Here's what I think is helpful to realize is that the leader of
an organization or even of a group, they're vertical altitude
sets the ceiling for how effective that organization or
that team can be. Because When leaders operate
from lower altitudes, they end up implementing tactics or
making certain decisions in implementing certain policies
that while may serve some benefit or ultimately Limiting
for that organization. Hey everyone.
My name is Henry Surya with Robin.
And you're listening to the Tecla.
Juneau podcast the show where I'll be bringing you, the
greatest technical leaders practitioners and thought
leaders in the industry to discuss about their Journey
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personal work. So let's dive into our Journal.
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Tip, my guest for today's episode is Ryan, gottfredson,
Ryan is a leadership development, researcher and a
best-selling author of the elevated leader.
In this episode, Ryan explained the concept of an elevated
leader and why it is important to have elevated leaders in an
organization. He described the role of ethical
development in elevating leadership and how it differs
from the horizontal development that many of us are familiar
with. Ryan described in depth, the
three different levels of vertical development including
their cognitive and emotional aspects associated with each of
the level towards the end. Ryan explained the four
different types of mindset and why it is important for leaders
to understand and heal from past traumas.
In order to become elevated mind 3.0 l This is such a great
conversation with Ryan and I'm really fascinated by the concept
of vertical development. I find it is a very important
concept that all of us leaders must understand in order to
increase our Effectiveness and create a bigger impact in our
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any of those tracks ahead, everyone.
Today, I have with me, a guest named Ryan gottfredson, he is a
professor leadership. Professor actually at the
College of Business and economics at California State
University Fullerton. So if you're wondering why there
is a leadership professor in this show today the reason is
because Ryan is the Wall Street Journal and u.s. today,
best-selling author of the two books, the success mindsets, and
the elevated leader in. Earlier today, we will cover the
second book that elevated leader leveling up your leadership
through vertical development. I listened to one of Ryan's
podcast episode with another host before, and I found the
concept is really interesting this vertical development and
hence I'm inviting Ryan to share with us here as well.
In this episode about vertical leadership and development.
So Ryan, thank you so much for this opportunity.
Looking forward to our conversation.
Yeah, I know. Thank you so much.
It's always great. And we were talking a little bit
before we started recording. It's always.
Connecting with somebody almost halfway around the world from
where I'm at in Southern California.
So thanks for having me. So Ryan, I always like to ask my
audience first to share their background, so if you can share,
maybe any turning points or highlights in your career.
Well, yeah, I guess let me start where I'm deeply passionate
about leadership about self development.
I feel like I've almost always been that way and I think it's a
way for me to deepen my knowledge and expertise in this
space. Is I decided I I should go the
professor route. So I did my PhD at Indiana
University in organizational, behavior and Human Resources.
My dissertation was on leadership.
One of the things about my dissertation was really great.
Was it allowed me to review the last 70 years of leadership
research. It was just such an eye-opening
experience, but I would say, one of my takeaways from that
experience. Actually didn't sit too well
with what I observed is that Most of the leadership research
over the last 70 years, has been focused on answering one
question and it's not a bad question and it's led to some
good answers, but the question is, what do L need to do to be
effective? And like I said, that's not a
bad question. In fact, I think that's a
question that most leaders want to know.
Just tell me what to do, and I'll go and do it, but it didn't
sit very well with me because I don't think about leadership
Leadership is just doing the right things about just checking
certain boxes. I think about leadership is
being more about our being than are doing.
And so, for the last about nine years, I have been focusing on
how do we tap into the being element of leadership?
And that's what ultimately landed me on this topic that I'm
now focusing on which is vertical development, which is
all about the development approach that's focused on it.
Moving are being. So I'm excited to jump in and
share ideas related to it with your audience.
So I think what you just said just now, so resonating with me.
A lot of leadership coaching program training program.
We are all taught about how to be more effective, be a time
management. Communication influencing
skills, presentation, the list goes on and on.
But I think what you said just now is very interesting, right?
That we should also Focus or even focus more on our being,
not just the doing part and you call this concept, the elevated
Leader. So maybe first of all, try to
explain what is the concept of elevated leader, and why we
actually need to focus on being an elevated leader or what you
say here. Focus on the being.
Yeah. So the concepts behind vertical
development, so vertical development.
If you never heard of it, it's a fairly new term.
It's been around for about 10 years, but the ideas behind it.
Go back to the 1960s and they stem from the field of
Developmental Psychology. So, let me just give you a
really brief history lesson around.
Psychology developmental psychology started as a field of
study in the 1880s from the 1880s until the 1960s.
The primary focus of Developmental psychologist was
on children and their development.
In fact, they largely assumed that adults when people hit
adulthood, they don't develop. But what we learn from these
Scholars is that as people go from infants to adults, they go
through a number of different developmental stages.
And they do. So rather automatically it's
essentially a function of H. Well in the 1960s the select few
developmental psychologist started to wonder, do adults
develop and if so do they develop through different
developmental stages and what they found in their research was
really fascinating. So what they found is that yes
adults can develop and that there are three different
developmental stages. But what they also found was
that most adults never So they identify these three different
developmental stages and what they found is that 64 percent of
all adults, never develop into the second level of adult
development during their adulthood, during their
lifetime. So 35% end up getting to the
second level of adult development and only 1% get to
the third level of adult development.
And so when we talk about an elevated leader, we're talking
about How do we go through the process for ourselves to develop
vertically as adults? And ultimately, hopefully get to
that highest level. Because when we learn about
that, highest level, what we'll find is that the most effective,
people are the types of people who have developed to that
level, when we think about actually some of the biggest
names in our worlds, history, people like Mahatma Gandhi,
Abraham Lincoln Martin Luther King jr.
Nelson, Mandela. These are types of people that
Show a lot of evidence is operating at that highest
vertical development level. So for me what I found is that
it's just been really eye-opening to understand what
are these different levels? Because it gets me a sense of
well, what is my vertical Outta toot and how do I Elevate?
Thanks for sharing this. I was quite intrigued by this
statistic numbers that you quoted.
I also found it in the book like 64 percent of people actually
only still in first stage. Age less of them actually move
to the next stages. And this is very interesting
because the fact in the industry, we have many of such
people, right? Which means that we have
probably some leaders who will have not been developed or
elevated, so to speak. And I think in the book also you
mentioned, it's pretty rare. If we can find a team that is in
a better psychological State, then it's leader.
So the leaders position, the leaders role is actually very
crucial in any kind of team and hence the company or
organization. So there are also some
statistics that you About if a manager is not effective or not
elevated, it impacts the team, maybe you can share some
interesting statistics here for us to know why this is such an
important thing. Here's what I think it's helpful
to realize is that the leader of an organization or even of a
group they're vertical altitude sets the ceiling for how
effective that organization or that team can be.
And so if we ever want to improve the effectiveness,
Effectiveness of an organization or a team.
What we have to do at a foundational level is help that
leader develop vertically because When leaders operate
from lower altitudes, they end up implementing tactics or
making certain decisions in implementing certain policies
that while may serve some benefit or ultimately limiting
for that organization. So let me give you maybe a quick
example of that and I would say, Microsoft is a company that most
All around the world they're familiar with.
When I studied Microsoft leaders, particularly Steve
Ballmer, the CEO before Sachin to do it, Microsoft is a
completely different company now.
Under Sachin Adela then under Steve Ballmer, and what I would
venture to say is that Sachin Adela in my study of him, is a
very vertically developed leader Steve Ballmer.
On the other hand, wasn't as vertically developed.
Let me give you an example of some evidence of that.
One of the things that Steve Ballmer did It is he implemented
stacked rank Performance Management Systems, these
Performance Management systems are designed to help identify
the top talent in the organization and kind of treat
them in a special way that's great because what Steve Ballmer
was all about was about how do we stand out and a stack, great
performance management system helps them identify those who
stand out? But what he didn't fully
appreciate was when you create or utilize a stack, right?
Performance Management. What that actually does is it
Fosters a culture of competition as opposed to collaboration.
And so even though Steve Ballmer was really well intended, what
he was doing, was ultimately putting a cap on the
effectiveness at Microsoft that under bomber.
They were just not able to be very Innovative.
And so, when statue Nadella comes into CEO, he says the sea
and CEO stands for curator of culture.
And one of the first things that he Did was he threw out the
stack? Great performance management
system to create an environment that was much more collaborative
as opposed to competitive and that's fueled huge amount of
growth in Microsoft's. It's at Unadilla took over.
So you asked about some statistics, that's kind of an
anecdote but what we find is there's statistics that suggest
65 percent of employees would rather have a new boss over more
pay 85 percent of employees don't trust their leaders to All
the truth. So these are a couple of
Statistics that demonstrate that.
Unfortunately, most leaders don't operate from a really high
level of vertical development or altitude.
Thanks for sharing that study case plus Steve Ballmer in
implementing stack rank, simply because he has a
well-intentioned strategy. But actually his baby leadership
stage actually kept the thinking, behind the intention
implementing the stack Rank. And think we can see many.
This as well, if we are stuck in this kind of a mindset than,
maybe we also implementing decisions or maybe treating
people that is probably not optimal.
I guess many people also, say, you don't leave the job unless
you are not happy with your manager, right?
So, a lot of things actually, hinge on the optimal
relationship with the manager. So, I think this is really
important for us to learn from you, right?
So how do we can Elevate ourselves as Leaders as well?
By elevating you also mentioned, there's this vertical
development and there's also the Was it of that which is
horizontal development? Maybe let's go there and try to
explain the distinction between these two horizontal and
vertical. Develop.
Yeah really good. So it's just helpful to
recognize and just most people aren't familiar with this is
that there's two different forms of development.
There's horizontal development and there's vertical development
and we are very well versed in horizontal development.
This is the primary form of development of our education
systems and our corporate training programs.
So horizontal. Mental development is adding new
Knowledge and Skills and competencies to ourselves.
The focus is on doing more in. There's nothing wrong with
horizontal development. It's a lot like downloading an
app onto an iPad, when I put a new app onto an iPad, that's
great because it allows me to do more than what I could do
previously. But what we've got to ask
ourselves is does having a new app improve how effectively that
iPad operate as a whole answer. That question is no, of course,
not adding a new nap, isn't going to help that iPad, operate
more quickly, do more complex things, but if we want that, we
can't use horizontal development.
We've got to employ a different developmental approach and that
is vertical development. So, vertical development is not
helping To do more, it's helping us to be better.
And the focus is not on adding an app onto the iPad, it's
upgrading our own internal operating system, it's upgrading
our be. So that's what vertical
development is all about. Hopefully that analogy helps
explain why it's so important and let me even try to drive
that point home downstairs. I have an iPad that is about
eight and a half years old. When I pull it up, I could go to
the App Store and I could try I to download an app and every
time I try to do it, I get an error.
The error says this app, cannot be downloaded onto this iPad
because the operating system is too old.
It doesn't say it that way, but that's effectively what's going
on. And so I am unable to download
new apps. Well, when you think about
corporate training, for example, we may want to develop leaders,
emotional intelligence and we could put them through a
horizontal development approach, that might Let's have you go to
this training on how to listen, more effectively, or how to
deliver feedback more effective? Those are kind of doing
horizontal type trainings and those might be incrementally
helpful, but if the individual is a part of this development,
if their internal operating system is wired, such that they
have a really hard time, even listening to the ideas of
others, maybe, because they have their own insecurities about how
they always have. To be the one with the right
answers then that training on how to listen more effectively
isn't going to work. The operating system that
individual has is not compatible with that app that they're
trying to download. So that's one of the biggest
limitations that I see in terms of leadership and employee
development is too often. We're trying to download apps
that are more sophisticated than the individuals operating system
to begin with. And so the whole idea here is
not to say horizontal development, His dad, just the
idea is that we also need to consider vertical development
and the operating system so that we can better develop ourselves
as leaders and then so that we could even grow.
Here's the argument that I'm somewhat trying to make as we
grow vertically. We enhance our capacity to grow
horizontally. I don't think it's the same the
other way around. I don't think by having more
horizontal development necessarily helps us vertically.
We develop. Wow, that's an interesting
analogy like downloading an app or upgrading your iPad Oso.
This internal operating system that you mentioned.
So I think it makes sense to me why vertical development is
important. And the story of also mention
that if we Elevate ourselves in terms of ethical development, we
can also enhance our capacity to develop horizontally.
So I think that's also a very interesting concept and I just
want to read the technical definition of vertical
development that you quoted in the book as well.
So, vertical development is elevating lie.
His ability to make meaning of their wealth in more cognitively
and emotionally sophisticated. Wait, so the two key words that
I pick here is cognitively and emotionally tell us more about
that. What do you mean by this
cognitive and emotional aspects of the development?
Yeah. If it involves both and I in
fact I'm going to pick a different term in that
definition to focus on to help us understand those.
So I'm going to pick the term mate.
Mimi. Our mind is a meaning maker.
Machine. That's one of the primary
purposes of our mind is to make meaning of our world, but here's
what we need to understand is two different.
People can see the same thing, but make meaning of it
differently and with different levels of cognitive and
emotional sophistication. So, let's step into this.
So I'm going to ask you a question here, Henry, and I'll
curious about your response. How would you say most people
make meaning of constructive criticism?
How do they react when they receive constructive criticism?
I think most people, first of all, will be defensive like,
okay, I will receive a negative thing about me not doing well on
some aspects of my work or maybe behaviors whatever that is.
People forget the constructive part because first of all, yeah,
this is about defending myself as only then, secondly.
Maybe if the manager conveys it in the right way, then maybe
they look at the constructive but that's my view.
Yeah, I think you're right. I think most people are prone to
get defensive. Why would somebody get
defensive? Civ when we get defensive, it's
like we're holding up a shield. The only reason why we would
hold up a shield is if we feel like we're getting attacked,
right? So if we make meaning of
constructive criticism as an attack, of course we're going to
get defensive that makes complete sense, but then we've
got to ask ourselves. The question is that cognitively
and emotionally sophisticated know, we kind of let our
emotions. Dictate our reaction to that
situation. Should we don't necessarily
process through that in a very cognitive way?
So that's a really low level of cognitive and emotional
sophistication. You also leaned into what might
be the next level of cognitive and emotional sophistication.
Right. You said, well, if buts my
manager and they deliver it tactfully, well then maybe I'll
be more accepted. So that next level we might make
meaning of constructive criticism, as it might be an
attack, depending on who delivers it.
And how a deliver and that to me feels a little more cognitively
and emotionally sophisticated, but to me I don't think it's
really cognitively and emotionally sophisticated, the
most cognitively and emotionally sophisticated people they are
able to make meaning of constructive criticism as an
opportunity to learn and grow regardless of who delivers it
and how they deliver it they recognize that even if that
person may be their enemy and may have mal-intent there may be
some truth to what They're saying that I can benefit from.
I mean, you're both living life, it is not easy to get there,
right? We have got to be in this
cognitive and emotional state where we are good with being
told that we are bad and it's just not easy to get there.
It takes cognitive and emotional sophistication.
So this is just one example looking at constructive
criticism about how people can make meaning of the same thing,
but in different ways and at different levels of Cognitive
and emotional sophistication. I mean, we can explore other
things like failure, different ideas, vulnerability.
Like, these are Concepts that people make meaning of in
different levels of cognitive and emotional sophistication.
The higher our altitude, the better that we make meaning of
our world and therefore the better.
We navigate our world. So I really like the term making
meaning. So simplifying, the cognitive
aspect and the emotional aspect. And I think what you mentioned
just As an example is like something really important for
us to understand, right? So we all have our own bias, we
all have our own perspective, maybe we also have our own paths
that drives us to certain behaviors.
And I think being able to make a different meaning for the same
situation is really crucial for leadership because that will
determine the next step of action that you will take as
part of your understanding of the situations.
And I think is really important as well, that we understand how
we actually make meaning. But before we go there, Actually
want to go deeper into these three stages that you mention
it. Beginning.
So you quoted there are three levels of vertical development
so maybe we can go and high-level each of them and what
is the characteristic for each of the stage?
Yeah, I do want to do that. I do want to bring up something
just you leaned into it, just a little bit is in fact, I would
say, most people are not conscious of how they are prone
to make meaning of their world. It's just naturally what their
brain does and they haven't yet. Vertically developed enough to
be somebody who is able to step outside of themselves and
evaluate how they make meaning. As so as we're going to go
through the three different levels of vertical development
to me, that is actually one of the biggest signals of whether
somebody has gone from Level 1 to level 2 is do they have the
capacity to step outside of themselves and evaluate the
quality of their meaning making? Does that make sense to you?
Yes, that they need to make sense and I don't want to add as
well from my point of view. There are many nuances in
certain conditions, so I think being able to interpret these
nuances, maybe relate to the levels of stages that you are
about to explain that is well, yep, so perfect.
All right, so let's jump into these three levels.
What are they all about? Well, I think it's helpful for
us to understand that what we're talking about is our internal
operating system and the quality of that is, so at each of these
different levels, our body is programmed To fulfill different
needs. So, at the first level, and I
called this mind level 1.0, because it's representative of
the quality of our internal operating system at mind. 1.0,
our body is programmed to be safe to be comfortable.
And to belong, when we're in mind, 1.0 we want to join and
identify with groups or tribes. That will help us to fulfill
these needs of safety comfort and She often times.
What happens is, we will join a group.
That could be a family of friend group, a religious group, and
employer a political group, we like to join groups.
And when we join these groups, we usually don't say I want to
take charge. We usually say, I don't want to
take charge. I'll let you tell me what to do
and I will go and do it. Provided, you keep me safe.
Comfortable and feeling, like I belong in the fur at this level,
this doesn't make It's a bad person, but what we are is, we
are a dependent thinker. We are allowing other people to
dictate, kind of the big choices and we just kind of follow along
with it. Whether were there now or not,
we have all been there. So we should all be able to
relate to this. So that's mind. 1.0 is focused
on safety comfort. And belonging as we Elevate into
the subsequent levels. What you're going to see is a
dramatic shift in our needs. So at that second level of Cool
development. Mind 2.0.
Our body is programmed to a standout advance and get ahead.
In fact, we are now willing to be unsafe uncomfortable and not
belong. In order to stand out Advanced
and get ahead. And when we're here, this is
again, this is a place where we have a greater capacity to step
outside of ourselves and evaluate how we make meaning of
our world. We're also able to step outside
of our relationship with our groups.
And say, maybe I don't need to follow everything about my
group, I could develop my own opinions, my own ideas.
So, what's happening here as we shift from mind, 1.0 to my 2.0,
we're going for being a dependent thinker to being an
independent thinking. And when we become an
independent thinker, we have our own ideas.
We usually think, you know, hold on to these pretty tightly
because we've worked hard to develop our own independent
ideas. And now we kind of want to Put
them to the test, we want to implement our idea.
So, when we get to mind 2.0, we generally want to take on
leadership positions something that we didn't want to do in
mine 1.0. In fact, what we find is 35% of
all people operate in my 2.0, but 85 percent of Executives
operate in mind 2.0, they kind of recognize there's a whole
bunch of mine, 1.0 people, what if I can employ them?
To do work and they kind of want to be told what to do.
I will tell them what to do. I will employ them and I could
get them to help me stand out advance and get ahead.
All right, so let me give you an example of a mind 2.0 liter that
I've been working with when I first met her.
She's a CEO of an organization and I asked her, how do you
measure success in your organization?
And her answer was double-digit growth year over year.
That's a mind to point. No answer.
It's all about outcomes results. Am I standing out?
And that's what she was all about.
And she's all about, how do I employ my people in such a way,
that will help me get better numbers.
So, that's mine 2.0. Those first two levels make
sense, or do you want to add anything there?
Yeah, so the one thing that I just want to highlight is the
statistics that you mentioned. So initially, we heard that 64
percent of people are in stage one, and only maybe about 35% in
stage 2. But If you look at leaders that
are available out there or the executives, you mentioned
actually the ratio changes simply because leaders want to
stand out, they want to take that position and hence you also
quoted. Just now, it's actually 85% of
leaders are in stage 2, not in stage 1, right?
So I think you can see this interesting statistics of
different ratio for leadership and also the employees right
under them. So, yeah, maybe that's the my
interesting fact. I just want to highlight the
remember, just add in one statistic there that we've
missed. It is seven percent of
Executives operate at that mind 1.0, that first level, so not
very many operate there. Alright, so we've covered mine
1.0 mind 2.0, let's jump into mine 3.0 and again, you're gonna
find that the needs shift dramatically, right?
So in mine, 1.0 our needs are really to stand in in mind 2.0,
our needs are to stand out in mind 3.0.
We don't care about standing in and we don't care about Now our
needs are all about contributing adding value and lifting others.
So again, we don't want to stand in, we don't want to stand out,
we'd want to contribute to something bigger than us.
And as we make this shift, we started at a dependent thinker.
We've moved to being an independent thinker at this
third level. We becoming interdependent
thinker. We don't hold so tightly to our
own independent ideas. We recognize that there's a lot
of Oz. There's a lot of complexity, the
world is not white and black anymore.
It's Shades of Grey. We are also able to see the
bigger picture when we're in mine, 1.0 and we want to stand
in. We want to stand in right now.
If we're in mind 2.0, we want to stand out right now or in the
near future such as, at the end of the year, did we get double
digit growth year over year? That's in the short term in mind
3.0. We don't care about standing in
or Handing out in the short term that allows us to focus on
creating value in the long term, I'll just bring up Satya Nadella
again is an example here because when you took over a CEO of
Microsoft, Steve Ballmer had never implemented a purpose
statement in the 14 years, he was CEO Satya Nadella says, my
first year. My number one priority was
listening to employees all for the purpose of developing a
really clear and Powerful purpose.
A statement that would guide and direct us, he's focused on the
future and that purpose statement is all about creating
value for their stakeholders. And so that's an Evidence of
somebody who operates at that mine. 3.0 level again, not that
they don't want outcomes and results, that's just not their
priority. Their priority is on
contributing to a bigger purpose, something bigger than
themselves. Well, I think that's really
inspiring stage for all leaders to be in.
Just want to highlight. The needs for these type of
leaders is actually contributing adding value and lifting others.
So maybe if we all can assess ourselves, our Behavior, I will
still contributing to the people and the US.
Are we lifting them? So I think that's really a good
reflection and you also have a personal assessment on your
website, which I did a few days back.
It's very, very interesting and I think every one of us here can
also do this kind of assessment and see which mindset.
We are. We tend to think that we are
operating at the higher level but I think this result will
Open your eyes as to what state you are in.
And I think you also mentioned a few bright side about this in
mind. 3.0 L, they are also having good relationship with
time good emotional intelligence systems thinker and actually in
finite minded, right? So boring.
The concept from Simon sinek anything that you want to add
here regarding this bright side. Well, I mean, these are the type
of people that are the most dynamic.
They're psychologically flexible, they have intellectual
humility, you don't really find that for mind 2.0, l For
example, Jack Welsh is a pretty stereotypical leader and people
reference him a lot and to me I see him as being a mind 2.0 L.
One of the reasons why I say that is he wrote a book called
winning? I don't think a mind 3.0 person
would ever write a book called winning the percentages here is
that 1% of people get to this mine 3.0 level, only eight
percent of Executives get here as so, what we've just done by
laying out these three different levels.
I think naturally. IE, it gets us asking a really
powerful question, and it's a question most people never ask
which is part of what makes it so powerful.
And that question, I think we naturally want to ask ourselves
is well, what is my vertical altitude?
What level am I operating at? And I still date.
It is a really powerful question, but I'm sure it's even
the best question that we can ask and here's why and you kind
of stepped into this a little bit Henry.
If I'm envisioning you, The Listener here in front of me, if
you were in front of me, I had to ask you.
Can you see all three mine levels in yourself?
Yes I can see. Yeah, yeah.
I'm the same way I can see all three mind levels in myself.
So it's not like we spend 100% of our time in just one of these
mind levels. So another powerful question
that we can ask ourselves is what is my Center gravity?
What percentage of my time, am I spending at each of these
different levels and you alluded to my vertical development
assessment on my website If you go there, it's Ryan.
Got fortune.com. It takes less than 10 minutes to
take the assessment, but if you get your results, it's going to
help you identify what your Center or gravity, right?
It might say mine 2.0, that doesn't mean you spend 100% of
your time at mine 2.0, but that may be where you spend the most
predominant amount of time there.
So there's an assessment that can kind of help us awaken not
just to our vertical altitude, but to our center of gravity.
And I think one of the valuable things that I Encourage you to
consider as you think about your center of gravity is one.
Can I do on a daily basis to get in and stay in mine 3.0 because
I don't think we get there by accident.
We only get there by intention and building the habits that
help us to be in a really sophisticated, a really
cognitively and emotionally sophisticated state.
Wow. Yeah.
I like the concept that you mentioned, right?
It's like a spectrum. You don't actually just fall in
one bucket and that's it, right? You'll behave, everything.
Perfect. And I think, in your book you
also mentioned different situation.
Sometimes, we also behave differently, like, for example,
in one particular context, we might act as a mind, 1.0 L,
while in may be many aspects of the work, for example, you can
act like mine 2.0, mine 3.0. So this is a spectrum and it
depends on the context that situations the behavior as well.
So thanks for highlighting that. And I like the concept of center
of gravity. We can move towards different
minds but we then to maybe go back to our center of gravity.
And this is where we need to think about like, how we can
improve from there. So I think many listeners will
have been inspired by you about this mind 3.0, but I think the
next is how to actually get there.
And I think coming back to the making meaning that we discussed
earlier. First of all, like how do we
consistently know how we make meaning?
So you mentioned about two things mindset and Trauma.
Healing our past trauma. So maybe let's go there and
understand how we actually make meaning in our lives.
Yeah, it's just really helpful to understand that our meaning
makers are our mindsets. So if we ever want a vertically
develop, we've got to focus on our mindset.
Now one of the challenges I think for most people and
focusing on their mindsets is they don't know what mindsets
are out there. They don't know what mindsets
they have and so it's really helpful to have a I'm work of
mindsets to focus on so that's also something that we could
talk through a little bit. Something I've done is I've put
together in terms of what I've seen out there.
The most comprehensive than research backed mindset
framework to date. While it's the most
comprehensive, I'm not saying it's fully comprehensive, but
what I've done is I've opened up kind of the doors to academic
research on mindsets over the last 40 years and I've
identified four different sets of mindsets and so maybe let's
just quickly We introduce these. Is that okay?
Henry, yes, that's perfect with me.
All right, so I'm going to use you as a guinea pig here because
I'm going to ask you a question. I'm gonna give you a four
different desires and I want you to tell me if society says these
are good or bad desires. Is that okay?
Yes, I'm all-in. Okay.
So here's the desires, a desire to look good, a desire to be
right, a desire to avoid problems and a desire to get
ahead. Would you say that society says,
these are good or bad? I think most of the society I
would say think it's good to do all those, I guess.
Yeah, because who likes to look, bad, be wrong.
Have problems are get passed up, nobody does.
But when we have these as our primary desires, where is our
Focus, it's ourselves as the individual.
Like you mentioned getting a head stand out and Advance.
Yeah. It's I want to look good be
right. Get ahead and stand out when
we're here. Here, we're self-focused, we're
in self-preservation mode. These are actually the for
desires that are fueled by the more negative, or I'm going to
say less cognitively and emotionally sophisticated
mindset, fixed closed, prevention in the inward.
Mindsets, on the other end of the Continuum are more positive
mind sets or more cognitively and emotionally sophisticated
mindset, these mindsets are growth open promotion in at
work, and they carry with them different.
Tires and these are higher ordered desires their more
cognitively and emotionally sophisticated desires these
desires, our desire to learn and grow to find truth and think off
to Emily to reach goals and to lift others.
But it's not easy to be here, have these desires.
And here's why is, because if we want to learn and grow, we've
got to be okay. Looking bad at times.
If we want to find truth and think optimally, we've got to
admit that we were wrong. Wrong at times.
If we want to reach goals, we've got to wait through problems at
times. And if we want to lift others,
we've got to put ourselves on the back burner time and I don't
know about you but it's just not easy to do those things in those
at times moments. And so this is a place where
once we now have this framework of kind of for more negative
mindsets and for positive - that's what allows us to now do
a deep introspective dive. What is the quality of Mind
mindsets? Where do I fall along each of
these continuum's? And if anybody's interested,
I've got another mindset assessment on my website and
they could go take that mindset assessment.
The value here is we've talked about two assessments.
Now, we've got the vertical development assessment, which
helps you identify your Center gravity and then the mindset
assessment to me. What it does is it helps us to
identify the place for us where we're in greatest need of
vertical development, we all need vertical development.
But what do I focus on form? My vertical development and to
me, that's where understanding this framework and having that
assessment can really help us to identify what mindsets to focus
on to raise our altitude. Wow, when I hear you describing
this for different types of mindset, I find someone who is
very enlightened in with it, I think of it like, very inspiring
leaders. They are always unless selfish
always think about how to solve the problems always learning and
growing our seeking truth never defending themselves.
So I think it's really a very tough situation to reach.
But I'm sure by first being conscious about where we are at
and what you mentioned also which area that needs us to
improve a lot more I think by being conscious that step Step,
so that we can actually move ahead and get there.
So, I think I really like this and many people also, without
knowing about their limiting beliefs or maybe mindset that
they adopt, maybe from certain culture, certain family, or
certain school. So I think this is also
important because we tend unconsciously to adopt some
mindsets that probably a bit outdated coming back to the
internal OS that you mentioned a bit outdated, and we have to
upgrade them in order to move to the next one.
So the second aspect of how to develop vertically, About
understanding past trauma. So I know it's a bit tough to go
there but let's try to understand.
Why do you think trauma plays? A bigger pot here as well?
Yeah. So what we need to recognize is
how do we come to the quality of mindsets that we currently have?
Well, it's really two things, two brought things.
It's our life's experience in our current culture part of our
life's experience, and it's ubiquitous across all people.
Is everybody lives through trauma in some form, or some The
definition of trauma is our body has a stress response system
built within it and it's great. It is designed to take on
stress. But when we encounter situations
that exceeds our body's capacity to deal with that stress, our
body has to go through a drastic measures so that we survived
those situations and those drastic measures are literally a
rewiring in our mind. What they do for us is they
actually shrink down our window and tolerance and they cause us
to be more self protective, in other words, to adapt more of
those - self-protective mindset. So, what trauma does for us is
it just causes us. Our body wants to become more
self protected, that is a step away if you will from vertical
development or from the more ideal mindsets of more
vertically, develop people. That's why it's important to
kind of get in touch with trauma, but then here's to me,
The reason why it's so valuable to talk about trauma in light of
vertical development, is because it introduces for me the most
meaningful aspect about vertical development.
And that is, if we want to vertically, develop, we have got
to heal our minds, our bodies, and our hearts, to me, that's
beautiful. That's a beautiful part of
vertical development. What I'm finding is that just
everybody needs this, it is not uncommon for me when I'm
coaching and working with CEOs for a CEO to tell me something.
Like, you're some things that have been told me I try not to
let anybody know this, but deep down, I'm a really insecure
person. Another CEO said, when I was a
child, my best friend was my bite these types of things they
show up in every day in every decision that a leader makes.
And it's not until a leader can heal from these fears.
These insecurities, this trauma that they will be able to become
the leader that I imagine that they aspire to be.
And so trauma is something that inhibits our vertical
development. But the good news is that we can
heal from our trauma and that's a critical part of the vertical
development Journey, really beautiful.
Right? So if we all want to elevate our
leadership at this foundational, level is about healing us.
From our trauma from the past experience that we had.
And I think you mentioned about trauma versus stress, not all
stress becomes drama, right? It's only when we probably
exceed our capacity to deal with the situation, then it becomes a
trauma and I think from my learning as well, a lot of
personal self help and, you know, personal growth framework,
they always relate to our childhood passed in some of
these trauma actually routed from those situations.
Those behaviors and those maybe teachings from parents or from
school, hence, we kind of like inherit that.
And unconsciously behave based on that.
I think some examples that you mentioned about the CEOs
Behavior. Definitely is something that we
have to check out. We cannot just leave it on the
back burner and just assume we are okay.
And showing people that we okay, as well.
I think that we have to work on with our trauma.
And I think what are some of the key things that people can do to
actually work with their trauma or first identify, and in be the
Nexus fixing it, or maybe improve it.
Well, I think that the first step is to actually just learn
more about trauma and the impact Got it has on us to me that I
didn't have itself was a game-changer for me so let me
give people a couple of different resources that I
highly recommend. So one among many but one book
is a book called what happened to you.
It's written by Bruce parry and Oprah Winfrey to me.
It's the best book for stepping into the topic of trauma.
It's very approachable, they articulate the ideas really
easily. So it's a great first step into
the ideas of learning about trauma and the effects on
ourselves. The next book is by far for me,
the most profound book that I've read related to trauma and that
book is called the body keeps the score by Bessel Van.
Der. Kolk, in fact over this last
year, if it wasn't the number one nonfiction book, it was in
the top five of all non-fiction books sold during this last
year. That's an incredibly powerful
book. And honestly, it got me started
on my own, trauma, healing Journey.
So, I was the type of person where I didn't think that I had
trauma in my Background. I mean, my parents stayed
married. They went to every basketball
game that I ever played in. But what I realized after
reading this book, I decided to engage with the trauma
therapist. This trauma therapist helped me
very early on, in my working with her to realize that while
my parents may have been there for me physically, they were
rarely there for me, emotional that effectively.
As a child, I was emotionally neglected and what the research
on trauma is Found related to neglect.
It's the effects of neglect are as bad, if not worse than
physical abuse. And so what I've been able to
awaken to is how this emotional neglect in my childhood, how it
affects me today. I mean, what I came to realize
is it affects all of my relationships at affects my
relationship with my spouse. My relationship with my parent,
my relationship with my co-workers at work and that's
just been a very eye-opening experience when I first learned
about mindsets. Discovered my own mindsets and
work to improve them. I think that's what got me to
shift personally for mine. One point, own of mine 2.0, I
believe that this Awakening to trauma and working on it and my
healing that is help me to step more fully into mind 3.0.
I don't think I'm there 100%. I'm surely not there 100% of the
time, but I feel like I'm spending a much greater
percentage of my time there than ever before.
I credit that to working with a trauma therapist.
Doing some of that deep trauma, healing work.
And so, I don't think everybody needs to do that, but statistics
are 70% of adults have lips or trauma.
That is negatively impacted their bodies nervous system.
So most of us have some healing to do.
It's just like I said in a ubiquitous part of life that we
can all work on. Thanks for being vulnerable and
sharing your story. I think that also is an example,
how we can actually analyze ourselves like what kind of
trauma sometimes? We feel like we are fine.
We are happy, we progress, we have a good career.
But actually, again, everyone has this trauma, whatever levels
they are in. And I think it's really crucial
because you mentioned, if we can work towards our past trauma, we
can actually have a better chance of moving to mind. 3.0
mindset is probably the first lever that we can do to actually
move to mine 2.0, but maybe trauma is the one that can move
us to be on that. I just want to mention one more
time that actually having elevated leader is very
important in any Any organization like we touched on
earlier? Any team will not be better than
the leader. And I think the second thing
that also your quoted in the book, the culture of the company
is also kept to the elevated leaders mindset.
So let's touch on a little bit on that the importance of
elevated leader, and the culture of the company.
Yeah. What did you see, one of the
things that I do when I work with organizations as I have the
leadership team and maybe sometimes all employees in the
organization. Take my mindset assessment.
What I am found across all? Two teams that I work with.
And now it's probably almost about 50, executive teams every
single executive team that I've worked with the mindset that
they struggle with the most, is that fixed to growth mindset,
they predominantly have a fixed mindset.
I think part of the reason for that, remember when we have a
fixed mindset, our desire is to look good to avoid failure as
opposed to being focused on learning and growing.
I just know Executives feel a lot of pressure Sure to look
good and they're socially incentivized at take on a fixed
mindset. So, what I find is for, I would
say, 75% of executive teams, they are actually quite high or
decently high, or on more of the positive side of the Continuum
for open promotion and outward mindsets.
But they all struggle with that fixed mindset.
What I've come to learn is that profile is the profile of mine,
2.0 leadership. They're very Minded, they want
results. They want outcomes, they want to
hit their goals generally. If you're an executive, you're
not a jerk, right? Kind of developed to the point
where at least I'm somewhat open to the ideas and suggestions of
others. I actually care about people to
a certain degree, don't get me wrong, there's narcissistic
leaders, who don't, but for the most part, they kind of have
that open, surely that promotion and that outward mindset, but
what they get hung up on is, I've always got to look good.
Another way of saying that is I need to stand out.
Doubt, I need to stand out as so that's the epitome of my 2.0
leadership, but every organization is a little bit
different in terms of how they break down across those
different mindsets sets. But that's usually a huge
eye-opening Journey. For an organization is to look
at what are our Collective mindset.
And so what I'll find is to your point that we talked about
earlier is that the mindsets of that executive team set the tone
for the rest of the organization stated otherwise as you go.
The organization. It is really rare to find more
positive mindsets than what the executives have.
And in fact it's usually the executives have fairly positive
mindsets and the biggest decrease in terms of quality of
mindsets is going from that executive level to that next
level down. That's the biggest decrease as
we go down the organization, there's usually a huge jump on
that level and then they continue to decrease and of
course there's usually Some pockets and may do better than
other Pockets within the organization.
But if anybody's listening to this, who is a organizational
leader who finds this topic, interesting, and it would be fun
to explore. What are the collective mindset
to your organization? Wow, I think I really like the
way you mentioned about this. So the executives at the top
actually probably sets the tone. That's the right direction,
right? Most likely not many people
below the executives actually have a higher mindset or if
there is any of there will be probably our state, or maybe
they can. Like self eject themselves from
the situation simply because they think it's not the right
way to go, so I think that's really crucial.
Why we focus a lot on elevating, our leaders.
So that the culture of the company, the direction of the
company actually is selected appropriately based on the
mindset than the thinking that we have.
And I think I just want to touch on a little bit about fix and
growth mindset. Almost any leader.
I asked these days know about this Theory, the theory of fixed
mindset and growth mindset, but it's very interesting that you
said, many of them are actually still in the fixed.
Mindset. I think it's also an eye-opener
for me, just imagine, okay, if we've got 100 liters in the
room. And if I asked them, the
question, do you have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset?
Do you think any of them would say fixed, oh, they all see
themselves as having a growth mindset in some ways, they may.
But what the data Bears out is that Executives generally have
more of a fixed mindset. In fact, what I generally find
is that in an executive team to Thirds of the leaders will have
a fixed mindset in one. Third will have a growth mind.
Wow, again, it's also a reminder for us leaders, managers leaders
out there. If you feel that you are already
in the growth mindset, think again and see your behaviors.
And I think it's a good reminder.
So thanks Ryan for this conversation.
I really love our conversation but unfortunately, due to time I
think we have to wrap up but I have one last question that it's
mandatory in my show to ask, which is to share your tree
technical leadership system. We can forget about the text
part yet and focus on three leadership is them.
Is there any kind of advice? That you want to impart to our
listeners hear about leadership? Yeah, so I think for me the
number one lesson of leadership and we didn't touch on this
directly but it surely related. The number one lesson of
leadership is to become someone others.
Want to follow most leaders, operate from a place called
organizational power, where they lead in such a way that others
have to follow them, not because others want to follow them.
So, the number one lesson of leadership is we need to be
somebody that others want to follow.
So that's maybe Point number one.
Well, how do we become somebody that others want to follow?
We've got to vertically, develop.
And if I was to say the third point, and we've already talked
about this, as well, is into me again.
This is the most beautiful message associated with vertical
development. If we want a vertically,
develop, we've got a heal, our minds, our bodies, and our
hearts, and to the degree to, which we do that will operate at
those higher levels. Wow, it's beautiful is set,
right? So let me repeat one more time.
As a leader, you want to become someone who others want to
follow not necessarily have to follow.
I think there's a very hard like big distinction want to follow
and have to follow. So I think if all leaders here
can change so that people want to follow us rather than having
to follow us. I think that's a big shift in
itself, right? And there's so many things that
we have to transform within ourselves in order for people
wanting to follow us and that speaks a lot to this mindset
trip. .0 that Bryan just shipped today.
So Ryan, if people are interested in these topics want
to know more want to learn more. Are there any resources links
online that you can share with the audience here?
Yeah, huge amount of resources on my website.
I almost feel like you could spend a day just in my website.
I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but Ryan
got fortune.com go there. We've got talked about
assessments, Just Books access to videos articles Etc.
I've got couple of different libraries digital coaches
cetera. So anyways there's a lot there
and If anybody wants to connect with me on social media, on most
active on LinkedIn and would love to connect with anybody
there. Thanks again for your time Ryan.
I hope people listen to this episode and get inspired and
they want to move to the Mind 3.0.
Thanks again for sharing all these great resources.
You're very welcome and me too. Thank you for listening to this
episode and for staying, right until the end, if you're highly
enjoyed it, I would appreciate if you share it with your
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