that, for me, is what I would consider the highest form of listening. And so what we're doing is we're exploring not just what the other person is saying. In order for us to open up to that level of exploration, we have to be internally exploring ourselves, exploring our own triggers, exploring our own fears, our own defenses that keep us from truly hearing someone else. And that can be tough.

So give me the 4 again. Distance—

Oh, there's 5. Bottom rung is distant presence, where I'm looking right at you, eye contact and all. And I find leaders do this remarkably well and not hear a freaking word somebody's saying. So that's distant presence. The next one is argument of rejection, which is, you are wrong.

You are wrong.

There you go. And that we start and we stay there. It's kind of like cut the other person off, step on their words, words, step on my feelings, right? Uh, and then the next level is the, uh, uh, the, the persuasive rebuttal is when we're listening to rebuke, right? But right in the middle of the word rebuttal, so we're, we're listening to, to really answer back and demonstrate. We're listening to gather enough information to create our argument, our point of view. And then we move— once we break that barrier, we can go to testing translation, which is the first level of awareness of, this is what I'm thinking. I better check in and make sure this is what the person wants me to hear and know and get from them. And then we move beyond that into, now I'm going to go fearlessly. And in conflict, that fearless exploration, we acknowledge our own deepest fears and emotional being. And we're able to, let me really hear what you have to say. And you can see that in And see this in— you'll hear it in movies. You'll see it play out so often when somebody finally lets down their guard and shows up as the real me. Here's the real me, and I'm showing up that way to listen to you, not to advocate, rather to listen. And in a way, what we're doing is we're advocating the real ourselves by, in a way, giving that gift to someone else.

So I think your next book has to be titled, If You Want Long-Term Marriage— If You Want a Long-Term Marriage, Distance Presence.

It's like one of my favorite questions in retreats is to ask people to have a conversation with their partners about what expectations are being met and what expectations aren't being met. In your relationship? And, you know, the fear—

That's a loaded question there.

Well, yeah, it gives us, gives us a lot of conversational context to have real conversation.

And they're doing it in a group setting?

Uh, individually with each other. And yeah, okay. And then the debrief is they can bring back whatever they like. And I've had some really, really good ones.

I am sure. I would love to be a fly on the wall. For comparison's sake.

Well, I consider it part of truly leadership development because if you can't do that work, good luck doing the work you're expected to do in your business. And then people say, well, that's a lot easier. Yeah, why? Because I got control over there.

And no emotional connection.

You get the same pushback.

Exactly. Hey Edgar, we're running out of time. I want to talk about— God, there's so much. Should we talk about Innovation by Design? I want to cover a little bit about each book.

Okay.

So how can— how any organization could leverage design thinking to produce change, drive new ideas, and deliver meaningful solutions. Talk about this in terms of small businesses, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs.

Yeah, that's a really good one because a lot of what's in there is actually practical to all size groups, as well as individuals for that matter. That everything that we do in the world is actually a design, the design of a solution to a problem. And so we're constantly in a design mode and we may not realize it. It's what we do best as human beings is design solutions, innovate. Our entire global society is based on that human capability. So for small entrepreneurs, small businesses, it's really about identifying problems and looking at it and coming at it through a design lens, which is coming back to all of my work is about human motivation. Human-centered is really how do we design products and services to respond to a human need or desire, which is about a problem that's being presented. And so to navigate that.

Well, I want to talk about page 43 about designing the culture. Okay. Now, we understand— first of all, it took me years to understand what culture meant, right? When I finally understood it, because I was getting different answers from different people, right? Everybody had a personal interpretation of it. So my question to you, as a solopreneur, and then you, you start to hire, for example, a VA, or you start to engage with a business partner, how do you design? Because we're no longer—

Perfect.

We listen to Obama, President Obama, and we look at the numbers of small businesses that are running the country, right? How do you go from being a solopreneur to working with others? And must you design a culture around that, or does the culture exist? How do you identify your culture?

That's great. So I talk about fallacies of life, and one of my favorite fallacies is that that culture eats strategy for lunch, right? Or recently, I saw it as breakfast. Whichever one you want.

Wow!

What I find in my experience is that culture is actually part of your strategy. That you can, knowing what the traits and characteristics of culture are, which are in that book as well as True Alignment is wrapped around that idea, is that you actually have a conversation about here's what these look like. Here's what problem-solving looks like. This is how we manage conflict, which is truly a foundational piece. Part of culture is how people interpret how culture is managed on the bus. So this get the right people on the bus, you got to know and be able to articulate what your bus looks like.

Right.

Which then allows us to early on as we build a business, as we start a business, Let's start early on talking about these characteristics and how they come to life in our set of relationships individually and collectively. How do we bring these to bear in an aligned way that we know what decision-making looks like, whether it's participative, single person, consensus? We have conversations about here's what our meetings look like and what's at the essence of our communication. So, it's really about again giving leaders and coaching entrepreneurs to have a framework for the conversations. The frameworks of the conversations about alignment. Let's have these. I like to say, if you're not doing culture, culture is going to do it to you. And it's usually a catch-up game. In other words, we just kind of let it happen. And what we find over time, what I've experienced over and over the last 20-plus years, is that very often leaders talk a good game of culture. They really don't get it or have a really good working knowledge of it because no one's ever taught them a framework. No one's ever been able to say, look, let's break this down, look at what the pieces are.

Do you start by, for example, the first person that you bring? Also, let's not forget this is a world of 1099s, right? And if you're working with people from other countries, which this is also this world today.

Yep.

Kind of difficult. So, for example, I have a VA in the Philippines. What am I sitting down and discussing my culture or my cultural expectations to Somebody who's in another country, who isn't N99? How do you wrap it all together?

That's a really great question. It's a powerful one because it brings us back to the point of we need to have a conversation about our relationship. A culture is a set of relationships. A definition of culture that we use is how people's perception really of culture is how we individually and collectively create success. Those words on the wall, teamwork, integrity, trust, those all come to life through how people interpret how are we going to get success. You can simply begin the conversation, perhaps not even going into the— if you're just you and one other person, it's about what does our relationship look like? What works for you? What works for me? Let's get that And as we build a culture around ourselves, what we do is we continue that dialogue and we expand it to be able to say, so how will we make decisions? What does delegation look like? Empowerment is the ability of people to make decisions. So let's have a conversation about that. So often we're— and of course, this is what all the research data tells us— is that so often More often than not, people are truly unaware of or aren't clear enough on what expectations there are for them of how to behave and what their performance is about. This is about having a conversation of clarity, of alignment.

How do we start to figure out? In my case, I have an IT accountant person that lives in New Jersey, a VA in the Philippines. How do we start? And I think this is key for people that are just starting to build their empire, uh, their boutique. How do we figure out what's— and this is going to sound like a really stupid question, but how do we figure out what's important to us in business? Where do we start?

Yeah, and, um, I would suggest with with that is, who am I? Is the first question I need to ask myself. What is my sense of purpose, my sense of passion? What is it that I want to bring to the world? It's much like you asking someone to go back through their history and writing their resume. And what does this look like going forward? Or your mentor asking you, what is your business? What are you all about, CB? And let's capture that in your brand and new website, etc. So, it begins with asking that core question. And then expanding on that to say, and what does that look like in relationship to others? How would you like to— what do you want your relationship to others to look like? Because as a leader, that's what intentionally developing an aligned culture looks like, is what does this look like? What do I want my relationships to look like? Which also then allows us to begin to ask that proverbial question of, are they a right fit or not? Because we have to be true to ourselves. If we engage others that have a differing or contrary perspective, we better understand what level that different perspective is going— at what level is that going to influence our business? And what does that look like? We need to be honest about that. We need to be forthright, honest, and clear about it.

What do you What do you do if you make a mistake? Like you and I were talking before this phone call, I made a beauty of a mistake.

Call it for what it is and fix it.

What is it?

You said it. You answered the question, which is, yeah, I admit to it. I call it for what it is. It's a mistake. And now I have to fix it. And at times fixing it, you know, making a mistake, relatively speaking, in most cases is easier than going back and fixing it.

Oh yeah, you bet.

So, I've got to. And again, here's fearless exploration showing up, CB. If I hired you and I realize it's a mistake, I've got to step into that one fearlessly and explore it and talk about what to do with it. And sometimes those in business, we all know there's— while we'd like all of our decisions to be easy, we realize that as our business grows, grows, the decisions we make become more and more important and more and more difficult. And that idea of complexity, the art of complexity lies in simplicity. Sometimes the simplicity is just, let's just bring it back to the truth. Are we aligned or not aligned? Is this working or not working? Have I made a mistake? Now I have to fix it. Yeah.

I also think that as I'm listening to you, you know, we focus a lot on what are we going to sell, what is our service going to be, what is our tagline going to be. We focus a lot on that, and perhaps the focus needs to be adjusted to, um, what, what am I, what is it that I want to communicate to the world? And then, why do I exist is a greater one? Yes. As a business person. And then how do I want to deliver that? Why do I exist?

Yes, absolutely. And then we're back to that, to that core of, you know, everything that the comment today on the panel, Jeet, my big learning is everything is emotion. I'm kicking back saying Subaru sells you a car with a one-word tagline: love.

Yes.

And the power of that intention is magnificent. And then, the ease with which you communicate it, which says, drive this car for 10 years. Then, put your kids in it and send them off to college knowing that they're going to be safe. Why? Because you love them. There it is. And so, we capture it at that level. That's what great branding is about. That's what great culture is about. That's what great entrepreneurial spirit is about. It's bringing that simple and powerful message that you have into the world. Just to be able to express yourself into the world and bring something into the world that creates the value in alignment to that. Just the magnificence of that, I think, is— that's to me what business is all about.

You know, as you said that, the Volvo commercials popped in front of my head. Safety. And I thought, yeah, all right, because when I bought one of my cars, was a Volvo, and all I could think of is I want to drive safely.

Yeah, they led with that 3 decades ago. I mean, just, yeah. And then Subaru picks it up with the love and That sense of community and that Starbucks does, or Harley. I mean, think of Harley. It's community and togetherness and connectedness. It's not the best motorcycle in the world, I like to say. Sorry, Harley owners out there. The reality is it's a membership to the tribe. So powerful that during the pandemic, over a quarter of a million of them show up at Sturgis. You can't keep them away from the emotional fulfillment. And how do we provide that? Through motorcycle. Yes, it's just that's the power.

And, and let's talk about the GAFs, Jeep, coming together of America, and the only— you have no one of color, no one of any different.

Well, yeah, and that, that the Jeep takeoff is much of the Harley. The difference is that Harley has done exceptionally well, and Jeep, uh, Jeep did it coming out of Harley. Harley parlayed the military community after World War II. Uh, Jeep, you know, has continued to try and do that. Um, yeah, somehow it, uh, forgive me if you're a Jeep owner, it, it has a— it's not showing up authentically. No, no, the messaging is misaligned. The feeling is misaligned and it gets mushy.

Because I think it's an important lesson for those of us that are starting businesses. Yeah, that's the kind— it gives you a visual of what a disconnect looks like and what a connect looks like. You know, when I was in the marketing field at General Foods, we'd always say after we launched, we'd say, what were the lessons learned? And can we relate them to another field? So for example, going to a meeting and you were designing a package of cereal. Well, did you want the buyer to have the experience of walking into Bloomingdale's? Walking into Brooks Brothers? Walking into the Gap, Where Are You on the Spectrum? We always selected visuals that everybody could relate to. Yeah. And I think in starting your business, you want to think about what are the visuals or what are the emotions.

Very good. Yeah, exactly. Because the visuals represent the emotion. It's art. It's art. And the reason I say that business is the most advanced art form Because what we do in business is we creatively, right, we create products and services to fulfill human need and desire, to respond to human emotion. That's the creative aspect. So yeah, that's a great connective.

We are way over time. However, I don't care because our listeners can stop and come back. True alignment.

Yeah.

Is there such a thing? And I think we actually just talked about it. There is.

There is. I believe that there is. That's my pursuit of life. I think in all of religious philosophy and everything, at the end of the day, we're looking for— in the time that we have, there's 2 things we look for. And in the end, it's alignment. And that's spending as much time as we have to love, to love to the fullest in the time that we have. And that shows up as a way of being aligned. If I'm aligned, I'm making the choices to do that in my life. So I think at the end of the day, in all religious philosophies and spirituality and everything that we understand about ourselves is As human beings, at the end of the day, we want to be in alignment with ourselves so that we can be at peace with ourselves. Freedom is the moments we exist without fear. That's my definition for freedom. And at that moment, you know, when we want to be truly free, that's, that's when we're in alignment. We don't have the conflicts and tensions of misalignment, so we can be truly free to be ourselves. And that's, that's the end of the day, that's the pursuit.

Well, what I like, taking it back to business and not to shortchange the truth in Our True North, is on page 66 where you have the chart that talks about human motivation, consumer motivation, and brand intention. Drop the mic. Edgar, I, I hate to say goodbye to you. Well, I won't because I— you're part of my association. But to end this interview, because you've written such powerful messages to us, uh, to help organizations of all sizes and to help individuals Figure out who they are and how to communicate who you are. It's very powerful.

All right, you're very kind. Thank you.

Appreciate it. And I can't wait for you to come and talk to our women's power group about alignment, because I think oftentimes, um, women— and probably I'm going to get lots of letters about this. We don't focus our complete selves to be aligned with what our goals are. We are so giving that we forget about the need.

Agreed. Agreed. I, with observing both— observing the lives of my mother, my wife, Lori, and And my 2 daughters in an intimate way. Yeah.

So with that, everybody, I hope that you will pick up all 3 of his books because each one has a very powerful message that he was kind enough to share with us today. And I really want you to come back because I want you to Give some more secrets about what's in your books.

They're not secrets.

And your new book that you're writing, which we won't talk about.

Oh, okay. Yeah, that's a—

Can you give us a little scoop?

It is about the relationship of love and time in our lives. The Third Element, it's called. That's the working title. Who knows when a publisher gets a hold of it.

Well, that sounds like, uh, A Bourne Identity series, right?

Oh yeah, it's the Alignment Series. Yeah, I love it.

Well, everybody, I, I will let you go. I'm hopping off, and I believe I'm back next Tuesday. So please remember to tune in and spread the word. This is CB Bowman, Challenges of the C-Suite. See you next time.

Thank you.