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Karen Clauss:

This week on the Art of Improvement, I’ll be talking to J Scott, the founder of 120VC. He’s an expert in transformational leadership that gets stuff done, but he doesn’t use stuff because he is, he’s talking about the real thing, <laugh>. Anyway, he helps people to define and deliver the necessary and expected results by helping leaders enable their team members to reach their potential. I cannot wait for you to hear my conversation with J Scott, coming up next on The Art of Improvement. Thank you so much for listening, and I am very excited to have you listen to my guest today. He is the founder CEO of a company called 120VC. His name is J Scott. J, hi. Thank you for coming on today.

Jason Scott:

Hi, Karen. It’s my pleasure. I’m really excited to be here today.

Karen Clauss:

Me too. I, I, you know, I told you that I had been reading some notes and looking at your website, and I was like, wow, this is something that’s, so many companies need, they need you. But since you are the person that is the founder and CEO of 120VC, why don’t you tell us what you do?

Jason Scott:

So we are in the business of helping leaders and their teams get the necessary and expected outcomes. And frankly, it’s a little weird. I I tell people I’m in the business of helping other people get things done, and they think to themselves, well, isn’t that something that people just do? Isn’t that just obvious? Like in people’s jobs, if they don’t get the things done that need to get done, you know, do they get to keep their jobs? Then interestingly, um, Patrick Leon, I’m gonna say his name wrong, but Patrick Leon Ney wrote a book called the, uh, five Dysfunctions of the Team, and the fifth Dysfunction is inattention to Results. So, it is true that the vast majority of people in organizations are working hard. Uh, it is true that there’s no shortage of work, um, but it’s also true that there’s this inattention to the necessary outcomes. It’s more about being busy and doing work than getting the outcomes, which is why we hear all of these horror stories about projects that are failing or, you know, marketing initiatives that are failing or ultimately just not getting the results. Because people have a tendency to focus on the process, the here and the now. Then keep an eye on how the here and the now impacts the outcomes. So, it is a little bit weird that I have a career <laugh>. Um, but it’s exciting also,

Jason Scott:

<laugh> yes, to help people, help people get the outcomes that they need, because people on winning teams have better quality of life, have have better financial prosperity than people on teams that are struggling to get the necessary and expected results. Those people are stressed. They’re answering voicemails and emails while sitting at the dinner table. They’re getting yelled at for checking their emails while sitting at the dinner table. They work weekends. And so we, we get really excited every day that we get to help a team go from not getting the necessary and expected results to getting the outcomes that are needle moving or transformative for their organizations, because we’re not just getting outcomes. We’re actually helping people live better, more prosperous lives.

Karen Clauss:

I feel like you have a camera in my house because <laugh>, you, you talked and you said a lot, but I, I so identify with what you’ve said, but going back all the way back to you saying, I have a job that that is, you know, you have a job, but you almost shouldn’t have a job because of what you do. And what you do is you help people <laugh> get the job that they have been assigned done. Now, that seems like so stupid <laugh>, it seems like too simple yet, the reason I’m laughing is because it is such a misunderstood thing. So what is going on in these leaders’ heads that make them think tasks are something that’s gonna get to the end project?

Jason Scott:

You know, I get asked a lot, um, what, what sort of motivates the different leadership styles? And so just very quickly, um, to, to sort of frame, I think the conversation that we’re gonna have, I wanna distinguish between a leader and a, a boss. So I I, for the sake of this conversation, I define a boss as somebody who dictates how people do their job basically shows up and makes it super clear to the team that they’re there to work really hard so the boss can be successful. Now, when I paint that picture, people think, ew. In fact, I ask audiences to remember a time where they worked for that person and to blurt out a one word emotion, uh, about how they, they felt for that person. And universally, no one ever says anything positive. It’s always like anger, distrust, et cetera. And like, I’ll just ask you, Karen, do you remember when you worked for the boss, the boss, that made you feel like your job was to show up and work really hard so they could be successful? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, gimme a one word emotion. Mm-hmm.

Karen Clauss:

Ungrateful <laugh>.

Jason Scott:

Right. Well, here’s a, what’s interesting is you gave me a, uh, first Yes. And ungrateful. So I got, I got a two word response, which again, just reinforces what I’m saying. And, and the idea is that they’re leveraging, they’re using their authority to motivate outcomes. And given the words that you just used, that that authority is not very motivating. Like people that work for a boss are not very motivated. Uh, the team itself, when it comes to solving problems, since they’re all being dictated from the top, uh, isn’t very intelligent, innovation is not possible. Hmm. Now, I’m this person, this boss is not a bad person. No, they’re terrified. They’re terrified that they’re gonna fail. And so people ask me like, why do they behave this way? And I say, one, they probably don’t know any other way, um, to be successful. They don’t know how to lead, and we’re gonna talk about how to lead in a minute.

Jason Scott:

Um, or they’re terrified that if they don’t call the shots that they’re gonna fail. Because the truth is, if the team isn’t successful, then that boss isn’t successful. And then lastly, and I, I like to believe that this is in very few circumstances, some people are just self-serving. It’s all about them. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so those are, those are the three reasons I think. But shifting to the leader, this could be a manager and executive that has a authority, meaning they hire, they fire, they bonus, but they choose, instead of using the authority to motivate outcomes, they, they decide to lead. And again, I’ll define that in a second. So ultimately, I, I’d like you to remember a time where you worked for somebody, but it felt more like you worked with them, that they were there to help you succeed. They would work with you to figure out how to deliver whatever it was to deliver. They would give you coaching because they really were invested in helping you be as successful as possible. Blurred out a one word emotion that you felt for that person.

Karen Clauss:

I felt it immediately when you started describing that person. He was in my head, and it was almost like the word freeing came <laugh>. I don’t know if that’s like a good description, but I felt free because I could create and knew that there was not gonna be something that I did that was wrong. Okay.

Jason Scott:

So now I’m gonna ask you a couple of questions just to sort of compare and contrast your interactions with the boss and the leader.

Jason Scott:

So what if, while working with the boss, assuming that because of the emotions you communicated, you weren’t super motivated, there’s a, there’s a high degree of likelihood that you probably weren’t gonna go the extra mile. So if you saw something that needed to get done, were you gonna volunteer for it? Or would you more likely wait for them to ask you or tell you to do it?

Karen Clauss:

<laugh> the latter. <laugh>.

Jason Scott:

Yes, the latter. What if, what if you saw danger, meaning that that boss was heading down a path that was, was not gonna have a positive outcome for them? Would you try to avert the crisis? Be honest.

Karen Clauss:

Well, I would probably say no. I probably wouldn’t because I’m like, maybe I don’t know all of the facts that they would be doing something so illogical.

Jason Scott:

Right, right. And more importantly, like, if they weren’t there anymore, it probably wouldn’t break your heart again, just being human, right?

Karen Clauss:

Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Jason Scott:

So now shift to the leader, this person that you felt like played for you, this person, when it gave you feedback, you weren’t like, ew, you were like, thank you for giving me this critical feedback because I feel like you’re trying to help me. If you saw something that needed to be done, would you need to be asked to do it?

Karen Clauss:

No. You would do it and you would present it to it happily to him. Happily, because you knew it would be something that they needed.

Jason Scott:

And here lies the trick to leading. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> from home. You can’t manage or be a boss from home. People can avoid you. They’re on multiple zoom calls a day. We all have multiple stakeholders. We don’t just have one manager anymore. We could tell you that we were in a meeting that we actually weren’t in, and you wouldn’t know. And therefore, people avoid the boss. However, the contrast is people play for the leader. Fundamentally, human beings want to be successful in their relationships with their families, with their children, with their friends, and in, in the workplace. So I, I don’t fault anybody for looking out for their success first, our team members, right? They wanna be successful. They’re gonna figure out how to be successful in working with the boss. They’re gonna figure out how to be successful with absolutely no thought to how their actions affect the boss.

Jason Scott:

In the leader scenario, they’re gonna figure out how to be successful, and they’re gonna wanna take the leader with them. And this is how accountability is established, because the key performance indicator of a leader, the only measurement of a leader is that they enable their stakeholders, not just their team members, but ’cause we lead up and across also, we enable our stakeholders to define and deliver the necessary and expected outcomes. Mm mm So if you have a team that isn’t defining and delivering the necessary and expected outcomes, the things that the organization needs to survive and thrive, that really is on the leader. Ugh.

Karen Clauss:

That is so, uh, deep <laugh>. I mean, that’s a dumb way to say it, but it makes so much sense. But it seems so simple. And so I, I go back and I ask you, why wouldn’t a leader know? But the leader is obviously as, as bogged down with minutiae as they are giving us. Is that right?

Jason Scott:

Well, here’s the thing, there’s that too, right? Because who teaches a leader how to be disciplined about identifying what needs to be done, communicating what needs to be done, vetting what needs to be done, and then, then helping their team members figure out how to do it, right? Because the leader, and, and here’s the other most important distinguished character of a leader, a leader to be a leader doesn’t require any authority. This is what I love the most. Nobody appointed Martin Luther King to be the leader of the human rights movement in the United States. <laugh>, he acted on his beliefs and people followed. And so when I, when I say the leader, it, it might be somebody that’s a manager and executive that says, this is what we need to do because somebody has to set the expectation, we’re gonna go to the moon and back in the next decade, somebody has to set the expectation, but somebody on the team can say, Hey, we need to go to the moon and back in the next decade.

Jason Scott:

In fact, guys, we’re gonna go to the moon in the back in the next decade. And it doesn’t take any authority to see that, but, and proclaim that. Right? Right. And so in that moment, anybody can be the leader. The leader says the what? But the people that are doing the work have to define how they’re gonna do the work in the, I tell you, do model whatever. I, if I were to tell you how to do your job, it’s, it’s suboptimal for you, but optimal for me, right? <laugh>, the way that I would do it is optimized for me. My job as a leader is to help you figure out how to accomplish the work in a way that is optimized for you. So if I tell you how to do it, it’s, it’s not gonna be optimized. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but I, I help you figure out how you’re gonna do it.

Jason Scott:

It’s optimized. And again, that’s leadership. If I’m telling I’m not leading, unbelievable. If I’m helping you figure out how to get there, I’m leading. And it’s as simple as this. Are you ready? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So what does leadership look like? An interview, it’s called, it’s called active listening. So if I were to say to you, Hey, Karen, I, I think I, we need to do this thing, and I think it falls right into your area of expertise. Am I correct? You’d say? I mean, if I am correct, you’d say yes. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I’d say, okay, listen, this is what needs to get done as I’m talking it through, then instead of asking you, do you understand what needs to get get done? Do you have everything you need? How can I help you? Uh, I’m gonna actually say to you, okay, do me a favor and just walk me through how you’re gonna get it done.

Jason Scott:

I’m gonna interview you. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it’s called active listening. And then as you’re talking, I’m listening and I’m thinking, do I think this will work? Not, is this how I would do it? ’cause how I would do it is not optimized for you. I’m just thinking, Hey, do I, do I see how it’s gonna work? And often as leaders, when we take this approach and we ask, how are you gonna do it? We run into this thing where we’re like, I don’t see how that’s gonna work. Now we’re taught, and our nature, our nature drives us to, and we’re also taught to judge. So often managers or executives will say, you know, Karen, I don’t think that’s gonna work. Or, or they’ll say, that’s not gonna work very confidently. Well, one, that’s a judgment, and it shuts people down. A lot of times when that happens, people in their minds think, then why did you ask me? Just tell me how you want me to do it. <laugh>, which again, has now shortcutted, has now shortcutted any potential for leadership. Two saying, it’s not me saying it’s not gonna work is an assumption, not actually a fact. How often have I thought something’s not gonna work? And it turns out it did. <laugh> at least 50% of the time, right?

Karen Clauss:

Right. <laugh>

Jason Scott:

And at least 50% of the time. So what’s more realistic and even more fair, I’m gonna say to you, Karen, I don’t get it. I don’t understand how what you’re describing will get us to this shared goal. Help me understand. And then I’m gonna ask more questions, and I’m gonna share, well, okay, if you do that, what, what I’m seeing is this might happen. And so through the interview and me challenging, just out of curiosity, not judgment, eventually we’re gonna land somewhere where you say, oh, well, based on that, I would do this. And I’m gonna, I’m gonna see it. I’m gonna see how that’ll work. And I’m gonna say, you know, I think that’s gonna work. Now we both think it’s gonna work incredible. And I increased the likelihood of your success. So, you know, all the buzz and the ink magazines and the, for magazines, like, we’re supposed to set our team members up for success.

Jason Scott:

Well, this is how you do it. <laugh>, <laugh>. Like I, I, I ask you how you’re gonna do it. When you tell me something that makes sense to me, and I say, cool, I send you off for success. I, I was listening to a podcast recently where, uh, the leadership guru was like, you know, like, tell ’em what needs to be done and then ask ’em how you can help. And I was like, no. That’s like asking the yes or no question. Do you know what you need to do? How often if somebody said, yes, I, I know what I need to do, and then three days later delivered an unexpected result. <laugh>. Yeah. When you ask an intelligent person, if they understand, they understand something, it doesn’t necessarily mean they understand what you hope that they would understand, you’re not aligned. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So in asking a yes or no question, you don’t have alignment in active listening through the interview process, we get alignment. I set people up for success. I, it, it, it answers the questions, the how to, to most of the buzzwords. Like, I get you engaged. Hey Karen, how will you solve this? Boom. You dive into problem solving. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you’re engaged. I’ve got engagement. And then in the end, did I assign any work to you in this, this made up scenario.

Karen Clauss:

<laugh> No.

Jason Scott:

No. You signed up. Yeah. And so my job, my job now is to just help support you, help you stay accountable to the, to what you committed to. And here’s the thing. If, if you’re late, here’s what if it doesn’t get delivered on time. Here’s what I know. You’re not a slacker. You were excited about this, you committed to this, you signed up. So what else is missing? Is there a process missing? Are you overloaded? Like, I don’t have, I know I don’t have a performance issue here. Yeah. I, is it an aptitude thing? Do you need some training?

Karen Clauss:

Incredible.

Jason Scott:

Because I did all of those things that I’m supposed to do as a leader to set you up to succeed. And again, do I, do I have to try to hold you accountable? No. You committed. We can’t hold people accountable to a commitment they don’t make. Ugh.

Karen Clauss:

This is so fantastic, and I’m stopping you right now, because if anybody just started listening, uh, I wanna reintroduce J Scott, he’s founder and CEO of 120VC. But you’ve got to tell everyone how they can get in touch with you, where they can find out more information.

Jason Scott:

Um, well, you, you can visit 120VC’s website, which is just 120vc.com. There’s a ton more information on what I was just speaking to, uh, articles, blog posts. If you follow me on LinkedIn, which is just, you know, j Scott at 120VC on LinkedIn, uh, that’s not the actual LinkedIn address, but if you search that, you all come up, we, we, or 120VC follow, 120VC. We post articles every day with how to techniques, because we don’t, we don’t believe in just sharing, like leadership mumbo jumbo. We believe in giving people tools and techniques, like hopefully I just did.

Karen Clauss:

You did, you did to be checked

Jason Scott:

To be effective, right? On, to be effective in their jobs. And, and it’s not all proprietary stuff that we’ve created. ’cause the fact is, everything I just shared, all of my knowledge was built on the back of giants. I’ve, all of things that I’ve learned from Simon Sinek, Brene Brown, Sean aor, like all of the great leaders of the, the day, I mean, I, I figure it out. I learn, I make it my own. I’m resharing it. So I think it’s really important to share non-proprietary data. So there’s a, there’s a ton of links that to Harvard Business Review, Forbes Inc. Articles, but only two stuff we ascribe to that we know works mm-hmm. <affirmative> because we, again, are in the business of enabling teams to get the necessary and expected results.

Karen Clauss:

Well, I I, I also have a question about, uh, getting these techniques to management. I, I know that what you said makes so much sense, but to me, understanding what you said, if I were a manager, I would say, when would I have time to understand things like that? I have my plate full, I’ve gotta tell people what to do. I’ve gotta make sure we meet goals and budget, dah. I mean, what would be the thing that you would tell them? How can you get them unraveled from the way they’re already managing you?

Jason Scott:

Right? So this is kind of the conundrum. People are so busy, they’re so busy, they can’t help themselves. So what I tell people is we’re gonna slow down just for a minute so we can go fast. Um, getting organized, getting a little bit of discipline, which are all things that we teach in the, in the Transformational Leadership Academy, um, which is our academy. So we teach, we teach all of our playbooks, um, that are published on Amazon. Uh, we’ve got, our flagship is a 14 week leadership course. Um, and, and the other, and this is probably the most important thing, I always offer to come into people’s organizations for 90 minutes at no cost and just give a talk because I have the unique ability to get people excited about things that other people would think might be boring, like active listening. And so the, the biggest trick is getting in front of people and sharing information that becomes their truth, right?

Jason Scott:

I would never encourage anyone to do anything that I was describing if in their minds they didn’t think it was gonna work. Because first and foremost, they’re, we’re not communicating, meaning we’re not on the same page. What they’re picking up is not necessarily what I’m trying to communicate. Like there’s something missing in that conversation. ’cause what I’m describing does work, but if somebody doesn’t own it, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, if they’re not inspired, and this is the beautiful thing about education podcasts, what you do is you get information out there and for the human that it inspires, there’s a high degree of likelihood that they will be inspired to action. And even if it’s just putting up a calendar block for 10 minutes a day, five days a week, that that is a personal practice to think about active listening, right? If, if that’s something that anyone listening is inspired to do, um, think about spend that 10 minutes every day, five days a week, thinking about where in your past meetings today or the day before, you could have employed active listening and gotten a better result.

Jason Scott:

So like maybe you realize, hey, you, two days ago you’d asked somebody to do something. You asked them do they understand? They said yes. And today they dropped it on your desk and it wasn’t what you expected. Great. Spend that 10 minutes thinking about how you could have approached that conversation differently and more. The more you think about practicing active listening, the more likelihood you are at some point to do it. And so my, my recommendation is sit in this personal practice, think about where you could have employed active listening within a week or two if you stick to this every day, because just like muscle, it’s not gonna develop if you don’t work at it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? You’ll start doing it, you’ll start realizing that you could have done it three seconds after you could have done it, and then you’ll do it. And this will just be something that then you do over time. And then instead of deleting that 10 minutes, add the next thing that you wanna master to be a better leader.

Karen Clauss:

I love that. Oh my gosh, I love that. This has been motivational. This has been <laugh> so good for me. And I am so glad that I got a chance to talk to you today. This, um, this program that you have, when you say you have leadership programs and, uh, workshops, I mean, can individuals, uh, sign up for them or does it have to be corporations? How do you do that? No,

Jason Scott:

It’s absolutely available to the general public. And so all of our programs were designed to include our own team members, go through all of these programs. Uh, individual contributors just go sign up on our website and they go through the programs. And then we do have corporate clients that go through the programs, but we don’t separate them because it’s really the diversity of experience and thought that makes the program rich. Because none of our programs are like a, a monologue of a speech. We’re actually inviting the students to share their stories and their ideas. And so what happens is we, instead of being the instructor or the teacher, we’re really the guides. We, we come to the table with proven practices. But the one thing that I learned a long time ago from Vern Harnish, the author, author of Leveling Up, the wisdom is in the room.

Jason Scott:

And if we as leaders, as well as instructors or guides, so to speak, are leveraging the collective IQ solutions are smarter, outcomes are better, it’s pos transformation is possible. When, when I I I walked you through active listening, the solution as smart as both of us, because I challenged it and we got to the point where we both agreed something was work would work, right? So that the, the outcome is gonna be the multiple of our two IQs in leading a team through that same exercise to solve a problem of five people. Now we’ve got a five x solution. Again, increasing the likelihood of success, doing that same thing in a classroom creates velocity toward learning.

Karen Clauss:

Unreal. That is so fantastic. Well, we’re at the end, and I am so sad because I wanna talk to you forever, but if anybody’s interested, well, no, we’re best friends now.

Jason Scott:

<laugh> like no. Yeah, you you we’re gonna talk. Okay.

Karen Clauss:

We’re gonna talk. If anybody’s interested, please check out, uh, J Scott. He is the founder and CEO of 120VC. And thank you so much for coming on today.

Jason Scott:

Oh my god. Karen, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate you.