The Leadership Vision Podcast

Match the Moment: How Leaders Can Unlock the Real Competitive Advantage with Dan Silvert

• Nathan Freeburg • Season 8 • Episode 22

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In this episode of the Leadership Vision Podcast, we’re joined by Dan Silvert—behavioral expert, keynote speaker, and co-founder of Velocity Advisory Group. Dan shares his journey from sound engineer to leadership consultant, revealing how self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and behavioral flexibility are the keys to unlocking a team’s full potential.

We dive into Dan's "bird" styles based on the DISC behavioral styles, what it means to “match the moment,” and how leaders can adapt their style to connect, inspire, and grow their teams, especially in the face of uncertainty and AI-driven change. Dan’s message is both practical and profound, encouraging leaders to stretch beyond their defaults and surface the genius in others.

What You’ll Learn:

  • Why people—not products—are the true competitive advantage
  • How to recognize and adapt your behavioral style using DISC
  • What it means to “match the moment, not the mirror”
  • How AI reveals our relationship with uncertainty and change
  • Strategies to lead with emotional intelligence, not ego
  • Why curiosity and humility are essential in today’s leadership landscape

Key Quotes:

"You're either going to hit what you were put on this planet to do—or you're selling yourself short."  – Dan Silvert


“If you’re not interested in surfacing the genius of other people—why are you leading?” – Dan Silvert

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The Leadership Vision Podcast is a weekly show sharing our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture. Contact us to talk to us about helping your team understand the power of Strengths.

Speaker 1:

If we can just take a step back, laugh at ourselves in a really healthy way, see the value in what other people bring to the table and lean, lean in their direction. It's not about reinventing yourself, but it is about leaning. Now you're diversifying your portfolio of behaviors. We all know diversification is key in your finances, so why wouldn't it be key in your behavior? So you've got people around you that have behaviors that you could use a little more of. Ask them humility, lead in that direction.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Our consulting team has been doing this work for the past 25 years so that leaders are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. To learn more about us, you can click the link in the show notes or visit us on the web at leadershipvisionconsultingcom. Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Friberg and today we are joined by Dan Silvert, behavioral expert, keynote speaker, author of the book the True Competitive Advantage and co-founder of Velocity Advisor Group, where he has worked with thousands of leaders to uncover the real competitive advantage in business people.

Speaker 2:

Now, dan's background is anything but typical From musician to sound engineer, to career coach and leadership consultant, his story is full of unexpected turns that led him to a deep passion for self-awareness and team transformation. In this conversation, dan helps us rethink how we respond to uncertainty, especially in the age of AI, and challenges us to match the moment, not the mirror. Now, as you listen, consider what behavioral energy you default to and where might you need to flex in order to better lead or connect with those around you. Might you need to flex in order to better lead or connect with those around you? Let's just dive in here, as Dan is telling Brian, linda and I just a little bit more about his background. Enjoy.

Speaker 1:

I have arrived at this place like all of us, in ways that were well, I shouldn't say all of us. Some of us are very planned in our journey and then there are people like me who just kind of figured it out along the way. So a fairly unorthodox background. I lived in my early 20s. I lived in Israel for six years and was a musician and a sound engineer, and there I met my Canadian wife. I was a musician and a sound engineer and there I met my Canadian wife, and the turmoil of a startup in Israel kind of led me into kind of an HR role which didn't make any sense for the sound engineer, but that's what ended up happening.

Speaker 1:

And then we moved back to the States and I got into sales for a while and then I got into career coaching and I did that for eight years and then I got into career coaching and I did that for eight years and I coached easily over a thousand executives through their transitions and it really taught me a lot about human nature. But it was very constrained because I was there to take a person that was stuck and help them get unstuck so they can get a job, and then that's it. You move on and and I was good at it, but it got boring, quite frankly. As amazing as it is to help people in that particular way and frankly there's really nothing like it actually, even when I look back on it, when somebody goes from the pit of just being lost and unemployed and all the stress to a place of getting to that it is awesome. But intellectually it was more hard than it was intellect for me.

Speaker 1:

So then I kind of discovered DISC and the whole behavioral style thing and I did Myers-Briggs and Hogan and a bunch of stuff and for some reason it just lit me up, like I just became obsessed and my wife thought I was crazy, and she really did, because I couldn't shut up about it. I just could not stop with it and it was, you know, somewhat spiritual. I believe that Hashem, that God, was saying here you go, this is it. Here you go. And it wasn't rational. And so I co-authored a book called Taking Flight and that book was published in nine languages, which is a nice way of saying it wasn't read in nine languages, but it was still a lot of fun and you know, all good, all good.

Speaker 1:

And then I went off on my own for a bit and did my thing, and there I met Dave Fackman. I met my current partner the last 13 years at a conference for the book Taking Flight. I went off on my own and then he and I got together and he brought me in to work for some clients of his. And here, 13 years later, here we are. So how did I get here? I don't know how the hell I got here.

Speaker 1:

I was a musician and sound engineer who got obsessed with self-awareness. And then I just turned that into my purpose.

Speaker 3:

Dan, what ignited that profound interest in self-awareness? Was it a connection to you or to what you saw was happening in other people's lives?

Speaker 1:

Good question. I suspect that because I was lost, that I didn't really know who I was, it fueled this sense that you know what, to be raw about it. So I went through a period where I was unemployed for a year and it was, you know, I was married with a young child and I it was just searing, searing experience, and a big part of it was that I just didn't know who I was. So I didn't know what kind of career to pursue, I didn't know what my skills or talents were. And you know there's a lot of psychology that goes into that, because if you're that lost and then you can say, well, I don't have any skills and talents, right, and then you internalize that, and so climbing out of that kind of gave me a passion for well, first of all, an intuition for when other people are like that.

Speaker 1:

I can smell it because I was there right and then I worked with a lot of people to get them through. So I'm kind of like an emergency room doctor. If you're in an emergency, well, you know what a car accident looks like because you've seen it. So I saw that from different angles and it just became my thing Getting out of career coaching into executive coaching. What was amazing about that is, instead of simply helping people once they've already lost their jobs, it's saying okay, you're successful. Don't take that for granted. Here are some blind spots that will keep you successful, as opposed to ending up unemployed, because we all know very talented people who don't understand other people. They're really good at executing on their own, but they're not so good at connecting with others, and therefore they hit a ceiling, and once they hit that ceiling, they go sideways, and so I'm desperate to prevent that from happening. Yeah, they go sideways, and so I I'm desperate to prevent that from happening, yeah.

Speaker 4:

Oh.

Speaker 3:

Dan, when you were in your just one more question on the loss thing did you have someone helping you through that, like, were you being some mentored and invited into reflection by the guidance of somebody else?

Speaker 1:

No, I wasn't. I think that was, and that's. You know, my dad wasn't built that way, so he wasn't able to help me. And I used to always say, gosh, if I just had a mentor. That used to be like a thing. And then at some point you just say, all right, stop complaining and become your own mentor and become wildly curious about what's out there and have curiosity, weaponize your curiosity to build yourself. So where do I take that? Like even today with AI. When I see people burying their heads in the sand about AI, it triggers me. Say, oh, no, no, no, you're not going to do that.

Speaker 1:

That's not healthy for you, Because if you do that, you're going to end up being washed away, and if you're going to work with me, that's not going to happen. So I have a very like.

Speaker 3:

I don't know it's a strong aversion to denial. Ooh, where does that come?

Speaker 1:

from Well, I think it's all part of the same thing. If you're in denial about what's actually happening around you, you're not going to discover what your hidden potential actually is, and that's not acceptable. It's just not acceptable. It's like you don't even have the right to limit yourself that way. As far as I'm concerned, Ooh damn, weaponize your curiosity.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Weaponize is such a bad term, curiosity is such a great term, so unpack that.

Speaker 1:

I love it. It's a little bit provocative. But weaponize meaning that you're not kidding around. Sure, this isn't some kind of like oh, maybe this, maybe that? No, no, no, no, no. This isn't some kind of like oh, maybe this, maybe that. No, no, no, no, no. You're either going to hit what you were put on this planet to do. You're either going to experience that or you're selling yourself short, and I don't. That's just not acceptable.

Speaker 4:

How do people respond when you invite them into that weaponized curiosity?

Speaker 1:

How do they?

Speaker 4:

respond to you. I'd love to hear some stories.

Speaker 1:

It depends. So my ability to flex to the right style at the right time is the key to that, because if I come across as strong as I just did with you to a particular type of person, it just shuts them down, and so I try to practice what I preach. So if I've got the profile of the person that I'm talking to and I'm, for example, working with a dove owl in my world I don't know how familiar you are with the birds and the terminology, are you?

Speaker 3:

guys familiar with DISC. We have it right in front of us. Yeah, oh, okay.

Speaker 1:

So if I'm working with someone whose primary aim in life is to create harmony around themselves, then the harmony they want for others they want for themselves. And you know, george Bernard Shaw, any virtue carried to an extreme can become a crime. So if you take harmony too far, then you actually cage yourself because you don't get out of your comfort zone, right? So if I'm working with someone who has a lot of dove energy, well then this is going to take a while. I've got to get them to a place of comfort where they're willing to stretch. If I'm working with an eagle, in the first call I'm kind of whacking them over the head and they love it.

Speaker 1:

Because for somebody with dominant style energy, don't waste my time and don't get all woo on me. You've got to be practical, you have to. I need a line of sight, and so where I am and where it is, I'm going. And you know, for me personally, I'm kind of activated by that. So it takes more CPU power for me to kind of dove out. Yeah, but it's obviously, you know, match the moment, not the mirror. That's what we say. Yeah, you know, if you're not matching the moment, you're missing the moment.

Speaker 1:

That's right, so that's what I try to do.

Speaker 2:

Can you expand on that match, the mirror match, the moment?

Speaker 1:

Sure, so we've got four different energies. A behavioral profile is not a personality profile Right, right. So we've got dominant influence, steady, conscientious. So we've got eagles, parrots, doves and owls, right, and these represent energy in the world and every thought that you have is, in fact, a burst of electricity. It's literally energy. Right, so there are eagle moments out there. For example, you're walking down the sidewalk and a little girl is about to get run over by a car, right. So if we're going to match the moment, are we going to go into?

Speaker 3:

parrot mode and be wildly optimistic. She'll survive?

Speaker 1:

No, Are we going to dove out and say, oh, I'm really, really concerned? No, Are we going to owl out and start calculating the distance and speed between the car? No, it's an eagle moment. We're going to run into the street, we're going to push the child out of the way, we're probably going to get hit by the car, we're going to end up in a hospital, but it's an eagle moment, Okay.

Speaker 1:

So massive moment means to ask yourself what energy gets the most out of this particular opportunity. And that could be sitting across from a person like I was describing before, if I'm coaching someone with a lot of Dove Owl energy, or it could be. Hey, we have suboptimal levels of information here, but a decision needs to be made. So if we don't flex to that moment, then we've missed it or we've made the kind of we're suffering from, the kinds of setbacks that are common when you don't plan properly. So if we don't match the moment and slow this down and take a deeper dive on how we got here and where we need to do some MRI data collection, we're going to continue messing this up. Match the moment, but that means you have to be aware. You have to ask yourself okay, what moment am I in? Who am I Meaning? What's my prejudice, what is the prejudice of the team that I'm in and how can we harmonize that? So at first this is a little bit. You know it's a lot, but. But it's.

Speaker 2:

You know this isn't complicated.

Speaker 1:

Once you, once you can become unconsciously confident at this fairly quickly.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, dan, when you were speaking and even talking about matching the moment, I can't help but think about how you might have acted or interacted as a sound engineer, because what are some of the? Yeah, because some of what are the, some of the threads, like it's like you have to turn this up a little bit more and turn that down a little bit more.

Speaker 1:

Have you just been trained to do that? Well, you know, I never really got trained to be a sound engineer. I was just a piano player, so I had to learn that from.

Speaker 4:

But you figured it out.

Speaker 1:

So this was in the 90s, when CD-ROMs were considered high-tech. Remember.

Speaker 4:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

So when I look back on that period, when you're doing narration, you have a narrator narrate the CD-ROM, and so there are literally thousands of little snippets of narration, which means you need a very organized file naming convention and if you don't lay that out you're in trouble. Well, I'm not an owl. I don't have natural organizational skills, so I struggled with that piece of it and now I look back on it and laugh and go if I had known what I then, what I know now, I would have brought somebody in who was really good at systemization and it would have saved me a lot of a lot of heartache. Yeah, there you go. In the creative stuff I was good, but on the organizational stuff, boy did I struggle.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, do you? Do you find that? Or how do you coach executives to match the moment versus like this I need to bring someone else in because I'm never going to match this moment so this is, this is where is this the mean, this is where the action is right.

Speaker 1:

so so, you know, I love I, I, you know, I obviously like animal metaphors, and so I'll sit down with a leadership team, or particularly, you know, the senior executive, the CEO, and say, ok, the lion's whisper is a roar to the jungle.

Speaker 3:

I like that.

Speaker 1:

So everything you say and don't say, do and don't do, do and don't do is magnified and your job as a leader is to surface the genius of other people. If you're not doing that, then why are you a leader? Like, go be an individual contributor, right and in today's world, go figure out how to use weaponize that word again AI bots to do your marketing and do your copy. Because if you're not interested in surfacing the genius of other people, then you probably shouldn't be a leader. I mean and I've challenged a lot of people, a lot of the executives I've worked with on this, like you know, why are you here? And the answer for most people although they often won't say it is because that's my career trajectory. I want to make more money, I want to be more. So it's about me, except it can't be about you Correct, not in leadership.

Speaker 1:

So if I know, let's say I'm an eagle owl, so I'm a get it done bottom line, practical, no drama, execute. That's my primary and my secondary is I like to call the owls the guardians of integrity. So the conscientious styles take quality personally, like, if it doesn't represent high quality, it's disturbing to them, they go home with that, they talk to their spouses about it. They're like their kids, their dogs. They're just like it's so unnerving, okay. So let's say you've got a lot of eagle in you and a lot of owl in you, okay, well, that's a pressure cooker of progress.

Speaker 1:

Because, the eagle in you is going to say yesterday, we needed this yesterday. And the owl is going to say no, no, no, no, we're not ready for that, we don't have the proper analysis to make that decision. And so that inner turmoil is a productivity engine. You're the CEO and now you walk into your leadership meeting and you're surrounded by doves and owls. How does your energy impact them? And master moment not the mirror means that to the extent you honor their styles and you lean in their direction, you activate their potential. But it's more complex than that, because you represent qualities that they don't have. So how do you introduce the joy of Eagle Energy to someone who doesn't share that, so that they can learn how to lean in your direction?

Speaker 3:

Hey, dan, I got a question on this when you mentioned that phrase. I'm paraphrasing if you're not interested in surfacing the genius of your people, why are you a leader? Here's my question have you seen any shift of that perspective more towards the four in the last four or five years? Have you seen anything happening in this present landscape that has indicated executives are more willing to do that, or are they more unwilling to do that?

Speaker 1:

Contradictory forces pulling in opposite directions. On the one hand, the speed of change shrinks, patience and empathy shrinks patience and empathy. And if the pace of change requires me to just sprint, I'm not going to have the wherewithal to slow down and pay attention to you and do the requisite discovery required to help you figure out your own mystery, because we're all a mystery. I'm too busy running really fast. So that's one pull, but the other pull is all the research that have captivated you over the last 10 years, which is that healthy cultures create discovery and health in our employees and our leadership teams, who then grow our organizations way beyond what any possible CEO could come up with. So if you don't create a healthy environment, a healthy culture, then you're literally leaving all that potential on the table, which is not acceptable.

Speaker 1:

Not even on the table.

Speaker 4:

It's not even on the table. It's under a rock somewhere. Yeah, yeah, not even on the table.

Speaker 1:

It's not even on the table, it's under. It's under a rock somewhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, so that's paradox.

Speaker 3:

Right.

Speaker 4:

Now he's rubbing his hands. Here we go.

Speaker 3:

Well, dan, that's just something, this whole idea. I appreciate the straightforward nature of the way you're saying things. I love the direct approach because it is getting people's attention. It obviously creates a surprise, which is an opening of someone's willingness to even listen, because you're catching them kind of a little bit off guard. Leaders investing in their people. Like you said, our experience would indicate that people don't have the time for it or they're unwilling to take the time for it. If they do, tremendous things happen, and Linda often says this. We tend to find people that are willing to take the time because they understand the consequence of not and what that does to people, understand the consequence of not and what that does to people. My mind, like as you're talking to him, my mind, is just spinning from some of the conversations that I find myself in a people that are wrestling with just slowing down period, like they don't have that practice of slowing down themselves. So how do they have the capacity to slow down for others?

Speaker 4:

There isn't a question there. Is there a?

Speaker 3:

question there. No, you're not.

Speaker 1:

Now you've triggered me in a good way. Okay, go for it. Go for it, dan, go go go, we'll trigger each other. Do we have the humility to recognize what a mystery each of us is? Does anybody? Do we really know what we're actually capable of? I don't think so, and it's arrogance Nothing short of arrogance or fear to pretend that we do Like. The two of you are doing things today that you probably weren't doing 10 years ago, correct?

Speaker 3:

Or last week? Yes, correct.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So does that make you phony compared to where you were 10 years ago? Do we just arbitrarily choose a point in our life? Maybe when God forbid when we were six years old, when we were taught something that wasn't true about us, or when we were 19 years old and like at what point do we decide who I am?

Speaker 1:

When you look at a tree, it's a tree, ever not perfect, Like what? Like at what stage? Right, so we're a mystery. And if you're a mystery to yourself when you look in the mirror, then how in the world do you feel entitled to decide what someone else's potential is?

Speaker 3:

Okay, dan, now okay, ready. Just side note career assessment and psychometric user. So I'm a practitioner and you are using the DISC. So back to the self-discovery With the labels that assessments give people. Sometimes that label is such a limiter and it almost serves as a counter influence to what the tool's trying to do and people easily want. Well, I think the brain likes labels. How do you wrestle with that? And I know that the metaphors of your animals helps people unwrap that. But I think people my experience people can cling to the definitional framework of a tool and miss the beauty and the mystery of the individual. Similar experience with you.

Speaker 1:

Yes, can you say a?

Speaker 3:

little more about that.

Speaker 1:

So it's a real. Real, it is a conundrum, because, on the one hand, these profiles do illuminate yeah, yes right and, on the other hand, depending on what your makeup is emotionally, psychologically, you will gravitate to some things more than others, which then puts you back in a cage. That the whole point of at least this. So the reason I like DISC is because it's simple, it's practical and it doesn't. It's not a selection tool. Like I don't understand organizations that use DISC to hire people. That is not what it's validated for.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So it's just not Now. Once you hire somebody, if you want to match the moment, you want to honor where they're coming from, they should take it Right and then you can right Help them, help them stretch and help them grow. So but your question is are we just putting somebody in another box?

Speaker 1:

Right A box that feels good A box that feels good A box For a moment Could Right, and my answer to that is that's up to them. I like it. They have to own that. And when I do bird sessions or when I do keynotes on this where you just went, I love going there. You say how are you Look? Hand a scalpel to a child. Think of it. They might hurt themselves. Hand a scalpel to a surgeon and they'll save your life. It's just a tool. But the question is are you going to master it?

Speaker 3:

It's not the tool.

Speaker 1:

The tool has its functionality, but you have to own how it is. You're going to apply it, because otherwise you're asking me to do it for you and it's not my life. So, from a leadership perspective, how much clarity do you have in the mirror? When you look in the mirror, do you see what other people actually experience on a day-to-day basis? Most people have some distortion in the mirror. It's normal. But to the extent that you strive for clarity, you understand why people respond to you the way they do, especially if you have curiosity about what makes them tick. And if you're a senior executive, then the cascading impact of your own self-awareness, combined with your curiosity of other people, has enormous impact, because you're the lion Right and they're the jungle. So this is why working with senior leadership can be so gratifying, because we're not just helping an individual, but the cascading impact of that reverberates throughout the organization.

Speaker 3:

That was good, dan. One of the questions that I want to ask you, because we're both in our businesses. We're one of those. How is it that you've seen the emergence of AI impact, or how does your model apply to how people are interacting, interfacing with AI?

Speaker 1:

So the way I look at AI and its emergence is it's not about AI, it's about you. What is your relationship with rapid change and ambiguity? How do you process rapid change? How do you feel when faced with deeply ambiguous choices? Because that relationship will determine your utilization of AI and your sense of what the possibilities are, both for yourself and for your organization. Your personal, emotional, psychological response to this is predicated on rapid change and ambiguity.

Speaker 1:

So if you're the type of person that loves to dive in and experiment generally speaking, it's just what makes you tick right Then you're looking at AI and experiment. Generally speaking, it's just what makes you tick right. Then you're looking at AI and going, wow, I see a lot of possibilities here, right, but the folks that surround you might be a lot more cautious and skeptical. And, by the way, I consider skepticism to be an integrity tool. Skepticism is a search for truth. So let's say you're not high on skepticism, you're high on possibilities, but you're grounded by the people that work with you and for you that have much higher doses of skepticism. The way in which you try to weave AI into your culture needs to honor that. So, yes, the owls and doves are going to be a lot more skeptical about AI than the eagles and parrots are right With that as a framework.

Speaker 1:

Then you look at your organization and say, okay, what are the most practical applications of AI in baby steps that won't freak out our employees that they're about to lose their jobs? That won't freak out our employees that they're about to lose their jobs? And how can we position AI as a force multiplier of an individual's growth, as opposed to simply just saying, hey, this is what's efficient? Because the moment you go down the efficiency road with your employees, you're basically telegraphing that they have a short time span in your organization, because the moment AI is more efficient than they are, they're gone, when the exact opposite should be the case. You should be challenging them and inspiring them to explore how AI can expand and broaden their capabilities, because that's what will propel your organization forward. Because that's what will propel your organization forward. So the way in which you perceive and then message this is a lot more powerful, at the end of the day, than the actual AI itself. So once again, it comes back to ownership.

Speaker 3:

Did you have a client experience that almost force-fed you this situation? Force-fed, I'm sorry, force-fed you this situation Force-fed. Like where you had a client situation where they were really wrestling with AI and you needed to jump into the deep end of the conversation, or did you, on your own, see the clouds and the horizon coming in and said I need to prepare for this.

Speaker 1:

So I'm a more possibilities oriented person, so I just naturally gravitate to to these things and so and I bring a somewhat of an optimistic perspective on it. But I'm also schizophrenic because I'm not happy about where this is headed. I mean, I don't think anyone who's really looked at this can feel tremendous optimism for the long term without going down a doomer track. But back to the career coaching me. You have this life and it's happening today, and you've got another 5, 10, 15 years of a career in front of you. So if you put your head in the sand on this, okay, a wave will wash you away, and that is not acceptable. It's just not acceptable. So, regardless of the macro picture of where this is headed which I'm actually more pessimistic about and very deeply concerned you still have a life to live, you still have bills to pay, you're, you know you have a right, and so you've got to work with this.

Speaker 1:

You've got to work with this, okay. So let me give you an example. So I have a client who she runs a large logistics operation for an entire country, so it's her P&L, and she's got all kinds of conundrums that she's dealing with and she's putting a lot of pressure on herself to be the idea generator for her organization and she's flailing because it's too large. She's relatively new in this role. She's only been in it a little bit less than a year, so for up until now she's been just trying to figure out, okay, what is the terrain that I am journeying through? Okay, but now she has to kind of pop up and say, okay, how can we shift the terrain so that we can get where we need to get to?

Speaker 1:

And so I sat her down and said all right, how much are you using AI? And she said, oh, I use it every day. I said, okay, describe that for me. What does that mean? She said, oh, well, when I write an email, I'll pop it in. And I said, okay, you do realize that hundreds of billions of dollars is being invested in back-end infrastructure around AI.

Speaker 1:

And she said, absolutely, my organization is doing it as well. Okay, do you think that's happening so that you can write a better email. Do you think that that's why? And she's like well, I guess not. So then I opened up one of the I don't want to show for any of the tools, but I opened up one of the tools. I said, all right, give it to me, give me your biggest conundrum right now. And so she starts talking to me and I start writing this, copying this down, and then I threw it into a different tool and said okay, create a prompt out of this. And it took that and made a pretty interesting prompt. Then I went back to the first tool and I put it in deep research and seven minutes later it popped out a 30-page analysis on her prompt.

Speaker 1:

And as she and I worked through it, because you could just see her face just like what? Wow. So that was a couple months ago. Now, all of the senior directors that report to her are using AI for ideation, for strategy, and it's not that AI is making decisions for them, but they are learning how to expand their own minds as to what is possible by using this tool. It's still theirs to own, but now they have tools that they didn't have 10 minutes ago. It's not for me to teach somebody how to use a tool, but to the extent that I can help them open their eyes to what's possible, then they'll figure it out.

Speaker 3:

It sounds to me like you're using AI to then further reinforce. You know your call that we need to pay attention to the uniqueness of who we are and how we show up, even in the use of tools.

Speaker 1:

Yes, because at the end of the day, you have to own your life.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And what are the tools that are you going to utilize to help you do that? So it is a bit of a paradox. On the one hand it's about you owning it, but a big part of owning it is honoring other people, Because through other people you discover yourself, Because their interactions with you are what unlock potentials that you didn't know were even there. Again, we're a mystery. We don't know what we're capable of, and we're social animals. If we don't interact with people around us, we'll never find out. So you know. Then you throw in ego and the whole thing gets messed up.

Speaker 4:

And we'll have jobs forever right.

Speaker 2:

How do you keep that in check, though? Or how do you coach others to keep that in check, because there's a part of all of this that is so humbling. Whatever your style is, or whatever your level of ego, you do have to keep that in check. So how do you work with people to do that? What's the secret ingredient there?

Speaker 1:

Well, here I don't like to go too deep with clients because I don't want to go beyond Sure. So I will go back to the verse with this and say okay, what does each style fear the most? Because if you understand what you fear, then you understand what you're protecting. That's right. So eagles for example, someone with a lot of eagle energy what they fear although they they'll never admit it is not losing, but being a loser. Oh, they fear this intensely. And who decides whether someone's a loser or not? Well, they do. It's itself, it's from them, okay. So this is why eagles are constantly driving right.

Speaker 1:

So an eagle may look at ai and say I don't have time for this, because I used ChatGPT a couple times. It didn't give me anything that I needed and I'm falling behind. That's not acceptable. So they'll just race ahead and miss what the opportunities are if you take a deeper dive, right? So what do parrots fear the most? Disapproval? What do parrots fear the most Disapproval? What if I use AI and it hallucinates? And I didn't have the detail orientation to figure that out, but my colleague did. She actually read the fine print and then she pointed out to me that I handed something over. That was just well, I don't want to do that. So parents will get super excited about what's possible, but when it comes to actually using it they will be reticent because they fear the blowback, right? So what do doves fear the most? Damaging a relationship, because doves are all about keeping commitments. Because doves are all about keeping commitments. So AI creates all kinds of potential conflict because no one really knows what it means.

Speaker 1:

Yet what are we doing? Where are we going? How is this going to work? That's a lot of tension, and so doves like to create harmony in all environments, harmony in all relationships, and so the whole concept of AI is just a big. It's a conundrum. Don't know how to approach it.

Speaker 1:

And our owls? Well, they're the guardians of integrity For them. If AI hallucinates once, that means it's not trustworthy, because AIs tend to suffer from both perfectionism and they catastrophize. So if it's not perfect, it's a disaster.

Speaker 1:

By the way, a little bit, if you don't mind, I'm going to go a little deeper on the owls conscientious owls so their fundamental focus is accuracy in all things and validity, quality. So what's kind of funny about them is that if you have a lot of owl energy and you're working on something, the chances are pretty good you have more information than anyone else in the room, because that's your oxygen, and yet people with a lot of owl energy tend to be the least confident in making decisions. Now, that doesn't make sense. You would think the person with the most information would have the confidence to make a decision, but no. So why is that? Because owls don't define themselves by what they know. They define themselves by what they don't know, and there's always a universe of information out there that owls don't have, which means they're constantly behind the eight ball. So owls look at AI and say, a it hallucinates and B it's giving me a lot more data than I can even process.

Speaker 3:

So now I'm even more confused than I was before, and so it freezes them.

Speaker 1:

So if people can take a step back and have a sense of humor about themselves and literally laugh at the absurdity of this whole situation, then we can get past that. And now the owl can learn to flex the parrot and be a little more optimistic, or flex the eagle and make decisions on suboptimal levels of data, or the doves will stop fearing conflict and the eagles can slow down and lean in the dove's direction. By the way, what a dove would call a full-blown conflict, an eagle would call a conversation.

Speaker 4:

Right.

Speaker 1:

Correct. Right so if you can harmonize these energies, then we honor everybody and we figure it out. That's right.

Speaker 2:

I just want to be aware of time here. Brian. Linda, do you have anything you want to ask? Dan, do you have anything you really want to say? I do have a a final question I'd like to ask, but I'm thinking of a summary to bring this because, this a dan.

Speaker 3:

No, no, no, no, the way you went about the ai our listeners are gonna love it is is in my amplifying the need for people to understand how they're approaching change and uncertainty around them, and AI can often be this master monster label that exemplifies a bunch of fear. So I love how you did that, because it's still anchored in the person's identity and that's where I'm thinking like the conclusion of this is. You know, addressing the fears, whatever they're called, it still is how we are facing the uncertainty and the change that's around us.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So for me what that means is that Parrots it's okay to be disapproved of. I want you to lean a little bit eagle on that, because just because someone disapproves or is upset with you doesn't mean that you have lost value. That's an illusion happening in your head. So you don't need to tiptoe around that and eagles. You know you're not a loser, so knock it off. So you don't need to tiptoe around that and eagles. You know you're not a loser, so knock it off. Okay, slow down, listen to other people, connect. You're not the smartest person in the room and you already know that. So why are you moving so fast? Right. And for doves hey, candor strengthens relationships and being a professional also means disappointing other people's part of the package. You know that. So have a sense of humor, have a conversation with yourself to give yourself permission to say the word no out loud. Right.

Speaker 1:

For owls hey, you know perfectionism will lead you down the road to isolation, because you're really being a totalitarian dictator over yourself. You're being way too harsh on you and that spills out to other people. So instead of pursuing perfection, you need to pursue excellence. Excellence inspires people. Excellence inspires people, right? So if we can just take a step back, laugh at ourselves in a really healthy way, see the value in what other people bring to the table and lean, lean in their direction. It's not about reinventing yourself, but it is about leaning. Now you're diversifying your portfolio of behaviors. We all know diversification is key in your finances, so why wouldn't it be key in your behavior, right? So you've got people around you that have behaviors that you could use a little more of. That's some humility. Lead in that direction.

Speaker 3:

And that's the part of your message, Dan, that I find that we're resonating with is, you know, this call to paying attention to who we are and the acceptance of other people, their approach and how we can, you know, in a sense, help each other and help ourselves at the same time, because both are true and both are necessary.

Speaker 4:

And I think it's a healing message. I think you are's a healing message. I think you are offering a healing message to people and some handles to get out of their hard times, as well as help each other. So I've appreciated learning from you, dan.

Speaker 3:

Is there anything else, dan, that you want to like? Is there something that you're thinking that we might have missed, or something that you say like you might want to highlight in the conversation that Nathan can post-produce in somewhere?

Speaker 1:

So I think for me it's not enough to be interesting. One has to be useful. And to be useful to yourself means just stop beating yourself up all the time. Celebrate what you bring to the table, but that only really works if you stop convicting other people of crimes they never actually committed. They just see the world and behave in the world differently than you do. Find the wisdom in what they do. Take some of that in for yourself so that you can lean in their direction and honor where they're coming from. When you have a team doing that, the collective mystery reveals itself, because that's where the potential has always been buried, and that's what we're trying to do.

Speaker 2:

I love that Holy crap.

Speaker 4:

That's good, so good.

Speaker 2:

Dan, thank you so much. This has been amazing. I feel like you've given us tools to do some birdwatching, to pay attention to the sounds and the flights and whatever of those around us so that we can better know how to interact with them. And, you know, use the various tools at our disposal to ultimately build more positive team culture. So thank you.

Speaker 1:

Oh, thank you, Really enjoyed. Thank you for having me. It's been an honor and, wow, great, great conversation.

Speaker 3:

Dan thanks for your voice. I hear such a prophetic, present voice like you're speaking truth to the reality of the present moment. That's what's ringing true to me. And you're doing so like, as the prophetic voice speaks the truth. The prophet speaks in a way that is quickly accessible and easily digestible, and you have that in the present tense, meaning you're not casting down the road, you're not anchored in history. You're speaking from this current intersection that society is standing in. That I can see why you get people's attention by what you're saying, because you're not just talking in platitudes. There's a depth not only to what you're saying but how you're constructing those statements. That gets people's attention and that I think is brilliant, and I'm sure you know that. I just want to reinforce that your message is something that's needed.

Speaker 1:

I wish I could record that play for my wife and just say, hey this guy thinks it is being recorded.

Speaker 4:

I'll send this. It is recorded.

Speaker 2:

Send it to her Give me your email. I'll just send it directly to her, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for that I you know. I thank you.

Speaker 3:

For real, dan, because people have the courage to think it, not the courage to speak it. So they'll think it to themselves when they're by themselves, and I wish I would have said that to somebody. So people need spokespeople like you to help them remove or emerge from an echo chamber of hearing them their own selves, because we know in our work sometimes all we need to do is say something to release someone's voices, to repeat it in their own voice, and it's then new to their context. So I think stylistically you have a way of serving as, like an intellectual can opener to some people. They're able to then express themselves, yeah that's good.

Speaker 2:

Another big shout out, and thank you to Dan Silvert for taking the time to chat. I really appreciated the discussion about the different bird types and I shared with him off camera about how my brother-in-law is a birder and he has this app on his phone that helps him identify different birds based on their sounds and we kind of joked about wouldn't it be great if there was something like that for people, so that you could understand a little bit more about someone, almost like this cheat sheet or a cheat code to say, oh, you're more inclined to act this way or have this type of energy? And one of the things that we discussed in the episode Brian brought it up was that these traits or these characteristics or these types aren't meant to box people in, but rather to hopefully give them just another way to understand part of their personality, about the way that they lead, about the type of energy that they have in the world. And I think the you know the real takeaway for me about this episode is that the more that we can understand ourselves, the more that we can understand each other, the better we will be in whatever context or community or environment that we're in. So I challenge you, as you are maybe wrestling or thinking with some of the things that we talked about, just to consider that you know, what type of energy do you have? Are you giving off? Are you absorbing? What does the moment perhaps need more of, and how can you rise to that occasion or find other people who do?

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. To learn more about us and what we do, or to learn more about Dan, you can click the link in the show notes or go to leadershipvisionconsultingcom. Or, if you want to learn more about Dan, it's velocityadvisorygroupcom. And we would appreciate it if you would reach out and give us some feedback about this episode, about any of our other resources. What could we do to improve your lives as team leaders, as people on teams, as people leading organizations? How can we help you build more positive team culture? My name's Nathan Freeberg and, on behalf of our entire team, thanks for listening.