Leadership as Behavior with Coby Karl, Rich Diviney, and Dr. Sarah Sarkis

Welcome to Flow Research Collective Radio. I'm Ryan Wicks, Chief of Staff at FRC, and today I'm joined by our Executive Director and bestselling author Stephen Kotler and a panel of three of the best minds in leading high-performing teams. We're thrilled to welcome back Dr. Sarah Sarkis, a licensed psychologist, executive coach, and the Senior Director of Performance Psychology at Exos. Dr. Sarkis, once a head coach here at the Collective, is one of our most trusted advisors in exploring the human psyche. She blends her skills as a therapist and coach to help CEOs, athletes, and coaches achieve their moonshot dreams. Rich Deviney also joins us. Rich's remarkable 21-year career as a Navy SEAL commander includes more than 13 overseas deployments and holding roles in SEAL team leadership and team selection. After retiring from the military, Rich didn't stop leading and serving others. He authored the bestselling book, The Attributes: 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance, and created a new model for business leaders to build teams based on this framework. Today, he consults with leaders and companies how to navigate uncertainty and confidently lead their teams. And completing our panel is Kobe Carl, assistant coach for the Philadelphia 76ers. He spent a lifetime in professional basketball. Kobe started as a ball boy for the Seattle Sea— Seattle Seahawks. Every time.

Off the tongue. The, the Sonics don't exist anymore, so it's okay.

I know, it's heartbreaking. Kobe started as a ball boy for the Seattle Sonics. Later, he played in the NBA. Now he's a coach. He learned to lead from coaching icons like Phil Jackson and his father, George Karl. Last season, Kobe led the Delaware Blue Coats to win their first NBA G League title. He also co-hosted a podcast called The Curious Leader, where he explored leadership with legends like Steve Kerr, George Mumford, and Jeannie Buss. Now, before we get into it, I want to kick this to Stephen. For a quick intro to this discussion because the podcast has an interesting origin story.

The background on this is kind of funny. We were doing a month on entrepreneurial entrepreneurship and leadership and with a lot of like very flow-focused guests, which we still have. And there was cancellation. Somebody couldn't make it, somebody got sick. And I was looking around for a leadership expert and I went out to about 15 friends of mine and said, "Hey, I'm looking for a leadership expert to come on the podcast and really talk about it." And I laid out what we were interested in. And of the people I emailed, half of them, a quarter of them, a large percentage of people emailed me back saying, "Well, I'm the leadership expert you need. This is what I stand on stages and talk about." And it sort of stunned me. Some of the people who responded, One person started their career as a comic and then became a host for live events. And I didn't quite understand how that got them leadership expertise. And some were a little closer, but it got me really curious about what the hell do I mean by leadership expertise? What are my qualifications? And not really having answers, I called both of these gentlemen, Kobe and Rich, who are two of my go-to folks for these. And they're two people who I actually do think sort of qualify as leadership experts. And we started to have this conversation and I realized that if I was suffering from this much confusion and it led to this much conversation, this was probably a worthwhile thing to talk about out loud. So, that was with the origin story. And of course, can't really talk about leadership expertise if you don't start with what exactly do we mean by leadership? And since flow is optimal performance, what role does flow play in leadership and possibly leadership expertise? That was the frame-up for this. That's sort of where it came from. And I think that's where we should begin. I got to begin with Sarah because that's the easiest way to get into trouble here. Sarah, what do you think we mean by leadership?

Well, it's a great question and it's a worthwhile one because I do think anybody can call themselves that, right? So, uh, you can kind of lead anything. And thankfully, I don't even consider myself a leader. I am a coach and a psychologist, right? But I work with leaders. And I— for me, um, leadership feels like a calling. Like, I think people that have a calling for leadership, that they have, if I could rewind the tape and see live footage of them as a youth, you would see the same like spirit inside of them. And then I think over a lifetime and over experiences, and usually difficult experiences, that craft gets refined or denigrated, right? It either atrophies or matures into something that's a fabric of their personality.

So it's an innate quality, but you can't define it.

I wouldn't even go so far necessarily to say it's innate, but I'm saying it's longstanding, like it's because it could have been punctuated by environment. They may have been in an environment as a child where they either felt very out of control or they had a great model of leadership. So I'm not saying it's innate. But the tentacles run deep. They're long, long-standing. And I want to qualify too. This is when I think it is authentic leadership. I know you hate the word authentic too. You're like, "And drop it." No, I like it.

I like the word authentic, especially when you're using reverse psychological definitions of it. But let's go around the horn for a second. Kobe, what do you think leadership is?

I'm a little intimidated that Rich isn't going before me, but—

Well, Rich, if you want to make Kobe feel better, you could go first.

That would be leader-like.

I want to hear Rich's definition first. Yeah, let me hear Rich's definition.

You notice that I haven't even tried to define it. I'm just picking on all of you.

That's okay. I can go first, I guess. So, I would agree that that you can see leadership. The tent— I like the, I like the, the, the phrase, the tentacles are longstanding. I think that, that, that's very apropos. Um, one of the things though that I discovered, uh, especially getting into the Navy, because I was an officer in the Navy, so, so as soon as I joined up, I was basically in charge of something, you know. Um, and when I got to the, to the beaches of SEAL training and started making it through, um, I started recognizing something very interesting, and that is that the people around me were in many ways much, much better than me. And as I kind of graduated SEAL training and began to operate in the SEAL teams as an officer, I had to recognize, and I did so fairly quickly, that leadership is in fact not a position, it's a behavior. And I would actually say, you know, the one thing I'd modify, I guess, what Sarah said is that we actually don't get to self-designate. We don't get to call ourselves leaders. That's like calling yourself good looking or funny. All right. Other people decide whether or not you are someone they want to follow. And if you call yourself a leader and look back and no one's following you, I got bad news for you. All right. Being in charge position and you can, you can self-designate. You can, you can put, you can put the, you know, the, you can put a 7-year-old in charge of the classroom while the, while the teacher goes and does an errand. I mean, being in charge is just being in charge. But being a leader is a position. It's all about being a leader's behavior. It's all about how we behave. And these behaviors bring out the best in those in our span of care. And what I recognized about leadership, especially in the SEAL teams, and I think this goes for any team, is that we get conflated the word lead and leader with this always in front. And we actually hear it, leaders lead from the front, they're always in front. But we all know intuitively that the best leaders are very rarely in front. They're actually in the back. They're inspiring. They're pushing. They're bringing the best out of their people. And oftentimes, they're invisible. Oftentimes, they don't even get the credit for it. It doesn't even look like they're doing that. And so, we think of it in front, but it's in fact not. We behave in a way that brings out the best in our people and we inspire and we develop. And we actually experience what I call And I used to tell this to my JOs, my junior officers, when they used to come into the teams. I said, "Hey, we have to understand the, what I call the irony of leadership." And that is if we do our job correctly, we eventually work ourselves out of a job because we create a team that can run beyond us, can run without us, and in many cases run past us, right? And that means we've done our job and that we recede. So, I think I became very, focused on this idea that I didn't have to be the best. I had to be the one who was bringing out the best and getting my folks and my people into environments where they could explore and show their best. And so, people ask me if leaders are, are they born or are they made? And I say, it's neither. They're actually chosen.

I like it.

That was a good answer.

I'm happy you went first.

All you guys are going first.

P.S., you gave up the first spot.

That was very deft of me. I was acting like a leader. I was just passing it along.

A leader speaks last.

No, I just have a ton of respect for military leadership. I think that's the highest level of life and death. I lead young men in stabs, right? It's a much different form of leadership, or I have in the past. I think what he said about leading from behind was something that resonated deeply with me. I was a player for 8 years. I played in college, played professionally 8 years, and I got into coaching because I felt like there was a lack of coaches who understood me, you know, and I come from this complex background of my father was a coach and I grew up around the NBA and Europe and we were all over the place and I was different than most, most guys and most, most kids. And so that was kind of the purpose is I wanted to, I want to create this environment of where people could be seen and then they could come together to do something special together. And then, you know, like that and allowing that to be greater than yourself. And then you can like experience things that you've never experienced before. And I got to experience that for really the first time couple of coaches early in high school and in AAU, and then we're pretty good. And then I got a— my rookie season, I spent with the Los Angeles Lakers. Phil Jackson was our coach. And, you know, to Rich's point, he was very soft-spoken. He's very behind the scenes, but very, very in tune with the energy of the group. And, you know, kind of picked and prodded how to bring people to the forefront and perform at the highest level. And that, you know, Even all my teammates to this day from that team, we stay together and we talk about these stories off and on, just like, man, that was the only time I've ever experienced that. And that's kind of what I wanted to provide for my groups, and I want to figure out how to do that. So, just like really trying to figure out a way to have people be seen and then understand and communicate with clarity what our purpose is and how we're going to do that, and then the expectations that we need from from these individuals and from the collective group and not necessarily defining exactly what it is individually, but like, you know, just building this, this image of what we're, what our expectations are and what our goals are. To me, that's what a, what a leader does. It's not necessarily out in front and it's not a lot of rah-rah. It's, it's come up with a plan, you know, understand your people and bring people together to do something.

Yeah, I like that emphasis on because I think sometimes people, and I know this from my work, that sometimes if you're a more shy, contemplative, sort of observant style personality, popular culture might have you believe that sort of it's the extrovert's game, right? Leadership. But you're describing a style that is just as effective and feeds on a ton totally different personality fuel. And so I like it because I like anybody who's listening out there to realize that you can be shy and quiet and highly effective. And that really, what you just shared, both of you, elements of both of what you shared, really highlights that quality that is lost on people. They think leadership is really loud. And up and out front, and it is often not.

I want to also just highlight something about Kobe because, you know, you mentioned military leadership and provided a very nice compliment, but I want to compliment you on what you do and the importance of responsible and great leadership when it comes to athletics, especially with young men and kids. And I'll just tell a story. I'll try to keep it quick, but I, when I was in high school, I walked on my high school lacrosse team as a freshman, never having played. Okay. So that's, that's something you could do back then because, you know, nowadays you don't start fifth grade, you're not making the high school team. I'd never played before. I started as a defenseman. So I was on JV my entire, up until junior year. Our coach, our head coach who coached both teams, varsity and JV, was a guy named Pat Smith. We called him Smitty. He's still he doesn't coach, I don't think, anymore, but he still, he still teaches. And Pat Smith was, was just a phenomenal guy. He was, he was kind of, he's kind of scary on the field, you know, you know, he pushed you hard, but he was, he was also a teacher. He just, he always knew your name. He always made you feel special. He looked you in the eye. He just, he was just, he was one of those guys you wanted to please and do well for. I remember I was a junior, we were scrimmaging the varsity team and I was going in for a ball and I saw that the midfielder was going to get it before me. So instead of getting the ball, I just checked him and I threw my left shoulder into him. As soon as I did, I heard a crack and my whole shoulder went numb and I was like, oh, that's not good. So I walked off the field, sat down, the physical therapist started looking at me, and then practice ended.

Okay.

And so the practice kind of— no one really noticed me walk off the field. Practice ended. She looked at my collarbone, says, yeah, you broke your collarbone. So I had to go get a sling and all that stuff. And I get home that night and I was like, well, you know, I should probably— no one saw this, so I should probably call Smitty. Now, you know, as a high schooler, calling your coach at home is a big deal. But I said, you know, it's the right thing to do. Called him and I said, hey, I just want to let you know, I broke my collarbone. I'm not going to be able to play, but I'm going to be at the practices. I'll show up. I'm part of the team. I'm not going to give up on the team. I'll be there. He's like, Rich, I'm so glad you called. Thanks. And all that. Did that. I showed up to the games. It was the end of the year picnic and where they give all the awards and stuff and they're going to pick the next captains and get through all the awards, of which I won none because I was just okay. I was an okay player. And then he goes to pick the captains for the next year. And he picks, you know, the two guys, the attackman was, you know, one of the guys in our class, really good guy, popular kid, but also a good kid. And the second captain was me. And I was flabbergasted, as was most of my team, because, you know, in high school, when you're not the best player, there was a lot of people who thought I got the sympathy vote, right? And so I really stepped into that role that next year. And oh, by the way, he also said, Smitty said, hey, by the way, I have, I'm transferring, they're transferring me. So I'm not going to be coaching next year. So I stepped into that role with the coach leaving, with a new coach. I really had to do my best in terms of how can I lead this team? And I did okay. I mean, you know, I had some people say it was fine, but the reason why I tell the story is because it was years later, I was in the SEALs, I made, I got into SEAL Team Six, I was on deployment, and it was one night and I was thinking about Smitty and I decided I'd write him a letter. And I wrote him a letter and I wanted to tell him that it was the very first time someone had seen, something in me that I didn't see in myself other than my, my parents, right? And it, it, it made me like— I remember wondering when I was thinking about going to SEAL training, wondering if I could do it, and thinking, well, Smitty, Smitty knew I could do it, you know? And I thought about him, so I wrote him a letter letting him know. And he, you know, it takes a couple weeks to get back. So a couple weeks later, I get a letter back from him, and he says, I am so happy you wrote. He said, I always saw in you, you, you were someone who was always about the team, and that's why I thought you'd be the great— you'd be a better captain. And I just want to— and, and, and so we, we've kept in touch a little bit. He's on LinkedIn. I want to go I'm going to have lunch with them soon when I'm back in Connecticut. But this influence that the right kind of leader, the right kind of coach can have on young people, and unfortunately, we don't see it all the time. Sometimes we blatantly see the wrong kind of coach, right? But this idea that a coach can bring out the best in young people, even on the athletic field. So, all this to say what you do, Kobe, is as important, if not more so. I mean, we lead in a very visceral, intense real-world environment, yes. But a lot of our, a lot of the great leadership you see has been born and bred on the field of athletics with really great, responsible, inspiring coaches.

Yeah, I appreciate it. It's funny when you said that, Rich, because like a lot of what I do is I want to bring that like feeling of when you first started playing sports to the professional level, you know, like, and I think that's what gets lost a lot. Is this, this like, like this is a game. It's a game, you know, it's a game that we get it that we fell in love with at some point, or we got excited about at some point. And, and, you know, kind of like talk to the kid in, in, in all of us and remember that because, you know, I think that's where, that's where like you can really flourish and, and that's where a lot of the energy comes from, the excitement comes from, you know, when it becomes a job, I think you really lose the creativity aspect, you lose the this, uh, like ever-ending energy. Um, so yeah, I mean, that's what a lot of my coaches did for me. Yeah.

Let me ask you all a question. Um, wait, Sarah, like Joy, finish your sentence, then I'll ask my question, please.

Well, he's— what they're highlighting is, um, that it— when you bring— well, there's two elements. One is seeing— being seen and heard. For human beings, it's a developmental need. It's not a nice to have, it's a necessary to have. So The experience of that. And then you said, you know, other than my mom and dad. And it's like, yeah, you know, it's a lot. Like, look, it's a prerequisite. You need your mom and dad. But the truth is we mature out of our nest of origin and we need people out in the world to see us and really see us for who we are. Right. So that's one. But then, Koby, you elaborated on it and sort of brought like playfulness in. It's like joy and playfulness. That kind of fuel is autotelic. It fulfills itself. It's intrinsic. And as such, it's renewable. So it's always a preferred— more than like, you know, they got to do it for a paycheck. And most people at that level, they are no longer motivated by money. You must transfer the fuel.

So here's the question.

When I When I was listening to both of you talk, even Sarah at the beginning, what I was thinking a lot about was both of you are in charge of what have been in charge of or are in charge of wildly diverse groups of people from wildly diverse backgrounds. And one of the reasons I think I started this whole discussion, I definitely don't think of myself as a leadership expert. I have helped start a bunch of companies. I don't know if I would call myself a leader. That term might make me very uncomfortable. I don't know how I feel about it. But one of the reasons that I feel like I'm uncomfortable with the term is I struggle in wildly diverse communities. There are certain personality types I cannot reach. A lot of my method of leading is I can inspire people to go really, really big and then I get the fuck out of the way and they either blow themselves up or they exceed their wildest expectations. I'm sort of, I could do that and steer a little bit along the way, but anything else, I'm like, "No, no, no, I got other things going on. You're on your own. I'm the wrong guy. Go talk to Ryan." You know what I mean? So, I would never call myself a leader. But, one of the places that I've found that that's where I struggle the most is in the wildly diverse populations when there are people where I'm just not clicking with it. And so, in thinking about what do we mean by leadership, how do you reach these wild leaders? How do you lead in those conditions? What does leadership require? What am I missing that I'm so shitty at that whatever? Yeah, I got to pause here and get back to you guys. Sarah, you could jump in too, please. I'm curious about your answer here too.

No, this is a great question. Yeah, great question. Gentlemen, dive in. Dealers, anybody's dealer's choice?

Well, I mean, so that's the most fun for me. Like, well, and part of it is like, you know, to be fully transparent, like I work with Sarah personally, like, and so like it's been a journey of like learning more about myself and then that's helped me become a better leader. And so now it's like a, like I've flourished in a lot of ways as a better husband, a better father, a better leader. you know, a better coach. And, and so like, it's like, man, I want to give back. Like, I want to like learn because like, like I said, I didn't always feel seen. So I want to give this opportunity back to others that some leaders have provided to me. And so like that, that to me is like, man, like, you know, the word that came to mind is like no child left behind. It's like, I don't, I don't care how messed up you are. It's like there's something in there. That brought you here. And like, you can't— like, at our level now in the NBA, you can't get to this level without having something like extraordinary. And like, it's just too hard, you know. And there's too many— like, you're gonna get told no, and you're gonna get, you know, you're gonna get cut, you're gonna get, you know, there's just too many difficulties where so many people will have just quit. And, and like, and that was, you know, I made the NBA and I played professionally, and I was a walk-on in college. And, and really, the one thing I remember talking to a team about, the only thing I really did was I just kept up. Like everyone would quit and everyone would like get frustrated and I just, man, I was just like, man, I can do it. I can show up again. You know, like, and sometimes I didn't love it, but like, and so like, you know, I just want to, I want to be there for someone who's maybe saying like they want to quit and I want to try to pull out that specialness inside of them. So I think that's the, that's the joy for me. Um, because then when you, when you see someone else, you know, find that within them, then it inspires someone else to find that within themselves. Like, you know, then it becomes like this collective group that builds a bond that's deeper than anything possible. And so, yeah, that's the joy for me, Stephen. So, I think we're in the correct fields.

I would actually agree. And I would say it's actually one of the key ingredients for high-performing teams. You know, so I was just out of the Navy and I was talking to a group of executives and they asked me, I had a flip chart next to me And they said, Rich, could you draw on the flip chart what the shape is for, what the task organization shape is for the high-performing team? You know, so what does that look like? And I had some models in my head that weren't really gelling. I could have drawn the pyramid model, which we all see, the leader sits on top and then everything flows down. That's obviously not how that works, right? It's too slow, too bureaucratic. I could have drawn the flat line, which was like a mild rebellion to the pyramid where like, hey, no one's in charge. We're all in this together. It's all groovy. Cool, let's do this. But the problem with the flat model is you can't sometimes figure out who's actually in charge. And on the flat model, something can happen on one side of that line that doesn't— is not seen or heard by the left side, the other side of the line. So things get siloed on the flat model. So I couldn't draw that. And, um, and the other one, the last one, was the Robert Greenleaf, the upside-down pyramid, the servant leadership model. You just flip that pyramid upside down. The leader sits on the bottom in service to those in their span of care. And even that one, although that one's probably the most beautiful philosophically, it didn't, didn't really line up because in a high performing team, burden is distributed. It's not all on one person. So, so largely in frustration, I basically drew a blob and I said, where do you think the leader sits in this blob? Uh, and I got answers like, you know, front, back, side, top, bottom. And I said, all of you are correct. The leader is wherever the leader needs to be in the moment. And this is a concept that we call— and we explored this, and when Stephen and I were working on Stealing Fire— we call it dynamic subordination. Dynamic subordination means that, um, in a, in a team problems and issues and challenges can come from any angle at any moment. And when one does, the person who's closest to that problem, the most capable, immediately steps up and takes lead, and everybody follows, right? And it's a dynamic swap between leader and follower. I also call it alpha hopping, where that alpha position just hops, right? So, so it's, it's always about the environment dictating who's stepping up, who's stepping back, who's stepping up and stepping back. The two key ingredients to dynamically subordinating teams: one, is vulnerability. And by vulnerability, we mean we wear all of our strengths and our weaknesses on our sleeves, not just weaknesses. We show all of our strengths and all of our weaknesses. So everything we get, all of my attributes, you know, I'm the attributes guy. What attributes am I bringing to this and where can other people mesh? But the other key ingredient is diversity of perspective, because if you have a team of people that have relatively the same perspective, your cone of possibilities when in uncertainty is very myopic, right? The more diversity of perspectives you have, the more that cone opens up, the more opportunity and choice you have in diversity— or excuse me, in uncertainty. And so, this idea of celebrating and drawing out these elements, these perspectives, is part of what makes a team able to deal with uncertainty, challenge, and stress. And even though there's probably less uncertainty on the athletic field, it's still the same thing. You're bringing together people of all different types and backgrounds and you're saying, okay, what are you bringing? What are you bringing? And then you lean on each other for those things. So, I really think this idea of these perspectives is a key ingredient to dynamically coordinating teams, which are in effect high-performing teams.

Yeah, I was going to tease apart for the people listening, like some of the meta ingredients inside of this and vulnerability is for sure. I love that you stress that. I love that you highlight also that vulnerability is displaying both your strengths and your liabilities, you know, your vulnerabilities, right? Because I do think that that's the, the balance of both. But to the people inside the team, that is how they unconsciously perceive that you are truthful. That it is not just a show of almost sort of manipulation, like I'm going to be vulnerable and display my weaknesses. But it's truthful. It encapsulates what's happening. And I think, and I know that most of the time, all of this, the dynamic fluidness that both of you are describing that happens inside of a team, how that organism moves around. Is unconscious. These are unconscious cues that people are picking up on. So, I love that you highlighted that piece of it. And I also think there is a component of genuine curiosity. Like for Kobe, there's a way in which you engage leadership that is so purely curious and the way that you use transparency and curiosity to get other people inspired to think about their own behavior and what they're doing. So, if anybody's listening and was just thinking like, "Well, I don't really know how do you do that?" These are the behaviors that you can do when we're saying leadership emerges from consistent behaviors. These are the behaviors that you can practice. They're free. And they're also flow starters, PS. They're all starter ingredients to eventually have your team be orbiting in and around flow. Stephen, I'm teeing that one up for you.

I know you're totally teeing it up for me, but my head's someplace else because I wanted to ask both Kobi and Rich in particular, a tangential question, which was because they both really leaned into the diversity idea, that's what makes it fun. What about, and this is probably more prevalent in the military or more of an issue in the military, though I don't know, moral accountability. Rich, you're in situations where things can go really wrong and historically have gone really wrong on the moral accountability platform. So when you're dealing with that level of diversity, which you both leaned into, and there's radical differences in morality, right, and where right and wrong is, and you're leading men into combat situations. I don't know, Kobe, this may or may not be as relevant in sports, but I'm going to dodge the flow question for half a second. Thank you for the setup, Sarah. And I want to understand this a little bit. Before we go to flow.

What do you think, Kobe? You want to go first? You want me to go first on this one?

Yeah, let's keep it light first and you can go with the hard stuff.

Yeah.

I mean, we all watched The Last Dance, right? During the pandemic, most of us. And this is like one of the lessons I learned that like high-performing leaders is like, like my dad was this like alpha. He's very passionate, very competitive, like very stubborn leader. And he never, never accomplished like the championship. right? And so then I, I encounter Phil, and he's like the softer leader, but like he also has— like, he can go there. Like, he can, he can be the alpha at like the highest level, and I've seen it. And, and so it's like I'm watching Phil, and this was a story I think he actually talked about in his book, uh, 12 Rings, or whatever, how many rings he has. And, and they talked about in the, in the documentary was Dennis Rodman was a known, you know, wild guy. And part of like Phil's leadership was he knew who people were, you know? So like Dennis needed to get, like he was acting up, he's getting a little out of control. So he let him go blow off some steam in Vegas for 72 hours. You know, that's part of the, like that's what's necessary for him to achieve. Now he's like one of the best players ever. One of the best rebounders ever, right? But so rather than paying attention to him acting out, it's like, all right, go figure your stuff out and then come back and then do what you do, right? I'm not going to judge it, right? But like, you're disrupting, right? I remember I got into a fight when I was a rookie and Phil came up to me after and he said, we just don't have time in practice for you to disrupt practice. We don't have enough time, right? So that was his way of saying, like, And then like the second time it happened, he said, you know, if it happens again, I'll just put you guys in a room and you guys can figure it out yourself. But like, it can't happen here. And then he told me like, next time pull his shirt over his head and then you can punch him. But that's a different story. But no, but I think that's, that, yeah, I got it after the second time. I was like, yeah, I get it. But my point being is like, you know, Dennis Rodman was hard to deal with, but like, he was also one of the best ever and a high achiever, right? So it's like, as long as we can keep the focus on, on like what we're doing and not judge someone's process to get there in the, in whatever is fair, right? So like Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were part of that agreement. Like, hey, you guys good with Dennis going to Vegas for a couple of nights? Yeah, we're good. We understand that he needs that. Okay, we're all on the same page. You know, like there's a part of communication and collaboration in that too. But, um, I don't know where I went with that, but that's, that's the tangent I was led to.

Part of the job as, as the person in charge, if you want to be a leader, is to, is to, is to understand each individual and understand how to bring out the best. Um, I would say the, the, uh, the addition to that, especially probably in the military, uh, field, um, is this idea. And I talk about this as an attribute. I talk about integrity as an attribute. Integrity is really kind of loosely defined, I guess, is do the right thing. What we have to understand about integrity though, or do the right thing, is do the right thing and integrity is subjective. It's subjective to the group. In other words, do the right thing for a Cub Scout troop looks different than do the right thing for an ISIS troop. And I would say if there's a Cub Scout that steals $5 from his fellow Scout compared to the ISIS guy who runs into the building and blows himself up, who's living in more integrity in regards to their group? right? They both have their own set of rules. Why does it matter? It matters because as a leader, especially if you are not explicitly clear about what do the right thing looks like, then the group is going to likely try to figure it out on their own, or they're not going to try, they're going to, and you may not like what that looks like. You might not like the answer. So, so the, the, the, so when you talk about what Phil did, Phil was basically, he was explaining, he was basically displaying for all of you what do the right thing looked like, how he defined it. And he was just telling you, hey, this is what it means. We don't have time for fighting. That's, that's what do the right thing looks like. In the military, you have to be a little bit more explicit. You're obviously driven by a little bit more purpose, but certainly when you're in an environment where it can get violent and emotions can run high, you have to be very careful and very attuned as a leader to what's going on with everybody. And are we still in that right kind of do the right thing mode? And do we all believe the same things? And it takes consistent reminders about who you are, what our purpose is, what our identity is, and it takes monitoring. But we had to always, at least those of us who were cognizant of it, those of us who probably didn't have the issues that sometimes became or did become so public and famous, we were very, very diligent about making very explicitly clear what do the right thing looks like. We modeled the behavior because we always model the behavior you want to see more of. And then we reward the behavior we want to see more of, right? And so, so model and reward and keep those reminders. And that's, that's kind of, it's never solved. It's just, it's a constant project.

Let's jump to the next one.

Modeling is the most potent form of human learning. It's like in biology, we call it imprinting and stuff. And it's, again, I just want to highlight for listeners, it's free. Like, you don't have to pay a consultant. You don't have to hire a coach. You don't have to spend a lick of money. All you have to do is model the behavior that you actually want to see. And you have to do it consistently. Both of you guys have really— it hasn't been explicit, but implied here is that there's a consistency to it. It's occurring as a practice. And honestly, truthfully, from a psychological standpoint, if you did— the reinforcement is super important, right? You said we model the behavior we want and then we reinforce when we get the behavior that we want to see, right? And the reinforcement is great. It's really important. But modeling alone would shift the dynamic.

What do we mean by leadership expertise? And I had to ask myself this a lot. And I was like, when I called Rich, I was like, okay, I definitely think if you lead in the special operations world, you qualify. That instantly, I was like, okay. So, it was like, okay, if you're doing PhD-level research, that that counts, or if you're doing serious research that's being published in peer-reviewed journals so other people can just bang on your ideas. I think that at least gets you in the room. I, you know, sports is an interesting question, but I definitely think if there's a lot of winning associated with your name and you've led in that way, A lot of different people can become coaches. It's hard to win championships. So, that to me is some proof of leadership. And then I started thinking about business and I was like, well, if I was going to call myself somebody, a leadership expert, how big of an organization would you have to lead? Some people lead families and that counts in their mind as leadership and it would never count as leader. I'm not saying I'm right or wrong. I don't know if I'm right or wrong. I'm just saying it wouldn't in my mind. So, I started to think, "Well, how big of a company?" If it's 100 people, does that count? If it's 1,000, what do I mean? I really actually had no idea. Once I sort of got past winning and sports stuff other than there's obviously levels of cultural leadership, but then when you think about cultural leadership, you think about trends in art or science or things like that. And they're very rarely linked to one person. The great man or great woman theory doesn't, it doesn't tend to work that way. There tends to be a group. There was the grunge movement. There was the punk movement. There was, you know, there was the nonviolence movement. Every now and again, you get a Gandhi or Martin Luther King. And you could really kind of point at that figure. I don't even know I mean, the obvious one is you've been a mayor or a governor or you've led a country. And honestly, like, I'm not sure. I look at our politicians, I go, I don't know, leadership expertise, maybe. Open question. What do we mean by that? So, I just got really flummoxed around this and I was also shocked by how many people in my world considered themselves leadership experts. And I was sort of shocked by it. I was like, I don't know. I'm sorry. I never would have thought of that. And I'm quite sure that I'm the asshole here and that I'm wrong about a bunch of this, but I certainly like to know what I'm right or wrong about. So, what do you guys think?

I mean, it's such a tough one. Let me throw in maybe a controversial opinion here because because I feel like I get a little bit irritated with the word leader, you know, leadership expert, because I think there's a difference between leadership expert and expert leader, right? Just like, you know, there's a difference between expert baker and baker expert, right? I mean, there's— so, I just, you know, and I don't— I wouldn't say that even an expert— I think most true great leaders are like masters. In other words, they don't consider themselves masters. They consider— they consider themselves learners. And, um, and so I think the same thing goes with great leaders, you know. Um, so I would say, um, those people who call themselves or consider themselves leadership experts, uh, I, I would say, okay, maybe you know a lot about leadership. Sure, you have a lot of data or, or things you can, you can talk about, um, whether right or wrong, you just know a lot. But I don't think it— I don't think it's the same as expert leader. And I just have a problem with the word. So let me, so let me throw that on the table.

Fair enough.

We'll go with that.

Stephen, I think that was the original conversation we had when you called me was like, this was your question and this was your rub.

I was just perplexed. I was totally baffled.

I like, well, no, it's the same thing, right? Like I grew up, my dad, you know, he was curious as a leader. And so he had a bunch of leadership books around. Right. And then some of those to me were, were great. And then at some point they, they come to a, you know, they come to an end and now I'm more relying on, you know, as my, as my laptop sits on the Daily Stoic and the Daily Dad with Ryan Holiday and some of these more personal like philosophical things. And, and I guess what I'm, what I'm saying is like, I can tell you what I observed from my experience with leadership. And how I felt in that environment. And then I could see what I saw, what my dad did, and I saw what Phil did. And then I played for about 12 other teams, and I saw what 12 other coaches, maybe 14 because we had a couple coaches get fired too. So like, you know, like I, I can tell you some things that I liked and didn't like, but like I, I don't know the technical terms, you know. And, and, and like, I, I don't know how to define my leadership style, and I don't really want to. You know, like, I want to keep figuring out how to help my guys more and how to help our group, you know, come together more and perform at a higher level and understand, you know, what we're trying to do together. So I think that's a great point by both you guys. It is. It's like, I don't know if I would follow a leadership expert, you know?

But you'd follow an expert leader.

Yes, exactly, right? I think, and Rich, you talked about your— You talked about your high school lacrosse coach, and I just went and visited my assistant coach and high school coach. And, you know, he's just a leader. He's just a good dude. You know, like you said, he's tough on the court, but, you know, I'm still friends with him today. And, you know, certain people just have a quality that is endearing and then also has a depth to it that I think draws people in. And I think the depth is what I was searching for when I was on teams. Is like, man, who is this dude telling me what to do? Does he, does he understand me? And then also, is he willing to like, is he willing to step up to the plate when it's hard? Um, and so like, yeah, I think, I think when, when you talk about expert leaders versus leadership experts, that, that's where it's tough for me because like, you know, I step in a room with some of these leaders that I get to work with and it's like That's powerful. And then you see this guy talking on TV and I don't get that same emotion. But I think that's what happens when you're leading from more of the brain than the heart.

I'm cautious of people that sort of feel like maybe they believe their own kind of byline. They sort of believe their own hype. And I do think we're in a period of time where experts are the, the, the, a lot of the experts, but the emperors don't have clothes on. You know, there's, they, they're, they seem like experts in one context, and then in another context you realize they, you know, weren't quite the expert. So I think that people's behavior really does kind of speak for itself. And also, I grew up in the restaurant industry And that's like a trade, you know, but there were people who were experts and didn't have high school degrees. So there's a relationship with pedigree and expert that I sometimes think fools us into giving people credit that is maybe not necessarily something to be presumed. And then I have seen just so many people with, like I said, not even high school degrees, really through passion and curiosity and sort of the beginner's mindset of just like constantly sticking at something, becoming, you know, having quite aptitude in a particular thing. I like that it's fluid and undefinable. I also, that sort of draws me to it. I prefer it a little loose like that, that it's kind of like a race anybody could get into to a certain degree.

Stephen, I'm curious, does that clear anything up for you?

It helps clear up a lot of stuff about leadership, what a leader means, right? And, you know, I was thinking about just a second ago that like things that sort of got dropped into this discussion. Towards Rich's book are actually attributes. We're talking about there are attributes in people who make good leaders, right? There's integrity, there's curiosity, there's a desire to bring out the best in people, a sort of selflessness there, right? That's what I've been hearing is there are definitely attributes, qualities, And I think in the next portion of the discussion, I'm going to go to flow, right? And I know Rich and I worked on Stealing Fire together. We know SEAL teams in flow was the gold standard. Kobe and I have been talking about basketball teams in flow for probably as long as Rich and I have been talking about SEAL teams in flow. So, I know that both of you are well-versed in the literature. And so, Being able to drive people towards flow, some will get into it more in a second, would be another one of these attributes. It raised a couple of questions for me. So, to me, one of the things that I started to think about is I'm less interested in the academic pedigree than I am in the— I was curious about something and I ran some kind of experiment in the world. That's sort of like So, when I start to think about leadership, I think it's I want— and I'm just fumbling along here towards an answer, but part of it is, okay, clearly, I want experience leading. And I also, I think, want that curiosity and sort of running those experiments. I don't— as you said, Sarah, you know this about me, I'm always wary of somebody who says I'm the expert. One of the reasons I wanted all these people on this podcast for this discussion is I'm wary of a lot of the podcasts where there's a one-on-one conversation with the person who is, you know, treated as the expert. Maybe, maybe, right, there are certain cases where that might actually be true. But usually science is a consensus opinion, right? That's all it is. It's just a bunch— it's a bunch of people who've got together and said, we've looked at this This is what we sort of agree upon and this is the common language we're going to use to talk about it. But it's a consensus opinion up till now. It's not a hard and fast truth in that way. So, that's really not much of a better answer, Ryan. I'm sorry. I sort of fumbled my way to there. Yeah, I don't know. I've got a little bit closer to leadership expertise than when we started. But I think I have a better understanding of what I think is the leadership side now than the expertise side, I think. But let's go back to Sarah's question for a second. What role does flow play in leadership?

The first thing that comes to mind when you say that is clarity and communication. What's our purpose? Why are we here? Awareness has some, like, self-awareness plays something into there. And I don't know if, like, like, I kind of lead from just my experience. I don't— I'm not talking about the literature necessarily, so if I'm going off topic, please, please let me know. But those are things that come to mind that have helped me get our groups into a state of, like, where they really— they're just like, Rich, you said it is like there's been a couple games where I'll just be on the sideline. It's the best feeling. I get goosebumps. It's like, I don't have to do anything. I don't have to do anything. Like, we won the Eastern Conference. Yeah, like, we won the Eastern Conference Finals a couple years ago, and there was a really good team. We were playing on the road, and man, our guys came out, and I was just like, holy shit. Like, these guys are like ready to go. And like, they were sharp. They were doing things that they'd never done before that they didn't even know. And I think a lot of that was— well, and then I guess the one that comes to mind that is from the literature is autonomy. You know, like, I really— and creativity is like giving them the freedom to like solve some of these issues on themselves in a creative way that is unique to themselves and their group.

Yeah, I think, again, I want to just— I'm going to hearken back to that because we talked about this in Stealing Fire. I think flow states in a team is a dynamically supporting team. It's a team that is like a flock of birds or a school of fish, and they are simply operating. They're basically stepping forward, stepping back, stepping forward, stepping back. They're leaning in a quick, unconscious way on their strengths and on their weaknesses. They understand each other in a way that allows them to do that very rapidly so that responsibility is shifting constantly. The team is reacting, uh, based on the environmental cues, uh, faster than, you know, can probably consciously think, you know. And so, so in the SEAL sense, it's the, the sniper, you know, taking the shot when he, when he needs to, and then the assault are going in. And then, you know, well, we call it— we talk about it in, in the close quarter, you know, close quarter combat. We talk about this, Stephen. The close quarter combat is the, is the best, one of the best environments inside of which you can see team flow, at least in a SEAL team. This, just for the audience, this is the act and art, I guess, of, of going into a building and clearing rooms to either rescue a hostage or, or find a bad guy. And this room clearance is this idea where you start on the outside and you might have a, you know, group of 4 guys and you enter in. Number 1 man goes, number 2 man goes, number 3 man goes, number 4 man goes, right? You're in there, you clear the room. The next closest threat might be closest to the number 4 man. So guess what? The 4 man becomes the number 1 man and they keep on going. And so So, you're constantly swapping roles and kind of just moving through this and when really done well, looks like a very beautiful albeit violent choreographed dance, right? And so, but I think it is this idea and it happens in the athletic field, in the athletic realm as well. And I think those times, Kobe, where you're sitting back and you're just like, "Oh my gosh, this is just running." And it's running because the team is dynamically subordinating so unconsciously and so fast that to interrupt it would get in the way, would stop it, would be detrimental to that state. So, I almost think that when you have a dynamically coordinating team, it's oftentimes synonymous with this flow state.

Two things come off of that, Rich, that I was thinking a little bit as you were talking. One, much less violent situation sometimes. We certainly see that, Ryan and I certainly see the same thing, in groups of action sport athletes. You put a group of skiers out on a mountain together and you could have a bunch of pros in the posse, but they still, they trade off, right? And some of it's so they can feed off each other's energy. Some of it is I have the best creative line through here. Some of it is, oh, I want to follow you so I could do something different. And you see that same dynamic subordination. The other thing that you do is one of the reasons, and I don't know if we talked about it, I know we've talked about it, I don't know if we did it in Steel and Fire. Humans learn their pack behavior by co-evolving with wolves. And wolves work in fission/fusion groups, which is a dynamic subordinate group. When you see a group of wolves hunting, it's the wolf that knows what to do next gets to be in charge and they trade off responsibilities based on sort of where they are. Fission fusion groups. Humans too perform best in fission fusion groups because we evolve that way. So, like everything in peak performance, it's getting your biology to work for you rather than against you. So, I think there's an evolutionary thing here. And I think one of the things that's really interesting about flow is it's sort of designed to work the same way. And Kobe mentioned autonomy, right? Group flow is everybody's autonomous, but everybody's together in the groups. And one of the reasons you need that autonomy is autonomy and focus are coupled systems, right? Neurobiologically, you cannot pay maximum attention to something if you're not paying attention based on your own desire, your own will, your own need. And which is why reframing matters so much when you have a boss who's giving you stuff to do that you don't want to do. And, you know, maybe one of the things a good leader can help you do is reframe so you can find autonomy within the task so you can achieve flow. Now that I'm thinking about it. All right, Koby, what do you think here? Oh, Sarah, please.

Also, a good leader will not only help you reframe it, but they will have a way of framing it to themselves that is attuned to how that person— right? It's a mutual sort of co-attunement that occurs. And actually, for people that are listening and they're thinking, "Okay, but I'm leading a team and yeah, I want to have more flow." there's some keywords in here. There is this discussion that's happening right now. That's not a word we're using, but there is this attunement. And Rich, you've used that word, and Koby, I know you use this word. It's like this sort of unconscious attunement to where the individual members are at in that moment. And I am curious if either one of anybody on the panel here, that can seem very ethereal to people when they are trying to practice something like that. How, in your time with teams, how do you think you practice that kind of attunement that a leader needs in order to to sort of create the environment that Stephen is discussing here?

I mean, what comes to mind for me is like conversation. Again, that goes back to like, I want to like get to know my players. And then part of it, the other piece to it is like it takes a village. So, what I mean by that is I'm going to ask my coaches, "Hey, what am I missing here?" You know, like, I saw this happen, like, from my perspective, I don't see it. What do you guys have any information? You know, I don't need to know any specifics, but like, what's going on with him or what's going on with our group? It doesn't— I know I don't feel them, um, like they're not paying attention, right? Some of these subconscious things. Um, so I think a lot of the conversations, asking good questions, asking good questions outside of your perspective, like, uh, you know, being respectful of like other people's that, that might know things that you don't know. And then an observation, I think, is one of my favorite things. And then observation also with experimentation. So like, you know, like we would play music during practice. And one practice I put on the same song over and over and over again, and there was an intention behind it, but my players got really upset about it. And like, it was just like, it was just, it was like I had no idea that was gonna come. So I was like, okay, I learned a lesson here, you know? or like we would play games to start, like a warm-up game. And like, that's one of my favorite things to do is because you see this joy on like, you know, 20-something guys like running around like kids. And then you— that, you know, so like just paying attention. Like one day we played Michael Jackson before practice and it was like kind of that time of year where everyone really enjoyed it. And, you know, it's like— so I think just experimentation, observation, conversation, and then asking really good questions are the things that come to mind for me.

Yeah, I would agree. And I would say, um, I would say I would, um, I would define it also as a shared experience. Um, and, and I guess I would say the SEAL teams, we are spoiled because we have what I call shared torture or shared suffering, I guess, if it is better. Um, when you go through SEAL training, you— and this kind of gets back to understanding each other at a very elemental, raw level. Um, you understand each other's attributes, which are our rawest level of performance, right? But we see each other at our most raw constantly, and then we just do that over and over and over again. So we understand exactly, we know exactly what to expect from each other at our most raw, at our most elemental. And so I think any type of shared experience, be it great experience, fun experience, or even suffering, we learn a little bit more in those times of suffering just because the way the brain works, of course. But I think if we, you know, by understanding and just, and just throwing yourselves into these environments, and again, we're spoiled in the SEAL teams cuz almost everything we do sucks. So, so you're always, you're always in that kind of mode and you're always pushing through it. But, but it goes for anything because I think, I think athletic teams go through sucky times. But you know, I wanna also say, cuz I wanna make sure we highlight this idea that high-performing teams, a lot of people, a lot of times we think of high-performing teams as sports teams or military teams or business teams. A high-performing team is any group of 2 or more people working together towards a common goal or objective, right? That perform not only when things are going great, but also when things are not going great. So high-performing team, yes, it can be a sports team. Yes, it can be an athletic team, or excuse me, a military team or a business team. It can be a great marriage. It can be a group of friends on a trip. It can be a group of people working on a project for their community. Okay. Um, my wife and I, we've been married for 23 years. We've lived a war together, right? We have 2 teenage boys. We are a high-performing team. We know each other at very raw levels. And so, and so one of the— I kind of joke, one of the attributes, you know, one of the ways our attributes work together is I'm a very patient person. My wife is very impatient. Okay. That's worked beautifully in our relationship because when patience has been required, I step up and she steps back. When impatience is required, she steps up and I step back. Right. But this goes on in any team if you know each other at these raw elemental levels. And so these shared experiences bring out these attributes, these qualities. So you start to know each other and see how you mesh in. It becomes like a zipper. Um, and so the more shared experience you have, the more you are basically rehearsing this, um, in a way that, um, when the, when the, the real shit happens, you're, you're, you're in flow.

We know most startups fail, right? That the odds are against everybody from an entrepreneurial perspective. But I've seen a lot, you know, I've I've helped launch 16 companies. I've probably been involved or on the periphery of I can't tell you how many more. And I always— one of the things that seems very consistent is early-stage companies get hit by what I call the fourth problem. So, you start a company, everybody's, "Oh, this is going to be great. This is going to be great fun. We're going to do this thing together. We're going to make a ton of money." And then, the first problem comes up. And everybody's like, "Oh, cool. We're going to lean in. We're going to solve this problem." And it's always a little bit harder and more painful than everybody expected, right? And then, 4 days later, you've just gotten through that one, there's that second problem. And then, there's a third problem. And it's when the third problem shows up that people come to the realization, which is true across the board, which is starting a company or running a business is just problem-solving. You're not going to get to this perfect place where the problems go away. No, no, this is actually what you're doing together. This is like, welcome to your company. This is the full-time job. Welcome to your company. And it's usually around the fourth problem that one, real life starts to intervene. So, if the company isn't making money, people are like, oh, wow, I got to start finding a way to sort of make money. And what I was thinking about when I was thinking about this and listening to you guys talk about the sort of this persistence through and this rawness of seeing people with their rawness and going through these problems together kind of thing. We had Jeff VanderHout on earlier this month and he's one of the world's leading experts now in Team Flow. And all out of his research, at the heart of Team Flow, they always say the place you want to start is collective ambition. It's a shared, a group. So, a collective ambition is not just like we want to win the war, it's we want to win the war, but everybody on the team gets to get promoted if we win the war. It's the individual benefit is aligned with the group benefit. And when there's that tight alignment, that's condition one for producing group flow. It's certainly true. The companies like the groups that make it through problem 4 are the ones that have a shared collective ambition. And in thinking about all that, now my question is back to flow. Is that one of the things that we're talking about with leadership expertise? They can kind of bring up and align people on this collective ambition so you can get through the dealbreaker problem.

Yeah, I mean, for me, it's like pretty, it's pretty different than like the most because I was in the G League, which is like the minor leagues of the NBA. So everyone's goal is to get out. So, you know, so it's like, it is like herding cattle and like, and really, do you want to be there? Right? Like, so like to try to make it a special experience with collective ambition is a little difficult at times. And that's what I learned from being around Phil is like, I remember he took us in one time in the middle of the season and he was just like, you know, I'm talking to ownership about renewing my contract and I'm just not sure if this group has what it takes to win a championship or like has the like intention to win a championship. That's what I'm trying to figure out. You know, I was like, and I think, I think those type of questions are like shocking to young athletes. It was shocking to me. It's because, like, I think sometimes we forget because we get lost in the points, the money, the fame, whatever, the process, that you forget what the goal is. So I think one of the things that I like to do with our group is, is show them and ask them, you know, like, what it— you know, what are we trying to get accomplished? So I think absolutely. And then also show them, you know, for us, like, financial bonuses from like, from playing, right? Like, you know, for us, we put it up on the board each round. There was 8 teams playing, you know, or I think there was— we started off 12 teams playing, and then if we won the first round, then there was 8 teams, and then there was 4, right? So you do want to be the one of 4, or do you want to like, you know, go sit at home? So I think asking those questions has always been— has been helpful for me. And I don't know if it works or not, but I think it is good to remind the group that there is a choice, you know, and there is, you know, there's also the alternative to like trying, right? There's an alternative to the other side of it. It's like, remember, if you don't do this, this is what's going to happen, right? And there's things on the other side of it that I think we forget when we're, you know, feeling a little apathetic or tired or overwhelmed.

I would echo that, and I would say that It's a really interesting thing. So, I'm working on the second book right now, which Steve and I've told you about, but it's basically this idea of mastering uncertainty and what it takes to step into and through uncertainty. And one of the concepts I'm exploring to be able to do this is what are those things that drive us at very elemental levels? And so, I think when we talk about something like ambition, I almost think that ambition might be kind of like Kobe implied, it might be too big. I think in my experience it's been— so I'm— so what I'm calling it now as I'm, as I'm researching and writing is objective, right? Is, is understanding the, the objective. That objective can be much smaller and much more, um, in-your-face and much more visceral depending what you're doing. And it can be, it can be smaller than someone's overall ambition. The ambition of each person can be, can be slightly different, but the objective is fairly clear. In a SEAL team, the objective is obviously mission completion, right? You have to— you want to complete this mission. Right? But even inside that mission, you have smaller objectives. Well, we have to insert, then we have to get to the target. Then it might be we're in a gunfight, we have to survive. So you're constantly, you're constantly adjusting what is that, what becomes a shared objective. In the, in the, in the, in the basketball case, the shared objective is, well, we, even if everybody wants to get out of this league, we still need to win this game because we all have to, we all have to look good so we can get out of this league, right? So So I think it's a matter of, and in the entrepreneurial field, you know, I think it's a matter of any team has to be very cognizant of what those objectives are in any moment. There can be a larger ambition, there could be a larger purpose, right? But you may not have as much synergy on that ambition or that purpose as you do on an objective. So I think in a team environment, especially as a leader, you have to help the team understand if they're not already understanding what those objectives are. In some case, shift those, you know, if it's If the objective is a little too far out, well, let's bring it back a little bit closer and then make that our objective. So, you can constantly keep kind of the shared focus on what we're driving at. So, that's kind of a thought on how I would kind of take it into just a smaller vein.

So, Rich, when you're doing that, is that about or partially about setting more attainable goals? You get a little more dopamine, you get that momentum you get from a goal-setting loop.

Yes, that's exactly what it is. It's this idea of moving your horizon. So, you're picking, in a neurological sense, it's creating your own DPO, your Debration Pathway Outcome, and setting your horizon in a way that you then set up a reward system. You reach that, you get a dopamine reward, and you pick a new horizon. And you can do this as both an individual and as a team. As a team, you just have to make sure that these horizons are are small enough and—

Yeah. In flow language, right, this is clear goals. This is a clear goal list, right? And some immediate feedback. And, of course, as Rich just pointed out on the team side of it, collective side, it's shared goals, right? Well, even if they're these shared clear goals.

So, for me, where I work in the practical setting, right? And people, are often like the concept of flow everybody loves. So I hope the listeners really see that, like, that we're breaking it down into these incredibly practical, digestible, practicable behaviors that you can do over and over and over again consistently, and that You know, flow isn't something you like catch like a cold or a wave, or, you know, you have to do these actions repeatedly. And then, you know, a certain percentage of the time you get flow, like, you know, hopefully, and with enough practice and the consistency to get to mastery, you can practice, practice, practice, and then deliver almost like it's choreographed on either game day, the big day, whatever it is, the mission. But, you know, my goal is always that people leave feeling like they have a really practical, applied sense of like, what do I do to create it?

Yeah, when you talk about practicable behaviors, makes me think of training. Rich SEAL teams have tons of opportunities to train. Kobe, NBA teams train, practice all the time. Feels like the business world doesn't have that frame though, as often, right? We don't, you don't think about within an organization that you're practicing right now or training for something bigger. Like, how do we reframe that? How do we reconcile that? Because, you know, in sports, in the military, training is mandatory. It's how— it's really how you dial in your team so they can be in more flow when it really matters. How do businesses think about that?

Yeah, I would, I would say that, you know, there's a, there's a, there's an adage in the military. I think it was— I think it was talked about the Joint War College or created the Joint War College. And the adage is we train for certainty, we educate for uncertainty. And, um, and then so in the SEAL teams, we, yes, we train, but we're training in very basic things. We're training in shooting, moving, and communicating. You know, can I get, can I get my basics? Can I, can I get to the point where I can, I can, uh, operate my weapon system in a way that I, in such a, in such a manner that I don't have to think about it so that it opens my aperture for the rest of the environment? Okay. And so, and so the, the education piece is how can I get into experiences that diversify, or read, or do whatever that diversify my, my overall, overall wisdom so I have other perspectives that I can apply to an environment, right? So, so I think the business world just has to find a balance. And I think, I think the, um, you know, you know, we, we can train— we want— when we go on a mission, we don't— we train— I mean, I know how to shoot moving community. We have a plan, but we, we don't know how that's going to go. I mean, the, the bin Laden raid is a perfect example of this. That was, that was I mean, they trained and trained and trained. And when they got there, first thing that happened was the helicopter crashed, right? They were immediately thrown into a, into a, oh shit, we got to figure this out. But, but we're— that's where that, that's where that other reflex kicks in. You said, okay, I'm going to just start solving problems and you can start applying perspective. So I think businesses, they need to understand what those skills are. We— so we train skills and we educate, you know, attribute development is about education, right? So, but businesses have to understand, okay, what are the skills we just need to know? And we'd like to know to an unconsciously competent level if possible. Um, and then how do we educate ourselves so that we're just prepared? We're prepared for what comes down the pike. Um, and so I think that's one of the ways I talk about it in terms of how we can bifurcate the two and, and, and put a little bit more focus on one side or another.

What Rich did say, um, brought me back to my first training camp as a professional with the Lakers. and I was in really good shape. I played summer league, played well, was on a non-guaranteed contract, ready to compete against, you know, Kobe, Derek Fisher, and all these guys. And we were in Hawaii in a high school gym, and the first drill Phil walked us through was like the most basic fundamental pivot drill. And I like, I like, I balked at it. I was like, what are we doing? You know, I was like, but like, we worked on pivots, we worked on pivots, we worked on specific pickups. And, and like, so he was teaching us the tools, how to operate in our offensive system. And then we worked on, like, you talked about subconscious, then we worked on, uh, spacing. So like where you could learn what 15 to 18 foot spacing looked like on a continuous basis. So we'd operate together, um, and, and so like all these skills were like fundamental skills but when you got into a time of need, you could rely on them, right? They would apply. Like, if you encountered pressure, use your footwork. You know, like, you know, if you got into a bad situation, well, you overran your spacing. You know, it's like, so it's like, I don't know, I was really thankful that I got that opportunity to observe that because it was so basic, but it's still, but so fundamental. And I still, I use it with my teams and I really believe in it. And I didn't understand it until a couple years ago, like what was going on.

One of the things that tends to foster group flow is, first of all, a shared language, right? Everybody's got to speak the same language, otherwise it's very, very difficult. But, there's a certain level, and this is sort of an advantage that I think both the military and sports teams have over companies. In other words, this is coming off of what Ryan was talking about where there's a certain level of to create a high-flow team, everybody's got to have a certain level of skill. And, that tends to be true in an organization like the Navy SEALs. That tends to be true, not exactly true in the D-League, right? You saw while— and we used to talk about this, how difficult it was to get the team in flow because there'd be stretched skill gaps between the best and the worst. And, you see that in companies a lot because you've got turnover and you've got people you want to bring along and it's hard, sometimes it's really hard to bring along people and train them up and without losing that high flow quality. How do you think a leader balances for that?

I'm going to let Koby answer that one.

What was the question?

All right. So, John leaves his house, he's moving at 14 miles an hour, he's heading north. And Sarah leaves her house, she's heading southeast at 12 miles an hour. Who orders pizza?

C, all of the above.

That's the right answer. The question was, how do you deal with just wildly different skill levels on a team? How do you, where you're trying to bring people along, yet the people you're trying to bring along are blocking the flow of the group? And how do you balance for that?

Rich talked about it earlier about leading with your vulnerabilities or your areas of growth and then your strengths. Right. So I think one thing that I learned again from Phil was we were in the film room and it was about three-quarters of the way through the season. And he articulated in front of the group everyone's strengths and weaknesses. These are emotional strengths. You know, it was like, hey, we need to be aware that Kobe's going to gamble. He's going to gamble on the wing. And when he gambles, we need to be there to support him because sometimes he's going to get it in a really big moment. And then when Derek Fisher gets scored on, he's going to try to come down and score on his man. That's just what he's going to do. And then he asked to, you know, like, we also need to keep that intact and not always go overboard with some of these habits. But I think communicating strengths and weaknesses or strengths and areas of growth to say, like, you know, I work with Jimmy Nelson, who's an NBA All-Star, longtime vet, and he's a smaller guard. And he told me this story the other day. He just said straight up, listen, I can't play defense. I need you guys to help me play defense. But like, I can get you the ball. Like, I can get you in areas, right? And so, and then they were all like in shock because of, you know, this culture of like, we're not going to talk about our weaknesses. And, but like that, that to me is like that transparency of like, I need your help. And then who can help me and then I can help you do this. Right. So I think building those relationships, communication, vulnerability, um, are what come to mind.

Yeah, I concur completely. I actually couldn't, I don't even have anything to add. That's exactly what I, you know, that's, that's it right there.

Yeah.

So it's, it's not a lack It's interesting. It's not the skills inequality, it's not being vulnerable. It's not being vulnerable and not communicating about the skills inequality that causes the problems and can block flow.

Or ignoring it. Sometimes teams ignore things. They don't want to address the elephant in the room. They don't want to deal with the really hard truth of You know, Rich, it comes to mind when I think about this is like the life and death scenario of you. But like, you know, like in sports, it's I have to accept that we can lose even if we play great. And it's okay. You know, like it's hard for competitors to understand that because they get very emotional and they get very drawn or very attached to it. But I think once we accept those things, we address those things, and it allows us the freedom to move forward with courage and to train with courage, to know that like, hey man, I'm going to do my best to be better at this, to put ourselves in a position to be successful, even though I know there's some uncontrollable things that might happen in competition or, you know, for you, Rich, war.

I'd even say more than some uncontrollable things, right? The vast majority that are happening, you don't have any control over. So that's for sure. You know, in sport, it's an important spot to get comfortable with, right? The controllable and the uncontrollable.

Yeah, it's one of the, one of the adages you sometimes hear military folks say, and some of my friends say this too, is get comfortable being uncomfortable, which is, it's not a bad statement. However, I modify it and say you actually, it's not really, I don't think you can ever get comfortable being uncomfortable. You have to leverage the discomfort, right? Because discomfort will provide you some neurological and biological faculties that you otherwise wouldn't have that can help you focus, help you perform at a much higher level. So you actually, you actualize the discomfort in a way that, that makes you focus. Um, and I would say that, um, that when it comes to those— I mean, in the military sense, you know, the life and death sense, I mean, we— the way we do it is we, um, we absolutely don't worry about that stuff that we can't affect, right? And because we know, listen, when I jump out of an airplane, you know, we are— you're— we joke, you're committing suicide and then saving your own life every time you do it, right? And so, and so there's a You know, now you train and you understand there's a series of malfunctions that I understand. If that happens, I'm going to do this, this, and this. But this is the 80/20 rule. There's 80% I know and there's 20% I'm just going to— I'll figure it out as I go. I'm not going to worry about it right now. This is compartmentalization at its finest. This is moving horizons at its finest, right? So you don't hamstring yourself with that which you can't worry about. You still plan. You still understand. You try to understand as much as you can, but you don't And, you certainly don't suffer paralysis through analysis, but you let it go and you say, "I will figure that out along the way.

Whatever happens, I'll figure it out." Well, and also, that sharpens focus as well, right?

Every peak performer I know uses fear as a motivator because you get focus for free. And, focus is one of the most expensive things the brain can do and the brain hogs all of our energy anyways. So, if you actually can harness discomfort or fear and you can get focus for free that way, it's amazing. So, from the flow literature, we know leaders in flow drive their teams into flow. And there's sort of— I always think of it as the antithesis of that, which is passive-aggressive leaders, leaders who are changing, moving the goalposts, changing their minds. They like this this day and they'll— right? Drives teams into burnout. I tell people, if you're in that situation job-wise, this is possibly the only leadership advice I give at all. If you've got a boss who's passive-aggressive and just keeps moving the goalposts, quit because not only can't you win, that's the recipe for burnout. So, it's a guarantee you're going to burn out. You're never going to get into flow. That's a miserable environment. And I don't think you can win in that environment. So, my question is, we talked a lot about the good qualities, attributes in leaders and leadership expertise. What's the kiss of death for you guys? What's the— as a final round robin, open question to the group, like what are the 2 or 3 like terrible qualities where you see it in a leader and you're like, "Nope, not going where this bus goes at all." I would say for me, if there's one thing, the attribute that I think if I don't see is a game changer, is a killer, is the lack of accountability.

I think accountability is one of the most important attributes. We just— and accountability is just about taking control, taking ownership, right? When you see someone who constantly points the finger and places blame somewhere, you just— we just don't intuitively want to follow that person. It's just not It just doesn't feel right, you know. And so accountability, that ownership, and it's also this, this idea of control. I, you know, as a leader, I always looked at accountability as an aspect of control. It's about taking the steering wheel, right? You know, as soon as you point a finger, you, you throw yourself in the back seat and you put whoever you point the finger at in the driver's seat. And so I would sometimes, in some cases where I knew what happened wasn't even my fault, I would just own it because by owning it, I could, I could take the steering wheel and start to shape it. And so And I think that's one of the things that, that is the, for me, the most important thing when it comes to choosing someone to follow.

Yeah, I think that's pretty well put. I think the only thing that came to mind for me is I always, when I was playing, when a coach made it about himself, it really bothered me because like You know, I, and as a coach, like we're, yeah, we're on the sideline helping, but like when you're the player, you're out there, right? And you're the one that's competing. You're the one out there in the arena. And I think there's, that's why I really value my time as a player is because like I've felt that feeling. I felt what it feels like when everything goes wrong. And you still have to go out there and play, and you're still one of the best players on your team, and you got to take it on the chin, you know. And so I think when a leader makes it about himself, I think that becomes a big issue. And that might be more personal than expertise, but that's what came to mind.

I think for me, I'd have to just echo you, Rich, that accountability piece. 'Cause when I have a leader that's accountable, I can trust them. You know, they're human. They get to make mistakes, but if they just own it, it's all good. You know, we can move on from that.

We know what's happened here is that accountability has anchored us because it was such a good response. So every one of us is now—

This is an anchoring bias in honor of the fact that Dr. Kahneman just passed. In honor of Dr. Kahneman. It's the anchoring bias.

That's right, exactly. Exactly. This is our love letter to Dr. Kahneman. Exactly. So this is the anchoring bias. But I'll echo that sentiment. And so I echo all of that, that in general, I'm always, for the people that I work with, I'm always hoping that their instinct is to take responsibility for when things go wrong. And distribute the wins when things go right. That is sort of generally a motto that I think it does a lot of good for the people that you're leading. And it keeps us honest and humble. As if you're a leader, it keeps you honest and it keeps you humble. So that— and then I would just add to a depth of curiosity. And that curiosity shows up in sort of like a relentless commitment to iterating over and over and over again. I think, you know, you'll never regret practicing that as a skill.

When you guys discuss accountability, our anchoring bias, does that include Execution? I always think that I get really nervous around people who tell me they're going to do something and can't get it done, which is the front end of the accountability, which is the, "Oh, I screwed up. I couldn't get it done." Or is execution baked into what you think of as accountability or are they separate categories?

So, the way I would define this is I always say as a leader, you can always delegate responsibility. Responsibility, but you can never delegate accountability. And so I think responsibility starts to enter into that execution. If I tell— if I give responsibility to one of my people and say, hey, this is your responsibility, do it, and they fail or do or don't do it or something, they have responsibility, but I have accountability. And I've seen leaders who try to give up both, and they don't— I don't think— I've seen people in charge who try to give up both, right? They don't come across as leaders. And so So now in doing that, right, obviously you are modeling a behavior of accountability. So you're hoping to have that accountability modeled for those people you are delegating to, but you cannot, you own it. You, it's, and by execution, it's all on you. And so I'm gonna tell someone, I'm gonna have them give them responsibility to execute. If they do it or if they don't do it, if they do it incorrectly, I still am accountable for that. So that's kind of how I see it. I hope that kind of fits in the lane of your question.

Yeah, I think Sarah, you know, combining Rich and Sarah was, I think whenever we do not get the job done and it fell on some sort of thing that we've been working on that we've addressed, right? I think that has to come back to me as the coach and I have to be curious about like, wow, that didn't work. You know, like we worked on that exact thing. And we didn't execute it, right? So then I think that's— I'm accountable for that. And I think that's where the curiosity comes in. And that's where, like, that's where the fun of it comes in, is figuring out different ways to do it. I'm a little bit out of my league here talking about these specifics, but, but yeah, I think the accountability piece is— it's, that's really— it's really, it's really a fun role to take because it becomes rewarding after time, over time. Right? Because, uh, you get to watch your people flourish because you take that burden off of them. And that is like the most fun thing. Like, I have so many stories where like, it was, it was so cool to see some of these people step up and be leaders. And it's like, man, like, I'm so happy I get, like, I've, I'm here just to be a witness to it.

Folks, this was an awesome conversation. This was tremendous. Thank you, everybody, for your time.

I enjoyed it.

Thanks for having us.

Sarah, final thoughts? Ryan, final thoughts?

No, I'm just, uh, it's— I'm always appreciative that I can come and connect with people who are so interesting and accomplished and committed to, you know, know thyself. So I don't have any final comments other than thank you for spending your time with me tonight.

Yeah, no, no final comments for me other than it was just kind of a dream to sit in the room with 4 of you and talk about leadership. So I got a lot I get to take home with me and apply it in my family and with my work at The Collective. So thank you, everybody.

Thank you for this. Appreciate your time.