Peer-to-Peer Leadership, Collective Intelligence, and AI with Rod Collins

Welcome to the behavioral profit, the podcast

where behavior, leadership and performance intersect.

I'm your host, Debbie Longo, executive behavioral

coach. This show is for leaders, founders and

decision makers who understand that strategy

alone doesn't drive results. People do. Each

conversation here is designed to challenge. conventional

thinking, expose blind spots in leadership behavior,

and offer practical insight that translates into

growth. Today's conversation does exactly that.

My guest today, Rod Collins. Rod is an author

and a recognized thought leader on business transformation

and organizational design. He previously served

as chief operating executive of the Blue Course

Blue Shield Federal Employee Program, where he

led the organization through its strongest five

-year growth period in its 65 -year history.

He's the author of Nobody is Smarter Than Everybody,

a book that challenges traditional management

models and explores how peer -to -peer leadership,

collective intelligence, and self -managed system

outperform top -down structures. Rod brings real

-world execution. and big picture thinking to

the conversation, and I'm glad to have him here.

Welcome, Rod. Welcome to Behavioral Profit. Thank

you, Debbie. Good to be with you. Thank you.

Okay, so I have a few questions here. Rod, you

personally implemented a peer -to -peer management

structure that led to significant growth. Before

we get into the mechanics, what had to shift

behaviorally inside the organization for that

model to work instead of collapse? Okay, that's

a good question. Several things needed to change.

The first was how we met at the point that I

was asked to lead the operations. We have been

doing well, but I guess the way to describe it

is we were treading water and treading it successfully,

but the leadership was looking for better performance.

And I realized that we were kind of a unique

business in that we were actually an alliance

of 39 separate companies. And as I reflected

on the challenge ahead, I recognized we lead

this organization like it's a hierarchy. It's

really a network, but there's really no literature,

or at least I wasn't aware of literature at the

time, about how to lead a network. So we recognized

the first thing we needed to do was we needed

to change how we met. And in a typical top -down

organization, you meet in one of two contexts.

You either meet by level, in other words, all

the senior people will meet with each other,

or all the junior people will meet among themselves,

or you meet in departments. And oftentimes in

department meetings, they're really not two -way

sessions. They're opportunities for leaders to

provide directions or give clarity about specific

instructions. So we recognized we needed a different

type of session where we brought together people

from different levels, different departments,

and we soon came up with the picture of we need

to get a microcosm of the whole business in the

room at one time. And we recognized it would

take about 40 to 50 people to do that. And then

once we had them in the room, we needed to manage

the conversations differently. I'm sure that

many of our listeners will relate to the fact

that oftentimes in top -down organizations, there's

continual debating and oftentimes there isn't

sufficient or a significant resolution of the

differences. And in those discussions, we oftentimes

are more focused on what we're thinking rather

than what the other person is thinking. So we

realized we had to change those dynamics. And

so what we did is we put a discipline in place

where we call the clarifying questions. And so,

for example, when we opened up the meeting with

the 20 -minute discussion to outline the problem

we were working on, after that presentation was

over, people could only ask clarifying questions.

They couldn't express whether they agreed or

disagreed, whether they had a better idea, and

if they went in that direction, the leader as

a facilitator would remind them, this is the

time for clarifying questions only. You'll have

an opportunity later on to express your viewpoint.

And the whole idea behind this, it really was

an implementation of the Stephen Covey principle.

And his work was very popular at the time that

we were inventing this process. Seek first to

understand, then to be understood. And in order

to do that, clarifying questions help with that.

Another thing we did is we had simultaneous discussions

with 50 people in the room. We could have six.

tables of roughly eight people each, and have

them all working on the same problem. And then

when they would report out, again, in the context

of clarifying questions, we would get six different

points of view on how to approach the solution

to the problem. And then what we would do after

that is we would take the ideas from the different

tables. We would take these flip charts, throw

them on a wall, and then we would condense them

down to a mutually exclusive list. And in the

process of doing that, we changed the typical

form of discussion, because the typical form

is usually how my idea is better than yours.

And we go back and forth. In this particular

dynamic, people were asked to call out two ideas

that looked to be the same. And then we needed

to talk about the differences between them and

see whether or not they were the same or if they

were different. If they were the same, we would

keep one of the items and drop the other. If

they were different, we would clarify the language

and modify it so those differences would be apparent.

And so a list of maybe 50 items might go down

to a list of 20 items with that process. But

an important thing was happening. In order to

describe whether two ideas are the same or not,

you have to visit both ideas. And so the context

of the whole discussion was not How is my idea

better than yours? But how is this idea different

from that idea? And whether we agree with it

or not really didn't come into play. And then

after that, we would ask the people, we gave

everybody usually about four dots and said, vote

them on the 16 items any way you wanted or the

20 items, wherever it was. And we said, you can

vote them any way you want. If you feel very

passionate about one item, you can put all the

dots on that. And an amazing thing happened is

I'd say 90 to 95 percent of the time when we

did this voting process, they would be clearly

a top four items out of the 16 or 20. And we

look across the room and say, if we focus on

these four things, will it solve the problem?

And much to our surprise, especially in the beginning,

everybody said, yes, this will do it. These are

the drivers of success. And everyone in the room

was agreeing. And that was new for us because

we had just spent literally over two decades

coordinating meetings where we could never get

anybody to agree on anything. And here we were

reaching this agreement. And it continued over

and over and over again. And so we really saw

the power of changing the context of the discussion.

So that is one big change that happened. And

I wanted to go into some details so that our

listeners would have a sense of how this very

different way of meeting operated. And I'll just

say one thing on this. It's very important for

the leader not to express their point of view.

If they want to express their point of view,

go be a participant in the group and get some

neutral facilitator to modify the meetings. But

we had our staff moderate the meetings. We did

it for two reasons. Number one, the staff actually

understands the nuances of the business far better

than outside facilitators. And if they can put

their own opinions to the side and really focus

on managing the success of the group, they're

in a better position to point out different things

to the group and to get them to react to it.

And the other thing that's important is The leader

can never express their thoughts on the idea,

because if they do so, people in the group will

say, well, if that's what that person thinks,

that's probably what we're going to do. Let's

get on board. And that's quite a significant

change for a leader. And it's also hard. I can

remember, especially in the beginning, thinking

the people are going down the wrong path. And

I almost felt like a moral sense, like I need

to jump in. It's my responsibility. But I knew

if I did that. It would be all over the country,

probably in less than an hour, that Rod Collins

believes in collaboration and honoring your voice

as long as you agree with him. And I thought,

I can't jeopardize this process. So I bit my

tongue. And what oftentimes would happen is the

group would move on to a different place. And

I would discover this uncomfortable place that

appeared to make no sense was just a pathway

onto a better solution. And so I was satisfied

that along the way, I kept my mouth shut because

I would have stopped this really important learning

process. And so as time went on, whenever I would

have the sense the group is on the wrong track,

I would say to myself, oh, let's see what happens

because I have a feeling the group is going to

go to a different place that's going to make

sense. And I'm just dying to see what that is.

And I have to say I was never disappointed. Thank

you very much for that question. I appreciate

the answer. Sometimes, for me, one of the reasons

why I do this podcast is I do all different industries.

And I'll basically take anybody. And they all

tie into behavior, as you might have figured

out. But I want to know some people can relate

to that specific industry or this specific topic

that we're talking about. Because a lot of people

don't automatically go to behavior, their behavior,

whatever, and say, this is the problem. My behavior

or the way that I act or have a big ego. So I

like to make it where it focuses on what the

industry is about. and how the industry is tied

to the behavior part, which you're doing, it's

totally fine. The answer was great, but I'm just

reinforcing because I just want the listeners

to understand why we do this type of thing. So

when I work as a group, okay, what I got out

of this is when I work as a group, it's better

than when I work alone, you know? And I want

to be able to collaborate. And these are all

positive things that we could do that will help

us in our business organization, an executive

or whoever it is that's listening to this or

whoever's involved. So I want to think of all

these positive things that we're talking about

here. So these are some very good questions.

So as we go on, we're going to see. going to

get more in depth here. And that's another thing

too. I don't like to be too broad. And that's

one of the reasons why I have the questions is

that we don't cover everything, but I like to

focus on specific things because to me that might

get people to identify or relate a little bit

easier. That's just from my own experience. Next

question is, you often reference safety systems

like aviation to explain why fewer tragedies

occur today than decades ago. Walk us through

that analogy and explain what business leaders

are missing when they assume better tools or

technology alone create better outcomes. Okay.

One of the stories that I tell in the book, and

nobody's smiling, everybody, I actually asked

the question why is it that we don't have as

many airplane crashes today as we once did. I've

been around the block a few times and when I

was a younger man and the first was a traveling

employee. We were probably averaging anywhere

from two three four crashes a year in the United

States. And every time I got on a plane I was

very conscious well I hope I'm not on one of

the two or three that will happen this year and

all of a sudden in the nineteen eighties. That

stopped. And what happened was, I think it was

in December of 1978, there was a crash of a flight

in Seattle, Washington, where the pilots had

run out of fuel. And the NTSB team working on

it was just puzzled. How the hell can a flight

crew of three people run out of fuel? It just

baffled them until they listened to the cockpit

tapes. And then they realized the problem that

they had in the cockpit was the top -down command

and control model. Because as they're listening

to the cockpit tape, they realize the other two

pilots are aware of the gasoline issue, and they're

trying to diplomatically as possible get the

captain's attention, but they're not successful

in doing so. And the NTSB team members are wondering,

why doesn't one of these two people jump up and

just scream, Captain, we're running out of fuel,

we have to land this plane now? Well, they wouldn't

dare do that. because you don't violate the command

and control management model. And so they made

a recommendation, and that recommendation was

that they drop command and control in the cockpit,

and that they adapt a model that they named crew

resource management. And the idea over that is

we're going to take advantage of the resources

of the entire crew. The captain is still the

leader, but the captain is not a dictator. and

they trained and United Airlines was the first

airline to to implement this because they they

wanted to stop this issue and they had good reason

for wanting to do that since they were the subject

of this crash. Well other airlines picked up

on this and so people might be surprised that

one of the first industries to put this in place

was the airline industry inside their cockpits.

A couple years later there was a crash of a plane

that had something happened to it that had never

happened before. Its hydraulic system was ruptured

such that it cut off all their engines. And they

had never trained for this. Nobody ever envisioned

this would happen. And they somehow had to find

a way to get this plane on the ground. And working

together, they figured out how they could manipulate

this plane. They found a field in Iowa that they

could get to. They also, in the process of working

this, were told by a flight attendant, we have

a United captain as one of the passengers. And

they did something that would have never been

done before in the 60s and 70s. They said, bring

them in. The more people working on this, the

better. And so this team of four people were

able to crash land the flight. That was the only

way they could do this. And while one third of

the passengers did perish, Two -thirds survived

in a crash that, had it happened 10 years earlier,

everyone would have perished. And the entire

flight crew survived this. And when they asked

the captain, how were you able to do this, without

missing a beat, he said, oh, crew resource management.

If we had not been trained in that model, we

could have never done what we were able to do

here. And he clearly expressed his sadness that

that one third of the people did pass away, but

they were able to save two thirds of the people.

We're under the old model that probably would

not have happened. And so that's a very, and

I think one of the reasons the airline industry

adopted this success or failure is measured in

lives saved and lives lost. And that's more important

a lot of times than money. And so But they've

been doing it for almost 40 years using this

model. And it shows you you can work in any context,

either in large teams or small teams. Yes, that

was very good. Thank you. So I kind of see a

lot of times when they speak on TV or reference

something that's a milestone in a certain industry,

that the first thing they do is they reference

history. What happens like you said a decade

ago or a few years ago depending on their research

how did that work out what kind of progress did

they make and can we relate that. to this problem

or issue that we're having and can we use that

to help us solve this? And this is a very good

point. Also, if I am an executive or I'm running

a business, right? The situation is because I

don't want to think that I could fix the problem

myself. And I don't want to just go to, well,

I asked one person and one I have an issue. And

one person said this, don't do any further research

or anything and just go by my thinking or one

person or just anything minimal. And to me, that

never works out. And I've coached a lot of people

like this. This is not something new. The technology

to me is very important. I've done four, we're

going to talk about AI too, I've done already

four. podcast because whatever comes to me is

what's supposed to be on this podcast on the

show that's what i believe it is tired he did

for so i know that this is an interesting topic

now. But i think that it's something that we

need to start to be able to adapt with and harness

and figure out. how to work with all these AI

tools, because I think it came pretty fast. I

mean, it's been around for a long time, but it

just went bam. And in a lot of industries, some

industries not, but most of them, that's how

it worked. I know I deal with marketing people,

advertising people, and what they tell me is

just unbelievable. The amount of money they're

making because of the work is they turn six months

work into two weeks. I mean, it's just unbelievable.

So these are some things. So this is why these

things are very, very important because we're

focusing on how to create a positive outcome

and how to create something that's positive about

how we teach ourselves how to think. So next

question, let's talk about AI. You said there's

a better way to organize both professional companies

and AI algorithms. Where do organizations get

it wrong when they layer AI onto broken leadership

structures? AI is going to present an important

challenge to us, and it's going to do it in a

couple of dimensions. Let's talk about organizations

first, then let's talk about the larger society

after that. Most organizations today are set

up as top -down enterprises, especially the older

ones. The newer ones, I think, are more and more

becoming hybrid. They have some top -down elements

to them, but they also, by necessity, have network

elements to them. And they have to, because the

network management structure is counterintuitive

as it may seem. is a far superior structure.

And the reason is it's designed better for innovation.

In top -down command and control organizations,

the experts rule. Now, experts are important.

We talked about the airplane example before.

When the person goes in the cockpit, you want

to see three or four stripes on their shoulders.

You want to know that they are sufficiently trained.

And so I do want to highlight that I think experts

are critically important, but they're not the

only important people. I told you when I used

this in business, we got all kinds of microcosms

of the business in the room. The smartest intelligence

comes from combining the experts and the non

-experts. Experts know how things work now and

how they've worked in the past, but they don't

necessarily know how things will work in the

future. And if the way things will work in the

future is very different from the ways they are

in the past, they're likely to get in the way

of the development if it's going to, quote, quote,

threaten their jobs. And so, but if your company

isn't moving in an innovative direction, somebody

else's company will. And so it's not a question

of if, but rather when. And so let me give a

concrete example of a business that did not make

this transition, was highly expertise at what

it does and no longer exists today and should

exist. And that's Blockbuster. Blockbuster was

the largest company in home entertainment. When

they commanded the market with respect to dvds

and before that cassettes and they had an interesting

opportunity and again i write about this in the

book nobody is smarter than everybody. Two gentleman

sat down with them and said we got this company

and we're willing to sell it to you for fifty

million dollars which was the amount it was in

debt and we will create for you a streaming mechanism

for blockbuster it's the future of the entertainment

industry. On that day, Blockbuster was worth

$6 billion. The CEO had the singular authority

to make that decision, and he laughed at them

and said streaming will never affect our business

ever. We are the king of this business. We know

it well. We are the experts. The two people sitting

down with him were the co -founders of Netflix.

The biggest name in business today should be

Blockbuster. If that single person didn't have

the authority to make that decision, it's probably

somebody on that team. If they were free to speak

up and say, wait a minute, these guys are right,

it is the future. Today, the last I heard, Blockbuster

was approaching $400 billion. I mean, it's a

phenomenal number. And when they presented themselves

to Blockbuster a couple of decades ago, that

was a $6 billion enterprise. They passed up a

tremendous growth opportunity. The Netflix people

were quote, quote, non -experts. The blockbuster

people were the experts. You need to combine

the intelligence of both and the leader needs

to manage the transitions. If you can't manage

the transition of your business from one era

of your industry to the next era, then you will

only last as long as the current era. Now let's

talk about the. the world at large. AI is going

to present a fork in the road. There are two

fundamental forms of social organization. One

has been predominant, really going back to the

days of the Roman Empire, because they are the

ones who first invented the command and control

model. It's gone through ups and downs. And commercial

businesses, as we know them, with the beginning

of the industrial age, reached back to the Roman

Empire and adapted that model as heavily influenced

by the thinking of Frederick Taylor, who firmly

believed in the command and control model and

actually believed that most, he believed most

workers were dumb and needed to be managed by

a small group of highly intelligent people. And

I don't know if at the time he did this, that

was true or not. That's a different question,

but it's not true today. Today we, most corporations

hire highly intelligent people. The fork in the

road that AI is going to present is how are we

going to build this brand new technology? Will

it be a top -down hierarchy? And there are a

lot of people who are afraid of AI. Some saying

AI will eventually eliminate humanity because

they see it as in competition in a command and

control world. The Chinese Communist Party sees

it as a mechanism for which they can have a level

of control over people that they could only dream

of. But that's one model. There's a second model.

The second model is what if AI is built as a

peer -to -peer network? What if no one has singular

authority? What if it combines experts and non

-experts? And what if it's designed such that

no single person can make decisions for the entire

population? Wouldn't we have a better model?

And we have an example of that, and that's Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has never been hacked. Because it can't

be because the way it's structured as a network

No single individual can go in and hack it and

change the quote quote ledger because blockchain

doesn't have a single ledger everybody who participates

in blockchain has a ledger and if somebody tries

to manipulate the numbers the whole system will

recognize this one's out of whack and it throws

it out and so it becomes Essentially impossible

to commit fraud This decision will be important

Because as much as this technology is moving,

the most critical decision we have to make about

AI is which form of organization it follows.

Because it will determine how power works in

the future. Up to this point, most organizations

are designed for control. They are designed for

power over. We give people literally official

legal power over. There are people who can sit

down with another person and say, I have the

authority and I am firing you. They can do that

by themselves. In a network, you can't do that.

Because power is not a function of power over,

it's a function of power with. And this is a

thing we saw going back to my example of when

I used this in the context of Blue Cross Blue

Shield. We transform power from power over to

power with. And when we engaged in power with

the 39 organizations, they enthusiastically embraced

it. Okay, we no longer had discussions about

who's in charge of whom, because we didn't care.

It's who's working with whom. And I got called

many times from people who said, why wasn't I

invited to these two -day sessions you had? I

hear they're great. Now, fortunately, most of

the information we did transformed out of that.

But getting back to the AI issue, this is the

challenge we're going to face. I believe in the

long run, Power With will win, because Power

Over is incapable of innovation. Power Over may

win in the short term. But in the long term,

the network structure will work. And if it can

do so, it could literally transform humanity

as we know it. One other thought, which I'll

drop on our audience to think about, just what

is AI bringing to us? We see the technology moving

so fastly. But what most people don't recognize

is it's going to teach us to think very differently,

especially if it's built in the context of power

with. because they were two psychologists a few

years back, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky.

And Kahneman would win a Nobel Prize for the

work the two of them did, and Tversky would have

won it had he not prematurely passed away, because

Nobel Prizes can only be given to living people.

And Kahneman, when he received it, dedicated

the prize to his colleague Amos Tversky. But

they discovered that human beings have two thinking

capacities, which are very different from each

other. But the reason they got the prize is we

engage in one far more than the other. And it's

not necessarily our best form of thinking. They

call the two forms of thinking System 1 and System

2. And if anybody saw the movie Moneyball, Moneyball

is all about a person who used System 2 thinking

rather than System 1, because that's what Billy

Beane did and could take a poor budget. and produce

winning teams way beyond the capacity of their

budgets. And so what AI gives us the capacity

to do is to do system two thinking at system

one speeds. And what I mean by that is system

one is fast thinking. It's our ability to make

quick decisions with limited information. And

it works a lot of the time, but it also doesn't

work a lot of the time. And Blockbuster discovered

that. System two thinking is slow thinking. It

takes time. It takes research. It takes data.

Humans can't do system two thinking very fast,

but AI can. And this is the golden opportunity

we have. The capacity for humanity not to be

predominantly system one thinkers who make senseless

errors like the CEO of Blockbuster did, okay?

but who make better decisions and now don't have

to spend a lot of time doing it. Let me give

a very good example. If anybody watched 60 minutes

this past weekend, they saw a story about robots

and they were explaining the robots are not following

traditional command and control programs. They're

following learning model programs. They're set

up as networks and they make mistakes. When they

make mistakes, they're able to correct their

information. and eventually learn how to do something.

But when one robot learns how to do it, they

can transfer that knowledge immediately to every

other robot they're connected with. This gives

you a picture of what can happen in a human -machine

symbiosis if AI is built in a peer -to -peer

network model. As we learn things, we can transform

that knowledge very quickly. It is something

that I saw when we used what I described before

the collective intelligence workshop in Blue

Cross Blue Shield. When we did these first sessions

of 50 people, they made great leaps in intelligence.

And I was scared to death. Did you have to be

in the room to understand this leap? I was stunned

when these 50 people went back to their environments

and said, here's what we came up with. All of

the people in the larger numbers said, that's

great. That that's going to work. And this is

the beauty. of this, because what really happened

in that room, it was a system two thinking process,

not a system one. And because it was a system

two thinking process, it translated to people

who weren't even in the room. And so this is

the capacity that we have with AI to do system

two thinking at system one speeds. And if we

do that, then the vast majority of human beings

will no longer be irrational decision makers,

which is why Kenniman won the Nobel Prize. He

disproved the fundamental theorem of economics

that assumes humans are rational decision makers.

They proved over three decades of research we

are not. We're not rational decision makers at

all. We're highly, highly impacted by our emotions.

And most of our decisions are emotionally driven.

That clearly happened with the blockbuster CEO

when he passed off that great growth opportunity.

Yeah, that was good. Thank you. So it references

what we were just talking about a little bit

one person It's not a good idea for one person

or even two people to make a decision When you

have especially what you were talking about an

organization like the Bitcoin where there's no

Leaders there's there's there's no way to hack

it And when you can do that in a regular organization,

also it doesn't have to be tech or AI. So a lot

of organizations, they have a board and they

vote. So that's why this is the type of stuff.

And this is a very positive way of running a

business. So I feel that, and this is just my

own take on it, is that AI, I need to put information

into AI in order for it to work. But it's more

of a perfect scenario because it's not human.

So even though I put information in it or however

I do it, it comes out with a perfect scenario

or perfect example or solution. And when that

happens, that takes all of the human, the human

way of doing things, right? Whether it's one

person deciding, that takes all of that away.

And that helps, like you were describing, it

helps the organization move quicker and advance

a lot faster. But also, like you were saying,

to go slower is better, because why? Because

a human doesn't want to make quick decisions.

Because when a human does that, AI will do that,

but that's a completely different thing. But

when a human does that, then the result will

never be good. That's the way just our thinking

is. So we want to use, a lot of times, I'm not

a psychologist and I don't teach that, and I

don't have any. Degrees in that or anything but

a lot of times you want to use we could use like

basic psychology to think about how do i make

this business decision how do i come to a certain

conclusion or something i'm not sure about i

know only not want to make a decision on my own

but there are ways that we could use technology

like a for example and that will help me to make

my business go forward. Or advance quicker than

I would have so these are some different things

that to me are very good things very good topics

to talk about because this affects I believe

a lot of this happens all time. What's this do

this all the time okay they make a decision and

the company goes down. It happens a lot split

decision on my own and you're giving the reason

for blockbusters happens a lot. Like I said,

these are very good topics to talk about, and

we want to think about how we can improve our

business. So here's the behavioral implications

of the command and control model versus the peer

to peer network model. In the command and control

model, we are leveraging the intelligence of

the smartest individual in the group. That's

the theory. And we give them the authority to

silence other people and do what you're told.

In doing that, we give them freedom to amplify

What are their unconscious biases? And there's

no way for people to push back. That's what happened

in that United Airlines flight example. Those

two co -pilots had no way to push back against

the captain. In the peer -to -peer network model,

you are not limited to the intelligence of a

single brain. And whether we do in the context

of AI or whether we do in the context of these

two -day collective intelligence workshops I

described earlier, you take advantage of all

the brains in the room. And the biggest comment

I used to hear at the end of these two -day sessions

was, no one of us could have ever come up with

the solution that all of us came up with here.

And the second most biggest thought I heard is,

I cannot believe how much we accomplished in

two days. And I had a phrase at the time, and

this is before I became familiar with Kahneman

and Tversky's work. I said, you have to slow

down to move fast. We're gonna slow down for

two days. We're gonna bring people to a central

location. We're going to do some in -depth thinking,

and we're gonna think thoroughly. But at 4 p

.m. of the second day, we're going to have a

solution, and then we're gonna move. But because

we slowed down first when we got into fast motion,

it worked far more effectively. And so... What

the network helps you to do, and this is really

important in our fast -changing times, it helps

you to do what the top -down hierarchy can't,

and that's to discover what you don't know that

you don't know, because that's what kills companies.

I'll go back to Blockbuster again. He didn't

know what he didn't know. That's why he could

make those statements. When we would do the collective

intelligence workshops, a lot of times in that

discussion, things would pop up. that we were

unaware of, that all of us, that many of us realized,

my goodness, we would not have discovered this

till way down the pike. We know it before we

start to work, and we're going to save time and

money because we discovered this. And so if you're

going to move fast and move right, then you've

got to have the capacity in your organization

to uncover what you don't know that you don't

know. Those who can do that and do it faster

than others will succeed. Those who can't do

that will fail. Don't limit the intelligence

of your organization to this quote, quote, smartest

person in the room. The greatest intelligence

that exists in every corporation is its most

untapped intelligence. And that is the collective

intelligence of its own people. With most organizations

lack of the processes to tap into that. But we're

getting to see what those processes look like.

as we build especially as we're building benevolent

applications yeah thank you that was very good

and those are some very good points that you

made that reinforce. So the last question is

for leaders listening who are intrigued but hesitant,

what is one behavioral change they could test

immediately that moves them toward collective

intelligence without risking chaos? OK, I'm going

to really challenge our listeners because what

they need to do is easy and hard at the same

time. And that is stop trying to expand your

control and focus on expanding everyone that

you are managing. their understanding. The purpose

of an organization is not to expand control,

it's to expand understanding. So when you do

that, what your whole leadership mantra is about

is, I want as many people to understand as much

as they possibly can about what we're doing.

And if you have the courage to do that, a couple

things are going to happen. One, you're going

to come across things you didn't know you didn't

know. Because as you expand the understanding,

that stuff starts coming. Now you have a tremendous

competitive advantage. And as you expand the

understanding, you will recognize, I don't need

to control people when they understand stuff.

And when they understand stuff, the results are

terrific. Now, every time I went in front of

our board, and they loved the work we were doing,

I led every discussion with, this didn't come

from from us. This came from your people. But

despite saying that, I still got the personal

credit, because I was the leader in there. And

so I was getting the core rewards that people

who are grappling for control get by giving it

up. Because I was focused on expanding the understanding

of as many people in these 39 organizations as

I possibly could, it led to better results. And

quite frankly, it led to very Very restful, sleepful

nights. Yes, thank you. I like that answer. Again,

this reinforces a lot of what we were saying.

We need to have these conversations in order

for. people a lot of times to see and realize

what they're doing correctly and what they're

doing incorrectly and how they can improve in

their organization, in their corporation, whatever

it is, whether they're an executive or a business

owner. Because like you said, what you don't

know is what you don't know. So hindsight is

2020. But here's the thing. Sometimes I could

think beyond that and I could train myself to

do that and that's actually one of the things

that I do because I'm a coach so that's one of

the ways that I coach also that's one of the

things that I teach is because That would be

like the ultimate thing and I've taught a lot

of people to do this This is not something that's

like unheard of you know that I'm guessing at

I know this can be done, but if I don't follow

a new way of thinking and I continually want

to make decisions on my own, then I will not

see past the hindsight. And that is not good

for my business. These are very, very good things

that we're talking about here. So is there anything

that you would like to say in closing? I guess

I'll just emphasize the point I left before in

terms of leadership, focus more on expanding

the understanding of the people doing the work

than on exercising your control over those people.

And if you can take the attitude of seeking first

to understand and then to be understood, I think

you'll be able to respond to the fast market

changes we're seeing. Yes, thank you. That was

very good. Rod, thank you for joining me on Behavioral

Profit. and for sharing your experience and your

perspective. To our listeners, if this episode

resonated with you or raised questions about

how your organization is structured, that's the

work that we do here. You could find more about

my coaching and leadership work at lifeinblumeny

.net. Until next time, stay aware of your behavior

because behavior drives profit. Thank you for

being on the show. Thank you.