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Everybody Else is a podcast about the invisible people who make life happen. What began as conversations with behind-the-scenes builders in the music industry has grown into a broader exploration of how people think, work, and carry responsibility across industries and across disciplines. Hosted by Wes Luttrell, the show centers on thoughtful dialogue with creatives, leaders, and operators whose work often goes unseen but shapes the world we live in. New episodes streaming every Tuesday.
speaker-0 (00:00)
This is the Everybody Else Podcast.
speaker-1 (00:03)
So who are the invisible people of music today? And what do they do to make music happen? Because behind every great artist, song, venue, festival, and music service, there's a tribe of people who will dedicate their lives to work that if done right, will never appear to have happened. There are those in the spotlight, and then there's everybody else.
If we've never met and I asked you, tell me about your work, tell me about what you do, how do you explain what you do to people?
speaker-0 (00:38)
I think I've gotten better at it, but I'm still not that good at it. ⁓ when I quit my full-time job, I would tell people that I was a consultant. And I'm not even sure if I believed that I was a consultant at first. But now I would say that really my role is to build leaders within organizations.
And I also help organizations create a common vision for the future. So in other words, I'm a leadership and strategy consultant, ⁓ but most of my work is focused on like building the capacity of leaders within an organization, whether that's for-profit, nonprofit, and then also strategy work. like, how do we bring together a group of people to create, you know, ⁓ a vision?
and alignment towards, ⁓ towards like a future state that they desire.
speaker-1 (01:43)
And this is what I would call upstream work. You're at the beginning of the source of where a vision starts or a mission starts. These are the things that if we get them right, everything downstream is informed to some degree.
speaker-0 (02:00)
Right, no. Is that the
answer? Yes, I think exactly because in some ways it's really easy. Here's a simple example. Like if I say, I'm gonna run a marathon in six months, then what I do on a day-to-day basis should really align with running a marathon. And I can ask myself, eating this, eating an entire
gallon of ice cream going to help me achieve my goal of running a marathon? Probably not. Or drinking an excessive amount of alcohol, that's probably not going to get me towards my goal. sit on my couch and just watch TV all night long. And the same thing is true in an organization. If we say, our goal is to be this. So maybe it's to be the...
go to source for this product or service, or if our goal is to be the best ⁓ or fastest manufacturer in this, or our goal is to ⁓ you know, in the non-profit world, like our goal is to double the number of affordable housing units that we provide for ⁓ clients, then what we do on a data basis is get a change compared to if we just say, let's see what happens.
speaker-1 (03:27)
Yes. Yes. So when you come in, ⁓ like when people bring you specifically in, does the organization already have complexity that they're working in or do they bring you on early, early on? hey, because at the beginning, we're going to set a vision for what we're going to build. That's one thing. But then being down the road and having a bunch of stuff,
complexity that's almost turning into some chaos and that we need clarity in this. I've seen you in action doing that in an organization that I'm a part of. what I'm curious is like most of the time when you get brought into a situation, what are you, what are the conditions? Is it early? it?
speaker-0 (04:16)
I would say usually it's with more of an established business or organization. So ⁓ I find with a founder of a new company or a nonprofit, usually they have a pretty clear vision of where they want to go. And what happens then over time is all of a sudden there are more people around the table. And sometimes this organization grows to the point where not even everybody can fit in the same room.
anymore, or they don't even all work in the same office, or they might be in different parts of the country or world. And ⁓ they've already established certain products that they sell or maybe services that they provide. so, like what you're talking about, they definitely, there's more complexity. ⁓ And so what happens is...
Instead of that single founder at the beginning who has like a usually a pretty clear vision in terms of where they want to go now all of a sudden you you have probably you know tens or hundreds or thousands of people with their own opinion about where things should go and what they think are priorities and what's Necessary is to bring all those people together to figure out like okay. Here is the vision. This is where we're going. Let's make it really clear. We could spend our time
doing a lot of different things, but the more focused and clearer vision we can provide people, then we can start asking those questions, okay, what behaviors, what strategies align with that vision?
speaker-1 (05:55)
How do we spend our days? what is, is your job, is it your job to create the vision? Or your job is to help the people in the organization either realign with the vision or create a new vision. Your role though, what is your role in the actual vision work? Because you're pulling, it's a, I don't know what this dance is.
speaker-0 (06:25)
Right. In some ways, there are two different types of consultants. There are... ⁓
Content consultants and their process consultants and so in the leadership world I am more of a content consultant because I provide expertise in leadership. I provide training here are best practices. Here's research around Effective practices in in leadership in the strategy space. I'm more of a process consultant where I am Creating a process to help a group
create that vision or in the line of that vision. ⁓ Because often I'm working in industries that I don't have ⁓ expertise in. so I might find myself in a situation where ⁓ really they know the industry, they know the market. ⁓ And what I do though is bring those people together and create a space and facilitate those conversations.
What's interesting about that then is, you know, if you look at it's rooted in an approach where we say when people have an opportunity to create something or make decisions on their own, then it creates buy-in, which ultimately creates alignment. so versus ⁓
A consultant could, like a content consultant could come in and say, okay, I've analyzed your business. Here's what you need to do. Here's what you need to stop doing and ⁓ just follow these 10 steps and you'll be there. What happens often is that there's a disconnect between ⁓ that decision-making process. You know, sometimes I like to come up with an example where I say, you know,
Wes, if you were to go home and you were to tell your spouse, know, honey, I have great news. I got you a Christmas gift. It's Ozempic. Right? Right. You have identified a problem and you've solved it for that person. Yes. Versus a conversation to say like, we should
speaker-1 (08:47)
Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-0 (09:02)
prioritize our health and how are we going to do that? That's going to be received a little better. You're probably going to sleep less on the couch. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And so the same thing happens in a business. If a business says, you know, if I come in and say, I have these great ideas, here's exactly what you should do. In some ways, they're going to say, who are you? I don't even know you. You don't understand.
speaker-1 (09:05)
Yes.
speaker-0 (09:30)
the unique aspects of this company, the people at work, we understand those things. And so if I give them an opportunity where they can really decide what that vision should be, then they're going to be much more likely, there's going be more buy-in, they're going to be much more likely to follow that vision and align themselves with that vision. There's a really great...
video, it's old, it's with Sir John Whitmore, it's about coaching. And so he was kind of the founder of modern executive coaching. And in this video, he has two people learn how to golf. And one person learns how to golf by, he's taught by a pro, and the pro gives him very technical instruction. And so, you know, he's telling him exactly where his hands go.
where his feet go, know, kind of angle his arms should be at. And the other person, she is taught by Sir John Whitmore, who uses more of a coaching approach. So all he does is ask questions. So he says, you know, how did that feel? What do you think, what would you like to achieve? What do you think you could do better? And at the end of this quick lesson, ⁓
She is probably golfing a little bit better. She definitely looks more natural and she's having a lot more fun in the process. And so in some ways, like that's a good example about ⁓ the consulting work that I do. think trying to pull the best out of people is what I really excel at. so trying to pull from them...
speaker-1 (11:09)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (11:21)
and utilizing their expertise, using their understanding of an industry, using their ⁓ understanding of the people and the abilities of the company is really my approach. And what I do is facilitate that process.
speaker-1 (11:39)
Yeah. And you, I'm curious as you have been doing the work more and more over the years, you must become better at recognizing underlying patterns and just underlying problems. Even if you don't know the industry, you could, I'm assuming like you could most likely within a first session pretty much identify the dynamics and all these things. So then at some point,
when you are still, asking questions, you have to, it seems like you have restraint. Like you have the ability to not project onto, is that part of the, because if you start projecting what you think, you're now entering the other side where people might not buy in, but you seem to be able to, or good coaches seem to be able to have restraint, right? Let this unfold. I don't have to step in.
speaker-0 (12:34)
Right. think, you know, it's another example would be with a therapist and in general, like a therapist isn't going to say, you need to do this, this and this.
speaker-1 (12:45)
Yeah, every time you do that, it pisses off your wife and causes a fight.
speaker-0 (12:50)
Yeah, it's sort of like they ask questions and things unfold. the most powerful experience you can have is increased self-awareness and an insight that you are able to achieve. And so I think that's the key with an organization.
speaker-1 (13:11)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (13:17)
Now there are times where I do have to say like you're, you know, I have concerns about this path that you're going down. Yeah. And I do find in the work that I do, despite differences in industries, a lot of times they're dealing with similar issues, know, leadership issues, organizational culture issues, know, team cohesiveness. Those are...
It doesn't matter the industry, like those are really important ingredients of a successful organization. so those are things that often have to get addressed at some point.
speaker-1 (14:00)
It makes me think that in the music world, a music producer is brought into a recording studio to work with a band, and then there's an engineer, and then there maybe is other people, there's an arranger perhaps. There's multiple people working on the same project. And to me, my favorite producers, they create a space where... ⁓
saying the truth, saying what you think is accepted, it's actually expected, and it keeps things oriented towards, we're gonna do what's best for the project, we're gonna do what's best for the company or the organization as a coach or consultant. And it seems like the task then is to create a, like you're holding the space, right? You're holding a container for this work to happen, for the truth to emerge.
And it's not that everybody has to agree that that's the best thing, but because it's emerged and we've all experienced it and we've all got to say what we think, it really is like, it presents the opportunity for the best idea or the best way or the most honest, like the reality of the situation to take precedent, right? Because you've created the space, like you've created the environment for this to happen. It seems like you're like a producer for the team.
speaker-0 (15:22)
Sure. And I think that, say in a recording project, if you have a sound engineer, they're often really like the content consultant. They know sound, they know the technical aspects of that role. Right. They know what equipment to use and that sort of thing. Whereas the producer often can't play the instruments as well as the people recording.
speaker-1 (15:38)
Yeah, what will work, won't.
speaker-0 (15:53)
They may not even be a fantastic musician. And really what they bring is like the process. Here's how we're gonna approach this. And here's what's gonna be most successful, like what you said for the project. And so, it's very similar in strategy work that I do that every process looks a little different and it's gonna be based on the client.
What is going to help them thrive? Like, who are the people that need to be in the room? You know, what does the schedule look like? Where do we need to meet? ⁓ How do we create a space where everybody feels comfortable sharing and everybody is going to listen? so all those types of things have to happen. I think there are lot of parallels between like,
producing and the process consulting that I do.
speaker-1 (16:55)
Yeah, they seem one in the same in different worlds. How do you, how do you, talking about cadence, talking about, let's say it's let's say it's a leader, like the leadership team ⁓ of a good size organization that has multiple things that they're juggling. have a hundred employees or something. How do you choose the cadence or even, or even if they call you and they're like, we just need help.
finding clarity of what we're gonna do next, whatever it is. How do you go in there or even if it's on the first call or on the first meeting, how do you determine the cadence to which your services will be useful? We're gonna meet every week, we're gonna meet once a month, once a quarter. How do you personally, what governs your cadence?
speaker-0 (17:44)
That's a good question because in many ways it just depends because in some ways it's based on the readiness of a client and in some ways like what they think is going to be best. However, there are times where based on urgency might require more frequent meetings or ⁓
a more regular cadence. think sometimes there are some situations where, ⁓ you know, they're just a little misaligned. And so it's like, you can, sometimes I come in and can fix things and things get, you know, they walk away and like ready to move. And so I think it's, yeah, like I sometimes like people are just, there's just some misunderstanding or misalignment. And all of a sudden it's like,
speaker-1 (18:33)
in a single session.
speaker-0 (18:42)
There's a little bit of a breakthrough and so then they can keep moving now. And so it's not like I need to meet with them weekly or something, but ⁓ over time, then I think sometimes like getting back together ⁓ periodically can help. I mean, I always think one of the main challenges with strategy work is that, ⁓ is really that accountability piece and the follow through. So we can create a great vision, but
Sometimes the actual execution of that vision is more challenging. so sometimes it depends on whether they can provide the structure that they need for execution versus like sometimes they need outside resource to make that happen.
speaker-1 (19:32)
Yeah, I've thought about this with coaching, let's say one-on-one coaching specifically, is, ⁓ and I was talking to another performance coach about this on a recent podcast, about, you know, like even ⁓ participating in the work as the person being consulted or coached, participating in the work is entering a container of accountability and knowing that you're going to meet with that person in a month or in a week, even just knowing that they're
Because it's not like you're going to show up and they're not going to get in trouble for not, I mean, it's self-induced trouble if they are. But even the participation of the activity is itself an accountability container. So there is a useful follow-up or if it's a one-on-one, maybe the cadence is weekly or bi-weekly, but it's even just knowing that that meeting's coming is an accountability thing versus getting all the information, having a great meeting, and then being left to your own devices.
speaker-0 (20:32)
Right. mean, if you ask people, like in the workplace, do you like having meetings? I can't imagine any, very many people say they love going to meetings. But at the end of the day, that's often the structure that needs to take place to make sure work does occur. hey, we are going to meet in one week to talk about this. Well, then all of a sudden your behaviors will or will not align with that.
And most likely they're going to align with that. It's the same reason people who are in really good shape use a personal trainer. It's very possible they know more about physical fitness than their trainer. just having that experience there, having that accountability built in with somebody being there to work out with is going to make sure they actually show up.
speaker-1 (21:30)
Yes.
speaker-0 (21:31)
probably going to impact their level of effort in that session. And so there, I mean, there is a piece sometimes of coaching where there's just an accountability that comes with it. I mean, I think that I never want to waste anybody's time, but I also want to make sure that what we do together, it doesn't just become a one-off experience that then they go back to doing what they used to do. So I think that's...
That's the key is trying to figure out like, how do ⁓ we make that happen? mean, to relate it to music, and we haven't even really talked about my background in music, but as somebody who has a degree in music, I mean, it was incredible amount of accountability to have a weekly private lesson. And so knowing
Hey, these are the five exercises I need you to practice between now and next time. And I'm going to listen to them and tell them how you tell you how you did. ⁓ there's some accountability that comes with it. And you don't want to let down that person. You want ultimately them to give you positive feedback on it. You don't want to waste their time. And so there's a lot of that.
speaker-1 (22:42)
Yes, yes.
Yes.
speaker-0 (22:57)
comes into play like in consulting, coaching, and I mean there are lot of parallels with music.
speaker-1 (23:04)
funny it's that's when stuff gets real you can you can play a guitar in your room or whatever and guitars different people have rock star ambitions but you could play an instrument in your room but then as soon as you tell another person I will work on that you leave there it really means something you just you made it you heard yourself make a promise right you gotta go do it
speaker-0 (23:23)
But
saying something out loud is one way we can develop accountability.
speaker-1 (23:29)
Yeah.
I wanted to take one minute and talk about a moment that most people don't talk about. And it's not the crisis. It's not the win. It's the moments in between. It's when things are moving and opportunities are coming in and you could feel that a decision is forming, but the path forward isn't clear yet. This is an inflection point. And that's where most people either rush or they stall or they overthink.
And it's the sweet spot that I've discovered my work is valuable at ThruLine. See, I work with artists, founders, and creative leaders during these exact moments. The work isn't about telling them what to do or giving them advice on specific things. It's to help them see what's actually there. We slow things down enough to separate signal from noise, the truth from all the other stuff. We want to understand what matters.
and what doesn't, and what direction your next move actually needs to take. No hype, no generic frameworks, just clear thinking, honest reflection, and grounded decision making. If you're in a season of transition, growth, or quiet pressure, and you want clarity before momentum, if you want to get it right in the upstream so that all those downstream decisions can be made clearly and confidently, that's the work I do.
You can learn more at artistdev.co. And as always, thank you for listening to the show.
speaker-0 (25:02)
you
I had a coach that I worked with for a while and I kept telling him I was gonna write a book. And finally I said it again and he was like, are you actually gonna write a book or you just gonna talk about it? Because if you ask people what percentage of people would like to write a book, it's like 90 some percent. What percentage actually do? One. so ⁓ when he finally called me out on that, I was like, all right.
I need to actually do this. What are the steps I'm going to take to make this happen?
speaker-1 (25:47)
So what makes a great leader, or even more, when you have been around great leaders, what kind of people are they? Who are they? When you think about great leaders, how would you describe a great leader?
speaker-0 (26:04)
I wanna, so I wanna talk about ⁓ my experiences. I'm gonna relate this to my experiences in music. So early in my career, I was a high school band director. And right down the road. So that really shaped my view of leadership. And it's funny to go from, you know,
speaker-1 (26:19)
right down the road.
speaker-0 (26:31)
being a high school marching band director to an executive coach and to work with CEOs of larger companies. And it may not feel like it always translates, there's direct application. When I took over a band who had struggled, ⁓ it
what I had to really think about was my leadership. How do I lead a group of people who made an understand why they should be doing these things? They had not had a lot of the level of success that I think they really wanted, but they didn't necessarily understand what it was going to take to get there. ⁓ And I also had to do it in an environment that ⁓ didn't push them so hard that they quit.
speaker-1 (27:28)
Mm. Right. Yep.
speaker-0 (27:29)
So they had have fun because
nobody was making them be there. And so you translate that to the workplace where I think great leaders tell people why they're doing things. They create a vision in terms of where we're going as an organization and that there's ⁓ higher meaning and greater purpose to this work than just like
speaker-1 (27:34)
Yes.
speaker-0 (28:00)
making money for the owner. so you think about that with music as like, I think music has this higher purpose of uplifting people, of helping people reach new insights of these. I mean, we all probably have experiences where on a really ⁓ sad day, we listen to a song and we remember that song.
or there are times where we're on this great high and we listen to a song too. And so I think doing work in music helped me understand the higher purpose behind what we do. And I think very few musicians are like, I mean, there probably are some that are like, hey, I'm just doing this to make money or I'm doing this just to pick up.
chicks or something. Yes. Like I think most of them, there is really a higher purpose to what they do. ⁓ And so I think that that leader, effective leaders, help people understand the meaning and purpose behind their work. ⁓ I think also, you know, there's an article
by John Cotter called What Leaders Really Do. And he talks about what's the difference between a manager and what's the difference between a leader and a manager. ⁓ It really excels at planning, budgeting, providing resources ⁓ versus a leader who creates a vision, aligns people with that vision, and motivates and inspires people. And so
speaker-1 (29:48)
Yes.
speaker-0 (29:50)
You could be a great manager and do all those tactical things, but not be a great leader. ⁓
speaker-1 (29:58)
This ⁓ is often why early founders don't always grow up to be the CEO of the company because this is a different skill set in some instances.
speaker-0 (30:11)
Sometimes they're visionary leaders and not great managers. ⁓ And so it's not like one is better than the other, but both come into play in terms of like running an organization. you sometimes like in a company where a founder ends up being able to run an organization as a CEO, they often have a COO or
speaker-1 (30:14)
Yes, yes.
speaker-0 (30:40)
or sometimes a co-CEO who's more of the operational person. I think Apple's probably a good example, Steve Jobs was very much a visionary. Tim Cook, I think, was very much like an operational and was great at running the business.
speaker-1 (30:47)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (31:06)
And if you think about it, since he took over, the business has still been very successful. But for the most part, all they're doing is optimizing what they already did. This is a period under Steve Jobs leadership where they were still creating new products and services.
speaker-1 (31:15)
That's right, yes.
This is ⁓ the classic, like, co-founder dynamic where even before Tim Cook, was Steve Jobs and then, ⁓ Wozniak, right? Yeah, he was building the product. So there was, like, the technical person who put structure and product, and then there was the person who was going to, like, spearhead it and hold the vision of something great. And that dynamic...
is those two things working together in tandem. That creates then the, it's like this dynamic creates, you have to have, or I would think you would have to have some sort of mix of both of those things. So I'm gonna push it forward in dream and the other person to, let's put the pieces in place to build the damn thing.
speaker-0 (32:15)
Yeah. So I want to follow up on a little bit more about what I think a great leader is, we could go on a... We went on a little bit of a tangent right there, but I think it was important for the conversation. I also think ⁓ effective leaders are set an example. We as leaders ⁓ can't expect people to do things that we're not willing to do. So we...
set of, we have a set of values and we adhere to them and we expect other people to adhere to them. Yes. ⁓ Right. And then the other piece is ⁓ if you look at ⁓ what derails a career, number one thing is typically interpersonal relationships. So I think leaders have to be effective at ⁓ interpersonal relationships.
And that involves ⁓ their team, that involves ⁓ often, you know, other stakeholders like customers, their manager. mean, those interpersonal relationships are really important. And also, like with that piece, I think effective leaders have to be able to develop other people. ⁓ One of the things that you sometimes see with organizations is
when somebody who you think is like this amazing leader leaves and then the organization just tanks. And you have to realize in those situations, sometimes what's happened is it's not that, ⁓ you know, it's not that that person was ineffective while they were there, but people often follow that leader and that leader hasn't developed other people and has made
the organization just completely dependent on that one person rather than creating an organization where people, they're not following the leader, they're following the mission or the purpose.
speaker-1 (34:25)
Yes, yeah. I've actually thought about this with churches, Catholic churches specifically, because that's what I know here in our area, is that the challenge I would imagine being a priest would be, we look at you as the leader of the organization, the parish that you're at, but if you leave in two years or four years if you get transferred, which is a common thing to get transferred around, now...
if we've bought into you as just the leader itself, or you as a person, then you leave. And then we are like, well, I either want to go to that church where you're at now, or I'm gonna start going to Mass here, but stay on this parish. Or the mission has been established to where when I leave, you guys know how to continue operating this parish, this school. We have the mission in place. And I've thought about how it really is,
The priest has to be the leader when they're there, but they have to run it like it's not their church. It's the church, it's the people's church. You have to have this vision and the mission first. We all serve this, and if I leave, you guys keep going. And then whoever comes in next, they're gonna have their own flavor of running it, but this lasts far longer than any of us. Right. the North Star.
speaker-0 (35:42)
Right, so often we have churches that the attendees are there because of the personality or the message of the pastor. Yeah. And ⁓ so when that happens, you've built an organization, a church on like a house of cards. Like it's just gonna fall down. Yeah.
when that person leaves because it's just dependent on that personality. There are actually some studies that I think are really interesting around leadership and in particular, charismatic leadership, where we would often think about a leader as like charisma being a really important part. And there are certainly people that have these personalities that are like larger than life and you see and you're like, wow, this person is just...
They have what it takes to be a great leader because they have such a big personality and they're fun to be around and they're people like that. what's interesting is sometimes there's the downfall to that is that people are just following that personality. And so there is some research to suggest that the downside of charismatic leadership is that often when that person leaves, the organization is in worse shape.
speaker-1 (37:03)
As a result. Yes.
speaker-0 (37:05)
Versus, versus like sometimes the less charismatic people are able to get people to follow really the purpose or the mission of the organization. And therefore when they leave, it's not a big event.
speaker-1 (37:21)
Yeah, yes. fabric of the, the cultural fabric, it's built in there. The purpose is built in there. The why is built in there. It's not held in the person who's been driving the shit out.
speaker-0 (37:33)
Jim Collins talks a lot about that in his book, to Great. mean, he talks about level five leadership and the level five leadership, like one of those characteristics is often like, they're just a very humble, unassuming person.
speaker-1 (37:49)
Yeah, you know what's interesting is I've been looking at the pattern of really great, what I'm calling upstream people, people who work in the vision work and the identity and the early phases of things. And it seems like they don't always have the broadcast public persona that...
that it's almost like it's because they hold such, they hold the role of like really keeping things, they keep the signal of the mission and the purpose really alive. Because I remember this, I remember asking you, I'm like, why don't you have any of your, why don't you have any of your, people you've served or the companies you've worked with, why don't you have all their, you like you go to like a service and they'll put, we work with Warner Music, we work with Apple Music. You don't have any of that. I'm like, why not?
Why don't you promote? But it seems that that's a pattern that it's kind of, I don't think it's intentional necessarily. It's just a byproduct of being focused on a specific type of work. It doesn't need promoted. It doesn't need, that's not the point. It's not about me, right? It's not about bring me in, I'm the best person who's gonna do all this stuff. It's really, what do you need? I'm here to serve.
I'm here to serve the ideas, the vision, the mission.
speaker-0 (39:21)
It's funny because if you... ⁓
Sometimes if you ask a consultant, know, how do you become a really good consultant? And probably the answer is to have really good clients. At the end of the day. Yeah. You know, and so there is a piece around like, it really isn't about me. And at the end of the day, like, I love to exit an organization and know that they're better as a result.
speaker-1 (39:33)
Haha
speaker-0 (39:53)
and that they don't need me anymore.
speaker-1 (39:55)
Right. That would be an indication of a job well done. It's an interesting incentive to have.
speaker-0 (39:59)
Right, like when they
When I check in with them a year later and I say like, how are things going? Like, and they can say like, we've had this type of growth or we've made these changes. Like we're in a really good place right now. Like that's, that's the sign of success. And, and the other sign of success is that I don't need to promote who I work with because they promote me. ⁓
speaker-1 (40:33)
Yes.
speaker-0 (40:35)
And so the greatest compliment for me as a consultant is for a client to tell somebody that they trust, I think you should call Tad. I mean, that's the biggest compliment. And to me, putting the names of big companies that I've worked with on my website, I mean, that might be impressive to some people.
speaker-1 (40:51)
Yes.
speaker-0 (41:03)
I don't know. And I probably err on the side of underselling what I do. But also I think, ⁓ you know, going into that piece around like personality and I mean, I think I am much more ⁓ process driven, much more ⁓ than other types of consultants who base their work around their personality. I would not say I'm a keynote speaker.
You know, that's not, I don't think that's where I shine. And I think one of the great things as we get more mature in our careers is we realize like, what are we really good at? And what are those things like, I probably don't need to do anymore. You know, I don't need to pretend like I am a keynote speaker and I'm gonna engage. ⁓
speaker-1 (41:53)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (42:00)
big crowd of people with just my personality and funny stories. Like that's, that's probably not going to happen. Yeah. But what I think I do really well is, you know, bring like in the leadership space, it's not to come in and give this really inspirational talk. It's really to come in and like give people tools and encourage them to reflect on their
where they are in terms of their leadership development and then provide tools to help them and facilitate discussions that really reinforce the need for these tools. So it's more about leading a session of self-discovery than being the show.
speaker-1 (42:51)
Yes. You know, even as you were talking, I've been thinking about how in terms of, if you said, if you don't promote, how do you generate opportunity? And I've been thinking about as somebody in my shoes, whose early stage in this work is thinking about, well, clarity for a person or an organization would be seen as valuable. To be able to see things simply and clearly.
would be valuable. And then the value of that over time, if you hold an integral role as the person providing a space to create clarity, you would earn trust. And based off that trust, you will gain opportunity. Because if your client trusts you enough to tell a friend or another person in their space, well, you have that problem, you should call Tad. That trust is the
is like the trust is the marketing ingredient to get you the opportunity of the next thing. It spreads the thing. It's like the, it's just a different way of looking at growth in a career versus I'm gonna go post on social media all the time about these things, or I'm gonna go call a bunch of people.
speaker-0 (44:10)
Yeah, if you look at, so I'm from Omaha, Nebraska originally, so the most famous person in Omaha is Warren Buffett. So Warren Buffett, he wrote a book called The Snowball Effect. And really it's about compounding interest. It's not a sexy idea at all. But what he says is like, over time, if you have a little nest egg and you invest that,
over time it just grows and grows and grows. And as it grows, really exponentially grows. And so, in general, he has pretty conservative principles in terms of investing. He invests in companies that he knows, he invests in long-term...
speaker-1 (44:42)
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah, potential structures.
speaker-0 (45:08)
Versus like, you know, he's not gonna be an investor in you know, IPO. He's not gonna take on a risky investment, you know? And so sometimes it feels like that in terms of promotion and business. Like sometimes like you have to like, I need a, you know, I need a ton of business right now. So I'm gonna, you know, really focus on my... ⁓
you know, traffic to my website and social media and put all this content out there ⁓ versus like my approach, I think is just, it's a long game. Like it's, and I also work in an industry, like in consulting where I don't need hundreds or thousands of clients ⁓ at any given time. So, you know, it depends on the model.
speaker-1 (45:49)
Yes.
Yes.
speaker-0 (46:07)
that you work in. if you have a model where your services are like very, like, you know, low cost, then you need a lot of customers. If you have a high cost offering, then you need a small number of customers. So it just depends on that model. And for me in consulting, there's only so much time I have in the day. And so I really need a relatively small number of clients to ⁓
to make a good living.
speaker-1 (46:38)
Yes. So I want to ask you one more thing about your process. When you are working with, let's go back to the leadership team, and let's say that the founder is also, or the leader is like a founder, strong identity type, who he's identified that we're bringing Tad on board to help with the team. But it's a team. Do you?
And let's say even at some meetings, the team is 12 people, 14 people. Are you at all meeting, like let's say you meet with the team on a monthly basis for three months or something. Are you also meeting with the individual founder or a smaller group in like more repeated cadence than the bigger group? And is that more of like a coaching role than a
than when you're in the group setting is more of you're a facilitator of the space. Do these things occur at kind of, it's kind of like your work is the whole job of that, of that opportunity would be like these kind of multiple roles over time.
speaker-0 (47:48)
Right, I would say it depends. mean, in general, if I'm doing strategy work with a group, I want to have check-ins with the CEO to make sure that things are moving on track. ⁓ I sometimes provide the CEO with feedback in terms of how I think things are going. ⁓ I sometimes have to tell a CEO, the last person to talk.
Because if we want this really to be a team approach, like a lot of times what happens is, you know, in a hierarchical structure, we defer to the person with the most power in the room. And so sometimes as leaders, we are not ⁓ aware of the weight that our title brings to a conversation. Yeah. And so...
speaker-1 (48:30)
Yes.
Even if the intention has been that everybody's gonna say what they think and then the opportunity to say what you think but you look over at boss man, still expect like, you know what I mean? Like I can see that dynamic unfolds naturally.
speaker-0 (48:58)
If
I ask a question and the CEO is the first one to answer the question about the direction the organization needs to go, then everybody else is kind of like, well, why am I? I guess we'll just do that. And so I think there's some sort of interaction usually with that leader in between meetings because I think, you know, I want to get some feedback in terms of how they're perceiving
the meetings. And it's interesting because sometimes they will even point out things to me that I didn't notice. I'll point out things that maybe they didn't notice. And so I think it just allows us to create a process that's going to be most effective. ⁓ But I would say there's some sort of interaction usually in between, but not necessarily like there's a set, okay, we're going to have a...
one-on-one coaching meeting in between everyone. just, it depends on the situation. One of the things I struggle with in consulting is that it can feel like it's a challenging profession to really scale because, you know, really with scaling what we do is we create these replicable processes. And I think
speaker-1 (50:22)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (50:26)
when we're dealing with people, process like this cookie cutter process might work really well here and I move it over here and it doesn't work. And so there are so many nuances of human behavior. I mean, I think the same thing probably with like a great music producer, that music producer isn't gonna be like, know, Rick Rubin probably isn't like, hey, this worked for ⁓
speaker-1 (50:39)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, red hot chili. Burz. Yeah, well that's it.
speaker-0 (50:56)
And so we're
gonna do this for you too, country singer.
speaker-1 (51:01)
Yes, yes. ⁓
speaker-0 (51:03)
Right. And so I think it's a tough, it's tough to scale because in many ways to scale what we would just say is like, okay, here's our product or service offering. Here's how much it costs. Here's exactly what it looks like. And this is what you get with the package. Well, you may be selling something that the person doesn't need. Yeah. And at the end of the day,
You know, what I want to do is create an environment where like I leave the organization in a better place than when I started. It's not just like, hey, I cashed a bunch of checks and they're the same. Right.
speaker-1 (51:44)
Or they needed one meeting and I sold them on four months a retainer and... Right.
speaker-0 (51:47)
And
they wasted a bunch of time that they didn't need to. Like, I want them to really feel like ⁓ the time that we spent together was valuable and it was the right amount of time. It didn't pull them away from other things. Like, and ultimately they're better individually and the organization's better.
speaker-1 (51:50)
Yes.
Hints again, the importance of, think it's not even scaling as much as just the growth is then bigger clients, fewer bigger clients. then someone like you, it's writing a book, right? These are products at scale, or could scale.
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speaker-0 (53:01)
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speaker-1 (53:02)
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speaker-0 (53:25)
And I think it's the same approach like in the music industry where like if you teach somebody guitar lessons, like you could say, okay, well my package is, know, weekly lesson for, you know, 30 minutes. And in general, that probably works fine for most people. But if you were to say, hey, here's exactly what I teach at every single lesson. And like this lesson, I'm gonna teach these scales and these, you know, I'm gonna teach
It's like Right. Yeah, you have to meet it. Yeah, I think that's a really important phrase to remember is like We have to meet people where we at where they're at as a leader. We have to meet people where they're at like in our interpersonal relationships like with the companies we work with with the customers we have for the clients like you talked earlier about like the church world like
speaker-1 (53:56)
You're not meeting him where they're at. Right.
speaker-0 (54:25)
A spiritual leader needs to meet their people where they are.
speaker-1 (54:27)
Yes, yeah. So I know we're kind of running low on time, but I do want to ask, did you, how and when did you pick up the bagpipe?
speaker-0 (54:40)
⁓ So, I played the bagpipes down for probably close to 20 years. And ⁓ as I mentioned before, I studied music in college. was trumpet. I sang a lot in college also. ⁓ But then my middle name's Anderson. So that's a Scottish ancestry. And there's an Anderson clan.
speaker-1 (54:54)
What was your main instrument? Trumpet?
speaker-0 (55:10)
Okay. there's an Anderson Tartan. so I always had kind of this interest in the bagpipes, and I just think they're a very majestic sound. There's nothing quite like it. ⁓
speaker-1 (55:25)
Did your
family talk to you about your Celtic background? This was you discover this and this creates an interest and let's see what happens.
speaker-0 (55:29)
Not really. Okay.
And so I moved into this apartment on the west side of Evansville and one day I was outside and I heard somebody playing the bagpipes and decided to walk down the street to see who it was and ended up talking to a guy. He's a local attorney and bagpiper and introduced myself and he said,
⁓ said, would you be interested in learning how to play? And I said, yes. And so he said, I'll give you free lessons. so then I ended up joining the Evansville Pipe Band ⁓ and played with that group for a while and took lessons and have continued to play. mean, off and on, there are times where I play more or less, play right now.
usually a little bit monthly at Patsy Hartigan's. That's right. In here in Evansville and then occasionally some weddings and funerals and just special events. ⁓ know, University of Evansville every ⁓ fall, they have a freshman convocation. So I bagpipe to kind of welcome the freshmen to school. And ⁓ so it's just an instrument that
speaker-1 (56:36)
I'll catch you guys out there.
speaker-0 (57:01)
there's some novelty to it. And I think when you see it, it's a special experience. It's not just like, I'm going to hear this. It's something you rarely see or hear. ⁓ I've enjoyed it. Really, it's been a fun part of the last 20 years of my life.
speaker-1 (57:24)
It's funny because there's something about the bagpipe that is, it almost evokes like reverence and like this sort of underlying, like when you, I've seen you at Patsy's and like you'll take a break and you'll walk around and like, I want to stand up out of my chair, of, and like I want to almost like, almost put my hand over my heart or something. That's like the call, it's like, here we go. Like it almost like, it's like ceremonial and it's like this deep,
It's like war. I feel it's like this thing. It's funny that it almost like unlocks some deep part of us as humans of like something important's happening here.
speaker-0 (58:06)
I listened to this really interesting podcast about the history of bagpipes a while back and they talked about how, you know, World War I, like bagpipers leading troops into battle ⁓ and troops talking about like how much it inspired them to keep going. I mean, it's really tragic, but like, I mean,
speaker-1 (58:26)
Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-0 (58:34)
a very high percentage of bagpipers that piped in World War I were killed. And they probably knew that was their fate. But, and actually, like World War II, the British Army ⁓ outlawed bagpiping during the war. But it's funny because the Scottish Army said, well, we're just going to do it still. And so, ⁓
But I think there is something about like when you hear it, like it evokes some sort of, there's something about the drones that ⁓ evokes this kind of like it's a, maybe it's a sacred time or a ⁓ reverent period or an inspiring period. And I don't think there's any other instrument quite like that.
speaker-1 (59:30)
I I remember being on the retreat, the small retreat where you and I bonded for the first time and I woke up, it's like we wake, we go to bed, we wake up the next morning and I hear out the window a bagpipe and I'm like, what the fuck, what is going on? I look outside and you, it's snow, is it just snowed? You're out there playing and it made me want, it, yeah, it made me think.
Today's the day we're gonna go in and do some work today. We're gonna we're gonna go in the warrior circle We're gonna go get in the cold water. Yeah, we're gonna do all these things that are and it was a great way to ⁓ Even though you got shut down by the neighbor. It was like your what your kids are trying to take a nap or whatever
speaker-0 (1:00:12)
That's loud. That's definitely the downside.
speaker-1 (1:00:16)
But it was great to just wake up to...
speaker-0 (1:00:19)
The call of.
speaker-1 (1:00:21)
You know, duty, here we go. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, I'm curious when you look out, you know, with, I know, ⁓ AIs come online. This is affecting the companies that you work with. It's affecting your work. ⁓ But when you look out from today into the future, what gets you excited about your job? Where do you want to go with things? What's got you looking forward to the next chapter of your career and life?
speaker-0 (1:00:51)
I think AI has been an exciting part of my year, I would say. ⁓ it's easy to approach it. I I think a lot of people are scared of it and they worry how that's going to impact their jobs ⁓ moving forward. But in some ways, like in the leadership space, I feel like it has the ability to help us be more efficient with our time. ⁓
ultimately allow us then to focus more on the human element of leadership. And so I talk to leaders so often where it's like, I'm just buried in work, I can't get out of my office, I can't have these important conversations with people. And what it should do is help us automate routine tasks, help us do things more efficiently that ultimately we can really
⁓ develop and support the people around us better. So that's something that I think is really exciting. ⁓
speaker-1 (1:01:59)
Do you find yourself, I don't know if educating or just like opening the eyes of people who are drowning in work and are fearful of AI is to opening up like a different lens of like, I understand the fear, I understand the change, but here's the positive side that you might not have considered. Has that come up?
speaker-0 (1:02:21)
Yeah, I mean, sometimes I like to have conversations with people and just say, you know, if you think about what you do every day, what do you love doing?
And then what part of your job do you dread? And often what I'll say is like, you know, if you love doing that, keep doing it the way you're doing it. That's fine. But there's usually a part that they dread that they could actually, you know, that's where I would say, okay, figure out how you can use AI to help you do less of that. ⁓ And I think that's a really good approach because at the end of the day, like,
speaker-1 (1:02:55)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (1:03:02)
If we all feel like today I have the opportunity to do what I do best. Like there's so much fulfillment that comes from that. Like, and it pours into then like our personal lives too. You know, if we come home and you know, there, mean, sadly, I know too many people that go home every day. They hate what they do. They, they probably get home. They aren't nice to their
speaker-1 (1:03:17)
Yeah.
They're exhausted, they're depleted.
speaker-0 (1:03:34)
want
to sit on the couch and do nothing. yet if you come home and you feel like, know what?
I have some skills and I actually got to use them today. Like it just, fills you up. And so I like, that's what I would say is exciting about AI. Like there, I guarantee just about everybody has an opportunity to save a little time and do more of the things that they love and less of the things they don't like.
speaker-1 (1:04:03)
Yes. I would agree. You know, I was, I asked chat GPT the other day, ⁓ how many people talk to you about big contextual strategic problems? What's like the percentage? And it gave me a percentage of how people are using AI. And I don't know the exact numbers exactly, but it was like seven, like up to 75 % use it for transactional questions. Like how do I fix this? How do I do this? Very, you know, simple.
And then it was like, and then the percentages get smaller for people who use it for larger problem solving. And then it, then like the smallest domain was people who use it as a thought partner to develop long arc, almost like using AI. This is I've been thinking about it too, is like using AI as like this gigantic context pool that you can go in and say, I'm noticing this problem in this industry.
Are there other industries where this problem exists? And what are the histories of this? And who are the people who do it? you can, I listed a podcast, it was Steven Tyler, Conversations with Stevens is a big podcast. He was talking about using AI, and he was saying, I talk into AI and I give it as much context as possible, even if it's rambling, my question. But he's like, the more context I can give it, the more specific the answer it can give, versus giving it.
Like a simple question the context is so big it's gonna give you it's gonna try to fill in all these gaps But if you can give it more context and give you a simple simpler question and it's got it's just made me thinking it's got me thinking about how like AI as a thought partner not as somebody to replace human thought or wisdom or or how you do things But is someone to help you make sense of the world? Something to help you make sense of the world right? It's such a powerful tool
speaker-0 (1:05:59)
I use it in strategy work now. I mean, I tell clients that I'm going to use it too, because I mean, it's really interesting like to gather information about an organization, whether that's, you know, financial information or, you know, a SWOT analysis or interviews with, you know, individuals within the organization. And I do this in like, I have, you know, proprietary
speaker-1 (1:06:18)
information.
speaker-0 (1:06:28)
Program so I don't you know, so secure is like throw this out to the to the world in like open AI but What's interesting is sometimes what I like to do is pull all that information and then Ask the people like what do you think are the key strategic issues for this company and then? I'll ask AI What do you think based on all this?
speaker-1 (1:06:31)
Yes.
Yes.
speaker-0 (1:06:58)
All this data, whether that's like quantitative or qualitative data, and what do you think are the strategic issues? And sometimes it aligns and sometimes it doesn't. what it does is it removes the bias that we have from being too close to a situation. I think that's one of the challenges. I mean, we could talk about the strategy work all day, but one of the challenges in the process consulting is like...
speaker-1 (1:07:15)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (1:07:26)
people do have biases and sometimes they're a little too close. And so I think one of the really cool things about AI right now is that it says, you know what, here's what it says. And we can argue whether that's right or not, but that's what it says. let's really have a hard conversation about, that...
speaker-1 (1:07:41)
But yes.
Yes, here's, and this is what's interesting about, I asked ChadGPT about, ⁓ I said, when I ask you things, are you giving me feedback based off what you think I wanna hear? Or are you giving me objective reflection? you know, back to me. And it talked about how, like my function as an AI is to mirror what you're saying and to provide you back.
the objective view in a way that you understand what you're asking and what's known about this topic. My job is not to persuade you to think one way or another. That's for you, that's your role as the human. And I think that that's really, find like this same level of excitement just in terms of like, this will keep me in check. This will keep me from getting too biased towards one way or the other. Even if I think in my heart, I know this is true about this situation.
But I don't know, let's do the analysis over here. Let's go hear what you have to say in the group, these people. And like you said, let's put all this together and see what comes up.
speaker-0 (1:08:53)
Yeah, I think the thought leadership piece is really interesting. I mean, in some ways, like, it can almost be your own free coat. And I was, you know, a while back, I was looking at if I want to bring on additional team members, like, what does that look like in a small consulting firm? And so, I mean, I just asked, you know, I want you to be my thought partner in this...
speaker-1 (1:09:02)
Yes.
speaker-0 (1:09:22)
in this discussion and I'm thinking about bringing on a new team member. How should I base compensation? Here's my total revenue, here's the industries I'm working in, here the types of projects I'm working on. it mean, it gave me like multiple scenarios. Like it was really helpful.
And I think back to if I had done this five years ago, I would have just either like pulled it out of, you know what, or I would have like had to have a bunch of conversations with people to figure out, like, I mean, it would have, it would have taken probably months.
speaker-1 (1:09:59)
Yeah. Or...
Yes, to really- Instead of a half an hour to work through this exercise. right.
speaker-0 (1:10:13)
Yeah. And honestly, I think ⁓ it gave me some scenarios that I could easily implement and would make sense. And so that kind of stuff is really exciting.
speaker-1 (1:10:25)
Yeah, it's awesome. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate you taking time to do this and we only scratched the surface of your musical background, but that's fine. I don't really care because I was just so curious to unpack your thinking and your how you view things and
speaker-0 (1:10:44)
No, I really enjoyed the conversation and ⁓ we'll have to have a part two about the music part, but ⁓ it's interesting because I really think, you know, you meet people and you hear about like what degrees they have and ⁓ you think, man, you don't do anything with that. And in some ways I sometimes feel that way, but I know that's not true because...
Music has always been a really important my life It's it's still an important part of my life and I think my experiences and like the discipline that I developed it like the ability to ⁓ Lead Are directly tied to that I like I think about one of my favorite you'd asked about like leaders and this this might be one of my final comments but if you think about like I mean one of the best ways to
think about a leader is through the view of a conductor. And so if you think about like an orchestral conductor, like they don't know how to play the instruments as well as the people in the orchestra. But their job is to bring the best out of everybody. Yeah. To create something greater than the individual parts. Right? Yes. And it's not about them. It's about
speaker-1 (1:11:55)
Right.
speaker-0 (1:12:12)
doing something that's bigger than everybody combined. And so, like, that's what I think leadership's all about. It's about, how do I pull the best out of everybody on my team and align them all in this vision that's meaningful and inspiring and at the end of the day, none of us could accomplish on our own.
speaker-1 (1:12:46)
Hey, thank you for listening to the show this week. Visit everybodyelsepodcast.com to learn more about this show, including a list of past guests and previous episodes. You can find me on Instagram at Wes Luttrell, where I post my own work, including activities related to this show. And you can also find the show on Instagram at everybody else podcast. This show is self-produced and hosted by me, Wes Luttrell, with artwork by Ethan Douglas and music by Jim Neuer.
I'm grateful that you spent a little time this week listening to our podcast and learning more about the invisible people out dedicating their lives to making music.
Everybody else is a production of the Midwest music.