When Faith Informs Leadership

Speaker 1 00:00:07 Welcome to, I see what you mean a podcast about how people get on the same page and stay there or don't, or perhaps shouldn't today. My guest is Dale Dickey. Dale is a federal consulting industry colleague with a background in electrical engineering technology deal has served large and small organizations for more than 20 years in both executive operations and business development roles. Dale, welcome to the show. Speaker 2 00:00:31 Thank you, Lou. I it's really a good to see you again. I so appreciate the time I get to spend, as you think for the opportunity to, uh, be with you today. Um, yeah, my careers, we talked about being an executive BD and the executive management. I started that in 1999. My first executive role was 1999. Before that, uh, my beginning, my career was working on avionics. I did that for nine years. How are you going to test the first four years work working at McDonald's aircraft, but after McDonald's I went to small business for like 10 years and that's where I really cut my teeth on the whole idea of you gotta market it. You gotta win it. And you gotta, we've gotta manage that cycle of P a P and L activities where I learned, I learned all that in small business, but it has helped me tremendously because as I got into executive roles, all those foundational things came, came alive for me. Speaker 2 00:01:21 And there is true in large businesses. There are in small business, it was outstanding. So, uh, I've, I've been at companies like CCI Eunice's, uh, and CSC, and, uh, just really had a great time moving back and forth from executive management positions and executive marketing positions. And, uh, today I'm in an executive marketing position, which, uh, I I'm having a wonderful time where we're company, uh, driving, if you will, their business development activities. And I will share a lot of things today. Uh, a lot of what I share with my own personal beliefs are not gonna necessarily represent our work today. Right. Um, but I do want to make sure I'm sharing the core of what actually makes me me and how I view working in the market and actually serving others. That's my real, Speaker 1 00:02:05 Thank you. And that's, that's a fair point. One of the things you and I talked about, so, so, you know, the show, I see what you mean is about the aha moment that flash of insight we might have when I said, all right, I see what you mean. And that's something that has something to do. That's part of getting on the same page. So I like to talk about what it means to be on the same page. How do we get there? Why we don't even perhaps when we shouldn't and in our prep call, you made an excellent point, which I agree with very much, which was, I don't think we're meant to be on the same page all the time. You said we are where we are. We've got different levels of education experience, et cetera, right? Those are, those are sort of all the, our backgrounds and you, you made the point that we might be meant to relate to each other, or the challenge might be more devout to relate to each other from those differences then maybe to get on the same page. Tell me more about that. Elaborate on that, because I thought that was a great point. Speaker 2 00:03:03 Um, appreciate that. Can you talk about that a little bit? You know, we live in a, in a world, that's got such diversity of thought background, character desire, and it's a beautiful set of complexities. There really is just stop to think for a minute, how, how beautiful the complexities are and you see it in nature. You see it in people. And I believe if you're, if you're thinking that you need to be on the same page all the time, you're not looking at it in the right way. I, I believe very firmly that we are meant to relate in this life. I also believe very firmly that, uh, we're meant to work at these relationships are not meant to be easy because if they were just easy, then we would never really learn anything about ourselves or about everybody else for that matter. So being on the same page as important on for, for doing certain things, clearly I'm a big believer in setting and managing expectations constantly because it's so hard to work with people when the expectations are not there to work from at the same time, you need to work to get to those set of expectations, because even the slightest difference can cause disruption, right? Speaker 2 00:04:19 When those expectations are not being met or they're not set very well. So being on the same page can be very useful for getting things done. And, but once they get them though, it's okay to not be on the same page and to find that new opportunity to get on the same page with somebody else. Speaker 1 00:04:37 Okay. I know you and I, I'm going to take a stab at this, I think is a true statement. You said you mentioned beautiful complexities. Complexities are beautiful. That richness, that variety. I think you see, I think you see beauty in that. I think you see God's creation in that. I think you see some wonderful things in that. I think you see opportunity in it. Oh, Speaker 2 00:04:58 Definitely. Speaker 1 00:05:00 Do you know, do I know that I believe that. Do you and I, and I agree. Do you know people, however, do you work with people? Have you had folks on teams who may be were frightened? That's a strong word, um, troubled by the complexity I'm stressed by the complexity. Would you know what I'm saying? Speaker 2 00:05:19 So I would, I would call it fear. Okay. Fear people, people have fear of a number of different things. Fear, um, is the exact opposite of faith. You know, when, when you fear, you do, you're able to fund your ability to function is somewhat distorted because now you're afraid of exposing yourself. You're afraid of engaging because you're afraid that someone's gonna take advantage of you, or they're going to say something about you. Uh, that would not be something you would like to be said about you. And so fear, I think when you walk into a room is something that's very real because there's the unknown people. People don't know, you don't have to share where you're coming from, why you're there, what your agenda might be so and so forth. Uh, and so I think fear can actually be very disruptive walking into a room and walking into the engagement office. Speaker 2 00:06:15 People just don't know. And I've, I've felt for a long time now that this comes from the fact that people felt this incessant need to always be right and always be relevant. And as soon as, as soon as they're being right, and this is quoting the Bible, I'm not asking myself as soon as being right and relevant as gallons your defense mechanisms go up. Because now it's, as, as someone who's trying to say, well, you're wrong and you're not relevant anymore. And that can be very hurtful and it can be disassociating and it can be isolating. Speaker 2 00:06:51 So working with that thought process entering into an engagement, I'm kind of characterize it like this, where you're entering into an engagement with somebody and entering that opportunity to engage with humility, grace, humility, and grace. When you do that, you can enter into a relationship and sustain that relationship because you're giving people room to given them room. Right? Right. You don't feel like you have to be right and relevant. You're entering in that with humility and grace to understand, you don't know where they're coming, you don't necessarily understand their aspirations or their, or drives these calls. So you have an ability to, to give people room, to begin the engagement, to actually abate a fear that might be with them. Okay. Now the second piece of this though, is you want to get something done, right? And so, so now from moving from an engagement activity to a leadership activity, what does that look like? Speaker 2 00:07:48 Well, I believe that also has to do it's humility, but then it's not so much crisis this passion. It's an interesting difference in that the common denominator there is humility and that you don't think you're the most important person in the room. Okay. But what you can do in that regard is you now give people the opportunity to build and grow. Okay. Because now you're working together to figure out what that next thing might be that you want to do. Okay. And you show and show a passion towards getting it done. Okay. So while humility and grace give me the opportunity to engage and to provide somebody room so that their fear is not there. Once you get that relationship in place, you can now engage further in and start to lead the activity whereby you're looking to with humility in that conversation. But with passion, drive an outcome, having outcome, but you're not doing it with somebody that your relationship has now been built on something around trust is saying, you need to go off and do this, or, or I, I know what you're thinking and you're wrong. You got to go to that. It just just allows for that real human complexity. That's there. It's just there, because like I said, the norms and standards or whatever background they come through is a very driving factor in what they're thinking. Are you sure the dog is a part of the conversation. Speaker 1 00:09:13 Doug has been silent since seven this morning. I'm not exaggerating. And now Speaker 2 00:09:19 The dog wanted to hear more about what I was saying. I'm pretty sure that was a DRI. Speaker 1 00:09:23 That was actually quite profound. All right. So I was taking some notes here. I know that you would be open to complexity. I know that you would be open to Speaker 2 00:09:34 Diversity diversity. Absolutely. And by the way, it's the fact that the complexity exists. That is beautiful. I mean, it really is an indication of this God's creation in life. Be around found just this beautiful creation. It is very complex. It's very complex. It is what happens though, is we'll take those complexities and turn them on the rock and train them in the wrong way around. We'll actually look at them with disfavor or we won't appreciate them or we'll dislike them or, or we'll think that they're again wrong like that. We just, we just don't treat them and just appreciate the fact that complexity is there. We actually want to try to fix it. Okay. Speaker 1 00:10:14 Let me run, let me run this by. You said we have incessant need to be right in relevant. Okay. Diversity challenges that it does. If I'm on your team and I represent something about a project, maybe you have the client point of view or, or finance or whatever. It doesn't matter. And I need to bring something, bringing something to you. I want to have a voice. I want to have some impact, even if I'm not in it for myself. And I could be for, uh, uh, attention and ultimate promotion. Even if that's not the case, I believe I ha I'm onto something that's important for the team to know for the team to account for. Right. And so I want to be sure that, that I get that on the table. I get that in the mix of things, I could see you being open, welcoming in the conversation with the team, the diversity, the complexity, and working it through with the team. I could see you leading the conversation through, with the team to find, to capitalize on the richness that is in the team's thinking in the team's experience. And I think that that would make someone feel, I think you would make sure that somebody could have their voice get a point across if they needed to, they wouldn't get lost. They would not get lost. And I think what could happen is I might actually find more to connect my thoughts to Speaker 2 00:11:39 Because you, the freedom, because your fear is not there. So if your fear is abated, you're not afraid to bring an idea for it. Or you're not, you're not, in other words, you're not afraid to come to the room and say something that, that it's not going to be accepted. They're going to think I'm stupid. Right. Or that I'm just different. Right. Uh, so having that, that, that humility and grace says, I know that that's going to happen in the room. Right. Um, whereas I can capture that and look for the areas where there's common. There's an ability that have common understanding, right? From which you can drive ideas. You can drive initiatives with a pat with an outcome and put some passion into it because you have people that are, that are looking to get that same outcome that you will, but it was built upon the fact that you had a diversity of ideas in the room. Right. Speaker 1 00:12:31 Right. Speaker 2 00:12:32 And you could, and so, and so at that point, you're kind of you're on that same page. I think what happens though is now you want to stay on the same page, but you really aren't helping yourself by trying to stay on that same page because you're now losing the opportunity to move to the next page. Speaker 1 00:12:51 Maybe back up half a step, don't lose that thought. You said not afraid to bring something to the table. I would add to that. Cause I agree. I would add to it, not afraid to hear other things at the table. Speaker 2 00:13:04 Right, right. Speaker 2 00:13:06 Yeah. I think here, the listing part is so important. They really is. Um, and I, I, I am of the I'm of the strong faith that this humility and grace is very inspiring. Well leaders, by the way, this gets back to leadership leaders, only leaders. If they have followers, people will want to follow them. Nobody's going to follow somebody who has their own self interest. You've got to move from a mode of selfishness to selflessness. It may sound contrarian or contrary to what you think. But when you move from selfish, just to selflessness, people, get the idea that you're in it for them as well. And you're building up the idea that they matter because they do, they do matter. Yes they do. And so, and so competence grows, uh, the self-esteem grows. People can contribute at a level that they feel that they want to contribute that being forced or, or having fear and they can control the conversation and then you can actually get something done. Speaker 1 00:14:04 Do you know the name? Yes. Do you know the name David Marquette? Speaker 2 00:14:08 I do not. Speaker 1 00:14:10 These he's pioneered a consulting practice around the notion of intent based leadership. He was a nuclear submarine captain and he tells a, uh, a very funny story about having prepared for a year, Dale to take command of a ship. And at the last minute the ship changed. So he's on a ship he doesn't know, and he's barking out orders that don't make any sense on that ship. And he has to sit down with this leadership team at one point and say, we have an inspection coming up and I don't know this ship. And I can't learn it in two weeks. I just spent 12 months learning about a different one that I'm not on whatever you're going to do. And they talked it through and they concluded that he should shut up. And I, in a, in a, in a, in a TEDx kind of talk, he tells a very funny story about, but that's not what leaders do. Speaker 1 00:15:03 And the audience laughs and he goes on. Then he said, I thought about it. And I realized they were right. I didn't know the ship. I couldn't contribute much to the inspection. I had to let them lead it. And he hit on an idea, Dale. He said he was going to stop issuing commands and start asking questions apart from the order to fire, which he retained as the captains prerogative, he said he was going to get guys to tell him what they thought should be done and why in any situation, what they should be, what should be done and why. And he said, what it led to was, uh, the realization he had, that you could retain control and create followers, which he wasn't in a position to do at a time. Or you could share authority and create leaders, which is what he ended up doing. And not only did everybody step up with ideas about what should be done and why with him, but they did with each other. So he actually created a team environment, unlike anything. I think he'd probably seen in, in his other commands, a more traditional kind of command. Anyway, I thought of that when we were talking about the diversity of thinking and I knew that you would write, right. I knew that would resonate. Speaker 2 00:16:22 Yeah. It makes all sense in the world. Yeah. Yeah. You want people who know what they're doing and, and people who are willing to come in and say, when they don't know what they're doing, right. That they really do want some help getting something. You want, people like that in your, in your, in your room. You know, you talked about in hint intent based leadership. So at Battelle where I'm at today, it's an amazing culture. It's a science and research organization, a very large, not-for-profit the culture there has been brought into this same kind of thinking where you enter a conversation with positive intent, you know, just remain curious, right. You know, just remain curious. And it really is. It's very impacting because your organization is, is coming together around that thought process that having positive intent, understanding, you know, how big your team is understanding the shadow that you're casting, you know, just all these re re these realities that exist in an organization or helping people see, you know, how they are actually being seen and seeing others. Speaker 2 00:17:29 Right. Right. And it's very, very helpful. I, this first place I've worked, we've had that kind of culture, building culture, advocating kind of activity. And that's why we require a lot of the same thing, because you're gonna walk into your room and through humility and grace, you're going to realize that somebody else needs to lead that activity. Not you fit for it. And so want people to build a passion around what that person's joined, because that's what we need to be doing. Not what you'd want to be doing. And that's okay. Right. Because in effect, you're leading by advocating an idea, you may not be leading the actual outcome that you're leading by leading others to accept the fact that there's some way we there's something we should be doing that we're not doing today. Or do we get tick from the different process? You know? Uh, I would say too, that from a relational perspective, um, when you start to have that kind of dynamic, okay. Leaders will evolve naturally. You don't have to train them. Right. Cause it's, it's in flight training. Right. They're constantly seeing how it's done. Yeah. So you're building them naturally and not to send them off to some school, somewhere, Harvard business school, whatever, they can actually learn it, your organization because you're seeing in real time. Right. Speaker 1 00:18:42 Right. So, so what you're describing is a way of getting folks on the same page where the vets, the intent or not, you're going to get people on the same page by the kind of approach you take using humility and grace, engaging people in their subject matter expertise, recognizing that's the word I want recognizing they're the richness and the diversity that's in, within a team, let's say, and they represent greater diversity from other parts of the organization. So, so you're getting people on the same page, maybe in a, my, I have a theory about same page, which is, we all are only on and can only be on our own pages. That's just our human point of reference to any situation in a, in a, in a, in a marriage, in the neighborhood. And it work, we are, are on our own page. If there's the same page to get on, we have to create it. And we don't create it by band-aiding and leaving ours behind. We have to connect lives to it. I think what you're describing is a powerful way to create a same page and make that allow people to make connections between their own and the same page. Go ahead. Speaker 2 00:19:51 I would actually be a little bit differently. Sure. I see. You're just saying, I would say the page already exists. We have to find it. That's what I mean by the complexities. I think in my faith, the way God created us was, was it was meant for us to relate. And that page exists. It's not like it doesn't, Speaker 1 00:20:15 It's more of a discovery process. Speaker 2 00:20:17 It's a discovery for us where we're going to find out something new. We didn't know that that, that, that page existed because the book exists. The page existed. We just have an opportunity to find that page together and actually get something done. Speaker 1 00:20:33 So less creation and more discovery, Speaker 2 00:20:36 Lots of discovery all the time. And I think discovery actually happens when you're least expecting it because we're vulnerable. We're we're I think we, we, when we come into a situation where we're, we're allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, we w we actually allow ourselves greater degrees of confidence to, to discover. Yeah. Right. And that's, that's why relationships are so darn important because you know, in a tight relationship, you can be really vulnerable somebody. Yeah. Now those are, and you're not going to have, you're not going to deep relationships with everybody, which is fine. You've got a family of faith. You have, you have your friends, you have work relationships. All those things are a little bit different and you respect that they exist. And every one of them can get on a page and do something phenomenal. Every one of them can. Speaker 1 00:21:32 I think with that, vulnerability comes an openness, which is, which is where the discoveries, which is why discoveries are possible, because people are open to, uh, I hadn't thought about that right there. There's that, that mindset, but this is a big, but you have to make that safe to be done that way. Now let's talk about this in a couple of different ways already in the last, oh, go ahead. Speaker 2 00:21:55 Uh, it's a spot on, cause, cause I, um, I know that there's, there's a lot of bad in this world. There just is people will abuse con will abuse the fact that there's complexities, they'll manipulate them. They'll abuse them. They'll try to take advantage of them. So it's not like you walk into someplace with just this idea that it's all going to be on public storage. That's very dangerous, right? Because, because you, so you have to have some got to have a degree of morality and ethics, you know, that that has to be there. And that framework has to be there and understand, understand this is where it gets really kind of interesting in my view is everybody has come from a little bit of a different spin on what those moralities and ethics look like. You know, even the legalities, because you know that what, you know, all the time I do laws can be written and people will tell you what laws were made to be broken even there, because I'll just tell you right off the bat. Speaker 2 00:22:58 I think there's a lot of brokenness in this world. There's just, there's a ton of brokenness in this world. And, uh, and it's it's, uh, and I will tell you that my faith, my faith in Jesus Christ really does help me deal with the fact that it's broken and that I can do something about it by loving others. I can do that. I can, I can make it not about me. I can make it about Jesus and I can make it about sharing that love with others. And that allows me to be vulnerable, allows me to really be confident in entering a room, um, being humble, showing grace, not having to be that guy, you know, I can do, I can be part of the, I can lead the conversation. I can be the action officer, you know what I'm saying? And it's okay. But, but that whole thing about getting on a page begins with, with some fundamental thinking that, that, um, well, for instance, are we going to build cars or are we going to build baby Bubby buggy bumpers? Right. Right. You have to have a framework you're going to work with and you can't just walk in ad hoc. Right. And I think that's why you start to formulate relationships around people with common interests, common understanding, common, common objectives, if you will, because now you have a foundation to work from yet to start with something. Speaker 1 00:24:25 Well, I liked what you said, and I appreciate you bringing your personal views to discussing them here with me, because I want to, you've touched on this. I want to translate that into how that happens at work, because I know that you are authentic that way. What you're telling me is how you would be in a, in a work environment. So back to the idea of creating safety, because some people would take advantage of, of a situation for their own game. If you were intending to run a process with others, and you wanted to approach it from the standpoint of grace and humility, you were willing to accept the vulnerability, openness, tap into the diversity and the complexity. You have to set some ground rules so that others don't take advantage of that either in the room or outside the room, when their meeting's over, people can go play individual unilateral games and try to gain the system. Speaker 1 00:25:21 When people see you say, I I'm going to, I'm going to posit that. If people see, you say, look, folks, here's how we should do this. Here's how I want this to go from a standpoint of that, the, that the culture of the process of how we work together and people see you over the course of just a couple of three meetings, put your money where your mouth is, that creates safety. And then I, uh, that, that would, I think, create the safety people would need to engage in the way you're describing. I think you probably think it's the most productive from a business standpoint and maybe the most fulfilling from a human standpoint, Speaker 2 00:25:57 Very fulfilling a couple of things about what you said. So I think it starts with that. The establishing again, I understanding a few well for a, um, expectation odd to me because I worked some fantastic people, right? And the there's instances in which we have for the new people as well, they've got great experience, but they're failing to know what they're doing. So there's obviously an opportunity for them to learn. And here's a couple of dynamics about that start with start with, so I think we can achieve something around these areas. So get that, get that common understanding or that common commitment to actually achieving something. So now you're going to go, and once you have that common objective or that economy outcome in mind, you can start working towards it, right? But you work towards it with a common understanding around it. It may not be exactly the same, but it's, it's a same enough that you can actually get everybody engaged into it by. Speaker 2 00:26:55 And what I would say is, as is, as people, people will be contentious about it, which is fine. People may go, um, want to go off the, off the grid with it, which is actually understandable too. Here's what I have to remember. There may be something deeper for that individual. There may be something more involved with that person than I'm aware of and rather get upset about it. Love that person, you know, just understand that they're in a place right now, something is something's bothering them. It could be personal. It could be work-related, it could be something else that they're causing them to do what they're doing. Right. And it's more important for me to understand and to help that person then to achieve an outcome that may sound odd, but that's exactly what builds relationships is. It's more about that other person than it is about me. It's not, it's not about me achieving something it's about, I see that, that individual's having some issues. Maybe I'm having the issues, whatever the case might be that make making the person important. And the outcome will occur. If you don't make the person important that outcome's not going to be near as rich, Speaker 1 00:28:19 Translate that for me into some specifics, how would you love that person, but not at the expense of the, the, the, the others, the, of the team effort? Speaker 2 00:28:30 Well, so you don't have, first of all, you don't, you don't handle them the room, you know, you don't handle the room. You really want to spend time understanding where that person's coming from. It's a separate conversation. It really is to too, because they may not feel comfortable expressing their real feelings in the room. And I have to respect that and I have to spend the time to find out why is it that they're acting the way that they are the reason they're having such an issue with it? The reason that they're not saying anything, it could be that the very quiet, they're not saying anything and just Hamlet separately and just build an understanding with them, uh, at a level where they are or where I am. Okay. Uh, cause, cause, cause it's not, if I were to dismiss them, I'm actually missing the opportunity to include their diversity in the conversation. Speaker 1 00:29:20 Right. Do you, do you, I I've done this for a long time. Uh, became from the first job I had at a college, um, I've taken, I made it a habit to describe what I've observed. So if I carefully described behavior, I see. As opposed to a, rather than saying something that sounds evaluative or judgemental about the behavior. I see, oh Speaker 2 00:29:41 Yeah. I stay away from judgemental. Speaker 1 00:29:43 I find, I find it opens up someone who might even be behaving belligerently or, or undermining it. Right. So if I say, Hey, you're behaving belligerently or you're being disruptive. Or if I use those kinds of words, they have an emotional reaction that they have to manage to have the conversation with me. And I find it gets unproductive. If I say, Hey, you, um, you're quiet. I noticed you're quiet in the meetings. And I understand that you have more to say outside the meetings. That's just an example. If I could, if I could observe and describe behavior, I see. I find it's easier for people to own up to, to say, all right, let me tell you what's going on. What has been your experience? Speaker 2 00:30:28 So what I've found is very effective there in the end, it really is just wanting to love. Somebody just really is wanting to understand and to show them that you do have it's a, we want to make it about something that's going to help them as well. Not just yourself. I think when you say that you're being disruptive, that's immediately that, that signal that you're wrong and you're wrong relevant. Right? Go back to that again. Right? You're immediately putting something on us saying, you know what, what you did, what you're saying, the way you're acting is not right and it's not relevant and boom right away, the defensive mechanism goes up and they just, they just sink deeper. I think the better way to handle it is clearly I am saying something or doing something that is not resonating with you. How can I put this in a way which will help, help build, if you will, an understanding around what we're trying to accomplish so that you can contribute effectively, or maybe I need to take a different tact on this. Speaker 2 00:31:30 It's your experience where maybe you have experienced, I don't have around this and I'd love to learn from you now you've put it into a positive context, which you want and that's that grace piece. Cause that said that grace piece says, I am confident. I'm confident that I'm approaching this with a real sense of loving that individual and I'm doing it with grace and now we can get back to some level of understanding. It's never going to be perfect by the way, right? Forget. I mean, it's just not, we're humans that looking for perfection or you're looking for opportunity to really love and to move things forward. And, and then you can have a way to get that person's passing or I'll tell you something. I've, I've found some people in the world who everybody else was set with an introvert, but once you find their passion, they're on it, they're gone. Speaker 2 00:32:16 And they go, they go in a heartbeat because now you've found a passion with them. And now you don't have to do anything more than to just let them follow that passion, but you've done it by first of all, exercising grace. Right? So I would say that this whole area of contention that you get into around around feelings of much of a case might be, I think that is what really teaches us to love because once we recognize that we have to get to a different place than where we are and put that person first and allow that relationship to move to a different level. Um, and, and I there's, it's just so satisfying when that happens. Speaker 1 00:32:55 Okay. See you putting that person first in a one-on-one conversation between you meaning have the conversation with them about themselves first and not the project or not the task or not whatever that you're engaged in with them. So you're not taking it. You're not, you're not starting from the standpoint of, Hey, I need you to be representing the point of view of the client, or I need you to be focused on the budget in the, in the, in the, in the finances. You're not it's, it's not that, it's what you said a moment ago. I'm putting something with, it's not resonating with you or you're thinking something different than I'm thinking that I might be able to learn from what's what, what is it I can see? Is that what you mean by putting them for? Speaker 2 00:33:35 Absolutely. And probably the first does not necessarily say it doesn't necessarily say that they're always going to be right. Okay. Because, but it does allow you to have a conversation. Right. Um, and because, because I am not, I'm not, I'm not going to be in a position to, um, to always know where their head is. Right. I'm not a psychiatrist, you know? Uh, and I don't know what their, I don't know, always what's driving somebody, people are very, very complex. You know, that, that, and it'd be really, I'd be, it'd be a lot of hubris on my part to think that I really figured none other, no, no. Now I'm limited. I am, uh, I am as I'm as broken and faulted as everybody else. Um, I'm not, I'm, I'm just, I don't have some magical thing, but I have is, like I said, Jesus Christ on my heart. Speaker 2 00:34:32 And I have this confidence that as he loved me or loves me, I can love others. And it allows me to enter these conversations such a way that I'm okay with being, being, um, being vulnerable. I'm okay. With, with, with this seminar that I've, I've got broken this too. So let let's let's have a conversation that will, um, well educate me because I want to be as well. I learned a lot from people I just do. I learned so much about myself just by listening to other people. It's just amazing. And by the way, you still get something done because the outcome doesn't go away. You know, the thing that you want to get done does not go away. Right. Okay. So that's not going away. It's how you're getting there though. You're not dismissing people. You're not trying to be the king of the hill, not to find the <inaudible>. Speaker 2 00:35:26 And now that page, that page matters. Okay. That page really, really matters because now it's not about the page anymore. It's about the relationships, it's doing something together that really does get something done. And that, I think that when you get to it, you know, just one way of putting that, you know, when we leave this world, uh, what we leave is, uh, is the kinds of relationships that we've done for people, if you will. And the kinds of things that we built, all that stuff was really does matter much more than, than some report that we wrote, which matters if you will, in the near term, but as far as, as far as lasting. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:36:06 When, what is the point though, when there's is, they've got to exercise some vulnerability back with you. If they're going to, if you're being open off with them and saying, tell me what's going on, how, what can I do? What can we do? What, and they won't, they could harm the effort that the team is working on a project, a task. I can see you trying. And I would think often successfully doing what you've described, but if it doesn't work, what's the point at which you say, I can't keep trying, I've got to make a divot ticket and make a different decision. Speaker 2 00:36:41 Yeah. So that's why, that's why framework is so important. You know, it's that framework. I have a framework and faith that are really to rely on a lot around that. Um, cause every situation is different and I don't always know what's going on. Uh, uh, God has different ways of educating me as well. Right. Um, but you know, will give you an idea. So, so working at Battelle, just like I said, they had this culture framework that they're building and they're building around some very solid principles around positive intent, stay curious, um, know your accountability, understand where your, how accountable you are in the organization. Yeah. All these things just really good, really good foundational things, what to be thinking. And I think when you get to the point that somebody doesn't want to be a part of that anymore, you have to have, you have to help them understand maybe that tells not the right place for you anymore. Speaker 2 00:37:38 I mean, if you don't want to be accountable, right. If you don't want to have positive intent, um, if you don't want to, um, um, learn, learn to understand how to deal with other people who are in your shadow, if you will, and how to help affect them more positive than yeah. Um, if you don't want to do that stuff, got it, got it. Doesn't make you a bad person. Just, just may not be the place for you. Right. And so you'd have to understand from that structure, you're now setting an expectation. I have an expectation if you don't want to, if you don't want to do that, we get it. We get it, forget it. And I think that's the way you have to do that. You have to set some sort of framework around relating to people relating with each other. I think Patel's done that effectively with their kind of cultural expectation if you will. Speaker 2 00:38:27 Yeah. Yeah. And it's been very effective in that, you know, the organization has just made tremendous leaps and bounds, uh, just for the last four years. And it's all been built upon this cultural kind of thinking, you know, that it really does take an organization to do over, trying to do, which is, you know, it's, it's, um, uh, it's, it's taking science to society as the way I like to think of it. The thing is really cool, really cool things. And we're moving them to useful things. Right. That's cool. You know, we're, we're, we're not, uh, we're not a software company. We're not a platform company necessarily where you're, I've heard the, or the science engineering and the build it and make it work kind of right. So you have to have a lot of moving parts to get that done. Right. So it's a lot of people that want to work together, Speaker 1 00:39:15 But also, yeah, definitely. Oh, absolutely. But also those principles of the culture, those are principles by which you gather people who want to aspire to them and then you can do great things. And if someone doesn't want to aspire to them, like you said, doesn't make them a bad person. They might just not be a fit for us right now. Speaker 2 00:39:36 I don't be a good fit for us or them by the way. Speaker 1 00:39:40 Right. Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. That, that makes, that makes a lot of sense to me. Okay. Speaker 2 00:39:45 You got to stay away from making it personal, I think. Cause we just start making the person and you're going to that back to that. Right. And relevant thing one more time. Speaker 1 00:39:52 Well, it's, it's personal in the sense that if you don't want to aspire to these principles, that's about you and it's personal in that sense, but that's okay. You're not making a moral judgment about it. No, you're just Speaker 2 00:40:03 Saying that's okay. Speaker 1 00:40:06 But I can't have you, I can't have you on the team operating a contradiction to what the team's aspiring to, if you're heading in a different direction Speaker 2 00:40:15 And what's, and let's back to kind of that humility and grace Vermilion passion kind of thing. They're very, they're very fundamental things. There, there is no one way to do it, right. The, you know, uh, for instance, getting back to the positive intent thing, there's no way, one way to generate positive intent. You can make that a very, very personal thing where your strengths, your education, your, your background, um, you know, your thinking is that's going to come to the party and actually create positive intent among most people who have a diverse set of opinions around things, right? Speaker 1 00:40:50 Point you would welcome diversity within diversity of ways in which to live that principle. Yeah. That's a great idea. That's a great idea. I think it makes, I think it gives people, it makes people feel, it gives them the sense that they, if they care to, they can find a way to belong there. All you have to do is try, you can, you can bring yourself to it. So if you are a certain Myers-Briggs type or a certain disk type, it doesn't matter. If you just care to, you can find a way to connect to those principles and live them the way you do and at least working for you, that would be welcome. Speaker 2 00:41:33 Yeah. And so when you're working in an environment, which is a heavy RMD, you want diversity in that room, you really want a lot of critical thinking going on around what makes sense. Right. And, and what what's, what's really going to, what's really going to help move this thing to that next level from a prejudice of a one to two, to three to four, uh, which has different variations of how you're gonna apply it, how you're going to test it, hang on, operationalize it, right. Deploy. I mean, all those things are just, are just heavy with a bunch of requirements around them and you may get to one, one stage and what you did back in Speaker 1 00:42:13 The second stage two may not actually be very helpful at all. And you got to go back to the drawing board again. Right. Right. So, yeah, it's a, it's very, it's very interesting environment, but I, I, I, I do believe to a large extent that that, unless you're willing to be vulnerable and willing to willing to be wrong, by the way, and willing to not always be relevant, you gotta be willing to do that, to engage in an environment where a whole lot of ideas, um, a whole lot of, um, uh, initiatives and innovations are there and you just, you just gotta be willing to say, you know what? That is a better way to do it. And that's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you hire good people, smart people, and you hope committed people, right? That's, that's a cultural fit thing and you just have to fight. You find that out over time. Speaker 2 00:43:05 You want, Speaker 1 00:43:06 You want those people to bring all of themselves to their jobs, to the, to this work, to the work, to the team. That's what makes no. So, okay. This kind of flips around a little bit. That's what makes something so rich. That's what Speaker 2 00:43:21 It makes it richer. And even, even though it's not going to always be perfect, it's, it's better than it was. Right. And it's advancing. Speaker 1 00:43:32 Yeah. You've said, was that you, you beauty or did I write that down? There's a beautiful complexity. So in complexity theory is, you know, one of the things that the complexity theory tells us would happen is in the interaction of parts of a system, let's say a team. If you've invited that diversity and complexity to be part of the discussion part of the functioning of the team, it has an emergent property. That's the phrase from complexity theory, things emerged that would not have otherwise maybe been revealed or come to the fore. It doesn't, it's not planned. Is this something you put on an agenda? You don't say let's be innovative. And then you brainstorm some things just emerge from the interaction. And I know I've, I've been involved in these conversations and I know you have, you could leave a really amazing conversation and not know not you could reconstruct it in your mind and not be able to tease out who had, what idea who had, who, who led, what, who comes together in a very organic way. But that's the beauty of that situation. When it's safe, the diversity is welcome. You're sort of embrace the complexity. Let's not be afraid of this, that complexity exists. If we put our heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't we just get, it's going to operate on us, it's going to affect us. Let's embrace it. Some very creative things emerged from that. And a lot of energy too, I think a lot of good energy. Speaker 2 00:45:07 Yeah. And, uh, and again, those complexities exists and the, in a, in a broken world where there's a lot of brokenness. Yeah. So, and then, so just wrap your head around the fact that there's brokenness and there's complexities, and you can take a look at it and said, oh, that's hopeless. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, taking hope into that situation is just, gosh, it's this ultimate. It's just because you're walking in with the, not with Speaker 1 00:45:37 Opportunity, Speaker 2 00:45:40 You know, to actually help somebody move away from being so bogged down with their complexities and broken is that they're free. They're free if you will. Um, from just being bogged down by that, that doesn't make them go away. Right. It doesn't make them go away. You're just doing something with them, Speaker 1 00:45:59 With them. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:46:00 Construct them within that. And, and, uh, and, and so it's not about winning an argument, Speaker 1 00:46:06 Right. It's just Speaker 2 00:46:07 Not Speaker 1 00:46:08 Right. No, it's Speaker 2 00:46:10 Having the arguments. Fine. You can have the argument. Yes. But he'd have an argument for the purpose of just winning it. Have you learned anything? Probably not Speaker 1 00:46:20 Going to end up where you started with what you thought Speaker 2 00:46:23 Well, and you're just going to argue, you could cheat. Don't want to argue some more because now, now you're, you're pumped up with the fact that you want an argument. Therefore, now you're just going to be, you know, pompous. Speaker 1 00:46:34 Well, one of the things I like that that's true. It feeds on itself. One of the things I liked that it does, one of the things I like to do is think is as one is asked where ask guests where, um, from their training, what models, methods, theories from the training is have informed what we've talked about. I find it fascinating. And I want to, I want to highlight this. I find it fascinating that so much of your work life comes from your faith. So much of what you do at work, how you see things, how you operate in the work environment comes from your faith. So while you had models and methods and theories from your electrical engineering technology training, uh, and, and, and, and professional development over the years, you know, what's in Harvard business review, you know, management theories, you know, organizational theories. I find it really fascinating how much you have used your faith to inform work. Speaker 2 00:47:32 It's not just work. Speaker 1 00:47:33 Yes. I'm sure it's not. We're talking about, I'm sure it's not Speaker 2 00:47:36 Really, it really just consumes my life. And I just, um, I just, uh, I can't tell you how much confidence and joy I have from that. Cause things blow up. Things go bad. Um, they just do, and having the ability to rely on the fact that I'm loved, uh, and that I've got the grace and Christ with me is just, that's just, I can't tell you how it's just a, it's just amazing. It's, it's freeing. If you will. I was back to that. Uh, you know, I can do these things because of what Christ has given me. I can't do them because of myself. And that's probably the biggest thing that I would take everybody take away from that is if it's not just the fact that I have faith, it's who I have faith in. When you say that, Speaker 1 00:48:22 Sorry, when you said freeing, I was literally thinking the words, it seems to put you at ease Speaker 2 00:48:30 Very much. So. Yeah. Peace, peace, peace of God that surpasses all understanding. It really is. It did. It's very it's and it just, it just it's there. Um, I don't have to, I don't have to fight for it. I don't have to prove it. It's just there. Uh, and it allows for, again, for me to love in situations where prior in my prior time without Jesus, I, I don't think I could have love. I would've just been trying to fight my way through it. Be the, be the guy that made it right. You know? And it's, uh, it, it does just sit there and I would, I would also share out of that, that there's a, there's a harmony that comes from frailty. All right. And what I mean by that is that, that once you realize, once I realized that I am I'm broken, I got some stuff that's just wrong with me. Speaker 2 00:49:28 And I'm highly complex. I, I was okay with the fact that I had frailties. I was just okay with it because they're just there. I can't make them go away, but I can certainly have the peace of God with me to help deal with them and to love others when I know that they have the same thing, phenomenal things. So when you're talking about getting on the same page, kind of back to the original thought process here, it's the page already exists. It's just, it's just there because of all the complexities and vertigo is just there. And once you, once you find somebody that you can actually deal with in life, or have an opportunity to work with in life, it, it does start to start to free them as well. It frees them from that same, same fact just because they understand it's okay to be frail. It's just, okay. You know, that's admit, doesn't mean I'm going to come to go out, declaring it. And I'm not going to feel sorry for myself for it. Just understand that it's there because I could actually enter in a conversation. I've had this happen before where I went into conversation and I had something I wanted to prove. Right, right, right. And so I went in with this rather contentious mindset and the person says, what are you talking about? Speaker 2 00:50:44 So I don't have an issue with that at all. So, so Speaker 1 00:50:47 Far. Exactly, Speaker 2 00:50:49 Exactly, exactly. Exactly. And I'm like, I really don't know why. Speaker 2 00:50:59 It's a good question as you go back and think about that a little bit more. Right. And I will tell you though, the engineering comprehension here, I'll tell you the degrees I have, which is the engineering technology degree and the master's in engineering, technology management. Both of them are foundational in that, in that, uh, engineering much like science and math is such a great way to look at the complexities, right? Not necessarily the human soul, because it has its own complexities, but it's just like the squirrel, right? All the science, all the technology and all the, all the things that we've done are all from the original creation and this beautiful mind that we have to build this stuff. And guess what? It's about people working together, you know, people working together trying to, you know, building stuff from this creation. Beautiful. Yeah. It really is very beautiful. Speaker 1 00:51:46 Yeah. Dale, this has been amazing. Thank you. Speaker 2 00:51:49 No, thank you. Uh, thank you. I, uh, I really enjoy talking about this kind of stuff where a lot of people see problems. I see potential think that the opportunities to actually work with people, especially contentious people are re are hard. They're fire defining moments. I mean, there are far refining moments where we have a chance to actually refine who and what we are as an individual, by working with people that can be contentious because we learn about ourselves. Uh, we have way more potential to love than we know. We just don't necessarily, you know, expose ourselves to loving somebody because we don't want to be vulnerable. It's really kind of interesting. However, our best building moments happen when we become vulnerable. And we deal with that contention by virtue of loving them and it refines us and teaches us that there's so much more to life than just trying to be right. Or trying to, trying to prove yourself right. To somebody else. It's just so much more. Speaker 1 00:52:52 That was, um, we're going to close with that. That was very profound and very beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 2 00:52:59 My friend, Speaker 1 00:53:00 I'll be trying to take care Speaker 2 00:53:01 Of my pranks. Have a good weekend. You too. Speaker 1 00:53:04 And that's how we see it. My friends, I want to thank Dell for recording today's episode. You can find it at, I see what you mean dot <inaudible> dot com. Plus all the usual places, send questions and suggestions through the app. Subscribe and give me a five star rating. If you can't let me know why and join me next week, we'll be taking another look at how to get on the same page and stay there unless we shouldn't.