Megan Alexa Watson: [00:00:00] ...sometimes a leader's most critical step is to actually first break sense, help people realize that the world has so fundamentally changed that all they know is no longer real and that you have to truly start over.

This is a podcast for leaders who want to drive change in their organization without losing sight of the people behind it, the purpose that fuels it, or the principles guiding it. I'm Megan Watson, joined by Carl Watson, and this is The Watson Standard.

- Megan Alexa Watson: One of the topics that we have considered exploring is the idea of when either leaders as individuals or organizations as systems, sort of swing the pendulum in style or approach.

It is one or the [00:01:00] other, and have a tendency to over-correct in approaches to leadership in organizations.

So what we're gonna talk about is what drives that, what are the ways to navigate it, how to think about it with intention, and how to make sure we make the right call in what is the organizational or leadership approach that is most needed in the moment.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: These pendulum swings have this underlying paradox associated with them, where these approaches seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. And in many ways, instead of viewing them as opposites, and that you have to choose a point on that spectrum, it's really about how do you integrate different approaches and styles, at different times, that match the needs of the situation you're facing.

- Megan Alexa Watson: I have a hypothesis. I don't know if it's true, that there's some common things that tend to spark this in enterprises and [00:02:00] organizations.

One that we've talked about is the idea of high uncertainty, that can cause stress and therefore cause pendulum swings. One that we've talked about is this idea of when a system has aspiration to change culture, and therefore individuals or teams are working through old ways of doing things and new ways of doing things in a culture.

Sometimes it shows up in org model changes, or even experimentation with different types of org models, and so it's about a swing of 'what is the model that is fit for purpose in this moment'.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: I think that those ideas, are ways in which the pendulum is swinging, and underlying all of those things is a sense of change, a movement that the organization is coping with in some way.

And I think that this black-and-white [00:03:00] thinking, right? It's like, 'It's either this or that.' Yeah. Right? The nuance in the thing gets driven out because there, because there's an attempt to make a shift complete, to actually effectuate something new.

And so it can drive the nuance out of the set of ideas, and you end up on one extreme when you didn't actually intend to be on an extreme. But it was an attempt to make something that didn't exist or something that's hard to do and bring that to reality. And then there's this idea that maybe behind it the paradox is like it can't be both, right?

- Megan Alexa Watson: It's untenable to sit in that, that paradox.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: That's right. Yeah. You have to pick a side. There's a sense of, with paradoxes, short term, long term, or ... centralized, decentralized, and there's a sense that you have to choose.

Once you frame something as a paradox then you naturally end up on an extreme, versus thinking that there's some navigation between that [00:04:00] paradox that is actually the right set point.

- Megan Alexa Watson: So this is what I wanna dig in on because when you talk about 'it's not the extremes, there is a navigation between those that is the right set point,' I wanna be clear that what we're not talking about is 'everything is middle of the road, middle ground'.

We're also not talking about 'everything is balanced'.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Yes.

- Megan Alexa Watson: The discussion that you and I have is like, no, it's about the ability to flex across the spectrum as needed ...to know what is needed in a moment and to be able to use the right tool for the right moment for a system or for an individual.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: And so again, in the context of change that you brought up and uncertainty, then what is the right set point for this moment becomes the actual, the problem itself. We don't know or we're gonna make a presumption about what that [00:05:00] right set point is. You end up in this space where it's like you feel like you have to choose in order for things to move forward. In order to act, and make progress, then you can, drive out a reasonable flexibility that's necessary in order to continue forward, or as a situation changes and emerges, you actually continue to respond to the situational demands versus, whatever set point you chose.

- Megan Alexa Watson: Yeah. I really feel like you just landed the Schrödinger's cat of leadership. Can we just pause a moment... for that moment of like... schröding-

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Schrödinger's leadership?

- Megan Alexa Watson: Yes, yes, like the act of making the choice of what you are going to deploy in that moment changed the outcome and changed the state. All was possible until you made that choice, and then you make that choice, and all of a sudden a thing 'is'.

And I think what I'm hearing you push on is the way people are thinking about, the one-way door versus two-way door choices.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Yes.

- Megan Alexa Watson: And so where there are [00:06:00] moments where once you choose, like, 'yep, that's gonna be it for a while because there's no coming back through that door' versus 'no, you can hold yourself in this sort of moment of flexibility that it doesn't shut down other options. It doesn't prevent changing, reversing... undoing.'

I even think about it in the context of a leadership style. It's like there can be this sense of 'my leadership style is not a set of clothes that I put on, I can take off, I can change, I can augment, but sort of like it becomes my full identity. It's something that I will tattoo it on, and it will never be removed.'

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Yeah.

- Megan Alexa Watson: I need leadership identity to be clothes not tattoos.

I don't know that I like that metaphor ... but I'm gonna work with it for right now.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Well, it's interesting. Like, this, what's the use of leadership?

- Megan Alexa Watson: Mm!

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Right? What's the use of leadership?

Creating action that's meaningful for the people who are doing the [00:07:00] work or doing the thing, right?

And, and so in this, as you describe, this uncertain situation where people don't know how to act, and they don't know what meaning to make of the situation, leadership can create the conditions in which people have enough meaning, they have enough clarity, not certainty...

- Megan Alexa Watson: mm-hmm, mm-hmm

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: ...but clarity to take action. And so there's huge value in that as a leader to support people in order to have enough clarity to take action.

But to your point about whether your leadership style is tattooed versus, an outfit that you put on that day... knowing the meaning of leadership means that you know that different situations, different contexts and moments require different things of you, as a leader, if you want to continue to be a leader...

- Megan Alexa Watson: ...a leader, yes!

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: You can choose not to be...

- Megan Alexa Watson: you can always choose to not be a leader. [00:08:00] Friends, friends, you can always choose to not be a leader.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Right. Um, but you should say that out loud.

- Megan Alexa Watson: Yes.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: You gotta do that...

- Megan Alexa Watson: Yes.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: ... So other people can, like...

- Megan Alexa Watson: Yes. Please let somebody know!

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Right.

- Megan Alexa Watson: Please send a memo. I abdicate my leadership in this...

Sorry. Carry on. Carry on.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: This question that your musing led me to was, what is the use of leadership then becomes a question that may be useful to ask very, very frequently as a leader. What is, what is the most important use of my leadership now? What's the best use of my leadership right now? And it could be my best use of leadership is empowering somebody else to lead. Otherwise, it would just be called, like, walking away.

So the act of empowerment is an act of leadership and I think people don't fully get that. Or it might be flexing your style in order to provide the leadership that your team, the [00:09:00] business situation, or the environmental situation is demanding of you in this moment. And that may be a comfortable style, maybe clothes that fit very well and that you are used to wearing ... as that old pair of jeans.

- Megan Alexa Watson: Know you look fly in it.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Right. Or it may be clothes that you're not... You're not fully comfortable in, but is required of you, but and you have willingness and the practice to be able to enact that approach because that's what's needed. I like the clothes analogy because it provides you with that sense of I'm wearing this. I like to sometimes say, there are days where I show up where I'm Carl the Marine, and I'm metaphorically then in the uniform. In at least the boots. It is not the most frequent leadership clothes I wear.

- Megan Alexa Watson: The sense that it is temporary, the sense that it's something you can put down. The sense that it's something that sometimes needs to be layered. Like, yep, 'this is gonna be insufficient. I need to add another layer and make it more nuanced.'

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: It's a great metaphor.

- Megan Alexa Watson: I will torture a metaphor, people who know me in [00:10:00] the world know that's very true. Just don't let me do sports metaphors 'cause I don't actually know what they mean.

Then what is coming into my head from what you were saying is we're working in systems and teams right now where we don't always know what leadership approach is going to be most useful. We don't always know what org model or way of working is gonna be the most useful. And so there is something to choice and articulating choice that feels like it's providing a safety net for teams to then follow with a certain set of consistent behaviors and know that at least they are doing the behaviors and showing up in the way that the leaders want them to, even if the end result isn't what the business is driving for.

There's something towards 'we are all going to operate in this way. We don't know if it's gonna work or not, but somebody made the decision. Let's test this hypothesis all the way [00:11:00] through' versus a leader saying, 'Stuff is super uncertain, so we're never gonna know. So everybody just try stuff.' You are at least heading in a consistent direction that the organization wants you to head in.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: You need enough so that the action is joint, shared and purposeful, directional and meaningful. And that requires some choice about how you're going to go about doing that together as a team. And so the consistency of the behavior is all about you have a shared view about how you're going to try to tack through this uncertainty together.

That doesn't mean the consistency stays consistent because a set of skills that are important in times when there's high uncertainty is learning.

- Megan Alexa Watson: Mm-hmm, and pivots.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: And pivots ... from that learning.

Learning together becomes an important element of what is required in [00:12:00] moments of high uncertainty.

And the teams that are more effectively able to learn together and make those pivots together in a way that helps them be more effective in the environment that they are working in. But it's also not random, and it's not disparate in the sense that the people are working at cross purposes because there is no shared agreement.

Part of what a good leader does is they suss out the important elements of the requirements of the situation such that that can be translated into a direction for the team so that people know what's important versus what's not important. And so if different teams are operating in different environments or contextual demands, they're gonna have different requirements, and the question is really how different, like, how varied are those environments?

- Megan Alexa Watson: How different is too different?

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: [00:13:00] Right. And the more disparate the environments that different teams are operating in, the more different their ways of working and leadership has to be in order to be effective. If you boil those down into consistency, because it's easier to manage consistency, 100% easier to manage consistency, the value of consistency then gets swamped by the natural diversity in the environment. And then you end up less effective in trying to accomplish your aims.

Now, hopefully, you've chosen consistency in the area that is most important for you as an enterprise, right? And therefore it may not matter as much because these other areas are enough lower value but those are important choices to make. Just because something's easy to manage doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Figuring out what complexity is important for you as a leader or you as an enterprise to hold [00:14:00] as part of your operating rhythm is an actually important choice point.

And different companies make different decisions about this that are reasonable based on, you know, the businesses that they're in. The challenge is, again, understanding both the complexity you operate, that you can perceive today, and then also the directionality of that complexity. 'Cause the businesses you're in may be getting more disparate.

They may be pulling in different directions, and if you don't see that happening in real time, then you can't actually catch up to that, and then you end up, in some places where your management philosophy, your culture, your ways of operating are mismatches for one or more aspects of your business design. And then that becomes, a really good reason for divestiture.

- Megan Alexa Watson: I'm not gonna lie, I was literally thinking about that the other day. I was like, "What are the really good reasons for divestiture?" And so that will be another episode. We will [00:15:00] go deep, we'll go deep on that....

As I'm listening to you talk about what it means to hold complexity, and with that I assume hold flexibility within that complexity...

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Yes.

- Megan Alexa Watson: ... I'm starting to think about, and I'll share some thoughts, but I'd love yours too, what causes leaders or organizations to be unwilling to hold that complexity and flexibility?

So going back to pendulum swing, what drives us to go to extremes in attempt to simplify? The examples that come to mind for me, and I'll take it from an individual leadership lens, are potentially having received sort of negative reaction, feedback, whatever, for a certain style or a certain approach. It is not uncommon for leaders to course correct to another extreme because they feel like they need to write over old [00:16:00] tapes about them.

Sometimes it can be a matter of a leader seeing an amazing opportunity on the horizon and not having the belief that the team can move with enough urgency to capture it. And so they swing styles or approaches to another direction 'cause they're trying to make the transformation happen faster.

Another way that I often see it show up is when there are times that there is something missing in a system... so let's say a leadership team, where a certain leadership approach or style is saturating a leadership team, and the leader feeling like, 'I need to be what is missing in this space.' I personally have a high tendency to do that. And potentially feeling like they need to swing the pendulum to sort of try to balance things out.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: My, my first reaction to what you're saying is none of those reactions are necessarily poor reactions.

- Megan Alexa Watson: Exactly.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Because my [00:17:00] read on what you just said is that people are responding to the environmental conditions in which they're facing. And that behavioral flexibility is actually valuable in the context of, of effective leadership, right? And when people have more flexibility that means that they can respond to more environments. There's the notion org science of requisite variety, and requisite variety is essentially saying that an organization has to have enough, competencies and capabilities to match the variety in the environment that they're operating in.

And if they don't, then they're going to run into a demand from the environment that they cannot meet, and so requisite variety is all about that. You can translate that into leadership, right? And there's a requisite variety for leaders in certain situations. The trick is perceiving 'I need to flex my leadership', and then having the capability and capacity to actually flex it.

- Megan Alexa Watson: Actually do that.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: And so a leader who is, [00:18:00] quote-unquote, 'known for' their commanding and directing style may have the requisite variety to enact other types of leadership, but they may feel that that's why they're there, and they're constrained in that leadership style, even if they are perceiving for this moment they should be acting in a different way.

It seems to me most useful if organizations have the cultural support and the support and management systems for people to have more flexibility in their leadership behavior, and that be viewed as a valuable thing. It's easier if you can name something in the organization, and so if you can talk about it both the style itself, the approach you're using that has currency in the organization, and also the act of shifting style as a named, thing and a supported thing in the organization then becomes a language that [00:19:00] people can deploy so that people can make sense of it.

Because as you're saying, sometimes it's hard for people to understand that something is happening, and then they get confused. 'I don't know why this person is acting this way. Because that's not who that person is.' But if there's a language for that, then that becomes a way of having a common expression and it makes that shift intelligible.

- Megan Alexa Watson: The one I wanna go back to, 'cause something just clicked for me listening to what you were saying, and this idea of it's so easy to believe that there is inherent bad in an extreme pendulum swing potentially because of the sense of the cost of change.

You know, we talk about loss for sure, but there is a nuance that's different between loss and cost...

... part of what is surfacing for me is I've been spending a lot of time recently thinking about brand. Often [00:20:00] we say a brand is a promise. And it's lighting up in my head as we're discussing this ... a certain leadership approach or style could be perceived by their followers as a brand promise. A certain way of a system working, whether it's culture, whether it's their approach to teaming, whether it's how decisions get made, if it has existed for long enough, can be perceived as a brand promise.

And so when that changes, it is experienced as something got broken. And your articulation that I think is so key of, if you have the language to talk about the flexibility and the shift as the true brand promise, then it's easier for people to sense-make when those changes happen. And so there's something to 'What does it [00:21:00] mean as an organization or as an individual to connect its identity to the flexibility and the ability to transform and change' versus what I think historically has been connecting its identity to... something more inflexible, more secure, more set? I feel like there's something to that... that's gonna have to become real really fast for leaders and for organizations.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: And so my first reaction was very, very simplified. Like, 'don't make stupid brand promises.'

- Megan Alexa Watson: Fair. We're, we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about that. Because, 'you can count on me'. 'You can trust me' ... is generally considered a good brand promise.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Certainly.

- Megan Alexa Watson: Right?

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Certainly. Yes. But-

- Megan Alexa Watson: So tell me more. Tell me more ...

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: it's sort of like, where, where do you hinge the brand promise on?

Is it the performance? It the [00:22:00] surface, or is it something deeper? And so you have a leader whose brand is associated with you know, getting things done. Like...

- Megan Alexa Watson: ...get shit done ...

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: ... yep ... I'm a leader who makes shit happen in the organization.

- Megan Alexa Watson: Yes.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Right?

- Megan Alexa Watson: Yes. I may know some of those.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: And sometimes that's translated in terms of a very, particular set of behaviors where that leader may be very decisive, that leader may be very hands-on, and they get in there and they do things. They push and take on accountability, right? They will grab things that they need in order to get things done. There are ways in which the same brand promise of, 'I'm a leader who gets things done,' can be accrued to things that in certain environments may not be effective way to get things done, right?

They may say the words, 'I'm a leader who gets things done,' but their actual brand promise is, 'I'm a leader [00:23:00] who, who makes all the choices, takes all the work takes all the sort of space and the work in the areas in which I am operating in.' And that's not the same language.

It's not how they describe the brand promise, but it's how they execute it. And so what I would consider to be the stupid thing about that is that the higher level idea has been abandoned for a very particular set of means to achieve it. And that's the mistake.

- Megan Alexa Watson: Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna push that, 'cause I hear you on... certainly there are the scenarios where how you describe what you are versus how you are actually engaging are mismatched, without a doubt, and that creates dissonance and confusion and all of those things.

It feels like the core of what you're saying is the brand promise the outcome or the [00:24:00] action? I feel like I'm hearing you say, 'I am a leader who gets shit done.' That's the outcome. How I get there might look different on any given day what levers I pull, what clothes I put on. But you know that the end result, the outcome is going to be that I will get shit done. That ties me back to a previous conversation we had about prosaic or not missions, company missions. The path to get here could look completely different but that's where we're going.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Yes.

- Megan Alexa Watson: And the piece that I feel you sort of playing with and pulling tension on is how have leaders or organizations defined themselves by their actions more than their outcomes.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: My push is that it is easy to tie ourselves to an idea of yourself, 'This is how you do this' because it is comfortable, it is what's worked. And that is something that I [00:25:00] think we all have a challenge with. You know, one of my brands is telling truth to power, is telling people in powerful positions...

- Megan Alexa Watson: Same.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: ...Things that nobody else around them is telling them. Part of the ways in which as I've gotten more experienced in the organization, 'cause when I was much younger ... I would just say stupid shit in front of people, right?

- Megan Alexa Watson: Career Limiting Move Consulting...

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: right. LLC.

And the real question is how do you say what is needed to be said in a way that the person can hear it in a way that that person's sense of self is respected in that moment. ' You want to know this.' 'This is important for you, and I care about the things that are important to you, and so I'm going to deliver that to you in a way that you understand both the [00:26:00] message and the care.'

Whatever the motivation is, there are brand promises that are meaningful, but you can't express that in a way that is undermining your actual aims.

- Megan Alexa Watson: I will admit I'm struggling... because where my head went as you were discussing what' are the ends versus what are the means' then makes me spike really quickly around... where does principle come into this? The wheels are turning around potentially the fear with seeing either organizational or leadership high flexibility is, 'can I trust this person or this organization to not do something that is so extreme that I am not actually personally okay with?'

I think for many of us who do purpose-driven work, we find [00:27:00] ourselves trying to follow leaders or work in organizations where we feel like we can count on certain decisions being made within certain constraints. And so when you see high flex in ways of working, culture, leadership styles in an organization's attempt to meet a moment, it can spike a real fear of, 'would they actually flex into something that I'm not okay with, that I'm not okay following, that I'm not okay being a part of?'

You get real worried, real fast about, 'what principles are actually governing this leader and how they make choices, this organization and how it makes choices?' I think for many of us who have been raised in the age of purpose-driven work it's kinda hard to not fall into that.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Yes, I mean yes specifically in [00:28:00] the idea that, that principles and integrity matter for people. And the push I think is that we substitute consistency for the application of principle or integrity, and that's just bullshit.

'Cause we can be consistent in a way where we are ducking the real issue. And that consistency is a way of hiding as opposed to doing what actually is the appropriate manifestation of your leadership or organizational principles.

- Megan Alexa Watson: Yeah, so you said a thing in a moment ago about 'regardless of the motivation' when were talking about leadership in the moment.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Yes.

- Megan Alexa Watson: The only signal that a individual has of another individual's motivation or intent or a system's motivation or intent, is what they see.

And so it's not unreasonable for an individual to look for consistency of behavior as a signal of what their motivation or their intent or their principles are.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Uh, [00:29:00] that's not, that's not my point.

- Megan Alexa Watson: Okay...

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: My point is that consistency in and of itself is of no value.

- Megan Alexa Watson: 100%.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Just as flexibility in of itself is of no value.

- Megan Alexa Watson: Agreed.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: Consistency can have value in terms of reliability. It can have value in terms of expectations and being able to predict what people will do or say and those outcomes, and that has real meaningful ... in the social connectedness in systems. What I am pushing on is this idea of if the situation demands of us different action that is inconsistent with our previous action, then not considering changing your behavior is a failure to adapt.

- Megan Alexa Watson: It's [00:30:00] ludicrous. Let's go further than 'a failure to adapt.' It's ludicrous.

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: And so what is important is not just the outward signal of there being something different, 'the person's acting in ways that I'm not expecting him to act.' What is important is the meaning we make of that difference.

And that is not a singular enterprise. People don't make meaning without context and without social cues and interaction. Meaning is socially constructed. There is a role that each of us has to play in meaning making. And so you already said this earlier, it's like a leader should narrate what they are doing in ways that people can make meaning of it, and that is a useful prescription. Essentially when you have [00:31:00] to flex your leadership style it doesn't even matter what kind of relationship it is. If you are doing something different than the people who are close to you and around you are expecting of you, narrating that difference is actually critically important to maintaining the relationship itself so that people can incorporate this shift in their narrative of you, and you with respect to them, and them in respect to you.

- Megan Alexa Watson: The piece around bringing intention to set shared meaning-making on the right course... feels like something critical in this. 'The world is changing. I am gonna change in these ways because I am striving for these outcomes, and we will find out if that works', to me feels like the [00:32:00] extra layer that is potentially missing right now. A lot of the narration that I hear is 'Things are chaos, things are uncertain, things are unknown, so everything's gonna change. You can't count on anything.'

That's not meaning-making. That's narrating the news. Like, 'Factual. Yep, accurate.' The world is changing, things are chaos, you don't know what to expect, you don't know what's gonna happen, 'and therefore in this moment I'm gonna choose this path or we're gonna try these things as a result of it in service of XYZ outcome. We don't know if it's gonna work, but this is the outcome we're striving for, and here's the things that are gonna change.'

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: So sense-making it doesn't have to be accurate. It has to be plausible.

- Megan Alexa Watson: Mm

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: when something is sufficiently different than our expectations, [00:33:00] then the harder it is for there be enough plausibility to take action, and that's actually the real work of leadership. There's also this notion of sense-breaking, right? You have to say like '...the way you thought the world worked

- Megan Alexa Watson: Yes!

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: ...is not the way the world is working right now.

- Megan Alexa Watson: Yes!

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: ...and something...

- Megan Alexa Watson: Yes!

 - Carl B. Watson, Ph.D.: ...has to be radically different.'

So Karl Weick, who was an emeritus professor at the University of Michigan, created the scientific study of sense-making in a way that is most used in behavioral science today. And he wrote a book on sense-making, where he describes the sense-making and sense-breaking process through the description of the Mann Gulch forest fire disaster, where a firefighting crew was airdropped into this fire in Mann Gulch.

They realized that the fire was overwhelming them, so they shifted from fighting the fire to escaping the fire. And so they're running up this hill, and as they're running up, the leader realized that they weren't going to make it. And so he did [00:34:00] three things that really challenged the traditions and understanding of what firefighting was for these teams.

The first thing he asked them to do was to drop their tools so they could run unencumbered up the hill. And for forest firefighters, dropping their tools means dropping their means in which they have to do their job. And so a lot of them didn't. When that failed to work, he asked them to stop running, completely breaking the sense for what they were trained to do as firefighters.

And then he lit another fire. Their identity of firefighters was not to set fires, but was to put fires out, to not lose their tools, but to keep their tools. But setting that backfire and getting underneath the tarp reduced the amount of fuel that the fire had to burn and save his life. The way in which he responded to that fire broke sense.

It was unintelligible to those other firefighters based on their experience. And that's the challenge, right? You can't [00:35:00] get to plausibility if the sense you're making is unintelligible. So you have to find a way to bridge where people are and where they need to be in order to understand and take action.

Tragically, most of them ignored Dodge's advice, that leader's advice, and so they kept running with all their tools, and they could not, in fact, outrun the fire. This approach to dealing with the overwhelming fire is now standard practice for firefighting.

- Megan Alexa Watson: What I'm hearing in the example you're giving here is when you're really truly on the edge of what is known, what someone has experienced before in an industry or a profession or a function, the reality is adding new sense on top of old sense - for lack of a better way to put it - is not always the path forward, because people are building old upon old, and it makes it difficult for people to move quickly to take it in and to do something with it that is meaningful.

It [00:36:00] is connecting very deeply for me in this moment of AI transformation, where I'm realizing that a lot of us as leaders are putting 170% behind sense-making, sense-making, sense-making.

What I'm hearing that is so compelling from this example is sometimes a leader's most critical step is to actually first break sense, help people realize that the world has so fundamentally changed that all they know is no longer real and that you have to truly start over. And that feels like a real call to action for leaders and organizations in the moment we're in today.

- Megan Alexa Watson: And that's it for this episode of The Watson Standard. We've shared some things to think about, talk about, and put into practice. Follow the series and join us next time as we continue [00:37:00] redefining leadership and redefining organizations. text goes here