Media Coverage

Crucial Talks Podcast – It’s Not About Business, It’s About People

January 5, 2020

Listen at the Crucial Talks Podcast website.

Download Crucial Talks Podcast – It’s Not About Business, It’s About People Transcript

Podcast Transcript

Mike Sedam:

Hello everyone, this is Mike Saddam. Welcome back to the Crucial Talks podcast. Today’s guest is Jay Scott. Now Jay is the author of a couple of books. The first one is, it’s Never Just Business, it’s About People. And the second is The Irreverent Guide to Project Management. So he is really about people and getting stuff done, but you’ll hear a little bit more about that when we talk to J. Now, he has quite the resume that started with him jumping outta Navy helicopters and now includes transforming organizations such as DirecTV, trader Joe’s, Sony Mattel, and other organizations. So this should be a really valuable conversation. So without further ado, let’s welcome J Scott to the K Talks podcast. How are you today, J?

Jason Scott:

I’m doing great, Mike. I’m happy to be here. Thanks for having me on the show.

Mike Sedam:

Well, it’s pretty exciting. I mean, you’ve got quite the varied background, so your experience sounds really interesting. I mean, jumping outta helicopters that somehow led you to helping organizations. So could you tell us a little bit about you and your background? How did you get to this place where you’re helping all these organizations and people really get stuff done?

Jason Scott:

Well, I, I, I think it did start in the military. I, I really joined the military to get out of the neighborhood to sort of get away. I didn’t grow up in, in what anyone would call like a great neighborhood. And so I joined the Navy. And the coolest thing about the Navy was they’ll literally let you volunteer to do anything you wanna do. I mean, I heard a lot of people tell me, Hey, the, when you, when you join the military, make sure not to volunteer for anything. My advice to anybody actually signing up to the Armed Forces is volunteer for everything, because they’ll literally let you learn anything you want. So I joined as a data processing technician because I thought computers are the future. I ended up volunteering to become a rescue swimmer. At one point I made it through Rescue Swimmer School.

Jason Scott:

And so that’s how I ended up jumping outta helicopters and, and a couple of times rescuing people. Um, the military is really interesting. I, I guess in the sense that when I joined, I didn’t think of it as I was joining to be in service to my country. I just really thought of this. I was gonna join, I was gonna get away. I was gonna go see the world. Um, but ultimately, everything that you do in the military, and I was in six years, two months, and 23 days really is in service to the country, the American people. Um, they rotate you every couple of years, which gives you the opportunity to learn a new job, which led me to project management. When I got out of the Navy, the first thing that happened was I got a job at, uh, universal Studios, um, because my mom was the assistant to the C I O, um, and I’m admitting that my mom helped me get my first job.

Jason Scott:

Um, but I, I feel like my, my work is what enabled me to keep the job anyway. I, I immediately got assigned to a project, which was kind of cool because it had at a beginning and an end, and we were building something for other people sort of in service to the organization, so to speak. Um, and that, that, that just felt really similar to my experience in the military. And I, I, I enjoyed building things. I enjoyed getting things done. And so, um, I spent four years at Universal Studios. I ended up managing some of their largest projects, culminating in their global Y two K project, which by the way, was a thing, right? <laugh>, everybody says it wasn’t a thing. Uh, it, it was a thing. And if, uh, if the world hadn’t come together and done a lot of good work, like things would’ve broken, uh, anyway, from there, I, I launched 120VC and we’ve been managing large global transformational projects for the Fortune 1000 ever since.

Mike Sedam:

So that’s pretty interesting background. I think, uh, some of us can understand where you’re coming from and where you ended up, but, and a lot of people, I’m sure when you’re on other, other shows and stuff, they’ll probably ask you about the Navy thing. But I find it interesting about what you said that you got outta the Navy, your mom got you the job. But what you said that was interesting, I think it’s a, a key point that’ll kind of jump us in, uh, off on the right foot on what we’re gonna talk about is your mom may have gotten you the job, right? The opportunity was there, but you said that once you got the job, your performance is what allowed you to keep the job. So how important is that to people to understand that, hey, we have to be ready to, to jump on an opportunity, or we have to be in a position where we can take an opportunity, but really the control of that opportunity is really on us. We control the outcomes of those, of those things, whether it’s a project or a new job, you get, we control those things.

Jason Scott:

Oh, I, I, I couldn’t agree with you more. In fact, one of my philosophies is that if you want something in life, the only obstacle is doing the work. Um, you, if you wanna be LeBron, do the work. I mean, if you’re short and terrible at sports, maybe don’t aspire to be LeBron, right? If you wanna be Picasso, do the work. If you wanna be Malcolm Gladwell, do the work. If you wanna be Elon Musk, do the work, it’s, it’s short of, uh, trying to def attempting to defy the laws of physics. And especially in the United States of America, the opportunity is there. All people have to do is step up to the plate and be willing to do what it takes to, to achieve whatever it is that they want to achieve. Ultimately, if you’re familiar with Malcolm Gladwell Gladwell’s book, the Outliers, he literally talks about the difference between an amateur and, and a paid highly paid professional is 10,000 hours of practice. And so there, there have been countless studies that show that people are capable of doing just about anything they want to do. Again, short of some physical limitations in physics. Um, but philosophically, that’s, that’s, that’s one of the things that I’m teaching my children. If, if you want something, the only obstacle is you deciding whether you’re willing to do the work or not.

Mike Sedam:

So you started this company 120VC, and you’re out there and you’ve got this belief you’ve gotta go out and do the work. So what is the company that you started, what is it actually about? Is it about helping people do the work? What, what do you actually accomplish through your company?

Jason Scott:

Good question. So we believe in the transformative power of getting done. Um, so ultimately, we, we started out 20 years ago as a company providing professional project management services to companies. I figured out pretty quickly that CEOs are less interested in individual projects and more interested in getting the vast majority of their projects, or what you might call program or a portfolio of projects done each year for the amount of money set aside. So we got into program and portfolio management at some point. Then Agile got really popular. We took a look at that, and we saw that that’s, that’s a great way to, to manage software development projects. It’s really, uh, agile in and of itself as a 73 word manifesto with 12 servant leadership principles. Um, but really would enable a, a fully dedicated, uh, team to, to, to produce valuable outcomes for an organization as quickly as possible.

Jason Scott:

Uh, change management came on the scene, and we were already delivering large enterprise projects, helping product teams through the application of Scrum and DevOps, optimize their product pipelines. We realized, hey, this change management thing is getting these things that we’re delivering in the hands of people so people can create the outcomes organizations are investing in. So we got into change management, then demand management. And somewhere along the way we figured out that leadership in and and of itself is a change discipline. So if you add that up, those are what we call the seven change disciplines. So when, when we look at organizations, there is, there’s this debate about which is the most appropriate, uh, method or approach to be as effective as possible. And some organizations will say project management, some will say Scrum Agile. Uh, ultimately what we are saying is you really need to strengthen all seven of these disciplines in an organization to be what we call Amazon Agile, Amazon being the zeitgeist of Business agility.

Jason Scott:

So ultimately what we do is we, we go into organizations and we provide services. We do training and certification. We do enablement, which is the step beyond consulting. We, we help them develop these disciplines so they can deliver their projects, they can optimize their product pipelines and stick their change initiatives as efficiently and effectively as possible. What at the end of the day, at 120VC, we’re, we’re outcome obsessed, like the people that love and thrive working at 120VC, people that are really driven to help others achieve the outcomes that they’re looking to achieve. So ultimately, we’re, we’re just a group of people that get excited about helping other people get done.

Mike Sedam:

Well, and that’s where I think we should go next, because your company’s about being driven to help others. It’s about getting stuff done. It’s about getting tools and techniques into the hands of people. And that’s where I think you and I align quite a bit, is because I’m a true believer in the fact that the flexibility and adaptability in organizations, and therefore the success of organizations doesn’t come from the policies, procedures, the computers, the whatever, you know, seven process you adopt from one year to, it’s about the people because, and in organization really comes to the people. And I don’t care if you’re talking about risk or safety or, you know, construction or whatever. It really comes down to the people. So when you experience, well, you wrote a whole book about it, so I assume you’re gonna have some great <laugh> great ideas on this, but in your experience, how important are people to really helping organizations be successful in dealing with those, those complexities, those things we just cannot control on the day-to-day? How important are people to getting that stuff done in these, these situations or in these environments that are super complex?

Jason Scott:

Well, people, I mean, people are the most important. And I, I, I think it’s funny how people talk about corporations as if that’s a thing. It it really is just a concept or a label under which people worked together to accomplish things. I, I’ve watched leaders or executives and corporations deploy technology for the past 20 years thinking that somehow this technology was gonna create some level of innovation. The the irony is it’s people that deliver that technology, and then it’s people that have to utilize that technology to accomplish whatever outcomes it’s the organization was looking for, to, to take advantage of whatever market opportunity they were making an investment in. Um, so I mean, at the end of the day, it, it’s all about people, 100%. So regardless of whether you’ve got policies and procedures, whether you’ve got expensive, uh, complex systems, you’re not achieving anything unless you can connect with and teach people how to and enable people to get things done.

Jason Scott:

And I would say this too. I mean, when I go into these organizations and, and I, I, I see, and I, I see how stressed out people are. I, I see the vast majority of people working really hard knowing that they can’t accomplish everything that they they’ve been asked to accomplish. They’re not in a position or they don’t feel safe to say, I can’t handle this. And the vast majority of them don’t have the tools or the training to be as efficient as they possibly can. And that’s, that’s one of the things that excites us because we, we go into these organizations and we give people tools to maximize their outcomes, to make the most, to take the most advantage of their time to, to, to take a look at their upcoming workload, organize it, prioritize it, and work to deliver. And more importantly, at the beginning of the week, be able to say, I’m, I’ve got too much on my plate.

Jason Scott:

And not just say, but show, show their manager, I’ve got too much on my plate, which means that if we don’t do something, we’ll, we’ll end the week. I will have accomplished some of what I was tasked with, but these things won’t be finished. And if there’s impact to that, we should think about handing it off to somebody else. So teaching organizations, not just individuals to gather, prioritize, assess based on the number of hours they have in a week, what they can and what they can’t get done based on the commitments that they’ve made. And then teaching their functional managers how to triage that again, across their organizations. And then more importantly, justify the postponing of initiatives or the addition of people to accomplish more. But at, at the end of the day, most organizations don’t have the skills or the tools to have insight into the commitments that they’ve made, which is why the vast majority of people aren’t getting done what’s expected of them.

Jason Scott:

They spend a lot of their time trying to look good, if not look good, don’t look bad. Uh, and so organizations today are full of people that are stressed out, that are burnt out, that are really just trying to protect their jobs. And so one of the things that excites us is giving these people, as I’d said before, the tools to eliminate the chaos, the tools to be efficient, the tools to be effective in the tools to succeed. And when we do that, we literally move them from a state of stress to a state of neutral, to a, a state of positive. And people at positive are actually 30% more effective in their roles than they are at negative, neutral, or stress. If you’re a fan of Sean aco, that’s a quote from his book, the Happiness Advantage.

Mike Sedam:

Well, and I find this really interesting because I’ve talked before about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and how we should actually flip that on its head. Where if you can hit these areas where people, people feel emotionally safe, they feel like they have purpose, those sorts of things, all that other stuff kind of comes within. It kind of sounds like what you’re saying is really similar to that. Basically what you’re saying is that, Hey, in these organizations where people have too many things going on, they can’t get everything done, they know it, but there’s nothing they can do about it. They don’t feel safe to talk about it. They don’t feel that, that safety in their organization, that level of trust in their organization to be able to have those conversations. So when you go into an organization, are you helping them with kind of those higher rungs of Maslow’s hierarchy, giving people that, that environment where these difficult conversations, ’cause it really are difficult ’cause people feel like they’re, they’re failing, and so they feel that level of stress ’cause they’re, they’re not able to control those things.

Mike Sedam:

How do you get people to start shifting that lens from the way organizations have been in this country, from the industrial Revolution through really today? How are you getting them to shift their lens to more of people focused and how we can use people, I don’t wanna say use people in a negative way, but, but use the strengths of people as social beings that belong in groups that need that safety. How do you shift that lens to get them going from this, this, I guess the side of the, of the bell curve, that stress to the side of the bell curve that’s bore of this positive, uh, feeling and positive outlook that you’re talking about?

Jason Scott:

Well, the good, the good news is I, I’m not the only champion of leadership over command and control authority. Um, Harvard Business Review is helping me out a lot. Forbes is helping me out a lot, Inc. Magazine is helping me out a lot. There’s a, there’s a lot of popular, uh, speakers these days that are, that are talking about leadership and emotional safety. Um, you’re familiar with Agile. Uh, the 12 principles of Agile are all about servant leadership, connecting with people, people, principles. Um, and so there, there’s, there’s an awareness out there that command and control, a k a organizations that where they have managers and executives that use their authority to motivate outcomes aren’t as effective as organizations that are full of leaders that, that, that, um, influence outcomes as opposed to dictate outcomes. So let’s quickly distinguish the difference between leadership and authority.

Jason Scott:

Authority is when somebody has some authority over you, meaning they can fire you, they decide how much money you make, um, and they, they basically can tell you what to do. I mean, obviously you have choice, you can leave that organization, but if you like your job and you’re happy with your job and you wanna stay in that, that organization, you might be influenced by this dictator. Um, now authority, if you, you know, if we go way back to maybe Henry Ford, where, where the vast majority of the knowledge is at the top, it works. It definitely is capable of motivating outcomes, but it’s slow. And the team is only as smart as that manager or the executive because the executive of that manager is not asking for anyone’s input. He or she’s just telling every, everyone what to do. So when a team is only as smart as a single individual, innovation is not possible.

Jason Scott:

Moving quickly is not possible. And there’s not a lot of problem solving, uh, strength amongst the team. When a team, whether it be when a, when a manager, an executive decide instead of using their authority to use their leadership to pull team, individual team members together, or an entire team to help them architect a roadmap to a shared goal, meaning they’re not dictating outcomes, they’re clearly messaging the vision or where we need to go or what it is that we need to do. And then they work with that individual to help that individual come up with their own approach to solving a problem or taking advantage of a market opportunity. A couple of things magical happen. One that leader in, in that conversation through inquiries is asking how they might go about solving the problem. The individual being asked how to solve the problem, feels important, gets engaged, actually starts thinking.

Jason Scott:

And really the, the individual that’s gonna go and solve the problem or the team member, that that person’s coming up with solutions, but in a way, they’re using that leader as a sounding board. So when a solution is sort of set forth, the team member feels like they came up with it, but the leader feels totally bought in and comfortable, and therefore you’ve leveraged the collective iq, the solution or the next steps are as smartest two people as a part, as opposed to as smart as one person. And lastly, we as human beings believe what we say over what anyone else says. So when an individual team member comes up with their own approach to solving a problem or accomplishing a shared goal, they’re bought in. So you’ve increased the likelihood of achieving the outcome that you’re seeking. And really, business isn’t about controlling outcomes.

Jason Scott:

Leadership isn’t about controlling outcomes. Leadership is about expected outcomes, right? We want predictability. It doesn’t matter how they accomplish it, as long as they accomplish what we need accomplish to solve a specific business problem, right? So if you enable your team to come up with solutions, those solutions are smarter because there’s several people involved. The people are bought in, you’re much more likely to get the outcome that you’re, that you’re looking for. And so, uh, leadership trump’s command and control authority in that, um, solutions are smarter, innovation is possible, team members are bought in, and it really increases the likelihood that you’re gonna consistently get the results that you’re looking for. It’s so much easier just to tell people what to do, but it doesn’t scale

Mike Sedam:

Well. And that’s where, where I wanted to go next was, it, it is harder, uh, in a way ’cause you’re dealing with that human person and you’re trying to get people engaged. And I liked what you said about human beings believing what we say over what others say and how important that is to shared goals. And what I call through social identity, I call that a, well, I don’t call it that. It’s, um, PhD is much smarter than me call it this, but it’s a superordinate goal. Something that transcends the individual, transcends some of the roles that they adopt. So the super orate goals become very important because even people on different teams or in different organizations or with different beliefs can get behind this, this superordinate goal, this important goal. And what you said was that team members are bought in, the leadership is bought in the team, leaders are bought in, the members of the team are bought in because of this kind of inclusive process. So I know we don’t have much more time left, but I would, I was hoping you might be able to give us one or two, one or two tools or techniques that you provided to people on how to really engage with others. How do we have those, those conversations, those positive inquiries to get us moving down this road toward a shared goal or toward a, a shared idea, something that we can get behind. What do those conversations look like? And is there any, any techniques you can give us that might help us today?

Jason Scott:

Absolutely. Um, so the first thing before engaging in that conversation is that good solid leadership requires preparation. Uh, I know that when we watch the movies, it seems like these great leaders just in the moment know exactly what they want and they’re gonna deliver this, this inspirational speech, and everybody’s gonna get motivated and they’re gonna get behind it and they’re gonna deliver it. And the fact is, those people have great writers behind them and they have Hollywood behind them. That’s not actually how great leadership works. Uh, I see a lot of executives running from meeting to meeting, to meeting, to meeting, to meeting, to meeting often not showing up prepared, not knowing what’s meant to be accomplished. And, and I see a lot of organizations struggling to achieve the outcomes that they desire because the vast majority of people are just running, they’re super busy.

Jason Scott:

It’s an academic, they’re not prepared. So the first thing I would, that solid leadership require preparation. What I like to do in advance of any meeting with an individual or a group is take the time to prepare, think about what it is, what outcomes we need to move, whatever it is that we’re focused on forward. So I’ll sit down and I’ll literally think about the outcomes. I’ll think about the individuals that are gonna be in the meeting. I’ll think about what their personal stake in the situation might be. In addition to that, I’ll write down any observations I have about the current situation and the outcome and separate my observations, things, things that I have factually observed versus my assumptions, the things that I’m assuming about the situation. Because the funny thing about our brains, if we’re not conscious about it, the, the truth is often we think we have the entire picture more often than not, if we pause and really assess what have we actually observed worse versus what assumptions are we applying, applying to the situation, the majority of our picture is often assumptions.

Jason Scott:

It’s important to know what assumptions you’re making going into any conversation with an individual or a team, because you wanna lay them out. You wanna say, you wanna be able to crisply message, here’s where we need to go. Here’s what we need to do. Here are, here are the facts, my observations, the things that I absolutely 100% know and are verifiable. Here are the assumptions that I’m making. And that’s, that’s, that’s an important start to the conversation because now I’ve set my team up to succeed, and I’ve called out something that rarely gets called out that often get, puts people at odds in conversations. And that’s that there’s a difference between observable, verifiable facts and the assumptions that we’re making. And so when we get into that active listening conversation, and I’ll talk about active listening, which is the second technique aside from preparation that I wanna talk about. When we get into that active listening problem solving, uh, or solutioning conversation, I want us to be able to say, is that, that that assertion, that statement that you just made, is that factual, observable, verifiable? Or was that an assumption? Because if it’s an assumption, we either need to in that moment substantiate it or take time later to substantiate it, because whatever approach or solution we come up with is only gonna be as solid as the number of assumptions we’ve left un solved. Does that make sense?

Mike Sedam:

It totally does. Yeah. No, that makes sense to have that, that preparation done through, you’re not, because if you don’t prepare, it seems like you may be going down a road just based on your assumptions. Without the good information you need to actually be engaged in a conversation or make good decisions. So that totally makes sense,

Jason Scott:

Right? And I know we’re Americans, which means, like cowboy is, is really coveted, right? But it, it’s <laugh> that saved cowboy for emergencies, right? When you just need to move fast, you don’t have time to sub to substantiate or unsubstantiated assumptions. Great leadership requires preparation. So once you get into that conversation, you’ve laid out the vision where we’re going, the observable facts and the assumptions. The leader’s role then is to ask the team how we get there. And, and so this is where active listening comes in. We are wired to listen, to assess whether we agree or disagree with what, what’s being provided by the other people around us. It’s called confirmation bias. And so when people present ideas that conflict with our previously held beliefs, our brain resists. And when we argue against what other people are saying, the brain brain actually rewards us with a shot of dopamine, which is a happy chemical.

Jason Scott:

It makes us feel good. Um, and this is what’s kept us alive, not being the strongest, the fastest animals on the planet, uh, for as long as we’ve been here. However, that’s, that’s listening. Being able to come by our confirmation bias in a situation where you’re the leader is terrible. So being aware of that and being able to hear people out, and when they, when your team presents ideas to a solution that you don’t agree with, check yourself and ask questions. Okay? So what makes you feel like this is the best idea? And if you see in your mind that there’s an obstacle to that approach, say, have you thought of this? But it’s really important to engage your team with curiosity as opposed to engaging your team, uh, with a critical mindset toward, toward determining whether you agree with them or not. What I’ve found over the years, when I started practicing active listening, at first, I, I thought, Hey, active listening, this is really a technique where I ask a question, it’s really a statement to get ’em to go my way.

Jason Scott:

That’s terrible. It’s called manipulation. Uh, so active listening really is acknowledging that there’s a group of intelligent people. Your role as the leader is to help your team members come up together with the best possible solution. And so, as people are throwing out things that seem like a good idea to you, check, acknowledge it as people are throwing out things that don’t seem like a good idea to you ex explore it. Because often there’s something, there’s, there’s something that they know that maybe you’re not aware of that might change your perception. So what what happens to me quite frequently is I go into this exploration, curiously, somebody will say something and instinctually I’ll think that doesn’t seem right. So I’ll, I’ll ask questions and they’ll provide me with some information that causes me to go, oh, you know what, I wasn’t aware of that. Now I see your point.

Jason Scott:

And so what’s happened is we don’t have consensus. I have information that I didn’t have that leads me to believe that this approach that they’re suggesting we take is the best idea in that inquiry, that exploration. The other half of the time, I’ll ask a question or I’ll say, well, have, has this occurred to you? I then provide information that they didn’t have previously, and suddenly I change their perception. So the idea is not for me to dictate to my team is literally to help them explore potential until we’re, we all have enough information to feel like the solution that we’re standing, and this is not consensus, the solution that we’re standing on makes sense. Consensus is where we all just work to maybe compromise to come up with an approach that satisfies everyone. The active listening approach to coming up with a solution is more I peeling the onion until we have a solution that everybody sees.

Jason Scott:

And ultimately at the end, sometimes that’s not possible. And as the leader, if you’ve, if you’ve explored everyone on the team’s opinions, you’ve allowed them to engage. And if you have to make a call, because there, there’s a part of the group that’s at odds because everyone on the team has been heard. When you say, Hey guys, I think somebody’s gotta make a decision that falls on me. We we’re gonna go this route. Some of the people on the team are gonna feel like that’s a good idea. Some of the people aren’t necessarily gonna feel like a good idea, it’s a good idea, but because they’ve been heard, you can ask them to commit. And there’s a high degree of likelihood that they’ll get on board. And, and, and you can even call it an experiment. That’s an, that’s something that I introduce when, when I’ve got a group of team members.

Jason Scott:

We just can’t see, we can’t come up with a solution that’s elegant that we can all, that we all feel really good about. And I choose, I’ll ask the team members that weren’t necessarily on board to commit to the experiment, and we’ll watch it because I’m not just gonna say to them, Hey, we’re choosing this because I don’t agree with what we were saying. I’m saying I don’t, I don’t think that there’s a clean go forward approach, so I’m gonna choose this one. And, you know, leadership in and of itself is messy. So I’m gonna choose this one and because you guys still have some concerns, we’re gonna keep an eye on this. So we’ll call it an experiment. And if it succeeds, great, we win. Everybody wins. We’ve learned something. And if it doesn’t, we’re going forward as quickly as possible, but keeping an eye on it. So if we have to adjust, we can, which then rewards the knowledge of the other people, the opinions, the experience of the other people on the team.

Mike Sedam:

Yeah, that totally makes sense because we’ve talked a lot on this podcast before about the idea of work is imagined versus work is actually done, which leads to this belief that workers are the solution and they’re not the problem. Which sometimes organizations think workers are the problem and not the solution. Oh,

Jason Scott:

It’s terrible. Yeah,

Mike Sedam:

It totally is. I really liked what you said there, and I know we gotta let you, uh, get going here, but you gave us some pretty good tools here about bringing, being prepared and active listening, but I know there’s a whole lot more out there. If you could quickly just tell us about your, your two books, the, the titles where people can get ’em, what they’re about, and really if anybody wants to get ahold of you, how they get ahold of you, because I know people may have questions, so how they can get ahold of you, your website, that sort of thing would be great before we let you go.

Jason Scott:

Okay, sure. Um, so one of the books is called, it’s Never Just Business, it’s about people. It’s a how to leadership book. Everything we do at 120VC is focused on creating outcomes. So when we write books or create material, we wanna make sure that it’s not just aspirational, but it gives people tools and techniques that they can actually put to use that aren’t super complex, right? That consider human nature that they could read about and put to work on their journey. The very next day we’re we’re, we’re a hundred percent about enabling people to be productive. So it’s a, it’s a leadership book and some of the things in there might seem aspirational, but there’s exercises at the end of each chapters, uh, that enable readers to implement techniques that will help them be better leaders in their organization. And the book sort of parallels my journey.

Jason Scott:

Um, transitioning from a command and control leader growing up in a Gangland neighborhood in Los Angeles, going to the military, getting out of the military thinking that being a leader was being an executive, was being the boss and telling people what to do. Uh, and all the disasters that that created for me in respect to pe the people around me to becoming the leader or servant leader that I am today. So, um, the second book is our enterprise project Management guide. Uh, it’s called the Revent Guide to Project Management, uh, an Agile Approach to Enterprise Project Management. This is literally the playbook that my senior project leaders and program managers use to plan and deliver large global transformational projects for our Fortune 1000. So if you’re ever thinking, Hey, is there a book out there that I can get my hands on that gives me techniques that are proven to, to deliver large global transformational projects? It’s the irreverent guide to project management. Um, and as far as getting ahold of me, uh, I’d love it if, uh, listeners connect with me on LinkedIn. It’s Jason Scott at 120VC. Uh, that’s not my LinkedIn address, but if you put in Jason Scott 120VC, you’ll find me, uh, our website is www.120vc.com.

Mike Sedam:

Sounds great. I’ll put a link to both your LinkedIn profile and the website. And Jay, this has been a great conversation. You gave us a lot of things to think about and I really appreciate you coming on.

Jason Scott:

Thanks, Mike. It was great. I appreciate your time.

Mike Sedam:

Hey, anytime and everybody out there, if you got value out of this with Jay Scott, just like I did, if you have a chance, you can visit me at www do crucial talks com or connect with me on email, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, whatever works for you. I’d really appreciate it if you could leave a review for the podcast or rate it. That always helps. Have a great week. And remember, if we wanna understand behavior, we need to understand what drives people.