Welcome, everyone, to our discussion about making difficult discussions. As we have pivots during this next year, it’s important to kind of have courage behind the decisions that we’re making. Benoy is someone that we’ve worked with for a very long time.

We were just connecting, last time I heard him speak was probably seven years ago in the portfolio, working with a company that had a very successful exit. So, I’m excited to get the conversation going with Benoy. He’s got some frameworks to help us walk through difficult decision making. And just a little backdrop for Benoy, he’s a founder and CEO of Blue River Direct. Which is a performance CEO coaching firm. I know that everybody on this call is an aspiring CEO or CEO founder like Lauren.

Lauren’s been successful and we’ll go around and introduce ourselves with our little bios. But previous to his consulting firm, Benoy served as a CEO of e- file cabinet, shopping nanny, and SAFA. And then is looking forward to having a discussion around this position of clarity, rather than unconscious incompetence, fear, and then no decision. So, I’m super intrigued with the conversation that we’re going to have. This is going to be conversational. So, we can be candid.

And then after the recording, because there were three CEOs that reached out and said that they would love to attend, but for board meetings and different reasons. We’re going to be sending them a clip of the video, but we will edit the video if we just want to have a candid conversation. So, with that, let’s jump into the conversation. Benoy, thank you for leading this discussion.

Thank you for the invitation. It’s good to see you all. And I hope this is just going to be a fun discussion, not a sterile presentation. That would just kill me if that happened. And I’m glad that it’s a small intimate group. I hope you guys all feel comfortable popping in and asking questions anytime interject. I’m going to right now, make sure I can get my screen to show up first and make sure that it’s presenting properly. And let me make sure the slide is correctly presented. Can you see this one? The master? Good. All right. Thank you.

It’s good to see you all. Ben in the car, Lauren Ashwin. And I currently have on my screen is Chris. Good. My goal today is to have a good discussion about this. And in the goal towards making a big difference in your organizations, it is important to do it sooner than later. But difficult decisions arise every day, every hour, whatever. And I just wanted to have at least a candid conversations about some of the things I’ve learned over time. I do spend a lot of time with CEOs.

And I had a morning session from 8 to 9. 15 this morning, in which this particular CEO said, I just had a meeting. I just had a meeting with this vice president. And I just asked, just out of curiosity, what the thinking was in prioritizing some of the projects. And the first response that came back was, why are you in my face? It’s not like I’m loafing around. And the CEO said, I was just asking out of curiosity, how you are balancing all the priorities. And yet the very first response back from this VP was, why are you in my face?

and I’m sure that doesn’t happen to you in any of your business dealings, but we’re going to go through some definitions of what’s difficult, and I’d really like to get your input on this. So with that said, and let me just advance this slide. So generally, the smaller the entities are, and especially if you started at the founder level, clearly the risks and the priorities ratchet up because you used to be the sole decision maker. You’re the one that had the 10 armed octopus going on. No longer, the organization is bigger.

Number two, there are now many more individuals, entities, organizations that are now dependent upon how the company executes. And so now there’s more dependencies along those lines that are going to eat into the mind space.

And number three, you don’t get to execute.

You’ve got a team executing.

And so that ratchets up again, the risk factors.

With that said, this is actually where I want to get your involvement. I just had these three categories of all the different types of difficult decisions that could come up, strategic operations, even back down to personal, from man, I spend too much time at work to where does this belly come from, right? All the topics that kind of are in your mind space, including strategic and operations. But if you don’t mind, I’d love to learn and hear from you. What’s a difficult decision?

What could be a difficult decision so that in the construct of our discussion, we’re able to weed that in? Listening in, anybody, what’s a difficult decision?

The decisions around, do you have the right people on the box in the right seats are always challenging.

Right people in the right seats, yes. I’m writing it down.

Benoy, for me, there’s three things that make a decision difficult. One is not enough information to finalize decision. Number two is a distrust in the information that I do have to make that decision. And number three, and probably the biggest one for me, is I’m being forced to make the decision based on someone else’s timeline. And that pushes me into a corner where I tend not to make the best decision under those circumstances.

Oh, that one resonates hard.

Chris, you’re on. I get it.

Oh, and Ben, thanks for that input too. Lauren, any topics?

Yeah, I think the thing that I’m probably in the middle of right now is just sort of building team version 2. 0, leadership team version 2. 0, and making those decisions and still doing a lot of the functional work as we’re sort of changing the team over and knowing which decisions, like you can’t make all the big decisions at the same time. So which are the most important, have the highest leverage now versus what can wait a bit.

Beautiful topic. Congrats that you’re growing fast enough to have this uncomfortable decision. Good on you, right?

Got it, prioritizing.

Ashwin, any topics from you?

Yeah, no, a bunch of these were covered. I would say the other one, which I feel is like, how, where do I spend my time versus let somebody else lead? That’s also, you know, because sometimes you’re just like, okay, I will do the best job here on a very strategic situation or a deal, but then I have to let it go. That’s a tough decision too in prioritizing. I call it the art of letting go. In fact, it hit me when my kids hit teenage years. It’s the art of letting go at that point, especially with those twits.

But yes, very, very pertinent, very, very pertinent. Thank you, super. On two occasions, I had the unfortunate experience of having to downsize my businesses and man, that was gut- wrenching. And sleepless nights. And I’ll have you know, not that I’m a callous bastard in any way, I’ve now got to the stage where difficult decisions I can actually sleep through. I’ve now got to the

It’s the positive stress, excitement that keeps me up at night nowadays, right? Bing, oh, oh, it’s three o’clock. No, no, no, I gotta go back. It’s gonna be a long day, that kind of a thing. So I can assure you, it can work. JD, good to see you. Glad you joined.

I’ve been looking forward to this, Benoy, and apologize for being just a couple minutes late. I’m over in our London office right now and was wrapping up a team meeting, but I look at this just to answer your question. I wanted to try to catch up to where you were in your discussion. I have an answer that I’ll give you, but I’ll tell you, one of your bullets caught my eye. How do I hold the CRO accountable effectively? That hits home. How do I hold myself accountable effectively? Because I’m not a CEO, but I still really wanted to attend this.

When it comes to difficult decisions, what I’m navigating right now is, one of our, we believe, our key success factors, maybe even critical success factors, is how we execute on partnerships. And I’ve made some decisions fairly recently, organizationally, that have freed me up a little bit more to personally lean into that. But I’m now navigating, do I have the right steward over business development and that strategy, or do I need to change? Do I need to go get a different set of experience or talent in that role?

And so I personally am trying to lean into it and make a relatively short timeline decision because time is of the essence. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but.

It does. I absolutely get it. And I just did a quick glance, every one of the topics that you contributed. And we know this, as leaders, we know this. 99% of the topics that you came up with have people and humans involved. It almost always is about how to interact with some other character, individual, whether you’re assigning them and delegating them, Ashwin, or right people in the right seats, or being forced to make decisions under a certain timeframe. That’s from another individual or entity. How do I let go?

When do I do the work and what do I not? And do I have the right people in the right places for even in the business development and partnerships area? It’s people. Okay, so if I may, I’m going to forward the slide. I have to share with you, this is just my construct. It’s just an academic way of looking at what is effectiveness? How can I be effective? Whether it be a parent, a husband, a spouse, a partner, or a CEO or a VP of sales, CRO. Effectiveness for me is effort times talent times training.

And any of those three or combinations, if you have an increase, you’re clearly going to have effectiveness. I would pose to you that there is a denominator that is scarily undermining our efforts because we’re all humans. We’re mere mortals with our own issues. I’ve labeled it unconscious incompetence, and it’s not my term. It’s a well- known terminology that in this theoretical construct, if that number is anywhere above one, you know it nukes everything that you do on top.

No matter how much effort, how much training you got, as you become specialized, as you become a CEO, as you become whatever, if that unconscious incompetence denominator pops over one, you’ve nuked it. And now, let me share with you an instance. I know a particular individual. He happens to be a very good friend of mine, and he has a fabulous Tony Stark home, if I can reference a Marvel movie area, in Costa Rica. And luckily, being my friend, I get to spend time at his place so we can go surfing.

There’s an instance where I have, and multiple times I have seen this man, his name is Justin, where he showed me where his UI, unconscious incompetence denominator, was less than one. So as you know, anytime you have something that divides that is less than one, what does it do to the effectiveness formula?

it just makes it that much better, right? Let me give you an instance. When he was building his casa, he had Nicaraguans who were working on $ 2. 5, $ 2. 5 per hour. The local Ticos, Costa Ricans, were being paid $ 5 an hour. So what he did was the Nicaraguans he had actually raised up to $ 5 and he paid them to build a temporary home on his home site so that they could be there for a prolonged period of time. He also immediately put into that area Wi- Fi and a connection to the internet so that they could have full high- speed access.

He put a washer and dryer, one of those double stacks, so that they could use it while they were building his home. Can you see how he was able to master and get more effectiveness as the general in this particular case taking care of that home because his UI in this indicator, his UI factor, was actually less than one. I share that with you without having to look at any of this element so that you can grab this instance because this is about leading people. The UI, unconscious incompetence, can also be really summarized as fear.

And this is all important because we’re going to go back into difficult decisions, but this is an important groundwork I believe that we do not address appropriately. Two levels of unconscious incompetence, fear of failure, fear of loss. It’s an automatic programming. I can tell you about how as a child we didn’t have enough of the frontal lobe because the brain wasn’t ready. So everything’s about accepting things as true, and yet the unconscious brain is always looking to be protecting you. It’s allowing the heart to pump.

It’s making sure the white blood cells go out. That very same programming then automatically assumes when things are coming your way, you’ve got to prove it. You’ve got to protect yourself. So the fear, fear one, fear of failure, I’m not good enough, means I got to work like crazy. I got to prove it. I’m going to make sure that everything I do proves that I am good enough to be the leader of this venture and that the investors can give me money. In many cases, there are examples that I can cite to you, but it’s all about I’m not good enough.

Fear of loss, that my future may not be safe enough, usually manifests where I got to make sure that this investment works, and I’m going to control everything. Not unlike what Ashwin said was, you know, I can make the best decisions, but I got to release that. I got to delegate it, right? But it’s unconscious programming. All of this happens instantaneously, speed of thought, where I call it the butt brain. You say something, right? I’ll say, Lauren, you’re a handsome man. And you’re going to say, what does he know?

Does he have something wrong with his eyes? But what about, right? The butt brain kicks in, Lauren, smile. The butt brain kicks in so fast. I call it BB. Everywhere I go, I’ll talk to a CEO and go, I smell butt brain. And he goes, ah, all right, right? Anytime I say something, you will immediately have a butt sequence in your mind. That’s fear. That’s your unconscious incompetence coming into play, which makes the difficult decisions that much more difficult.

You can’t be effective if you’re unaware that most of the time you’re unconsciously incompetent, fear brain triggered, and executing, making decisions unaware. That is an important message I want to get out to you. Please, please, please hold that in a high level of, oh, okay, I got to lock that down. Because it undermines everything. I’m going to stop there for just a second. Questions?

Not so much a question, Benoît, but something on the previous slide that I noticed. And I don’t want to say I take exception to it, but if words matter, talent could be swapped for skills because talent seems to denote a natural ability rather than a learned ability. And I always struggle with that word because I think running a business is exercising muscle and building a skill.

I’ve vacillated between both those words back and forth, and I have no qualms about it. I do know that there are certain skills, certain gifts and talents. For example, please don’t make me a CFO. I suck at math, right? So that’s not gonna show up on that line because I wouldn’t want to lead and be effective by trying to augment and have additional training on a skill or a talent or a gift that I don’t naturally have. You can always improve it. So yes, yes, yes, yes. Gotcha, thank you. Okay, makes sense. You guys tracking?

All right, I’m gonna share because I’d like to have discussions on this. So in general, because it happens so fast, speed of thought is so fast, the butt brain kicks in, most of the time, you know you’re in incompetent mode mostly because of irritation, frustration. It’s an emotion- based environment. Please keep that in awareness in your day- to- day environment. When do you know that you could possibly be in fear brain mode? It’s when you feel some strong emotion. That’s when you know, ah, I may be unconsciously incompetent.

That’s the first sign I generally give. Now, there’s another way. It’s usually step two, it’s already too late. It’s when you immediately say something and you kind of know that wasn’t the best use of words, whatever, it comes out, right? If you can catch it at the emotion base, super. You’ll also catch it when it comes out. When you say, usually it’s words, say and then do something that can have a little bit more heat than normal.

And so that’s why on the right- hand side, I said, I’m making a very significant jump in assuming that you can immediately catch it and correct it. But I just wanted to give you a few bullet points of, well, yeah, check your emotions to see whether or not you have enough clarity of mind and question to see whether or not that’s reality versus a story of reality. For example, this morning’s example, where the VP said to the CEO, when the CEO said, I’m curious, would you help me understand how you make decisions and prioritize?

And the VP said, well, what do you think? I’m just sitting around on my butt, of course I work. The CEO wanted to say, that’s not what I asked with a little bit of heat. I didn’t ask that, right? And upon inquisition to the CEO, I said, so what did you immediately feel when this VP said, what do you think? I just sit on my butt all day? He said, that triggers me more than anything else. That’s not what I asked for. He’s immediately jumping to conclusions. And I said, aren’t you doing the same? Aren’t you doing the same?

He just said, well, what happened? I said, what’s the reality? The reality is the VP said, am I sitting on my butt all the time? Don’t you think I do prioritize? That’s what happened. But you attached meaning to it immediately and said, the guy is up in my business and he is now attacking me back. I’m not going to let that happen. So you got to figure out what’s reality versus a story because you immediately get caught up in it. Can have someone who can hold you accountable.

There are many other topics on the last bullet about a firm reprogram, exercise, sleep. We’ll get to there if we have time, okay? But I want to get to some more of the meaty discussions. Now, this is a sales framework that I’ve used forever that JD, Ashwin, you guys are familiar with the band. I always try to figure out what’s going on, how important is it? And back to what Chris said about having to be forced to make a decision in a timeframe that’s not under my control, right? Because that’s a timing topic here on the far right.

Let me express one thing, Chris, that is important. In fear of loss, the future may not be safe. It’s like some investors, some board members said, hey, you know, do this, this, this, this. And you’re going, you’re not running my business. Yeah. Yeah, he gave us money.

Ah.

Okay, I’ll consider it. These are the ways you may be manifesting internally. What happens on the far right- hand side, fear of loss, is you don’t have control. You feel like you’ve got to control everything. And so part of the issue of making difficult decisions when you have to make it based on somebody else’s time frame is, I’m out of control. They took the control out of me, and that causes the difficulty factor to ratchet up.

I don’t like it.

By the way, I’m a big fear of loss guy, personally. So I understand that completely. Ugh. Right? It’s frustrating.

Ugh.

And if you think about it, yeah, we can talk about gathering the right data and making the right all of this, but you can’t even get there because you’re already steamed. You’re ratcheting up the emotion. And part of my— a big part of my thesis is difficult decisions have a very strong emotion component, not just the procedural how to make a decision or the systemic what’s the environment like and what’s going on is the construct of change. It’s the emotion part that makes things difficult, because like we talked about, most everything is about people.

All right.

Now, I want to stay here for a long time with your permission, and I’m looking at the clock. I want to blast through a few slides. After this, I’m going to blast through the slides. Have you not seen that in most cases as leaders, the manifestation of your ability to lead almost always is with communication, verbal mostly, and written?

On the left- hand side, when you are clear, strong, competent, you’re able to understand the individuals you’re working with, where they’re coming from, communicate with clarity, and even send the message, tweak to where the recipient’s emotional state is, versus when you’re not, when you’re in fear- based mode, when you’re incompetent, you’re not always connecting, you’re very, very strong, and because of our position of authority, anything we say has an amplified effect, and ultimately, you are coming with your own incompetent mode because you’re in fear mode.

Does this ring true, gents? Commentary on this slide.

No, I’ve had many conversations. We’ve got 40% of the portfolio here, so I can represent the other 60%. Around making the necessary changes, we’re focusing on outcomes, we are identifying the issues that will keep us from reaching the goals at the end of the year, and then there’s those difficult conversations or communication paths that we need to take, and we need to plan to make the necessary pivots.

But it’s not necessarily, it’s kind of a multi- factor problem that we’re trying to solve, and it could be with a product where we have leadership and product that isn’t delivering on time or the relevant features, could be in marketing where I know that that’s a common discussion that we’re having.

And so, there’s this challenge of, if you’re a C- level and you have a peer, it’s a little bit different if it’s a CEO, but if you’re a C- level and you have a peer and you are actually not going to make your goal because of the deficiencies in other areas of the business, that’s a challenge that we’re seeing a lot, and it’s a hard conversation. Love to get your thoughts as it relates to strong communication and poor communication under that context.

Super. I’m going to ask this auspicious group for your own input. How would you answer what Justin just said? What are your thoughts on that? You be the coach. How would you coach a leader to have those difficult discussions, multi- factor issues going on?

I can certainly identify with what Justin has outlined, and I can think of a few different scenarios in my business today where the individuals, both of the types of fear I’m seeing manifest and I’m seeing how it’s impacting their decisioning and their sort of reactiveness and the solutions that they’re trying to bring to bear on the imbalance that they feel, that I think we all kind of have a sense at times for our unconscious incompetence.

I’m not sure, yeah, I’m fascinated to hear how others are dealing with that same thing, but I definitely agree with what Justin is saying, and it’s something that we all run into individually, but also with our teams.

Thanks, Ben. Anybody else? Come on, this is real life. We get to practice this.

So aren’t the- I’ll share a few things. I can go first or second, Chris.

Go ahead, take it.

I’m in a unique situation attending this call because as the Chief Revenue Officer, I’m not the CEO, and my reality is that I live in a world where I want to build up my team, my peers. I want to win with the team we have. I want to do everything I can do to help my peers across the executive level, certainly the other C levels.

I want to win, and if there comes a time when one of my peers is, I’ve got concerns with the results or whatever, it’s just a unique situation because I want to be able to communicate that, but it’s not an easy thing because I don’t want to sell out my peers. I don’t want to come across as though I don’t have their back.

I want the CEO to have listening ears and somehow invite that level of candid conversation so that I’m not in a position where I feel like I’m going to be viewed as having given up on the peers, but I’ve got real issues as the Chief Revenue Officer. I’ve got a dependency on other groups within the company to deliver, and I don’t want to come across as someone who’s just communicating excuses.

It’s just a really unique situation, and in our environment, we present collectively as a team to the board, but the last thing I want to do is air grievances at a board meeting level that could show less than a unified front, and so I don’t know if any of that makes sense, but I feel like Justin has purview over the entire portfolio, and yet I know that he also has great personal awareness of our team, and I’m thrilled to death with our team, but it’s a unique thing.

It’s a challenging thing as someone who’s not the CEO, someone who’s a different executive or chief officer in the company trying to promote the unity without tearing down the fabric of the relationships. I don’t know. Does that make any sense, Binoy? I’m hoping you can read through the lines.

250%.

Makes some sense of what I’m trying to communicate.

Oh, everyone here gets it. We’ve all been in it, and Chris, I know you have a comment on why some of this together, so JD, you got it, and in fact, I want Lauren to comment on JD’s comment because you’re coming from a CEO role, but Chris, you’re next. So I sit in a similar position to JD as well.

I’m not a CEO, but he said something that definitely resonates with me, and that is to invite candid conversation, but for me, that’s unlocked through permission, and the conversations that you’ve had up to the tough conversations, I’ve found what’s worked for me is to consistently ask permission to have those conversations with my recipient so that it becomes candid and it becomes a safe environment to do so, and then when you get to the difficult decision, it’s almost a fait accompli.

At least it’s made the tough decisions easier for me if I’ve done the groundwork previous to that, and asking permission seems to have unlocked a lot of that, and I am also, much like JD, very dependent on the performance of others, and so spending, much

a fair amount of my time setting that framework makes all those conversations difficult and easy, easier overall, if that makes sense. I love it, love it. And if I may share one, almost a permission- based tool. Let me give you a quick example. I have been schooled very hard through making lots of mistakes. I’m the best at making mistakes probably out of this group. And in my home, I have my youngest son has had severe anxiety, crippled him to his bedroom.

The reason I say this is what I’ve learned is that the way I communicate with him, particularly since I’m the male figure, the dad, the authority figure, anytime I say anything that could be even closely close to criticizing him, his senses are up. So stay with me on this one, right? So JD, Chris could be a peer. What I’ve learned is clearly you address topics as much as you can at the face- to- face, contemporary level if you can. You don’t air it out in the public world in the boardroom level. But it’s this, what Chris said.

JD, can we have a little huddle? Can I take you out to lunch? May I share some thoughts about how we can improve X? The mere fact that you’ve asked permission, can I share, I’ve got some ideas, would you be open to me expressing some ways we could improve this? Not, hey, can we get together? Because I want to show you how badly you suck. That is not going to work. But the mere fact that you’re giving them a level of respect that says, which is why I love what Chris said, may I share some thoughts?

Would you be open to some thinking that I’ve got, which doesn’t blame them, thinking that I’ve got, that could tackle this mutual goal? They’re going to say, who’s going to say no, first of all? And so you’ve then opened up a safer conduit for the transmission of that topic, whatever the topic may be. So kudos, Chris. Just JD, just piling on top of that, permission- based. And hence, with my boy, son, I’ve got an idea that could possibly help you.

And would you be open to talking to a friend of mine whose wife went through the same thing and he found that psychedelics immediately dropped 50% of the anxiety? And I’d love to explore that with you. Would you be open to that? We did exactly that. And he was open to it and made a world of difference. Lauren, would you comment on what JD started out with and Chris supported about, how does the executive team member, leader, be able to communicate imbuing trust and such, knowing that they’re not the CEO? Love to get your input.

Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on all of this. I mean, I think the thing that hit me a few years ago is just how many fears people have in the workplace that just consumes so much of their energy that aren’t even real. That makes sense. I remember one time I had an IT guy who apparently I looked at him wrong in the hall and he was sure I was gonna fire him. He was certain and he was telling everybody and it was pretty much a drama. So he was like, what did you say to Alan? He thinks you’re gonna fire him. I was like, I didn’t do anything to Alan.

Like he’s fine.

And so I really had to figure out how do I make it clear to people,… like what’s a real concern? What’s a real thing to be worried about? And what’s just kind of your own, do you wanna have a hobby on the weekend of being afraid and being worried? Like, I can’t fix that for you, but I can be really clear with like, what really matters here? Like, what should you be worried about? And knowing what to be worried about is having clear expectations, knowing what the goal is and being able to go, hey, I’m missing my goal.

What do I, like people need to feel comfortable. Like, I’m not afraid of people asking, am I on track? Am I not on track? Am I delivering? Am I not delivering? And being able to have a real conversation, like I’m afraid about this, but should I be? And if people can’t say, hey, I’m having this concern, like, is this just my hobby fear? Or is this like a real fear that I need to be worried about the organization? And can you help me with it? And I think that when you kind of frame it that way for people, here’s what we care about together.

and being transparent, there’s nothing that I don’t know that I need to know, right? Like I know the financial numbers, I know what my budget is, I know what my staffing is, I know what headcount I have available, I know what my tools are to solve this. Then you can kind of get to like, is this a real fear and how do I get over it with my peers by talking to them and collaborating versus just what’s kind of my hobby fear? Does that make sense?

Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. I just wanna chime in that I’ve been studying psychological safety in the workplace for quite some time and the impact it has on productivity and turnover. And I think you’re really putting your thumb on a nerve, Lauren, that is probably understudied and under activated in the workplace. We tend to communicate in ways that, I tend to communicate often in ways that gloss over that. And I miss opportunities to connect. So I think number one, being aware of that, I think is the first step.

And then actively working on that as a CEO, as a leader, the communications you have, the blade you wield cuts way farther than you might think, at least for me. And I’ve gotta be very cautious about how I communicate and how often I communicate to grow that psychological safety, but be authentic at the same time. But I think you’re touching on something for me that resonates a lot, because I’ve looked at that in my previous life, I was a risk manager. And so I always was looking for the thing that drove the event.

And more often than not, it had to do with whether somebody felt safe in the workplace or not. And it seems like a soft thing. You know, I’m 57. I grew up the 80s and 90s in the workplace where you do what you were told and that was it, right? Psychological safety was not something discussed. But I think now in our work lives, it’s much, much different. And I think from a corporate performance standpoint, being aware of that and taking steps to train our leaders within the organization to recognize it and embrace it.

I think it’s understudied, as I said, and underutilized. Couldn’t agree more for me.

Yeah, couldn’t agree more. And one, I have to say this, back to the topic of, and this is for any entity, not just your company or not just another company, the ability for you to be able to have that sort of open, safe conversation, permission- based whatever is also dependent upon the CEO creating an environment where it is easier to do so. And it’s an important statement because I’ve worked with a lot of CEOs, right? The CEOs create the family atmosphere, the culture.

And so that’s as important to give the permission for each CRO, CMO, CTO the ability to talk openly and to have such an environment. But that’s another topic altogether. Oh, there’s too much to talk about. Okay, I’m going to plow through a few things but I’m going to run out real fast. I have a simple answer, a simple tool that I use is the item number two. When you know whether or not some difficult decision has to be made in whatever, you got to be aware. But what I’ve found out is I call it the three- second pause.

The number two, has a sufficient pause been taken? I just say, it’s a long time, three seconds is long but a three- second pause almost makes you a geriatric. Stay with me, I’m older than Chris. And I’ve learned that older people, if you’ve noticed that they’re not so glib, it’s the younger ones who are shooting off an answer, dah, dah, dah, dah. They sort of like this. And then they give a sort of well- formed response, not a reaction because they’ve understood the implications.

They see where they are, what state they’re in, see the factors at play, then they make a response. So bullet number two, has there been a sufficient pause? I’d like for you to consider a three- second pause that can do you wonders, mostly to catch yourself, mostly to catch yourself so that you’re coming from a competent response level, that’s powerful. Not a reaction that you’re gonna regret.

That’s powerful,

Oh, too many things. This one, and it goes back to Chris’s, you know, have I got the right information, gathered all the data? As we go through this sequence of how to make sure that the decision is accurately erected and addressed. And can I tell you that number one, it’s just important, oh my goodness, you can’t get the right information because poor Lauren’s IT guy is quaking. You can’t get the right info from people because they’re not in the right frame of mind.

Now, what’s worse, believe it or not, what’s worse is when you’re not aware that you’re not in the right frame of mind because you can’t solicit, elicit the information that you need to make a good decision. Because, this is me guys, this is me when I was operating, I always, for me, my thinking face is like this, JD, you’re laughing, it’s like this. It just is, it’s just my thinking face, okay?

And I used to have to stand up in front of the all hands meeting and go, hey, everyone, I just want you to know that when you see this, I’m not angry at anyone, I’m not in a bad mood, I’m just thinking. But I had to be in self- aware enough so that when I did approach people, gather data for whatever the decision was, I wasn’t able, I was able to accurately provide conduits of transmission that would help me in the sequence, left or right. Everyone smiles knowingly. I can see you guys smiling, you know exactly what I’m talking about, right?

It’s that you can’t make this decision if you can’t get the accurate data from people that are going to be involved if they are in fear mode themselves because you’re the one projecting it out. Keep that in consideration. I’m going to move through this fast. So, ultimately the goal is to be so effective as a leader in making difficult decisions because you can gather this, gather this, whatever, and everything that you guys outlined here has to do with people. Do I have the right people in the right seats? Are we making the right decision?

Am I delegating correctly? How do I have difficult conversations? Ultimately, here’s what I’m proposing, that our journey as leaders in making difficult decisions is to go from left to right, unconsciously incompetent, to be conscious of your incompetent mode. Then you can consciously choose to be competent. And after practice, you become unconsciously competent, more than not. And that it’s not a bell- shaped curve.

This is more like a whale shape with a huge fin on the far left, mostly unconsciously incompetent, but maybe a bit of a taper to the right. Can you see that? To move from left to right. That’s where we need to go. And my biggest recommendation, we don’t have enough time here in making these difficult decisions because it’s always around people, is do your three- second pause. Be the person that’s wise and sage and actually contemplates what that question is, what that decision is, asks for information, gathers the context so that you can move forward.

But you can’t do any of that if you’re unconsciously incompetent in fear mode. Questions?

Just one comment. In a world that highly values quick decision- making, I struggle with pushing back against expectations on that here. Especially if I’ve moved into a new role or I’m building a skill to make those decisions quickly without being thoughtful and mindful about it. Despite the pressures around me, that’s something I have to constantly push off and be disciplined about.

I agree. That’s a real transparent, honest disclosure, Chris. Couldn’t agree more. Thoughts?

But no, I have a thought, you know, you’re mentioning a lot about the unconscious incompetence, but sometimes we’re dealing with conscious incompetence. And so the conversations probably will never go well, because there’s a deficiency that’s known, and defenses are up, especially with a peer. And that’s a difficult place to be.

And so in these situations, if you have someone above you, whether it’s Lauren in a board, or if it’s a CRO or C- suite leader, it’s the CEO, I’m thinking that asking permission, this candid conversation, permission with the entity above you could be a route to actually get the permission to be frank, and then also just be candid. What are your thoughts on that?

I have many, but I want to ask everybody else, what are your thoughts on what Justin said, that the decision making could be much easier, because you’ve asked permission, because you’re engaged.

It’s almost like what JD was alluding to, your conversations with your peers have not garnered the outcome that you’re looking for. So now you have to reroute the conversation and have another difficult conversation. You do that by asking permission, whether it’s a CEO or a board, and it’s just a general thing, say, can I be candid with you guys about this particular topic?

Is this kind of like something that you think about in CBNOI? I’m curious for you, this idea that people sometimes are conscious about their incompetence, and that makes the conversation almost impossible.

Yeah, and so with the time limit that we’ve got, I’m going to address that. It’s interesting. When people actually implement what they are aware of isn’t the best response, it is very much a fear- based, I’m going to push the agenda, because I need to control it. But they are completely aware that, yeah, this is not the best answer, but I’m going to control it. And this is where a fear of loss comes in, Justin. It’s a fear of loss that says, I’m going to control the outcome.

I’m going to manage it and sort of just wrestle it completely, much to the chagrin of the outcome. But when that happens, then you have a much more serious level of fear gripping that individual. And so I have had, on two occasions, where I’ve actually asked my client to consider— notice the use of the word— consider professional counsel. That’s an area I’m not going to get into. But it shows how deep of an issue and how embedded their baggage may be from whatever life’s journey has created that. So in the long run, yes, some people do that.

Most of the time, they are aware and they go, oh, I’m sorry. I’ve said this too many times to my wife. Oh, sorry, sweetheart. I must be hangry. I apologize. I shouldn’t have said that. I retract as fast as I can. But anyway, so the answer is, yes, they are in deeper mode than you think, need to revisit multiple times to unravel that. With that, I’m out of time. Looks like there’s already a prompt. I’m going to stop this sharing mode and get everybody back.

Thank you, Benoy. I think we’re at time. It’s been a great discussion. I think just focusing on our outcomes, identifying the issues that will keep us from reaching those outcomes, and then planning the necessary pivots through conversations and hitting those difficult conversations straight on, it’s been very enlightening. Benoy, really appreciate that. Survey was kicked out. If you liked the conversation, please let us know. We’re creating workshop conversations, and we’re going to stay with our salon events as well as workshops.

And if there’s anything that you guys want to hear and see at this level, let me know via the survey, and thank you guys all for joining.