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Welcome to the Jason and Scott Show. This episode is being recorded on Friday, October 10th, 2025.

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I’m your host, Jason Retail Geek Goldberg. And as usual, I’m here with your co-host, Scott Wingo.

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Hey, Jason, and welcome back, Jason and Scott Show listeners.

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Well, Jason and listeners, we have a real treat for you on today’s episode.

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Jason and I have both known Kevin Ertel for about 15 years each.

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So that’s about 30 years by my calculations, Jason.

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Yeah, it probably fell longer to Kevin.

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It did. It probably felt like 60. We get a 2x multiple. The two of us together are a lot to handle.

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And we’ll get into his amazing career. But what’s really exciting is he has

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a book dropping, and we were able to get him, due to that 60-year relationship,

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on the show to tell our listeners about it.

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The book is called The Strategy Trap, Why Companies Fail at Execution and How

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to Get It Right. Kevin, welcome to the show.

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Thanks, guys. Great to be here. It’s been a bit since I was last on and I’m excited to be here.

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Yeah, yeah. We had the interns looked and they couldn’t find it. It’s been that long ago.

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Yeah.

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It predates recorded history.

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Yeah. It was chiseled on a tablet somewhere. We’ll have to dig it up, literally.

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Yeah. So as you alluded to, Kevin, this is not your first time on the show.

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If memory serves, the first time you were on this show, you were with Sir LaTabla

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at the time. Is that correct?

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Yeah, that’s right. It was, yeah, back in 2015, I guess. But yeah,

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a few things have happened since then.

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Yeah. And weirdly, our careers like overlap and coincide for many years before

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that, which maybe we’ll explore another time.

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But as we always like to do on the show, kind of remind the listeners what your

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e-commerce journey was prior to writing the book.

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Yeah, I mean, I spent most of my career in retail. I started,

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you know, on the very ground floor as a clerk at Tower Records.

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And I really had all my formative years there. I spent 20 years at Tower Records,

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started as a clerk and left as a senior vice president and led the team that

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built the first TowerRecords.com, you know, when it was mostly people on dial-up modems coming in.

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And I remember, you know, kind of obsessing about the image sizes that,

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you know, would download quickly.

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And fun fact, Tower Records was, of course, like an icon, a public pop culture

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icon, but it was run by one guy that owned 100% of the company and it was wildly successful.

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And he, inside baseball fact, he did not like ties.

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No, he did not.

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And so if you were so silly as to show up in his office wearing a tie,

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he would cut it off and pin it to his wall. And I know this because one of my ties is on his wall.

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Oh, I don’t think you ever told me that. You got your tie cut off.

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Yeah, and I was totally punked. My co-workers who sent me like a lamb to slaughter at this meeting, like,

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I guarantee you were completely aware of what was going to happen and like,

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led me to believe that I should wear a tie to meet the billionaire owner of Tower Records.

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Hey, you know, I mean, a lot of people consider that a badge of honor to be

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in that case of ties. So congratulations to you on that for sure.

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I’m certain it was not the nicest time. So I distracted you,

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but of course, beloved, beloved music store featured prominently in a lot of

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America’s greatest movies.

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Yeah. And I mean, just it was the greatest company to work for.

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I absolutely loved my time there.

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But, you know, as you said, it came to an end. So then I went to Borders,

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you know, which was still doing really well at the time. And I first went there

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to lead the building of the loyalty program, Borders Rewards,

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and then also led Borders.com.

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Did that for a while, left there and moved on to the vendor side for a little

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bit as the VP of retail for 4C Results, a company that measured customer satisfaction.

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And so I worked with more than 100 retailers and helped them understand customer

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satisfaction and how to respond to what they learned about what their customer

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experience was and how to make it better.

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From there, I went to Online Shoes as a CMO, got me to Seattle and moved on

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to Sur La Taub from there when we talked.

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And at Sur La Taub, I ran digital, but also marketing and technology for a while.

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And then I moved to Nike and I spent seven years at Nike, three different jobs there.

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Initially as sort of the GM of the digital business for the running category globally.

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Then I led global online or global digital operations. And then the last job

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I had there was leading global retail operations. So stores,

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a little bit of a full circle all the way back to that.

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And Kevin, for all of our young listeners that only wear contemporary shoes,

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remind us what Nike does.

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Yeah, right.

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You know, a few shoes, a little apparel, sweatpants, that sort of thing.

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That’s a great idea.

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Yeah. You’ve heard of it?

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I have. You could probably have a mild success in that industry.

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Yeah. Seems like it did pretty well. They’ve done well for themselves.

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As long as you don’t hire any eBay people to run it.

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Oops.

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This is where I’m going to go no comment.

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Fair.

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Pleats the fifth pretty early. This may be a record. Yep. Okay. I have to get this.

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Yeah. I’m going to have to on that one.

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And then after I left there, I started Mystere Advisory, a consultancy where

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I focus on three things, helping people with strategic execution,

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which we’ll talk more about.

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I do executive coaching and also do some advisory work with a variety of different

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companies, software companies.

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And all that’s led me actually to what I’m doing right now also is working with

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the Minnesota Timberwolves and leading the ticketing business there.

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Oh, neat. I didn’t know that. That’s new information.

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Breaking news for.

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Me and all of this is a side hustle for your main gig which is a musician is that correct.

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That is correct yes all supporting that yeah still playing music all the time

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and working on getting a new band together here in cleveland and of course you

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guys i think have been there we play that gig every year in new york right after

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right as part of nrf and we’ll be doing that again this year at the cutting

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room in new york looking forward to that that.

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Is the The best event at NRF when I can stay up late enough for it.

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Yep. Drink your coffee. Have an extra one.

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That is a safe bet. And I believe you’ve even passed the music bug on to the next generation.

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Oh, it might. Yeah. Not so much in my house. They listen. They don’t play.

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Awesome. So we want to jump into the book, but before we get too deep,

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just please tell me it’s not a deep dive case study in all of my failures.

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Absolutely not. In fact, you do appear in the book as a kind of a hero, really.

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Yes. So, it’s a fiction book. Awesome.

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It’s entertaining reading.

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I was certainly entertained. So, before we jump into the content of the book,

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like, Like, you know, Scott, Scott kind of alluded to it in the intro.

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What, what inspired you to write a book?

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Is it the money?

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Yeah, right. I had thought about it for a long time.

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And, you know, I’ve been writing blogs for a while and sort of got a few people

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had said I should write a book.

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And I finally just decided, you know, to take that seriously.

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And then I really had to think about what was a topic I wanted to write about.

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And something that I’m really passionate about is the fact that,

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you know, most strategies fail. And there’s a lot of data about that.

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And the number one reason they fail is poor execution.

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So I really wanted to focus on that. And, you know, I mean, there’s a million

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books about strategy and how to write a strategy, but there’s not that many

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about execution, funny enough.

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And most of the ones that are out there are written by consultants and academics.

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And so I wanted to write this really from an operator’s perspective and really

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somebody who’s sort of been there and has the scars from it.

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But I also didn’t want to just make it, you know, my perspective.

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So I interviewed more than 60 operators, people who had been there and done

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that across a ton of different industries. I actually started in retail,

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but as I started to ask people who they knew who were successful executors,

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it just sort of passed me on.

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And before you knew it, I was talking to people in just about every industry

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you could imagine, you know, in content, media, tech, healthcare.

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I talked to a guy who does like public utilities in Australia,

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you know, so really kind of covered the gamut.

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And what I found in doing that is it just was a lot of commonality in the things that work.

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So that’s what got me really inspired to kind of make this a book to put it out there.

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Cool. One of the things I like about it is how you structured it.

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So you’ve got kind of two chunks, you know, phases, phase one,

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setting the stage and phase two, showtime.

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And then you go through basically, you have six C’s and each one is basically

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a C word and how you and then a trap that kind of goes along with it.

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So for example, I’ll just pick one.

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Part two, clarity, escaping the complexity trap.

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Part five, coordination, closing the silo trap. And the reason I like this is

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this, it’s kind of book, some books you read once you’re like,

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okay, I had some good takeaways.

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And then others, like one of my favorites is this Ben Horowitz book called Good to Great.

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And it’s, it’s kind of similar where it’s like a collection of case studies

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so you can read them linearly.

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But then you’re always like, what was that case study? Oh yeah, it was in that book.

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And then you can jump right to it. Cause I, cause I feel like people could read

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this and then be, they, a lot of times you don’t know you’re in the trap or it’s coming.

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So, so I think they’ll, they’ll get into the trap and they’ll be like,

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I think I’m in one of those things Kevin was talking about.

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And they’ll look it up and be like, oh crap, I’m in the ivory tower trap.

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And then, then you give them, you can like help them get out.

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So I think that’ll be handy when, when people actually get their hands on this.

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Was that intentional? You try to make it a reference and a read?

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Yeah, totally. I mean, I very much wanted it to be practical.

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So I wanted to make sure that there were lots of how-tos in there and lots of

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things that you could take away and go execute right away, you know, kind of make it happen.

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So very much wanted to make it easy to reference, different sections that you could go to quickly.

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At the end of every one of those parts, there is a checklist that you can use

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to kind of go through and kind of see how you’re doing and rate yourself.

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So yeah, I wanted to make it super usable.

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Yeah, I can even see, I’ve been in companies where we do little book clubs,

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and this would be kind of a good one for an executive team or even a team to

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kind of have as they felt like they weren’t being as effective on the execution as they wanted to be.

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You should do the reading club follow-up. That way you can sell another book.

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Yeah, I love it. Let’s do that.

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The workbook. so you kind of stated this but just so listeners can tie it together

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i’ll ask the question what is the strategy trap.

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Yeah i mean the strategy trap is when leaders get kind of obsessed with the

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idea and even the presentation the idea maybe the slide deck but they don’t

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spend nearly enough time focus on creating the conditions for the people on

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the team to actually bring that strategy to reality.

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And that is the fundamental problem that sort of leads to all the other traps.

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How do, so I’ve always had this trouble, this challenge.

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So I’ll, I’ll talk to them blue in the face about our vision and I’ll even tie

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it into, you know, the plan and everything.

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And then we’ll do these employee surveys and now everyone’s always like this division isn’t clear.

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I’m like every quarter I go through this, like, why is this not landing?

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What am I doing wrong, Kevin? Which trap am I in?

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Well, I mean, you know, this, the vision is only part of what you need to execute.

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So that in the end it’s you know this you want me to go through the six c’s

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would it help to kind of give the big picture yeah yeah.

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Let’s let’s hit the c’s.

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You know you talked about the two phases setting the stage and then and then

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uh show time but in setting the stage the sick the first three c’s are co-creation

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clarity and capacity and those three are super super critical Co-creation is all about, you know,

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bringing the team at multiple levels within multiple functions in to help develop

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and create the strategy.

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And what you get out of that when you do it that way is, you know,

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alignment and buy-in. You get people really kind of owning it a little bit.

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You get validation to make sure that this plan that you’re putting together

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is going to be workable. And then you get commitment.

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And so partly people are sort of fully understanding the strategy then and then

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really buying into it and really saying, I’m ready to go.

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Clarity is about simplicity and it’s about meaning.

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So it’s about helping people understand it, but really understand and connect

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their personal meaning to it, which really helps retention right on it.

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And then capacity is super critical you can’t

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just drop any new strategy on top of people’s existing work

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and just expect it to get absorbed within and and so that becomes a real problem

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if you don’t do that so taking the time to create space for it really really

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matters those are all setting the stage that gets you set to kind of move into

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showtime and actually start to go on this thing and so the three c’s there are

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communication coordination and coaching,

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communication you know is an is a non-stop thing so to your comment a little bit.

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I actually heard this. I was at a Nike conference a few years ago,

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and Kara Lawson, who’s the head coach of the Duke women’s basketball team and a former WNBA player,

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she talked about her concept she tells her players of early, loud, and continuous.

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And she’s talking to them about that in the context of basketball you know hey

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like you got to tell people if a pick is coming get there early the arena is

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really loud so you’ve got to be loud and you got to continually talk about it

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because they didn’t hear it the first time,

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and i think that applies to when you’re communicating a strategy to get in there

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early talk about it even before that vision or the idea was was fully formed

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you know so people can understand the why,

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but then be loud, talk about it in every forum, in every way,

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and in every different method you can think of.

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And then continuous matters because you can’t stop.

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There’s like this thing called the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve that says people

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forget 90% of what they heard within 30 days if it’s not reinforced all the

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time. So you kind of have to do that.

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Coordination then is about having checkpoints and just ways along the path to

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make sure that you’re sort of organized and implementing this thing and people

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understand the why and what their component of it is at any given moment and

00:15:46.067 –> 00:15:47.267
how it fits in the big picture.

00:15:47.947 –> 00:15:52.387
And then the last but not least is coaching, which is a component of leadership,

00:15:52.387 –> 00:15:57.447
but not all of leadership. It’s a specific one about creating culture and how

00:15:57.447 –> 00:16:01.687
do you do motivation and incentivizing people to do the work.

00:16:01.767 –> 00:16:05.907
But all of that reinforces the vision that you’re talking about at the beginning.

00:16:06.147 –> 00:16:10.787
So I find having that structure across all those six C’s helps people understand

00:16:10.787 –> 00:16:14.367
the vision better, helps them understand their role in executing in that vision

00:16:14.367 –> 00:16:17.027
and reminds them and motivates them along the way.

00:16:17.664 –> 00:16:22.684
Yeah, I think I’m already stuck in the first one. So you can’t just tell people

00:16:22.684 –> 00:16:24.604
what to do and they just do it like the whole.

00:16:24.724 –> 00:16:25.204
Yeah, not so much.

00:16:25.624 –> 00:16:31.284
I was going to say, like, I didn’t want to pick on Scott’s incredibly successful managerial style.

00:16:31.284 –> 00:16:35.364
But when he did that survey and they said the vision isn’t clear,

00:16:35.644 –> 00:16:39.724
what they actually meant is they didn’t get a chance to co-create that vision.

00:16:39.864 –> 00:16:41.064
And so they weren’t committed to it.

00:16:42.484 –> 00:16:45.084
It is entirely possible. Exactly.

00:16:45.084 –> 00:16:51.084
Had you read Kevin’s book, we could only imagine how successful you could have been.

00:16:51.344 –> 00:16:53.444
I know. Maybe this time. We’ll see.

00:16:53.604 –> 00:16:54.604
Yeah. Let’s start over.

00:16:55.824 –> 00:16:58.264
I think you just did start over, didn’t you, Scott?

00:16:58.504 –> 00:17:02.904
Yep. Yeah. I will actually, well, we already have a vision, so I’ve already skipped.

00:17:02.984 –> 00:17:08.744
Yeah. And he’s not letting any of his coworkers share in the co-creation.

00:17:09.184 –> 00:17:12.684
They’re just desperately trying to hang on to the Scott rocket ship.

00:17:12.684 –> 00:17:17.024
I will as long as they come up with the same thing I did yeah yeah co-creation,

00:17:17.664 –> 00:17:19.844
is that how it works Kevin yep.

00:17:19.844 –> 00:17:20.724
That’s exactly how it.

00:17:20.724 –> 00:17:21.564
Works okay,

00:17:24.004 –> 00:17:28.224
let’s pick on Jason now I feel I feel attacked yeah.

00:17:28.224 –> 00:17:31.824
Yeah you guys are practitioners I just talk about this stuff I very explicitly.

00:17:33.024 –> 00:17:37.824
You just drop all you do is spit strategy and disappear must be nice.

00:17:39.424 –> 00:17:45.304
At my office I’m known as the pelican because I My main role is to fly over,

00:17:45.664 –> 00:17:48.744
drop something down, and then fly off.

00:17:49.724 –> 00:17:49.884
Nice.

00:17:50.144 –> 00:17:53.404
Okay. It’s better being known as a pigeon, I suppose.

00:17:53.744 –> 00:17:55.544
Yeah. You can see why no one’s reading my book.

00:17:58.244 –> 00:17:59.024
Pretty short.

00:18:00.024 –> 00:18:00.524
Yeah.

00:18:00.804 –> 00:18:01.644
Which one of these…

00:18:03.646 –> 00:18:06.326
A lot of times you kind of think about writing a book and you frame it up and

00:18:06.326 –> 00:18:07.606
then you write it and you’re like really good.

00:18:07.786 –> 00:18:10.086
Which one was kind of like your favorite? If you had to pick a favorite,

00:18:10.226 –> 00:18:12.226
what was your favorite part?

00:18:12.426 –> 00:18:12.646
Wow.

00:18:13.006 –> 00:18:13.266
Favorite C.

00:18:14.046 –> 00:18:18.386
I guess it probably is co-creation because I do think that’s foundational, you know?

00:18:18.526 –> 00:18:18.626
Yeah.

00:18:18.626 –> 00:18:22.886
And I think that without it, it’s really difficult to get to the other ones.

00:18:22.886 –> 00:18:31.786
And also, when you co-create in a good structured way, it really sets the foundation

00:18:31.786 –> 00:18:33.686
and superpowers all the other Cs.

00:18:33.826 –> 00:18:38.826
So I suppose co-creation, that’s a good one. It’s a fun one. But I love all my babies.

00:18:39.266 –> 00:18:42.906
So is this a, are we having a facilitated conversation?

00:18:43.466 –> 00:18:47.966
Are we, you’re like, you delegate to the team, come back to me with what you think.

00:18:48.086 –> 00:18:52.866
And then you basically veto it. Like how, what is the, uh, I know that’s not

00:18:52.866 –> 00:18:54.686
the right structure. What is the right structure?

00:18:55.286 –> 00:18:58.326
Yeah, I think it’s iterations and it’s, it’s working with people.

00:18:58.546 –> 00:19:02.206
It’s, it’s having, you know, you might start with a small group of people,

00:19:02.386 –> 00:19:06.046
although I really like to have that small group of people be representative

00:19:06.046 –> 00:19:09.406
of different teams and even different levels to some degree,

00:19:09.446 –> 00:19:15.926
because you’re getting a more well-rounded initial kind of take at your strategy when you do that.

00:19:15.926 –> 00:19:21.166
And you also start to build, you know, advocates and even find some detractors to bring into that.

00:19:21.726 –> 00:19:25.826
But there is multiple phases that you want to start with that group and then

00:19:25.826 –> 00:19:28.706
start to share it out and get more feedback and more ideas.

00:19:29.366 –> 00:19:32.726
There’s one person I interviewed in the book, Amber Taylor.

00:19:33.897 –> 00:19:38.537
I used to work with at Nike. She has this great concept I love called a proposal to hate.

00:19:38.917 –> 00:19:43.157
And so, she would take, you know, kind of the initial idea and she would take

00:19:43.157 –> 00:19:45.617
it out to people and say, this is a proposal to hate.

00:19:45.737 –> 00:19:49.517
I want you to tell me what’s wrong with it. You know, she would give them permission to do that.

00:19:50.197 –> 00:19:55.237
And I think that’s super valuable. You know, Jason, you and I talked when I

00:19:55.237 –> 00:19:58.457
interviewed you for this book about the six thinking hats.

00:19:58.657 –> 00:20:01.097
Yeah. That’s the black hat. Yeah.

00:20:01.417 –> 00:20:04.337
I mean, that’s one of the hats, the black hat, right? But the six…

00:20:04.337 –> 00:20:06.617
I am a huge fan of six thinking hats, too.

00:20:07.517 –> 00:20:08.517
Edward de Bono.

00:20:08.857 –> 00:20:14.197
Edward de Bono. Yep. That’s the guy. And you’ve had experience with it, as have I.

00:20:14.397 –> 00:20:18.917
And what’s great about that method is that you sort of…

00:20:19.497 –> 00:20:23.437
You can take some of these ideas, you know, the core of a strategy,

00:20:23.557 –> 00:20:26.277
the vision maybe, and you start to get a group of people together,

00:20:26.277 –> 00:20:27.697
but you structure their thinking.

00:20:29.096 –> 00:20:33.916
You know, you have a metaphorical hat or maybe you get real hats and you put,

00:20:34.236 –> 00:20:38.676
you know, have everybody in the group don a hat, you know, the one Jason just

00:20:38.676 –> 00:20:39.856
references the black hat.

00:20:39.936 –> 00:20:43.956
And if you say everybody’s got a black hat on now, when you’re wearing that

00:20:43.956 –> 00:20:48.816
hat, you only talk about negative things, only talk about the problems of this

00:20:48.816 –> 00:20:53.836
idea. So it’s not just people randomly throwing in ideas. It’s they’re all focused on that.

00:20:54.276 –> 00:20:58.476
Or you have the white hat, which is like, what are the facts we know about this?

00:20:58.596 –> 00:21:00.216
We’re only talking about facts, no opinions.

00:21:00.396 –> 00:21:04.376
And there’s a couple other different hats that you put on in this context,

00:21:04.436 –> 00:21:10.056
but the idea is that you’re getting everybody to be thinking about this idea,

00:21:10.216 –> 00:21:14.276
whatever strategy you have with the same perspective at the same time.

00:21:15.016 –> 00:21:16.716
Jason, you could probably talk about it.

00:21:16.716 –> 00:21:20.816
Yeah, I think you nailed it. I mean, traditionally when you have an unstructured

00:21:20.816 –> 00:21:25.816
conversation with a group of people and you say, hey, I want to talk about what

00:21:25.816 –> 00:21:30.016
success could look like in my new company, while you’re talking about that success,

00:21:30.336 –> 00:21:35.496
one of the people who’s not bought in is just thinking about all the ways that

00:21:35.496 –> 00:21:41.116
this idea is going to, or is likely to fail because there’s not a structure, right?

00:21:41.236 –> 00:21:45.096
But so when you, you ask everyone to put on the black hat and then everyone

00:21:45.096 –> 00:21:49.796
gets to, gets permission to be super negative without being a jerk because it’s,

00:21:49.876 –> 00:21:51.496
it’s the literal assignment.

00:21:51.816 –> 00:21:55.656
And then when you take off that black hat and said, now I want to talk about

00:21:55.656 –> 00:21:57.976
like what success looks like.

00:21:58.216 –> 00:22:03.696
Well, they just took the black hat off. And so you’ve kind of taken that ability

00:22:03.696 –> 00:22:09.536
for them to be sort of sabotaging the brainstorm about success or,

00:22:09.556 –> 00:22:11.916
you know, about expansions or about different things.

00:22:12.036 –> 00:22:20.056
So I really like that. I’m a fan of cognitive psychology and like I love that you pick co-creation.

00:22:20.997 –> 00:22:25.837
Because kind of going with retail metaphors, there’s a super fun cognitive bias

00:22:25.837 –> 00:22:29.357
that literally got named after a retailer. It’s called the Ikea effect.

00:22:29.717 –> 00:22:35.117
And essentially the principle is, if I take two identical tables and one of

00:22:35.117 –> 00:22:40.677
them I build for you and just hand to you, and the other is a kit of parts and

00:22:40.677 –> 00:22:42.937
you have to struggle and build the table yourself,

00:22:43.737 –> 00:22:46.097
guess which table you like more and value more?

00:22:47.157 –> 00:22:52.017
The table you helped co-create, even though, So even if at the end they’re identical

00:22:52.017 –> 00:22:56.457
tables, the table with your blood, sweat and tears in it, you,

00:22:56.597 –> 00:22:58.937
you have more love for, right?

00:22:59.077 –> 00:23:03.437
And so, you know, in that same way, like having, having these,

00:23:03.577 –> 00:23:09.937
these strategies or having these ideas and, and, you know, empowering people to feel like they,

00:23:10.177 –> 00:23:16.057
they were following the key instructions to get to that idea makes them more committed to it.

00:23:16.217 –> 00:23:19.997
Right. And then there’s kind of a related cognitive bias called the endowment

00:23:19.997 –> 00:23:26.357
effect, which is whether you built it or not, if I get you to think you built

00:23:26.357 –> 00:23:28.337
it, you’ll value it more.

00:23:28.437 –> 00:23:33.717
If you imagine owning something, if you imagine that you’re an owner of this

00:23:33.717 –> 00:23:40.777
company or this idea, then you will value it much more than if you don’t. Right.

00:23:40.917 –> 00:23:45.357
And so in retail, what we’re often trying to do is get customers to look at

00:23:45.357 –> 00:23:47.557
that product and imagine that they already own it.

00:23:48.197 –> 00:23:48.317
Yep.

00:23:49.672 –> 00:23:52.932
Yeah. And that, and they, they will value it much higher in that scenario.

00:23:53.012 –> 00:23:54.972
So yeah, it’s super important.

00:23:55.632 –> 00:23:56.772
Scott, are you taking notes?

00:23:57.172 –> 00:24:01.272
I am. I’m still writing down the hats. So I’m, I’m kind of way behind you guys.

00:24:01.632 –> 00:24:02.772
Yeah. One other thing about that.

00:24:02.952 –> 00:24:06.392
Now in Scott’s version, all six colored hats are going to say refi, bye.

00:24:07.992 –> 00:24:09.932
One of them might be a South Carolina hat.

00:24:10.572 –> 00:24:11.152
Ooh, good.

00:24:11.292 –> 00:24:11.492
Yeah.

00:24:12.112 –> 00:24:12.292
Yeah.

00:24:13.372 –> 00:24:17.972
What on the hats, one other point about that, that I always think is interesting

00:24:17.972 –> 00:24:20.932
too, because you called out the one, the person who’s negative and you gave

00:24:20.932 –> 00:24:24.552
them permission to be negative and that gets you really good value.

00:24:25.292 –> 00:24:31.012
What I have found interesting when I’ve implemented that too is that you also

00:24:31.012 –> 00:24:34.652
have people who are super optimistic and they can never see anything wrong with it.

00:24:34.732 –> 00:24:39.972
So when you get them to put a black hat on, it forces them to see things differently.

00:24:40.152 –> 00:24:44.372
And then the same is true when you give the yellow hat, the optimism hat to

00:24:44.372 –> 00:24:45.972
the person who’s always negative.

00:24:46.192 –> 00:24:50.812
It starts to expand their minds and their way of thinking about it so not only

00:24:50.812 –> 00:24:54.872
are you getting better insight into your strategy and your ideas but you’re

00:24:54.872 –> 00:24:58.492
also really sort of changing the thinking of the team as you’re going about

00:24:58.492 –> 00:25:02.612
that which is which has been pretty valuable too yeah.

00:25:02.612 –> 00:25:08.612
The okay let’s is that a good time to wrap up co-creation or anything.

00:25:08.612 –> 00:25:09.632
Sure we should learn about.

00:25:09.632 –> 00:25:13.152
That okay Yeah. Cool. Jason, over to you.

00:25:13.872 –> 00:25:18.132
Yeah. So, Kevin, you kind of make

00:25:18.132 –> 00:25:22.092
this, I want to say, relatively easy to understand because it still is…

00:25:22.772 –> 00:25:25.472
It’s a dense book. There’s a lot of interesting thoughts in it,

00:25:25.532 –> 00:25:29.472
but you give this kind of framework which helps, at least in my mind,

00:25:29.612 –> 00:25:33.532
it helps kind of distill it down.

00:25:35.144 –> 00:25:45.924
But I’m kind of curious, how do you see the book being used in places that traditionally

00:25:45.924 –> 00:25:50.784
are launching traditional strategy and getting those bad results?

00:25:51.824 –> 00:25:57.244
Can I iterate here? Can Scott just learn that he’s making a mistake about not

00:25:57.244 –> 00:26:01.444
co-creating his strategy and that will move him one step closer to success?

00:26:01.444 –> 00:26:05.544
Or does he sort of need to embrace all six C’s in order to be successful?

00:26:05.964 –> 00:26:11.384
I think definitely people can jump into any of these C’s and use those directly.

00:26:11.744 –> 00:26:15.044
You know, clarity is a good example, you know, and Scott, if you said people

00:26:15.044 –> 00:26:19.264
were maybe not understanding or not remembering, I think then some of the techniques

00:26:19.264 –> 00:26:24.024
in clarity might be a good place to just jump directly into and talk through

00:26:24.024 –> 00:26:25.424
some of the things that we have in there.

00:26:26.304 –> 00:26:29.724
You know, in the showtime section of thing around communication, coordination,

00:26:29.724 –> 00:26:32.644
there’s a lot of techniques in there that you could take from something that’s

00:26:32.644 –> 00:26:35.644
existing and just refine your capabilities and build on

00:26:35.644 –> 00:26:40.464
it and take some ideas definitely you know i think you don’t have to read the

00:26:40.464 –> 00:26:43.684
book from start to finish and exactly the way it is you could jump into the

00:26:43.684 –> 00:26:49.344
areas that you felt maybe you had the most opportunity to prove in for sure

00:26:49.344 –> 00:26:55.624
although i’d love you to read it from start to finish you.

00:26:55.624 –> 00:27:00.464
You you talked to was it 60 we you talked to 60-ish folks, what were some of

00:27:00.464 –> 00:27:03.944
the most, and you can’t say Jason, what were some of the most.

00:27:04.004 –> 00:27:07.324
Uh, I think it was a safe bet he wasn’t going to anyway.

00:27:08.984 –> 00:27:13.984
What were some of the most intelligent, no, uh, what were some of the,

00:27:14.204 –> 00:27:16.104
you know, sometimes you go into those things and you’re like,

00:27:16.204 –> 00:27:17.624
okay, I kind of know this person’s story.

00:27:17.724 –> 00:27:20.844
And then you hear a real, you know, zinger comes out of left field.

00:27:21.124 –> 00:27:23.864
What did you have? Tell us an experience, something like that,

00:27:23.984 –> 00:27:26.184
that, that really kind of came at you from the side.

00:27:27.591 –> 00:27:33.851
Yeah, let’s see. That’s a good question. You know, one person I talked to was

00:27:33.851 –> 00:27:38.271
Joe Megabo, who’s, you know, now the CEO of CPAP.

00:27:38.451 –> 00:27:41.671
He’s been kind of in a variety of sleep-related companies lately.

00:27:42.651 –> 00:27:47.411
But he actually told me a pretty good story about analytics and I didn’t actually

00:27:47.411 –> 00:27:51.391
realize that he started his career in analytics. And he talked about the framework

00:27:51.391 –> 00:27:55.031
he used to take on analytics projects.

00:27:55.291 –> 00:27:58.711
But I really liked kind of his approach to how he thought about that.

00:27:58.831 –> 00:28:00.591
It was very structured, which was good.

00:28:01.091 –> 00:28:04.611
But he really kind of got into some of those concepts I talked about,

00:28:04.631 –> 00:28:08.051
about, you know, you could do analytics about a million things,

00:28:08.111 –> 00:28:11.671
but how do you sort of sort through and say, what do we really need to focus on?

00:28:12.071 –> 00:28:15.191
What is actionable that we could be doing, not just interesting?

00:28:15.791 –> 00:28:18.671
And, you know, how does it fit within the capacity that we have.

00:28:18.871 –> 00:28:23.071
So, I thought his approaches on some of that stuff were not where I was expecting

00:28:23.071 –> 00:28:24.651
he would go that were really valuable.

00:28:26.216 –> 00:28:27.836
Where did that land into the book?

00:28:28.456 –> 00:28:33.096
That is in the capacity parts, I believe.

00:28:33.816 –> 00:28:34.476
Okay, cool.

00:28:35.196 –> 00:28:38.236
Shout out to Joe, who is another legend in the industry.

00:28:38.396 –> 00:28:43.636
I know he’s done a bunch of sweet gigs lately, but I think of him as an apparel guy, right? Wasn’t?

00:28:43.996 –> 00:28:46.396
Yeah, he was at American Eagle. American Eagle.

00:28:46.576 –> 00:28:46.696
Yeah.

00:28:46.856 –> 00:28:51.516
But he was like Expedia before that. So he’s kind of jumped around different industries as well.

00:28:52.256 –> 00:28:57.976
Very cool. what so there’s not a lot of pictures in the book kevin i if i have a criticism,

00:29:00.236 –> 00:29:05.136
yeah there there could be more images but there are some interesting visuals

00:29:05.136 –> 00:29:09.496
there’s some interesting charts and one that i’m remembering is it the derrick

00:29:09.496 –> 00:29:15.396
sievers chart derrick sievers yeah sievers oh gosh see i should have listened to the audiobook it.

00:29:15.396 –> 00:29:16.716
Hasn’t been created yet but.

00:29:16.716 –> 00:29:21.176
Yeah and i assume you’re you’re gonna narrate it yourself when it is yeah.

00:29:21.176 –> 00:29:21.996
I think so yeah.

00:29:21.996 –> 00:29:23.296
Yeah i I insist on it.

00:29:23.676 –> 00:29:25.676
Okay. Well, then it’s decided.

00:29:26.216 –> 00:29:27.776
Nice. Tell us about that.

00:29:29.245 –> 00:29:32.605
Yeah. I mean, Derek’s an interesting guy. I’ve known him for a long time,

00:29:32.725 –> 00:29:38.305
but he has been like an entrepreneur and an investor. He’s a TED Talk speaker.

00:29:38.805 –> 00:29:43.405
So, he gets a lot of people coming to him with their ideas and they want to,

00:29:43.425 –> 00:29:46.365
you know, kind of work with him to create an idea.

00:29:46.545 –> 00:29:50.625
And he has a story he talked about where this guy kind of came to him and was

00:29:50.625 –> 00:29:52.285
like, I got a billion dollar idea.

00:29:52.505 –> 00:29:55.425
And Derek’s like, okay, great. What is it? And the guy’s like,

00:29:55.905 –> 00:29:58.005
online dating with music.

00:30:00.645 –> 00:30:03.845
And Derek was like cool what else

00:30:03.845 –> 00:30:06.825
and the guy was like that’s it you know you’re the tech genius that’s the

00:30:06.825 –> 00:30:10.845
idea let’s just go and we’ll split a 50 50 kind of it so

00:30:10.845 –> 00:30:16.085
Derek kind of was he took out his notepad and he kind of wrote this chart out

00:30:16.085 –> 00:30:21.665
and he had on one column the idea quality and he wrote kind of you know weak

00:30:21.665 –> 00:30:26.925
so so good brilliant and then he wrote another column called execution quality.

00:30:27.245 –> 00:30:29.845
And he wrote like, you know, weak, so, so good and brilliant.

00:30:30.145 –> 00:30:33.745
And he kind of drew out a score for each of those with the idea.

00:30:34.045 –> 00:30:39.365
It was kind of, you know, weak ideas are worth one, so, so five, brilliant 20.

00:30:39.725 –> 00:30:44.245
But the dollars he put on the column next to the execution quality,

00:30:44.545 –> 00:30:46.705
where he wrote those one to 10 million.

00:30:47.185 –> 00:30:51.345
And he basically said to the guy, look, you know, if you want to make a business,

00:30:51.625 –> 00:30:53.065
you got to multiply these two.

00:30:53.245 –> 00:30:57.565
Ideas are just the multiplier. and they’re worth nothing without the execution.

00:30:58.690 –> 00:31:01.810
The guy kind of walked away a little defeated, but that was kind of the idea

00:31:01.810 –> 00:31:06.690
that he showed that the idea doesn’t have nearly the value as the execution does.

00:31:06.990 –> 00:31:11.330
The combination is where you get there, but a brilliant idea doesn’t take you very far.

00:31:11.590 –> 00:31:16.610
You have to have a real plan to execute it, not just let’s do online dating

00:31:16.610 –> 00:31:19.010
with music and you go just do your thing.

00:31:20.090 –> 00:31:24.670
Yeah, that’s amazing. I feel like that’s a weekly conversation I have with my

00:31:24.670 –> 00:31:29.790
in-laws when they come to me with their billion-dollar shark tank idea.

00:31:31.410 –> 00:31:36.150
And I’m like, yeah, yeah. The idea is the least difficult part.

00:31:37.110 –> 00:31:42.610
Yeah. I mean, you can have a middling idea and great execution.

00:31:42.610 –> 00:31:45.890
You’re going to be way better off than a great idea that doesn’t go anywhere.

00:31:46.110 –> 00:31:49.670
Yeah. And let me give you an example of the online dating. So,

00:31:49.670 –> 00:31:54.570
you can laugh at me for this, but as many people know, I started my digital

00:31:54.570 –> 00:31:58.450
career at a super successful company called Blockbuster Entertainment.

00:31:59.470 –> 00:31:59.530
Yeah.

00:31:59.990 –> 00:32:04.590
And I got a real opportunity to work for an amazing entrepreneur named Wayne

00:32:04.590 –> 00:32:09.150
Heisinger who built a billion-dollar business three separate times in three

00:32:09.150 –> 00:32:10.610
totally distinct industries.

00:32:10.950 –> 00:32:15.890
And amongst the cool things about Wayne, he used to keep score by how many millionaires he made.

00:32:17.090 –> 00:32:21.230
And so we sold, I know it’s a big joke, everyone likes to make fun of Blockbuster,

00:32:21.290 –> 00:32:27.410
but we sold Blockbuster for $8 billion and moved on like years before Netflix was ever invented.

00:32:29.270 –> 00:32:34.270
So we sell Blockbuster to Viacom, I moved from Florida back to the West Coast,

00:32:34.450 –> 00:32:40.110
and Wayne is like, hey, all this .com stuff is going on in the Bay Area right

00:32:40.110 –> 00:32:43.510
now, find some deals and we’ll make some investments.

00:32:44.606 –> 00:32:48.966
And I’m like, oh my God, I just got my Wayne Heisinger golden ticket, right?

00:32:49.106 –> 00:32:52.946
Like, like I thought like this, I thought like this was the greatest moment in my life.

00:32:53.166 –> 00:32:58.286
And so you moved to the Bay Area and I’m, I’m looking for a deal to bring to Wayne, right?

00:32:58.386 –> 00:33:02.326
And Wayne’s a guy that like saw the market for garbage trucks and bought and

00:33:02.326 –> 00:33:03.806
built waste management, right?

00:33:03.906 –> 00:33:10.206
He saw video stores and built Blockbuster, you know, used cars and built AutoNation later.

00:33:10.826 –> 00:33:14.906
So I get there, I’m looking at all these companies and I find the first company

00:33:14.906 –> 00:33:15.906
that I want to take to Wayne.

00:33:16.206 –> 00:33:18.866
And it’s this company called Electronic Classifieds.

00:33:19.466 –> 00:33:24.626
And their, like, in hindsight, totally correct idea was, hey,

00:33:24.926 –> 00:33:28.346
digital and the internet are going to totally disrupt this hugely lucrative

00:33:28.346 –> 00:33:32.086
business that newspapers have called classified ads.

00:33:32.826 –> 00:33:38.486
And our proof of concept is we’re launching an online business for the most

00:33:38.486 –> 00:33:42.386
popular category in classified ads, which is dating.

00:33:42.806 –> 00:33:45.726
And so this proof of concept is called Match.com.

00:33:46.026 –> 00:33:46.426
Oh.

00:33:46.966 –> 00:33:53.926
And so I, like, side note, signed up for Match.com and my free lifetime username,

00:33:53.926 –> 00:33:55.446
I’ve been married for over 10

00:33:55.446 –> 00:34:00.026
years, But my free lifetime username on Match.com is Jason at Match.com,

00:34:00.866 –> 00:34:02.746
to put it in perspective.

00:34:03.066 –> 00:34:07.826
But I took Match.com to Wayne, and he’s like, don’t see it.

00:34:10.306 –> 00:34:13.506
And, you know, Wayne is no longer with us, I’m sorry to say.

00:34:13.766 –> 00:34:19.206
But let the record show that, like, their market cap has greatly dipped and

00:34:19.206 –> 00:34:20.386
is currently $8 billion.

00:34:21.086 –> 00:34:21.686
Wow.

00:34:22.626 –> 00:34:27.966
Yeah so it turns out like the idea is interesting but it it all comes down to

00:34:27.966 –> 00:34:33.006
that execution and how many companies like had that idea and you know,

00:34:34.271 –> 00:34:37.311
who it ultimately took our friends at Tinder to make it work.

00:34:37.831 –> 00:34:40.571
Yep. There you go. Yep. Execution’s everything.

00:34:40.931 –> 00:34:44.811
Yeah. So no one thought this strategy book was going to help you find a spouse, but now you know.

00:34:45.171 –> 00:34:45.931
Yeah. Well,

00:34:48.111 –> 00:34:50.611
you never know where these conversations are going to turn.

00:34:53.191 –> 00:34:59.331
Another, another story I liked was Linda Carlisle. Maybe share kind of the story there.

00:35:00.491 –> 00:35:07.451
Yeah. Well, Linda is a communication specialist. And we talked a lot about communication and how to,

00:35:08.776 –> 00:35:12.856
you know, best communicate strategy to be executable.

00:35:13.916 –> 00:35:20.416
And she basically talked a lot about the idea that you would start with a big

00:35:20.416 –> 00:35:24.356
bang, like a lot of companies do and, you know, have a, you know,

00:35:24.496 –> 00:35:25.716
town hall or what have you.

00:35:25.956 –> 00:35:29.776
But then you have to really start to break down your communication and make

00:35:29.776 –> 00:35:32.696
it much more meaningful to people at every level they’re at,

00:35:32.836 –> 00:35:37.156
you know, and empathy needs to be a big part of that. You got to understand where people are.

00:35:38.116 –> 00:35:42.536
When a new strategy is coming and is going to change things on them.

00:35:43.356 –> 00:35:47.616
Actually, in a side note from Linda, but a former colleague I had at Nike,

00:35:47.796 –> 00:35:53.036
Amina Warner, one time during change told me, you know, change is the death of the old.

00:35:53.896 –> 00:35:58.176
And I thought that was such a profound statement to think about when you’re

00:35:58.176 –> 00:36:02.876
going to put change and communicate it, is that actually what they call the

00:36:02.876 –> 00:36:07.736
change curve actually follows pretty much the exact same path as the grief cycle.

00:36:08.176 –> 00:36:12.116
And Linda kind of got on that idea too, that you’ve got to be empathetic for people.

00:36:12.276 –> 00:36:14.676
You’ve got to understand that they’re going to go through these different,

00:36:14.676 –> 00:36:22.416
you know, emotional stages as they’re encountering new change and build a plan to recognize that.

00:36:22.636 –> 00:36:25.676
But then have plans that you can pass

00:36:25.676 –> 00:36:28.576
along to different leaders and have them be

00:36:28.576 –> 00:36:33.396
able to do the communication as well at a more individual level or a smaller

00:36:33.396 –> 00:36:41.516
team level to make sure that that vision or that big picture strategy is broken

00:36:41.516 –> 00:36:46.516
down and meaningful to people at each team level within a company.

00:36:46.716 –> 00:36:50.636
So people are locking in on it in a way that makes sense to them in language that they understand.

00:36:53.015 –> 00:36:58.955
That seems like totally sound advice. One of the questions I wanted to ask you

00:36:58.955 –> 00:37:04.955
was from the execution section, Kevin, and you introduced this concept of pre-mortems.

00:37:05.115 –> 00:37:07.955
And I have to be honest, like when I first started reading it,

00:37:08.095 –> 00:37:11.675
I was concerned because I actually, there’s a super common thing that happens

00:37:11.675 –> 00:37:15.015
in my world where at the end of a project, you do a post-mortem.

00:37:15.495 –> 00:37:16.835
And I hate that idea.

00:37:18.835 –> 00:37:21.975
Right. Cause I mean, I mean, amongst other things, like the,

00:37:21.975 –> 00:37:26.935
the metaphor is just that like, whatever you do did died and now you’re,

00:37:27.055 –> 00:37:29.715
you’re evaluating why you accidentally killed the patient.

00:37:29.995 –> 00:37:30.415
Yes.

00:37:30.775 –> 00:37:34.855
And so, you know, and usually like sometimes those projects are successful and

00:37:34.855 –> 00:37:38.615
have good outcomes and other times they’re not successful, but you have good learnings.

00:37:38.695 –> 00:37:41.575
Like, like hopefully in most cases you didn’t kill anyone.

00:37:42.035 –> 00:37:46.175
Um, so, so I’m kind of, I think language matters.

00:37:46.315 –> 00:37:50.915
I don’t love the word postmortem. And so then I’m reading pre-mortem and I’m

00:37:50.915 –> 00:37:53.995
like, I’m not sure I’m going to like this, but you actually won me over.

00:37:54.155 –> 00:37:55.615
So maybe you could explain the concept.

00:37:56.335 –> 00:37:59.955
Yeah. So pre-mortem, I mean, you talked about what a postmortem is,

00:38:00.095 –> 00:38:03.255
but the idea of a pre-mortem is to say, look,

00:38:05.255 –> 00:38:11.195
before we launch this thing, let’s imagine the future and let’s imagine that

00:38:11.195 –> 00:38:14.115
it went horribly wrong. Why did it go horribly wrong?

00:38:14.495 –> 00:38:20.195
And I think the value of doing it that way versus contingency planning is that

00:38:20.195 –> 00:38:24.255
it sort of forces the mindset to go, oh my God, everything went wrong.

00:38:24.255 –> 00:38:27.735
And now we’re going to do the same type of analysis we would have done if everything

00:38:27.735 –> 00:38:33.535
went really wrong and be able to identify, you know, a number of different problems before they happen.

00:38:34.202 –> 00:38:38.882
And when I’ve done, I’ve done these things lots over the years and they always

00:38:38.882 –> 00:38:41.782
produce things that you hadn’t thought of.

00:38:42.222 –> 00:38:47.082
And then that allows you to start to, to kind of work through the plan and make

00:38:47.082 –> 00:38:48.742
sure that you’re not missing anything.

00:38:49.242 –> 00:38:52.202
So it’s just the mindset really that, that helps you get there,

00:38:52.222 –> 00:38:55.582
but super valuable. Just did one of these a couple of weeks ago, actually.

00:38:55.742 –> 00:39:00.102
And it, you know, stuff that came out of it was, was surprised a few people

00:39:00.102 –> 00:39:03.502
to be honest, because people just weren’t thinking of things. So super valuable.

00:39:03.762 –> 00:39:07.982
Yeah. And, you know, again, like part of my objection to postmortem is kind

00:39:07.982 –> 00:39:13.702
of you’re like objectively evaluating your finished project in a negative light.

00:39:13.842 –> 00:39:19.522
But like here, you’re kind of proactively thinking about what could go wrong.

00:39:20.322 –> 00:39:25.182
So I’m like the negative is kind of more in the context of the black hat thinking

00:39:25.182 –> 00:39:26.282
we were talking about earlier.

00:39:26.382 –> 00:39:30.802
But I also it kind of reminded me of another business tactic that’s near and

00:39:30.802 –> 00:39:34.282
dear to all of our hearts. It’s like, you know, Amazon’s methodology, right?

00:39:34.382 –> 00:39:37.402
Where, you know, when they’re selling in a major idea, of course,

00:39:37.482 –> 00:39:41.322
they famously want to write the one page press release.

00:39:41.602 –> 00:39:46.962
That’s the, the sort of sick premortem success story, if you will.

00:39:47.202 –> 00:39:51.882
And so I kind of took your thing as saying like, Hey, an even deeper dive is,

00:39:52.002 –> 00:39:54.942
yeah, let’s, let’s envision what that success is going to look like.

00:39:55.002 –> 00:39:58.102
And let’s make sure we understand that. But let’s also like,

00:39:58.242 –> 00:40:01.742
you know, think about like, if we don’t, if we don’t achieve that success,

00:40:01.942 –> 00:40:04.762
what are the likely reasons that we didn’t?

00:40:04.942 –> 00:40:07.742
Because if we can identify those upfront, we can remediate for them.

00:40:08.182 –> 00:40:09.762
Yes. Yep. That’s exactly it.

00:40:09.862 –> 00:40:13.482
And, and I, I think that Amazon press release thing is also a great thing.

00:40:14.002 –> 00:40:16.942
I don’t have that in the book when we should have, cause I really like it.

00:40:17.042 –> 00:40:20.942
And it helps with you with clarity and communication too, if you’re sort of

00:40:20.942 –> 00:40:24.542
imagining how you would tell the outside world about your strategy.

00:40:25.273 –> 00:40:29.773
Yeah. Uh, that whole begin with the end in mind, I think is the,

00:40:29.913 –> 00:40:31.673
the thing I really like it.

00:40:31.733 –> 00:40:36.613
And I’ll be honest, I’ve taken a lot of Amazon business approaches and use them

00:40:36.613 –> 00:40:39.633
in workshops with other clients because, you know, clients are always super

00:40:39.633 –> 00:40:44.053
interested in Amazon methodologies and there’s a bunch of novelties,

00:40:44.173 –> 00:40:46.453
but I would actually say like a bunch of them don’t work.

00:40:46.773 –> 00:40:51.013
Like when you just, you know, do it in a one hour exercise, right?

00:40:51.173 –> 00:40:55.853
Like, and so you take people they’re not used to quietly reading six page narratives

00:40:55.853 –> 00:41:00.213
and you make them read a six page narrative and it’s, it’s painful to watch.

00:41:00.573 –> 00:41:05.953
Uh, and so, so like, you know, unless the whole culture is all in on something

00:41:05.953 –> 00:41:08.293
like that, it’s really hard to make it work.

00:41:08.293 –> 00:41:12.613
But I do think that that, that notion of the begin with the end in mind,

00:41:12.753 –> 00:41:17.313
both the positive and negative end, like is super easy thing.

00:41:17.453 –> 00:41:21.913
You add that to any organization and you see they adopt it and they want to

00:41:21.913 –> 00:41:27.293
keep doing it because they like the the benefits come pretty easy and are pretty apparent yep.

00:41:27.293 –> 00:41:30.613
Love that yep and it definitely is a great mindset shift.

00:41:30.613 –> 00:41:33.373
Cool what one of

00:41:33.373 –> 00:41:39.513
the topics you raise is how to leverage constraints and as a startup guy this

00:41:39.513 –> 00:41:44.233
is the trick is we’re always trying to unlike you guys that work at nike and

00:41:44.233 –> 00:41:48.593
publicist these eight trillion dollar companies we’ve got like a couple million

00:41:48.593 –> 00:41:52.633
bucks and then we we hit the wall so we’ve got to be That is the ultimate constraint.

00:41:52.933 –> 00:41:55.533
And we know the end of the life is out there.

00:41:56.553 –> 00:41:59.393
Don’t you just keep going back to your investors and asking for more candy?

00:42:00.013 –> 00:42:03.513
Yeah, that works until it doesn’t. And then, yeah, they want to see,

00:42:03.593 –> 00:42:07.453
this is where execution matters. They actually want to see results and stuff. It’s kind of a bummer.

00:42:08.633 –> 00:42:13.413
And yeah, so talk a little bit about that in the context of the book.

00:42:14.831 –> 00:42:20.411
Yeah, I mean, I love constraints because I think constraints really force great

00:42:20.411 –> 00:42:25.931
thinking and they force great creativity and they actually create freedom, I think, ironically.

00:42:26.411 –> 00:42:34.131
Because once you know that you have limits, you can then maximize everywhere else, you know.

00:42:34.331 –> 00:42:36.711
So deadline is a great constraint.

00:42:36.931 –> 00:42:41.171
Budget is a great constraint. You know, in the book, I tell kind of a famous

00:42:41.171 –> 00:42:46.271
story about the Costco $1.50 hot dog and soda, you know, which the guy,

00:42:46.411 –> 00:42:48.511
Jim Senegal, the kind of founder of Costco,

00:42:48.831 –> 00:42:53.871
said that that price would never change. Someone asked him what it would mean.

00:42:54.071 –> 00:42:56.091
He actually used some more colorful language than that.

00:42:56.471 –> 00:43:02.551
Yeah, I think he said, if someone asked what would it mean if that changed, he said, I’m,

00:43:03.739 –> 00:43:09.259
So, but what did that do? It caused Costco to find all sorts of creative ways

00:43:09.259 –> 00:43:13.439
elsewhere to make up the difference or find ways to, you know,

00:43:13.519 –> 00:43:16.039
they initially outsourced a lot of the food,

00:43:16.179 –> 00:43:18.439
they ended up creating it on their own, but they, you know, they just did a

00:43:18.439 –> 00:43:22.459
number of things that they wouldn’t have done otherwise without those constraints

00:43:22.459 –> 00:43:23.919
to make them more effective.

00:43:24.559 –> 00:43:27.419
So I think that kind of thing is really valuable Rick

00:43:27.419 –> 00:43:31.539
Rubin talks and he’s got a book on creativity where he talks a lot about constraints

00:43:31.539 –> 00:43:36.419
and how it drives creative thinking when you tell people you know they have

00:43:36.419 –> 00:43:39.619
a limit to how much time they have on something or they can only use so many

00:43:39.619 –> 00:43:43.879
instruments on an album what have you but all of those start to force different

00:43:43.879 –> 00:43:46.459
kinds of thinking that ultimately leads to,

00:43:47.119 –> 00:43:53.279
more efficiencies or better creativity better more interesting results so I’m

00:43:53.279 –> 00:43:55.779
a big fan of them how do you like to use them scott.

00:43:55.779 –> 00:44:00.099
I don’t i just like to live live in them i don’t.

00:44:00.099 –> 00:44:00.699
Really like.

00:44:00.699 –> 00:44:04.759
Manufactured they kind of are manufactured for me already so how do you use

00:44:04.759 –> 00:44:10.039
it like have you used it in the corporate context like how do you constrain nike or.

00:44:10.039 –> 00:44:11.419
Well i mean it doesn’t have to be a nike.

00:44:11.419 –> 00:44:14.819
Case study but like one of these bigger companies i i can’t i’ve never really

00:44:14.819 –> 00:44:17.779
worked for a big company so i have a hard time imagining how you do you just

00:44:17.779 –> 00:44:20.899
like say this is the deadline kind of thing like there’s a time constraint.

00:44:20.899 –> 00:44:23.779
Yeah deadline is a good one but a budget is too.

00:44:23.939 –> 00:44:26.799
Just because a company is big and they have tons of money doesn’t mean you should

00:44:26.799 –> 00:44:32.679
spend it all or you should let things be open-ended because when you do that, you lose focus.

00:44:33.199 –> 00:44:36.459
So, you know, you still can put a budget limit on something,

00:44:36.659 –> 00:44:41.379
absolutely, to kind of force thinking and force people to be creative.

00:44:41.579 –> 00:44:44.439
I think being intentional about constraints,

00:44:46.154 –> 00:44:49.974
And like deadlines, like budgets, you know, try to think of something else.

00:44:50.134 –> 00:44:53.814
But anything like that helps galvanize thinking, I think.

00:44:54.034 –> 00:44:56.934
I see a lot of resource constraints. Like people will say like,

00:44:57.094 –> 00:45:02.774
hey, you greenlining this project, but you can only use this amount of people.

00:45:03.074 –> 00:45:08.434
Or you have to find a way to do it without disrupting this piece of our supply chain.

00:45:09.974 –> 00:45:14.954
And sometimes those are, I’ll call them environmentally imposed constraints.

00:45:14.954 –> 00:45:19.134
Like the constraint is coming up because we literally can’t afford to disrupt

00:45:19.134 –> 00:45:20.794
that supply chain, right?

00:45:21.234 –> 00:45:25.934
But other times they are somewhat like, arbitrary sounds too negative,

00:45:26.134 –> 00:45:30.594
but like they’re constraints that are introduced for the purposes of constraining

00:45:30.594 –> 00:45:32.994
the project, not because the resources aren’t available.

00:45:33.454 –> 00:45:36.894
Right. But those can be freeing if you think about it, you know,

00:45:36.974 –> 00:45:40.494
because once you know you have a limit that you can’t change,

00:45:40.834 –> 00:45:43.974
then you stop worrying about trying to change the limit and you start worrying

00:45:43.974 –> 00:45:46.014
about how can you be successful within that.

00:45:46.274 –> 00:45:48.694
And that’s where you get the value, I think.

00:45:49.274 –> 00:45:51.674
Yeah. No, I totally buy that.

00:45:53.200 –> 00:45:58.720
And it’s rare in the real world that you ever get the opportunity to do something

00:45:58.720 –> 00:46:01.660
that’s literally unconstrained.

00:46:01.780 –> 00:46:07.980
So, building muscles around working within those constraints seems pretty valuable.

00:46:08.300 –> 00:46:13.060
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it’s a great point. It’s rare to be completely unconstrained

00:46:13.060 –> 00:46:14.800
and probably dangerous.

00:46:15.260 –> 00:46:20.820
Let the record show it only took me 48 minutes to make a great point.

00:46:25.700 –> 00:46:29.720
The the we talked about like

00:46:29.720 –> 00:46:34.880
a lot of the the stuff in the execution section in my mind the the next big

00:46:34.880 –> 00:46:41.520
section was kind of the the culture and communications um pillar if you will

00:46:41.520 –> 00:46:49.160
and to me this feels like the area like a lot of the other things that cause strategies to fail are,

00:46:50.260 –> 00:46:54.900
like not shocking like I mean they come up quite commonly but like it feels

00:46:54.900 –> 00:46:59.420
like the ones that are most underestimated to me and misunderstood are the culture

00:46:59.420 –> 00:47:00.520
and communication ones.

00:47:00.700 –> 00:47:01.140
Yep.

00:47:02.335 –> 00:47:07.175
Yeah, and culture, you know, how you set up the team to be successful,

00:47:07.355 –> 00:47:09.715
there’s a couple things in there that are so important,

00:47:09.915 –> 00:47:14.255
you know, giving people psychological safety so that they can speak freely and

00:47:14.255 –> 00:47:18.215
tell you when things are going off the rails is super important.

00:47:19.195 –> 00:47:22.395
Incentives are super important. You know, when we talk about incentives a lot

00:47:22.395 –> 00:47:25.915
of the time, most companies, it’s about financial incentives,

00:47:26.095 –> 00:47:28.255
you know, it’s about bonuses and those kind of things.

00:47:29.015 –> 00:47:32.695
The reality is there’s a lot of research that a lot of financial incentives

00:47:32.695 –> 00:47:35.235
don’t actually change behavior over a long time.

00:47:35.315 –> 00:47:38.235
But there are other kind of incentives that are more cultural that do.

00:47:39.195 –> 00:47:42.795
Social incentives, you know, is one that I like to talk about,

00:47:42.915 –> 00:47:47.235
which is, you know, rewarding people, calling them out, making them feel good,

00:47:47.435 –> 00:47:51.515
making them feel prideful in front of their peers or peers calling each other

00:47:51.515 –> 00:47:52.995
out and celebrating each other.

00:47:53.215 –> 00:47:56.995
Those are social incentives that do drive behavior. And they’re much more day

00:47:56.995 –> 00:48:01.675
to day. they get people, you know, kind of excited, the dopamine hits that they need.

00:48:02.055 –> 00:48:05.935
And then another one I think is a huge deal is convenience incentives.

00:48:06.275 –> 00:48:10.135
You know, we humans will go to the most convenient thing all the time.

00:48:10.555 –> 00:48:13.175
So how do you make things easy for people?

00:48:13.735 –> 00:48:17.895
You know, somewhat as part of culture, maybe part of some other processes you

00:48:17.895 –> 00:48:20.255
might put in, they’ll gravitate to those things.

00:48:20.435 –> 00:48:25.035
They’ll gravitate to the things that are more easy to do. So those are all things

00:48:25.035 –> 00:48:30.715
that can really drive behavior and galvanize team and focus that maybe aren’t

00:48:30.715 –> 00:48:33.315
always the things that we’re super intentional about.

00:48:34.075 –> 00:48:37.195
Yeah. And it’s funny, again, like as I was reading that section,

00:48:37.535 –> 00:48:40.695
you know, I’m picturing all these retail moments and there’s,

00:48:40.875 –> 00:48:45.695
you know, a almost universal thing that happens every morning in every big box

00:48:45.695 –> 00:48:47.635
retailer that has ever existed.

00:48:47.635 –> 00:48:50.255
Like there are these like morning team meetings.

00:48:50.575 –> 00:48:57.355
And whenever I bring new, new associates to, to their first retail account,

00:48:57.375 –> 00:49:01.215
and we go to a Best Buy morning meeting or a Walmart morning meeting.

00:49:01.635 –> 00:49:05.655
Everybody is shocked and uncomfortable because if you haven’t experienced it,

00:49:05.795 –> 00:49:10.735
it feels a lot like the, the pep talk right before high school football game.

00:49:10.935 –> 00:49:15.995
And there’s, there’s like a lot of cheering and there’s a lot of like peer pressure

00:49:15.995 –> 00:49:20.075
and there’s a lot of like acknowledgements and affirmations.

00:49:20.395 –> 00:49:23.555
Like there are all these things that like, it would be easy to look at them

00:49:23.555 –> 00:49:28.695
cynically and say like, this is all sort of corny and, and forced behavior.

00:49:28.695 –> 00:49:33.955
But the reality is like what I’ve learned through a pretty long career,

00:49:33.955 –> 00:49:39.035
like the, that, that those meetings like set the tone.

00:49:39.435 –> 00:49:44.555
They, uh, they, they create a culture in which all of the members of that culture

00:49:44.555 –> 00:49:47.115
want that team to succeed.

00:49:47.335 –> 00:49:52.815
Right. And they, they’re creating the, the circumstances for all those folks

00:49:52.815 –> 00:49:57.795
to work super hard for the next 12 hours for not a lot of pay and,

00:49:58.015 –> 00:50:01.895
you know, do their best to serve customers and make that, that retail environment successful.

00:50:01.895 –> 00:50:07.475
And it’s, it’s literally like the, the beating heart of most retail in America

00:50:07.475 –> 00:50:13.515
are these kind of like non-financial cultural motivators that,

00:50:13.615 –> 00:50:16.515
that, you know, kick off our, our retail day every day.

00:50:16.915 –> 00:50:19.995
Yeah. And I mean, I mean, I love going to those sessions, you know,

00:50:20.175 –> 00:50:22.255
I did Nike one of the last row with stores.

00:50:22.395 –> 00:50:25.895
I go around and do those all the time and they’re super fun and they super motivating.

00:50:26.315 –> 00:50:30.035
You know, those aren’t things maybe that you end up doing in a corporate environment,

00:50:30.595 –> 00:50:34.815
But there are opportunities within corporate environment to get similar on that and I think,

00:50:35.903 –> 00:50:40.843
Those regular team meetings are a great opportunity to use, for example,

00:50:41.043 –> 00:50:43.703
celebrations to reinforce the strategy, too.

00:50:44.003 –> 00:50:47.723
You know, so there you’re kind of calling out when things went really well.

00:50:47.883 –> 00:50:51.203
You’re getting peers to cheer each other on. But, you know, every time you have

00:50:51.203 –> 00:50:54.203
a celebration, you put it in context of the strategy.

00:50:54.343 –> 00:50:57.883
This was awesome. We did this because it moved us forward in the strategy.

00:50:58.551 –> 00:51:02.651
It’s an opportunity to reinforce it all the time while getting people pumped up about it.

00:51:03.031 –> 00:51:07.931
Yeah. And I will agree with you that it’s way less common at corporate headquarters

00:51:07.931 –> 00:51:12.991
than it is in the field. But I will tell you, if you work at Walmart for any

00:51:12.991 –> 00:51:17.091
period of time, you’re going to stand in a room and do the Walmart cheer.

00:51:17.991 –> 00:51:24.691
And everyone’s going to like, you know, emphatically clap and do the swiggly.

00:51:24.711 –> 00:51:30.031
And it’s like, it’s pretty funny. like it it it and it you know first people

00:51:30.031 –> 00:51:35.451
feel uncomfortable right but like pretty soon that becomes kind of part of like

00:51:35.451 –> 00:51:39.971
it it becomes uncomfortable not to get into the spirit of it.

00:51:39.971 –> 00:51:43.831
Well i mean i love that and that seems like walmart’s doing okay.

00:51:43.831 –> 00:51:46.891
Yeah yeah this is what i really wish we had.

00:51:46.891 –> 00:51:47.931
A video podcast.

00:51:47.931 –> 00:51:53.931
Yeah hey i will we’ll do a video podcast i will happily We’ve got some Walmart

00:51:53.931 –> 00:51:56.871
guests coming up, so I’ll happily do the Walmart.

00:51:57.231 –> 00:51:58.071
Oh, you guys can squiggle together.

00:51:58.291 –> 00:52:02.251
There’s a Sam’s version of the cheer.

00:52:02.271 –> 00:52:05.311
Too. Do you also have a spark? What is it called? A spark?

00:52:05.331 –> 00:52:08.671
The spark is the Walmart logo, but yeah, that doesn’t work into the cheer.

00:52:09.411 –> 00:52:10.311
Oh, okay.

00:52:10.491 –> 00:52:12.291
I’m curious about the squiggle for sure.

00:52:12.951 –> 00:52:18.491
Well, and the super inside baseball thing is, of course, Walmart was originally

00:52:18.491 –> 00:52:21.091
spelled with a hyphen, and the squiggly is the hyphen.

00:52:22.171 –> 00:52:29.531
So so it’s after the l um but like in a subsequent rebranding the the corporate

00:52:29.531 –> 00:52:34.291
name is no longer hyphenated so but you still squiggle yeah but so you still

00:52:34.291 –> 00:52:38.051
do the squiggle in the cheer and then in the sam’s club version you do the apostrophe

00:52:38.051 –> 00:52:40.291
which is also a funny physical gesture.

00:52:43.091 –> 00:52:43.891
This is good.

00:52:43.891 –> 00:52:46.551
Yeah i think you’re gonna have to demonstrate this for us at some point.

00:52:47.766 –> 00:52:50.906
Yeah, that’s darn it. That’s going to be on the extended version of the podcast.

00:52:51.066 –> 00:52:56.646
You have to be a paid member in order to download the paid subscription just went through the roof.

00:52:56.826 –> 00:52:59.846
The extended version of the Jason and Scott show.

00:53:00.006 –> 00:53:02.186
People are paying for the squiggle and the apostrophe.

00:53:02.686 –> 00:53:09.066
Yeah. But, you know, obviously, we could take 30 hours to talk about the book,

00:53:09.146 –> 00:53:10.526
but we are coming up on time.

00:53:10.686 –> 00:53:19.366
And I do want to make sure we land the plane, like somewhat in the spirit that you land the book.

00:53:20.306 –> 00:53:23.966
You wrap things up by kind of talking about the future strategy.

00:53:25.206 –> 00:53:28.706
I don’t want to spoil the book, but how can we talk about this, Kevin?

00:53:30.046 –> 00:53:37.706
Well i think the key to me is that strategy should be part of execution you know i mean,

00:53:39.106 –> 00:53:43.606
it shouldn’t be sequential you shouldn’t have a strategy and then figure out

00:53:43.606 –> 00:53:47.746
how you’re going to go execute it the first step of execution should be actually

00:53:47.746 –> 00:53:52.746
writing the strategy and then as you’re doing as we talked about co-creation

00:53:52.746 –> 00:53:56.466
and building that strategy that’s actually how you’re starting setting the stages

00:53:56.466 –> 00:53:58.646
of how you’re going to execute it.

00:53:58.766 –> 00:54:01.966
Um, and you’re making sure that you have an executable strategy.

00:54:03.126 –> 00:54:06.786
That’s key to everything. I think that’s, that’s the mindset and that’s the

00:54:06.786 –> 00:54:11.426
process and structure that is critical, I think, to make it happen.

00:54:13.660 –> 00:54:18.160
Cool. Let’s wrap it up there. Kevin, if folks want the book, where can they go?

00:54:18.800 –> 00:54:21.900
The book will be available at bookstores near you.

00:54:22.080 –> 00:54:25.500
It’ll be available pretty widely, obviously, on Amazon and all those,

00:54:25.660 –> 00:54:27.780
but it will be out there everywhere.

00:54:27.860 –> 00:54:31.720
So I hope you’ll pick up a copy. I’d love to hear your thoughts if you do.

00:54:32.580 –> 00:54:34.720
And happy executing.

00:54:35.880 –> 00:54:36.760
Oh, nice.

00:54:36.760 –> 00:54:37.860
I see what you did there.

00:54:38.000 –> 00:54:41.560
Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Are you going to do like signings?

00:54:41.640 –> 00:54:43.940
Scott has embraced it too. I feel like I’m contagious.

00:54:44.500 –> 00:54:45.100
Yeah, yeah.

00:54:45.340 –> 00:54:48.760
What did you do the other day, Scott? Was it happy regenticking?

00:54:48.880 –> 00:54:49.440
Agentic converging.

00:54:49.520 –> 00:54:52.280
Yeah, agentic converging. Yes. Yes, amazing.

00:54:52.660 –> 00:54:53.640
I feel like I one-upped you.

00:54:54.200 –> 00:54:57.980
Well, as you have done for our entire history.

00:54:58.500 –> 00:54:58.720
Yeah.

00:54:59.100 –> 00:55:02.820
I’m okay with it. Kevin, I don’t want to derail us at the very last minute,

00:55:03.000 –> 00:55:07.980
but like, have you talked to the publisher about implementing instant checkout on ChatGPT?

00:55:08.440 –> 00:55:12.880
Oh, wow. Yeah, I have not, but maybe we’ll do that in the bonus material.

00:55:13.320 –> 00:55:15.380
Got you. If they need any help, I know a guy.

00:55:15.920 –> 00:55:16.260
Yeah.

00:55:18.280 –> 00:55:19.720
I don’t know, for sure.

00:55:20.180 –> 00:55:24.840
Yeah. And on that cliffhanger, I encourage all the listeners to go ask a question

00:55:24.840 –> 00:55:29.080
about the book to Chad Chibiti and then ask if you can buy the book directly there.

00:55:29.420 –> 00:55:30.040
There you go.

00:55:30.060 –> 00:55:33.200
And if you can, you should buy it. And if not, maybe you should, you know.

00:55:33.960 –> 00:55:34.560
Go the old way?

00:55:35.000 –> 00:55:39.980
Yeah. Yeah. Go get one of the dead trees. um

00:55:39.980 –> 00:55:44.360
but as always kevin it’s great to reconnect you know i’ve learned a lot from

00:55:44.360 –> 00:55:48.700
you over the years and i i’m i’m very appreciative that you’re you’re sharing

00:55:48.700 –> 00:55:53.440
some of that knowledge with the rest of listeners on the podcast and the the

00:55:53.440 –> 00:55:58.520
millions of people that will undoubtedly buy and and read the book as well so congratulations yeah.

00:55:58.520 –> 00:56:02.660
Thank you i hope that’s true but thank you guys always a pleasure to talk to

00:56:02.660 –> 00:56:05.760
you guys and i learned tons from you as well yeah.

00:56:05.760 –> 00:56:07.660
Congratulations Thanks for joining us.

00:56:07.900 –> 00:56:11.260
And until next time, happy commercing.