The Thinking Leader

Welcome to another episode of The Thinking Leader podcast, brought to you by Red Team Thinking. In this episode, Bryce Hoffman talks with Mark McNally, founder of Nobody Studios, about his new vision for venture capital and his goal to launch 100 companies in five years. 

Mark is a serial entrepreneur with a broad base of experience scaling companies from startup through multinational establishment. Mark’s first startup went public on the Nasdaq at the age of 24. He’s “challenging the status quo daily and creating rapid but healthy disruption.” Nobody Studios is unified by its principles of rapid and frugal innovation, a “people first” mentality, crowd first execution in everything, and transparency to its core.

Top 10 Takeaways:

09:09 The strength of peer-led teams

11:37 What’s wrong the way we create companies today?

13:00 What is Nobody Studios?

13:42 A new model for venture capital

16:34 Empowering teams allows them to think differently 

18:23 The power of checking your ego at the door

20:45 The most important thing entrepreneurs need to learn do well is tell their story

30:08 Should you go public?

31:15 Red teaming venture capital

33:45 How Wall Street screwed up venture capital

Mentioned in this Episode:

Brought to you by Red Team Thinking 

Nobody Studios

U.S. Army PSYOPS

Intervention in Haiti (1995)

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Welcome to another episode of The Thinking Leader podcast, brought to you by Red Team Thinking. In this episode, Bryce Hoffman talks with Professor Virginia Cha of the National University of Singapore (NUS) about today’s hyperconnected world and the “AAA Mindset” she says leaders need to cultivate to successfully navigate it.

Dr. Cha is a leading teacher of innovation and entrepreneurship in Asia, not only at the NUS Business School, but also at INSEAD and SMART, the Singapore MIT Alliance for Research and Technology. She also has founded or co-founded multiple high-tech companies in Singapore and China, with listings on the NASDAQ and HKSE. She is co-author of the book, Asia’s Entrepreneurs: Dilemmas, Risks and Opportunities,  and she serves on the World Economic Forum’s Future Council.

Top 10 Takeaways:

[01:48] VUCAH: volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, and hyperconnectivity.

[08:34] How leaders can cope with hyperconnectivity.

[10:02] The AAA Mindset.

[14:27] We have to admit we don’t know what the future holds.

[17:16] The limits of AI and the ways human decision makers can leverage its promise.

[19:28] The cognitive skills executives need to succeed today.

[22:52] How to train your brain with “Architectural Reasoning.”

[24:31] The problem with processes.

[27:49] How leaders can overcome cognitive biases.

[33:45] The “Three Gear Framework.”

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Red Team Thinking

Thai demonstrators at the German Embassy in Bangkok

VUCA

PDCA

Lean

Agile

James March and Organizational Ambidexterity

Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Antifragility

“Machine, Platform, Crowd” by Andrew McAfee & Erik Brynjolfsson

Cynefin Framework, by Dave Snowden

Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints

Kaizen Productive Thinking

John Boyd’s OODA Loop

Book of Five Rings by Musashi Miyamoto

Charlie Munger with Berkshire Hathaway

Burroughs Corp.

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Connect with Dr. Cha on LinkedIn

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Welcome to another episode of The Thinking Leader podcast, brought to you by Red Team Thinking. In this episode, Bryce Hoffman talks to former diplomat and executive Dr. David Landsman, OBE, about the lessons business leaders can learn from the world of diplomacy.

David served as British Ambassador to Greece and Albania before transitioning to business, first as a senior executive with De La Rue plc, later as executive director of Tata Limited, the Indian conglomerate’s European subsidiary. He continues to share his knowledge and expertise as a strategic advisor, writer, and speaker on corporate strategy, (geo)politics, and reputation. David is the chairman of Cerebra Global Strategy and the British-Serbian Chamber of Commerce, director of Digital Cognate, advises for The India Business Group, and is a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School.

Top 10 Takeaways: 

[04:00] The most important skill for diplomats is listening to other people and trying to understand their perspective.

[06:18] Go and see things for yourself; don’t rely on subordinates to tell you what’s going on.

[12:31] Cultivate “the diplomat’s mindset.”

[18:37] Don’t just do something, sit there!

[25:38] Everybody is motivated by something, so incentives matter.

[27:51] How Tata made ethics a priority in business.

[29:22] Using clear messaging to establish priorities.

[31:35] How Alan Mulally used messaging and incentives to save Ford.

[36:51] Sending the wrong signal is very easy.

[38:18] Don’t automatically assume the other guy is mad or bad.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Red Team Thinking

Genchi Genbutsu or “go and see”

Alan Mulally & Ford Motor Company

Human Terrain System

Four Ways of Seeing

Gillian Tett

Yes Minister (1980s British sitcom)

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith

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Cambridge Judge Business School

Cerebra Global Strategy

British-Serbian Chamber of Commerce

The India Business Group

Digital Cognate

Tata Unlimited

Connect with David on LinkedIn

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Welcome to another episode of The Thinking Leader podcast, brought to you by Red Team Thinking. In this episode, Bryce Hoffman talks to Marc Cox, president of The Company Spirit and the author of The Business Case For Love: How Companies Get Bragged About Today.

Cox believes that the best companies succeed in part because they love their customers, love their employees, and build authentic relationships with both of these critical cohorts. He urges leaders to turn up the volume on emotional engagement in order to drive loyalty and boost profits.

Bryce shares some examples from his own work of how successful leaders used love to not only motivate their employees, but also to rebuild damaged relationships with suppliers, dealers, and other key stakeholders.

Top 10 Takeaways: 

[2:00] Marc makes the business case for love.

[3:10] Bryce talks about how Alan Mulally used love as a leadership tool.

[5:02] Employees want to work for a company they believe in and can be proud of.

[7:00] Customers want something more than a transactional experience.

[8:03] BrewDog is an example of a company that “gets it.”

[9:17] Gymshark is another one.

[16:50] The best companies are those that remain rooted in their founding spirit.

[19:49] Marc talks about how companies that have lost that mojo can get it back again.

[28:10] Companies lose their way because leaders fail to recognize the emotional component of their businesses.

[32:02] Marc explains how you justify the ROI in love.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Red Team Thinking

The Business Case For Love

The Company Spirit

Brew Dog

Gymshark

Airbnb

British Airways

Bosch Global

Orangina

Crew Clothing Company

East Midlands Airport

East Coast Main Line

Neverfail

American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company, by Bryce G. Hoffman

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See what Marc has to say on LinkedIn

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Welcome to another episode of The Thinking Leader podcast, brought to you by Red Team Thinking. In this episode, your host Bryce Hoffman talks to Colonel Kevin Benson, U.S. Army, ret., the man who planned the invasion or Iraq, about the painful lessons of that war, and how they led to the creation of decision-support red teaming and the establishment of the Army’s red teaming school at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Col. Benson was a senior instructor at that school. He is now dean of The Red Team Thinking Academy, which provides comprehensive red team training and support to the U.S. and allied militaries, intelligence community and national security agencies, and the former director of the School of Advanced Military Studies, the Army’s most elite institution for training strategic thinkers. Today, he also writes for a number of professional journals and websites from Parameters and Army Magazine, to Time and POLITICO.

Welcome to another episode of The Thinking Leader podcast, brought to you by Red Team Thinking. In this episode, your host Bryce Hoffman talks to Dave Snowden about how a four-stage approach can help leaders better manage complexity and why smaller, adaptive systems initiate change to improve your position. Dave Snowden is a world-renowned expert in the field of knowledge management who is most famous for creating the Cynefin framework. He is the founder and chief scientific officer for Cognitive Edge, a consulting firm specializing in complexity and sensemaking, and is also the author of several publications, including Managing Complexity and Chaos in Times of Crisis, recently published in conjunction with the European Union. Top

10 Takeaways:

[2:38] The role of the leader in times of crisis.

[6:19] Constraints are the only thing you can manage in a complex system.

[9:20] Trioptican and the benefits of creating a human sensor network to act faster.

[12:00] The Cynefin Framework – what it is and where it comes from.

[16:15] Distinctions between Complexity and Systems Thinking leadership styles.

[20:55] The problem with big consulting companies.

[27:27] Can processes change culture?

[30:15] A complexity-based approach to design thinking.

[31:17] Bryce and Dave talk about how companies can respond to negative publicity.

[38:19] How do you get leaders to move beyond short-term thinking?

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Red Team Thinking

Managing Complexity and Chaos in Times of Crisis, by Dave Snowden

The Cynefin Centre

Cognitive Edge

Welcome to another episode of The Thinking Leader podcast, brought to you by Red Team Thinking. In this episode, your host Bryce Hoffman talks to Barry O’Reilly about the need for leaders to “unlearn” things that are no longer valid or no longer serve them and explains how major corporations have used his unlearning process to achieve greater success.

Barry is a business advisor, entrepreneur, and author of the book Unlearn: Let Go of Past Success to Achieve Extraordinary Results. He is also the co-author of the international bestseller: Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale. Barry is a speaker, writer, and contributor to The Economist, Strategy+Business, and the MIT Sloan Management Review. He also is a member of the faculty at Singularity Universitythe founder of ExecCamp, the entrepreneurial experience for executives. His mission is to help purposeful, technology-led businesses innovate at scale., and in today’s episode, he shares the core of 

Top 10 Takeaways:

[1:30] Barry explains the concept of unlearning.

[7:23] Capital One, a case study of successful unlearning. unlearn.

[11:45] Bryce and Barry talk about the difference between a decision-making process and a decision-making practice.

[13:50] Why so many digital transformations fail.

[16:19] Use crises as springboards for positive transformation.

[23:00] All you can do when confronted with chaos is act.

[24:15] Becoming a more agile, more resilient leader.

[25:35] Signs you need to unlearn and adapt.

[28:18] What do you do if you’re not the one in charge of an organization that needs to unlearn?

[35:30] How to start unlearning.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Red Team Thinking

Unlearn: Let Go of Past Success to Achieve Extraordinary Results, by Bary O’Reilly

Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale, Jez Humble, Joanne Molesky, and Barry O'Reilly

Read Barry’s blog

See what Barry has to say on Twitter

Subscribe to Barry’s podcast

Join Barry’s newsletter

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This week, Bryce talks with Dr. Gary Klein, creator of PreMortem Analysis, a powerful tool designed to help leaders understand the ways their plans could fail so that they can ensure that they don’t. In addition to discussing the origins of PreMortem and how it is used, they talk about how humans make decisions and how leaders can make better ones – particularly in these challenging times. Gary also discusses his latest innovation, a training tool he calls ShadowBox. Dr. Gary A. Klein is a cognitive psychologist and one of the world’s leading experts on human decision making. He is the author of several books, including Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions and Seeing What Others Don’t: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights. Gary pioneered the naturalistic decision-making movement and is the president of ShadowBox Training.

Welcome to the inaugural episode of The Thinking Leader podcast, brought to you by Red Team Thinking. Bad leaders react, good leaders, plan, and great leaders think. In each episode, your host, Bryce Hoffman, brings you new ideas and insights from some of the greatest business and thought leaders to help you think more deeply and lead more effectively so that you can be a great leader too. In this episode, Bryce interviews legendary CEO, Alan Mullaly. They talk about leading through crises and how Alan saved not one, but two, iconic American companies: Boeing and Ford.

Alan Mullaly began his career as an Aerospace engineer at Boeing, rising to become president and CEO of that company’s commercial airplanes group in 2001. He led Boeing through its near-death experience after 9/11 and returned the company to record profitability in less than five years. A lot of people took notice of that, and one of them was Bill Ford. His company, Ford Motor Co., was on the brink of bankruptcy in 2006. Bill Ford stepped aside and turned the automaker over to Mulally. Alan went on to lead a top-to-bottom global restructuring that transformed Ford into one of the most profitable automakers in the world — and he did it in the midst of The Great Recession, while the rest of the American automobile industry collapsed around him, and he did it without taking a government bailout.

It is one of the most amazing comebacks in business history. It was also the subject of Bryce’s first book: American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company.

Top 10 Takeaways:

[3:11] Alan offers advice for leading through the present pandemic.

[6:59] As a leader, you need to face reality, no matter how challenging it may be.

[7:31] Alan outlines his “Working Together” principles and talks about where they come from and how they work.

[12:22] When confronted with a crisis, you need to deal with the immediate challenges, but not lose sight of your long-term strategy.

[23:27] Alan talks about his heroic decision to turn down a government bailout in the midst of the Global Financial Crisis when he was CEO of Ford.

[27:19] Finding the courage to stay the course.

[30:35] Alan talks about his team-based approach to leadership.

[36:23] Alan offers advice on how to develop the emotional resiliency leaders need to guide their organizations through difficult times.

[37:45] As a leader, you need to be a coach, not a king.

[38:14] How to avoid burnout so that you can be there for your team and your company.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Brought to you by Red Team Thinking

American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company, Bryce Hoffman

Alan Mullaly’s Working Together Principles

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Ford Motor Co.

Boeing Co.

Tweetables and Quotes:

“There is always an alternative, and it starts with really facing reality.”

“It is so important that the leader and the leadership team trusts the Working Together process, so when there is a problem we thank the organization for sharing that, we make sure that everybody is included, the vision and the strategy plan, and lastly making sure that all participants of the process are having fun and enjoying the journey.”

“We are always thinking not only about creating the products that people want and value today, but we are also thinking about the products and services people will want in the future in a rapidly-changing world.”

“Every near-term decision needs to be aligned to the long-term goals.”

“If you react as a leader, you are not thinking, you are not planning and you are not looking at the long term.”

“The same process that you used to grow the business during normal times is the one that serves more effectively when transiting a crisis you didn’t create.”

Welcome to The Thinking Leader!