Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming our next presenter, Major Chip Hugh. That was good, man. All right. Is this where I stand? So, thank you guys so much. It's been so great to be here with you that last couple of days. And I know what you're probably thinking. I can almost read it in your faces. You're thinking that Chip Hugh is a lot better looking than Dave Moss. Maybe, maybe it's just the lighting, maybe not. But it's good to be here. So, we've been I've been thinking about like what am I going to say to you guys, right? Because you I mean, you got to admit after you sit through these speakers, I mean, who wants to follow them, you know? I mean, I've gone through this these emotions, man, it's a roller coaster, you know? I I mean I had I was laughing so hard it was hurting and then my allergy started acting up during that during that video from the army there. Started take my nasal spray. But so I I thought maybe I'd share with you guys some things that I've been thinking about lately and and kind of update you a little bit on my progress and then how I've been implementing some of what Arbinger's been so gracious to teach me in my new role. And so speaking of my new role, um you know, as Dave mentioned, I'm no longer a sergeant with the SWAT team. I promoted a couple of times since since the last time I got to spend time with you guys. Um, and people ask me often, you know, what's that about? I mean, you kick doors for 22 and a half years. It's a great job. The people were the best part of that. And the experiences we had, it was almost like it's a second family. You don't want to leave, right? And so, why leave? And honestly, um, it's I got, as I often do, um, I I I my mouth got me in trouble. I uh I was speaking actually working with a group on the behalf of Arbinger and if I remember right it was a corporate group and it was right after Ferguson Missouri happened if you guys remember Ferguson um yeah you probably do I know we do um but right after that happened um I was out speaking with a group and we were doing some some talks around outward mindset stuff and and so we're wrapping up at the end of the day and someone asked me we're kind of just talking shop and someone asked me Chip what do you think the biggest problem facing law enforcement is today. And I assumed they probably thought I was going to say something like, well, it's the media bias or it's the unrealistic expectations that people have of us as law enforcement officers. I mean, there's a whole bunch of things that I had heard uh that would that would define the problem uh in in contemporary law enforcement. But really, and this was just very extempiraneous. The first thing I thought of to say, I said this. I said, "The biggest problem facing law enforcement in my estimation is a leadership vacuum. I said, 'We have a culture of leaders that are treating people, officers, in a way that is anothetical to the way we want them to interact with the community. They go to work and they feel put upon and objectified and taken for granted. And then we ask them to go out into the field in these really complex situations and be their best and represent us and put on this great face to meet the public. And it's really not it's really not a fair expectation. And I so I said that, right? And so I'm on the plane. I'm flying home and I'm thinking, well, okay. Um I can't just say that and not try to be helpful. I can't try to do something about that. The only way I can do that is by promoting. And so I started working uh at doing just that. And I was very fortunate uh to be able to promote as fast as I have to to the level I'm at. Um and it's it's been an interesting journey. And and my the opportunities I have now at this at this level are just so different. So, um, I'll catch you up. So, I had a new chief on board back in, uh, September, August, end of August, first of September. That chief transferred me out of the special operations division. So, at that time, I was the major in charge of all special operations. So, I basically served every rank all the way through from point point man on the entry team, unit trainer all the way up to the senior commander. Well, that chief transferred me to a patrol division. Now, I'd never done much in patrol in my career. So, this has been a great opportunity for me the last six months to actually work with a variety of officers that I never would have had an opportunity to work with before. You know, I mean, everybody in my SWAT teams were twice selected. They'd gone through another sets two sets of interviews and physical, you know, testing and all this stuff, right? They were really motivated, highly motivated people. So, managing them, uh, it was like you had to pull back the reins a little bit. Uh but you certainly didn't have to kick them in the butt. I mean, they were they were good to go, right? They were aggressive. They were moving forward. Um it was just a different type of of management, right? So, this assignment gives me an opportunity to work from people that range from, you know, very they've been on a long time. They're very cynical. Um they're very um skeptical about anything management does. Um people that are very strong in the labor force. You know, they're they're they're with what you guys would call a union in the private sector. It's a actually a they have a we have a meet and confer agreement on our department. So they so the federal internal order of police is more like a it's a labor organization but they don't really strike because you can imagine if the police could strike that would be horrible. Um so you know there's people that are deeply rooted in that right it's us versus them and then there's there's motivated people and then anywhere in between. So I have an opportunity now to work with so many awesome people and I'm doing more mentoring now than I ever could have done there. So I on board as a division commander. You're looking at about 85 square miles, 90,000 people. I've got about 100 employees uh within my chain of command. And so I'm like the police chief of this this division. And so it's been great. And some of the things that we've been talking about in the leadership teams relative to the outward mindset is how do we develop our leadership so that we're providing the best leadership and guidance for the troops that are out there doing a really challenging job. And so when I transferred, it was shortly after that that I lost my operations sergeant and got a new operation sergeant. I lost my administrative assistant and got a new operation administrative assistant. I lost three of my commanders, my captains, and got new commanders. So this is an entire new team, right? What a great opportunity. So we sit down and we start having meetings and talking about um talking about outward mindset. But I'm not I'm very hesitant to expose them to the frameworks and that type of stuff right off the bat. What I want them to do initially, this is my mindset, is I want them to experience what it's like to work in an outward mindset environment. I want them to experience it from the top down. I want to show them this is what this feels like. So that's kind of what I'm thinking about. So we sit down in our meeting and we say, "Okay, let's start talking about these things, right? What does that look like?" And I share a little bit of my philosophy and I let them start watching how I interact with people. And so one of the things we talk about in the leadership team, I said, "Well," and if you think about what we what what they showed up on the slide when Mitch and Jim were talking about the five steps, right? The assessment, the training, the implementation, reassessment, sustainment. Okay. So, it's it's using that same format. It's like, let's assess what what are our primary the primary thing that we're here for. Why are we here as a group? What are we assembled for? What's our mission? Right? right? What are we trying to accomplish? And let's just really answer that. Now, you would think and you might think, you might take for granted that they knew that, right? But honestly, not everybody really knows that. Sometimes there's not a lot of clear a lot of clarity around exactly what our mission is, especially in this type of work, right? So, like a lot of people have they have two jobs at work. They have the primary job, which is ostensibly we're going to go we're going to move toward the mission, right? We're going to accomplish the mission. But they have what Daniel Coyle I think calls the second secret job. And that job is protecting their reputation. Right? So first job I'm focused on the mission trying to get things done. But the secret second job that that a lot of us have especially with the inward mindset on board is I'm protecting my reputation. But one of the deep lessons that I learned from Arbinger is you can't focus on the mission and yourself at the same time. You just don't have that bandwidth, you know. And so we started talking about this around the table and thought, okay, how do we create a team that can focus on the mission? And so I encountered in my commanders, right, and I've encountered commanders I've mentored across the department that they range in opinions about how to approach leadership. We don't do a good job of developing a leadership pipeline like the army does, let's say. See, the army's crazy in the way they do things. They actually train their leaders before they put them in leadership positions. And I don't know about you, but a lot of people I've worked with, a lot of organizations, ours included, if you're really good at your current job, they make you a boss. Easy, right? I mean, I don't know, but it strikes me that being a leader is totally different than being someone that's good at the technical aspects of your job, right? It's all about people. So, I' I've encountered these leaders I've been mentoring. Some of them think, well, they're very people oriented. And how that looks to them is well it means that they are interested very interested in how their people perceive them. And so their primary focus becomes kind of running this popularity contest. And so they do things that actually undermine the mission. They come into roll call briefings and they might say something like you know uh you know senior staff had this idea and I and I just think it sucks but we're going to do it anyway because you know after all they're the bosses. You can imagine that's well wow right? Yeah. Of course, the troops love it, right? Especially the cynical ones. They're like, "Yeah, yeah, this this this commander gets us, right? He's on our side." And so what ends up happening is that for these commanders, the standards slip, right? People aren't performing up to standard. you start seeing it, you know, this this chaos will will leak into those teams in little little ways like maybe it's somebody coming in late to work and then someone not wearing the proper equipment and then next thing you know it just escalates from there from rudeness to you know discourtesy and and and even in some cases severe misconduct like stuff that you know I'm sure you've heard about while rare still happens and so so I've got those commanders right and then I've got the other commanders who are so processoriented that they can't see the people, they're like, "Well, I've got the policy books. I know what people should be doing." So, like, you know, this is easy. All I have to do is take the policy book and enforce everything in here. And they don't they're not alive to the personhood of the people that are in those processes. And so, mentoring those people looks really different, doesn't it? You know, for the former, it's like, okay, look, here's the deal. Uh, we are assembled here for a purpose. And there are many things, many characterizations of leaders. You know, you've heard servant leadership. Uh you've heard autocratic, democratic, participatory, all these different labels and ways to characterize leaders. But as a as a associate of mine, Jaco Willink said, of all those characterizations, there's really only two that matter, and that's whether they're ineffective or effective. And I found to be very interesting, right? Because him and I actually dialogued about that when I I'd read that in something he'd written, and we dialed about that, and I thought, wow, at the end of the day, we're assembled for a reason, right? This isn't like a club. like we're not just coming to work just to just to hang out together and enjoy each other's company. Like we really have something we need to get done, right? So So it turns out what I tell those supervisors is the mission is not primary or I'm sorry, the people are not primary. The mission is primary. That's a hard thing to accept, right? Well, you're saying people aren't important. No, people are extremely important. They're a close second to the mission. But at the end of the day, I might ask you to do something that you don't agree with. I might ask you to do something that you find objectionable. That's why we compensate you. That's why we're not letting you do this for free. The mission first. If we don't accomplish the mission, then we don't have a purpose for being here together. So everything that we do on our leadership team, the the the proper metric is does this serve the mission? Does this serve the mission? And for the people on the other side of the spectrum, you know, the commanders that are so processoriented, they can't see the people. We start having conversations around look, yes, I agree the mission's most important, but how do we get that done? We get that done by building trusting relationships. When people start trusting us, we they start know they know that we have their back. We're providing top cover. We're interpreting things for them in a way that makes sense at the tactical level. They're going to take care of the mission. they're going to execute if they feel they're supported and they're allowed to unleash their talents. So, we have to work in a totally different way with those with those commanders to kind of get them to understand that. And we find this balance, this equilibrium, right? And so, it looks a lot like in our team, it's the mission, it's our people, and then it's us. And those are our that's a list of our priorities for our team. And we make all our decisions that way. So, I implemented weekly team meetings, uh, leadership team meetings. we all sit around a table uh in a circle. If you're not in town, you conference in unless you're on a vacation with your family. So, like I conferenced in yesterday, even though you guys are my family, I just didn't feel right, you know, not conferencing in. So, I did and we have talks around what's happening. And I modeled this off of what Arbinger does. And I don't know if I can say this or not, but it's already happening, so I'm saying it. But I've observed this at Arbinger. They do these stand-up meetings, and it's a great I mean, it's so awesome. I've conferenced in I've actually been there for a couple of them and basically the the theme of the meeting is so cool. It's like they go around the table and it's like uh okay well here's what I have going on this week and then the question becomes from the group. What can we do to help you with that? And so that's what I model these leadership meetings around. So let's say Captain Todd Mark starts he's one of my he's my day shift captain. He might start with this are the things I have going and everybody on the team then offers support and help. what can we do Todd to make it easier for you to do that to accomplish that and we go around the table doing this and it leads to some great deep discussions and so the we orient ourselves in that way that we're being supportive and then we have conversations around the ways we're supporting the people in the mission and we're always trying to come up with new ways to show them how much we support them and then so I end up doing these one-on-one meetings with my commanders where we start talking about developing leadership with an outward mindset and practices we can use in doing So one of the first things in my estimation that that leaders are charged with is creating a safe environment. Employees have to feel safe in order to contribute. Like we all want them to contribute. We say, you know, we all have individual talents and there's things you bring into the table that are unique and we want you to, you know, we want your input, but if they don't feel safe, they won't do it. You don't believe me. You know, if you you on board into a new leadership position and you go into a meeting and you ask for critical feedback, if you're not getting any, it's because they don't trust you. They don't trust you. They have to trust you first. You have to create safety. And one of the ways that I ask my leadership team to do that is by creating this vulnerability. And you've heard a couple speakers talk about this. This idea that as leaders, we're vulnerable in very appropriate ways. And I picked this up uh back with the SWAT team. Uh I got it from I think the Blue Angels. Uh have you guys seen the Blue Angels fly? That's Harry Work. I mean, there's certainly some danger involved in that. And one of the things I learned about the Blue Angels was that when they do an afteraction review, the leader reports out first on his or her mistakes. This is what I did wrong on the mission. This is where I need to improve. And what that does is that vulnerability by by displaying that vulnerability they create uh what you might call a vulnerability loop where people feel comfortable coming back and then expressing the things they might have done wrong the things they can improve on. So you're actually inviting this right. So that contagion effect that you've heard people speak about. You're inviting this vulnerability back, this transparency back. And in order to do anything effective toward the mission, you have to tell the truth. people, we have to confront reality and they have to know what the truth is and so we have to be able to do that and you're actually building safety by doing that. We took it one step further. Now, I'm not this is not for the faint of heart. So, one thing I have to tell you guys is that the SWAT culture um it's a little different. So, you know, it's a little different. Uh the the the type of job brings us closer in ways probably that that that a lot of people don't experience. Um, so this is not for the faint of heart, but we took it a step further with this vulnerability and we created it like a failure board. Yeah. We called it actually they named it the come on man board. Does anybody watch ESPN? Have you seen the come on man? Yeah. When somebody drops the ball figuratively or literally. Um, and so we created this this board this come on man board. And if and if I screwed up, there was going to be some that was going to be memorialized on this board. Like so everybody got to see it and talk about it and we kind of, you know, we accepted it, we owned it, and then we were able to kind of laugh at ourselves a little bit about it. And then at the end of the year, we would go so far as to vote on the biggest mistake of the year and that person would get an award, you know, so you got the, you know, the come on man award. And uh I know it sounds crazy, but I'm telling you, it worked out so well for us in our culture. It just became so normative in a ars and afteraction reviews for people just to go, "Hey, I screwed this up. Here's what I did wrong." You know, even when other people didn't know, like you could have hidden it because they understood that in order to improve, you had to be transparent about that. So I embed that idea into our team, too. We've done a failure board, but when we sit down and talk to our troops, we we are honest and open about the things that we need to be doing better. And so the next thing I'm doing now, right now as we get back is I'm creating a peer feedback group. I don't know what to call it yet. If you guys can think of a cool name for this, let me know. Put your mind to it. But but this was my thought. I was actually I woke up one morning thinking about this. We're going to get members from each watch, line level members of the organization from each watch, and we're going to pull two from a watch and once a month they're going to meet directly with me. So they're not going through the chain of command. It's just we're going to sit down. I'm going to meet with them and I'm going to ask them questions. Things like, "What are we doing as a division that you think we should stop doing immediately? What are we doing as a division that makes your work harder? What are we doing as a division you really agree with, that you really like? What do you think we need more of? What do you think we need less of?" uh you know just asking the questions that we need to ask from an outward mindset perspective that can lead us to one build trust with with those team members and two get better that that's what it's about you know I marvel at the fact that we totally disregard some of our line level employees especially the new people that be like well you know Chip what what does she know she's brand new well she's new to the job she's not new to life like I'm going to guess that she's probably done some other things before she came here had some other experiences that may be relevant. And certainly, while she may not have been a police officer, she's been a consumer of our services, right? She's certainly been on that end of it at some point, large or small, hopefully small. Um, so it it's that idea. We're creating that that type of environment, and that's what we're after. It's all driven toward this idea of safety. And so, we're thinking a lot about that. Um, creating transparency in the team has been big for us. So, what does that look like? Well, we want to be completely open about everything and we want to tell the truth all the time. Two things I noticed outward mindset leaders do well and arbiter doesn't quite capture it this way and this just my observation but two things that I noticed they do very well. They see people and they tell the truth. They see people. They actually see them, right? They're alive to them. And because they're alive to them, they're alive to their limitations. They're alive to the areas in which they need support. They're alive to the the to the particular specialties that they're good at, right? They know how to employ them. And they know how to to to motivate them and move them in the right direction. They're alive to their personalities. They're alive to their to to to what's important to them as people so that we can tie that to the mission, right? I mean, they see people. They really do. And they're really good at it. And it almost becomes intuitive. And they tell the truth. They're they're openly honest about everything and they tell people when Richard Sheridan was talking about having that meeting uh where they're actually opening the books up to the employees, my mind just started clicking. I'm like, man, you know, in what ways can we can take this to the next level. We just tell them everything, you know, no cutting out things out of emails before you forward them. Forward it. Show them this is what this is the thought process. And oh, by the way, we're opening up our leadership team meetings to all employees. They can come and watch. They can come sit in. They can ask questions. I want them to see behind the curtain. This is what we're doing, right? This is what we're developing. Um, and and you know, sometimes people say to me, "Well, Chip, there's certain issues we can't tell the truth about. We can't be transparent about." Uh, and yes, that's true. Uh, there there are certain legal restrictions on your ability to be transparent about certain things. That's okay. When you can't tell them openly what's happening, tell them why you can't tell them openly what's happening. It comes up with us all the time in disciplinary issues. We can't discuss, you know, an employees disciplinary history or some disciplinary proceeding with with the general masses. We can't do that. That's that's a violation of it's number one, it's disrespectful. Number two, there are laws in place to that that would make that untenable. And so what we do is we simply say, look, when people come and ask a question, hey, you know, we heard that Jeremy's, you know, he's in a lot of trouble, man. What's going on there? Look, listen. We can't discuss Jeremy's situation with you. Jeremy's free to discuss it. We We can't discuss it out of respect for him and out of respect for the legal restrictions. We just can't do it. And it would be wrong for us to do that and we wouldn't do that if you were in Jeremy's situation. So, you know, we just can't comment on that. But do you understand why we can't and we have a conversation around that? I knew we were on the right track. Um, well, I feel I I just feel so strongly about it. we've got so much more to so so many more iterations of this to go. But I knew we were on the right track when I two months into the job it was about three months I guess now that I think about the math. Um I had to I had to invite an employee to leave. So here I am this new leader. I'm coming in and and and the one of the first things I have to do is terminate somebody. And so it turns out you know there's an outward mindset way to do that too, right? And so, so I started working with this employee immediately. And I recognized the need to pull this employee off the road to to relieve him of his weapon and to relieve him of his law enforcement responsibilities and to put him in an administrative position while we conducted this investigation. That conversation was very interesting, you know, to tell him basically, you know, we we we're going to put you at a a tactical timeout and we're going to deal with all these other things that are going on. So relieved him of his duties and then you know through the process I just shephered him through every step of the way and told him what's happening here, what's happening there. At one point he looks at me and he says, "Major," he goes, "When can I go back to the street?" I said, "Look, um, I'll call him David." I said, "David, I" I said, "I want you to understand that the potential consequences for the things that the things that you're facing are serious, like potentially career ending. These are really serious consequences. We're not at the point where we can talk about you going back to the street. We're at the point where we're we're trying to do what we can to potentially salvage your job. This is a big deal, man. And he just kind of looked back at me like no one had ever said that to him. And I go back and look through his employment history and sure enough, he'd been transferred around from division to division, right? 10 years. And some of the things he done, you're like, "Oh my." Like it started out little like we talked about before. It started out at what we call the shallow end of the misconduct pool. Of course, nobody addressed it, right? and he started treading on out toward the deep end. And now he's at the point where he's doing things that are just, you know, borderline ridiculous and potentially unsafe. Well, absolutely objectively unsafe. And so, so we I walk him through this process and the time comes to have the conversation, the the final conversation where I tell him, you know, u what' I call him, David. David, you got to be careful. I've done this before. We actually filmed one of these one time. They could use none of it because everything I said was inappropriate. Roger that. That's what you get without a trained speaker who has never ever one time in his life made it through a slide deck in any cogent kind of manner. You know, you're welcome. No lessons. Thanks, Jim. Um, so, so you know, I had this conversation. I pulled him in and I'm like, David, I said, uh, you know, and and this is so great. This might sound familiar to some of you because I mean, you don't think you learn stuff here? Oh my god. And so it's like it's like a laboratory like where you know I mean I'm living in a laboratory right to practice all of these things that aringer aringer opens my mind to. And so I said to said to him I said David I said here's the deal. I said you know at North Patrol Division we are committed to achieving these results. I talked to him about our mission and service and building trust with every contact. I said when you do the type of things you do and the type of things you have done that's led us to this conversation you make it impossible for us to achieve that result. Therefore I wish you the best as a person but I can no longer employ you here. Anybody that sound familiar anybody? Outward mindset for leaders. Yeah. Yeah. It's in there. It's a version of that, right? It's in there. version of a a conversation that you have with an employee at that. It's so amazing because you're thinking, "Well, yeah, but I've never really had to say that to anybody. Oh my god." So he he he looks at me and he says, "I understand and he leaves the office." He just he leaves the office. Okay, you know, fine. And so 25 minutes later, he comes back. If you're like me, you're thinking what? Workplace violence. Like I'm like I'm squared up, man. I'm like wrong guy. Like you wrong guy. you know, no Dave Moss, man. We're gonna Yeah. I mean, we're we're going to get after it, right? You're going to get your back, dirty, son. And so, you know, I'm all ready to make him count ceiling tiles. And but it ain't like that. He says, you know, sir, and that's what they call me around there, sir. Unlike here. So, he goes, sir, you know, can I can I talk to you about this? Listen. I said, "Absolutely, David." So, we sat down and and he says, "Listen, um, you know, I just want to say to you that I've been in a lot of trouble in my in my career and um and I've been through this process a lot of times." And he goes, "I have never been treated with as much respect. No one has ever communicated with the way you and the rest of the of the command staff has." And um, you know, honestly, I'm just blown away. And he goes, "What I've been thinking about, you know, the last half hour is that, you know, maybe I'm to blame for some of this. I know it never occurred to me." And he says, "Well, um, you know, I just been thinking that maybe the reason that I've done some of the things I've done lately is that my heart's not in the job anymore. I just don't feel it, man. I don't feel it. And and and I just I don't think I'm cut out for this work anymore. and I've been lying to myself for a while. And he says, "Look, I I want to save you the trouble of firing me. I'd just like to resign." And he goes, "I just want to let you know um that this isn't working out so well for me. You know, I've got six kids. I've got a wife. I've got, you know, I got a lot going on, and I really necessarily don't want to lose a job, but he goes, "I think you're doing the right thing, and I want to thank you, and I I want to just tell you to keep doing what you're doing." This is a guy I fired, right? Look, this is the type of culture we're trying to create and it's all embedded or it's all based the foundation of all this is the outward mindset. What would it feel like to be an employee losing your job? What would it feel like to be a person who by the way in no small part management is responsible for his situation? Do you agree? Absolutely we are. A matter of fact, I'd say we've got a larger part of the responsibility that he does because we have implicitly told him that it's okay to do the things he's been doing because we haven't effectively addressed them. The lesson we taught him is the explicit message is follow the rules. The implicit message is you can do whatever you want to do and you're going to take a little bit of grief from us and then we'll move you to another division and we get to start over. It's like what do they call that in golf? A mulligan, right? We don't have any we don't have any cool things in kickboxing like terms like that. Yeah. Right. I mean, so we own some of this and so we approach it that way. It's like let's approach it. We're going to shepherd this guy through this process because he deserves our utmost respect as a person and he may not be a viable employee anymore, but he's still a person. And guess what? He's going to go on to li he's going to go on out there in life and do something. And one thing I'm coming to realize thanks to Arbinger is we are all networked. It's not like I'm like I'm an individual actor like I come here to Utah and I and I just interact with the people I see here and that's it. It doesn't end there, right? Not in this environment. We are in an environment that is incredibly complex. It's characterized by complexity. Of course, the bureaucratic system I'm in is optimized for complication, but we're in an complex environment, which means there's so much nonlinear escalation, which means what? Well, for you and me, it means the same thing. It means that every contact you have with every single person is an opportunity to build or destroy a relationship. Every contact. There are no insignificant contacts. From the people who were so kind as to bust our tables and clean up after our lunch to Jim Ferrell to Mitch Warner to even Dave Moss. Every contact we have with every person is an opportunity to build or destroy a relationship. And they're not responding to what we're saying. They're responding to who we are, right? And how they feel seen by us. And that's the key. Now, imagine that in law enforcement. We're taking that out to the next level. We're pushing out to the street. It's like, wow. We get to contact people from all strata of society, from the richest to the poorest. We contact people in situations that most of you in the room couldn't even imagine. And we contact people that that that maybe never meet the police outside the context of a traffic stop. and anywhere in between. We've got an ability or an opportunity to build trust and we leverage that trust, that relational capital to get our jobs done. See, we don't make a profit. You know, we don't have profit margins in law enforcement. We're we're about public service. We we spend your money. We don't make you any money. You guys have profit margins. Most of you uh most of you have those things. Certainly not our military partners, but most of you have those things. Um, but you also need relational capital to get to to make those to meet those metrics. You have to have it. Every opportunity, every contact you have is an opportunity to build that type of trust, that relational capital in your organization. That's what you will leverage to meet your metrics. That's what you will leverage at the end of the day. And it's a very, very powerful lesson for us to learn as a leadership team. So, outward mindset leaders have to create transparency. We have to tell the truth. We have to really be authentic in the way that we see people. It's not something you can fake. Right now, we're going through a promotional process. Uh it's that time of year when people are vying for promotion. And a lot of people only start thinking about promotion like when the when the announcement comes out, like prep for the test. Oh, that sounds like a good idea. I think I'll do that. That's problematic for a lot of reasons. And of course, now I'm getting inundated with with opportunities to mentor people. But some of it's like last minute like, hey, you know, can you set aside a couple hours to talk to me about how I get promoted? Wow. you know and I can't do much with that like you know I can't do much with that because you know like I know there's an authenticity there that has to be built over time right I do what I can the best I can offer them is based on a philosophy that I learned uh a long time ago called the via negativa basically translates into the negative life and so well the story goes that uh the pope asked Michelangelo how did you create the statue of David to which to which David replied simple or which Michelangelo replied simple I just removed everything that wasn't David right So what was left was David, right? Well, so it's like addition by subtraction. And so how it works for us would be you come to me and you say, "Chip, how do I get promoted?" And I would say, "Wow, I don't know." Like there's so many things that have to fall into place there, right? There's a lot happening there. You know, there's opportunities, there's the vacancies, there's your personality. Hell, there's even there's even the idea that depending on what time of the day you go to the assessment center to be graded, that might impact your score, right? I read a study about on Israeli judges of all people that showed that in the afternoon they were much likely to default to just standardize matrixes when giving sentences in the morning they were much likely to be more likely to be complative, contemplative and thoughtful. So like you really get a better shake if you go in the morning, right? It's the same kind of thing. So saying that to say I can't tell them with any certainty what the formula is to get promoted. But applying our via negativa philosophy, I can tell them 100% for sure how to tank their chances of getting promoted. Right? I can tell you all the things you need to do to ensure you'll never be promoted. And we start deconstructing and reverse engineering that. That's almost the best I can offer them. For the people that come to me early, what do we talk about? We talk about outward mindset. We talk about building a way of being that is authentic. It becomes part of who you are, right? It becomes second nature. So, you know, at first maybe you're pulling out a framework, right? The influence pyramid. Oh my god, how many times have I employed that? But now I don't need to look at it. I know it and I feel it, right? I can feel what level I'm at because I've practiced it. I've done the work. I've done the practice, right? I've done my five minutes a day and and so it starts becoming part of who I am and it's more organic and that's the goal, right? Leaders like that that get in early on the process, oh my god, they're so much more likely to be able to be successful because when they're being judged, they're being judged on who they really are. They're not playing a role. So that's a big part of what I'm doing, the mentoring, the leadership, you know, teaching people about these principles and then always finding cool and interesting ways to implement the outward mindset philosophy. Uh, now one thing I wanted to do that's a little bit different. As you guys can tell, I don't have any slides and I had no idea what I was going to say to you. Sorry. But what I did want to do is I wanted to save I wanted to save a little bit of time to answer some questions because I feel like people have questions they want to ask. I've talked to so many of you, I think like almost all of you, uh, at one point or another, and and I want to be able to answer some of your questions here, and I don't want to make you late to leave early. We know if Dave Moss comes back up here, it could be a while. So, and I'm done. You know what? Let's get off Dave. I love that guy. He's a hero of mine, by the way. I've got his baseball card, yard dart card, but it's the same thing. So, questions. Uh, Mike's got a mic. See what I did there? Heather's got one over here. By the way, the last time I was talking to an audience in which I couldn't see them, I melted down bad. If you guys have seen a TED talk I did, I've never done theater and I'm a conversation guy. I don't give talks. I have conversations. And so I couldn't see anybody and I freaked out bad. Like you have no idea what was going on there. I called Shel. Shel's my dearest. And I call her on the phone from the balcony and I'm like, "Honey, I I'm in trouble." I didn't say that. I just said, "Honey, how's everything going, honey?" And she goes, "Oh, good, honey. What's wrong with you?" Nothing. What's And I told her, "I'm out of my league. These people are amazing. Like they're" And she goes, "Calm down. Go get some note cards, write down some notes. I said, I don't use note cards as you do today. Just get some notards, write down some notes, let it go. And so what Jim Ferrell said to me, and it may have been Mitch, I'm pretty sure it was Jim, though, because Mitch doesn't talk to me much. Um, what what Jim asked me was, it was amazing. I wish you would have said this before the talk. He goes, "Well, Chip," he goes, "When when you were worried about the way you were communicating with them, who were you thinking about?" Me. I didn't want to look like a He said, "Yeah, that might have been the issue, right? You're not thinking about the people you're speaking to when you're worried about you, right?" And so he said something like, "Throw yourself on the audience and trust them to catch you." Where the hell were you when I needed you, Jim? We can edit out that word question. Sir, I can't see you. Uh, this is Jamie. Um, I I would like you to um comment on how you use the the outward mindset as it relates to like deescalation in in the field of law enforcement because they both have um you know connecting components to it. Yeah, sure. Well, thank you for the question. We don't we haven't clearly defined that term for law enforcement yet. By the way, I'm actually moderating a panel on deescalation in Phoenix here in a couple months and one of the things I'm going to ask the experts to do is to define that term. What does that mean for law enforcement? Because it can mean a lot of things, right? Right? There's a tactical component to it and there's a uh certainly an interpersonal component to it. But but so the way that we employ the outward mindset, it really comes back to that basic question is what would it be like to be this person in this situation? Whether we're dealing with a hostage barricaded situation, whether we're dealing with somebody who's potentially suicidal or or perhaps off their medication and suffering from mental illness, what would it be like to be this person in that situation experiencing this context as they do? And that informs in a lot of ways our response. So it tells us things like, well, if I were that person in this situation suffering from that illness, I wouldn't want the police rushing up on me. So perhaps we take a different posture and we stay back and we use cover and we communicate from a distance, right? And then of course I'm intensely curious about people with an outward mindset. So I actually learn about the things that are unique about people with that particular uh impairment, right? You know, so I want to know more about bipolar because I know I contact a lot of people that are bipolar. So, we onboard and bring in experts to train and teach us. It's the same thing we do with the dog to reduce the dog shootings that you guys heard about. Same thing. What would it be like to have your dog shot by the police? Well, not good. Let's bring in people that are experts to teach us some ways not to do that as much. So, it really informs deescalation at a foundational level, right? Not so much tactical. It bleeds into the tactical, but it's all founded on this idea of seeing people as people. And then also understanding that within the context of one of those situations, you have opportunities to work that pyramid, to work that framework. You have opportunities to build relationships large and small in that situation. Some aren't as significant as you think they might be, but they're what's needed for that situation. And then listen and learn and teach and communicate and those type of things. So, hope that answers your question. Was it you, sir? Hey, good morning, Chip. Um, Dan McKay, you're we've all seen your um your video of the interaction with your son, and I I I I got to tell you, it changed it changed my life. So, so thank you. But I'd love to hear a little bit about Paul Harvey of that because I'm still struggling with my 17-year-old. I'm not old enough to Paul Harvey is, so use a different reference. Thank you. Thank you. I still don't know what you're talking about. Um, okay. Well, look, so I already told you my allergies already acted up once, right? So there you go. You go to you go there. Well, so the rest of the story is that u my older son Chris um he's still kind of struggling a little bit to find out who he is in the world. He's got all these untapped talents and I'm still working really hard to stay outward with him because at his age I feel this need to get him so much advice but I'm fighting it, fighting it, fighting it. I'm just trying to love him through it. Right. Um we are we have a great relationship. We we just went to the movies last week. Uh we went out to dinner, had a great talk. He's been struggling with some things on a personal level um that he's open with me about and we talk about and and he actually values. I mean, I listen more than I talk to him. People find that hard to believe that know me. I listen more than I talk to him, but it's become so powerful our relationship. And Shelley, my my my beautiful wife, man, she's so she's so naturally outward. She contributes to my relationship with my sons in such an impactful way. Like, I could tell you so much about her and and my my Arbinger family's met her. I mean, she's amazing. And like I I was so excited for her to go to to a facilitation. I like I really want her to go to this. She's going to love this. And so she goes two days. Jack Cowwell, my dear friend, uh facilitates and he's great at this. And so he's like three levels deep as uh you know, as we say, Matt. Uh he's three levels deep in Aringer. So uh but but he he you know, he does this. And so we're her and I riding down to the lake and and and I'm like waiting for her to tell me how great this is. And she's like not saying anything. And I'm like really not saying anything about the two days of arbinger. Can I say anything? So finally I asked her like two and a half hours. I said, "Honey, what'd you think of the training?" And she goes, "Oh, oh, it was really good, right?" And I said, "Well, do you have any thoughts?" And she goes, "I had one. I kept wondering why you have to teach people this stuff." Well, you're no longer invited to the business meetings. That's for dang sure. Um, but so she she says to me things like this. I I'm with Chris at dinner. I make a comment. I think so. You guys know what cognitive dissonance is, right? The difference between what you think about yourself and what others think about you. Hint, one of those things is more accurate than the other. I think I'm really funny. Most people think I'm inappropriate. So, I'll make a joke at the table at Chris's expense, right? And Chris isn't oriented like I am. Uh, you know, he's got a different personality and thank God. And so, you know, we're riding home and here's Shelley sitting in the pastor seat. She's like, "Just quiet." And I'm like, "Oh, hey, what are you thinking about, babe?" This is her. She's going to kill me if she ever sees us. She's like, "Oh, nothing." I said, "Oh, you just seem like something's on your mind." She goes, "Well, I was just wondering what it would feel like to be Chris tonight." It's a weird thing to wonder. What are you wearing that for? She goes, "Well, I I know how much he admires you now, and I've seen the way your relationship has changed, especially since your exposure to Harbinger, and I know how much he looks up to you. And here he's in front of all his family, and you, this person they admire so much, and you make a comment like the one you made at his expense, and I just kind of wonder, you know, how I might feel about that. You know, you think I ought to call him?" She goes, "Oh, I can't tell you what to do, honey. See, see you called up. Yeah, it's going great. And the last thing I'll tell you about my sons is my my Jack Cole and I I won't cry this time, Jack, when I tell this because I've told it enough now, but Jack Cole and I were in Gainesville, Florida for Arbinger, uh just a couple of years ago. And Brandon was stationed in Dest, Florida. So, if you're familiar with that geography, I would say Google Maps probably tell you about six hours between those two on the road. He found out Jack and I were in Gainesville for an overnight engagement. He drove six hours one way, had dinner with us, and drove home. And this was a kid who moved out of my house when he was a senior in high school. He could not wait to get away. So, the rest of the story is things are really progressing well. They're not bump free. It's not like, you know, well, you know, we're not on autopilot. We still have challenges we have to deal with all the time. And, you know, of course, there's that that spectre of the old me there, right? Keep in mind, I was never classically abusive. I was disconnected. That was my mode. I was never like people, well, you must have been really bad. Well, yeah. I mean, I think I was really bad, but in a way that you wouldn't you don't typically associate with abusive, right? I was just disinterested, disengaged. So, it's going very well. I'm very happy to report that. And, uh, I think ultimately you would probably have to ask them. And you're welcome to have their number. Uh, that would be the best metric. I think about time for one more question before we turn it over. I might just be saying that that may not be true. Hi, Chip. I'm Diane over here. yet. Hello. Oh, hey. I Hi. How are you? Good. How are you? You should come up here and ask the It's just amazing. That's all right. I'll stay here. Question I have is um in law enforcement when you're um engaging in such intensity with uh people who um have a lot of difficulties and can sometimes portray, you know, some some realities of being human that aren't great to be involved with all the time. How does outward mindset help you stay resilient? Yeah. Oh, that's a great question. Well, better than that. It doesn't help me stay resilient. It helps me stay anti-fragile. It's a different thing, man. So, so something that's resilient remains unchanged because of stress. Like a rubber ball, you bounce the ground a thousand times. It's the same as before you bounced it, right? It's resilient. It doesn't change. But something that's anti-fragile actually benefits from harm and stress. It gets stronger when it's stressed. That's what the outward mindset does for us in law enforcement. It's what it does for me personally. I actually seek out opportunities to to to I inject myself into stressful situations as an opportunity to grow stronger and learn. I don't shy away from that anymore for fear that I can't deal with them or for fear that my incompetence will be exposed. I go headlong into it because I am butressed by this knowledge, this way of being, this sense of of the way I need to re be responsive to people in those situations. I feel stronger and able to deal with it. And so I'm able to to learn and to to extract the lessons out of each of those tense situations and it helps me get better when I deal with the next ones. And next thing you know I'm mentoring people on how to deal with those things. So it's just cascading effect, right? So it's actually I think about it more like that. It's not that I stay the same. I'm never the same guys. There's we're never the same. We're always changing. We're either getting better, we're getting worse. And when it comes to the box, we're in out. It really depends on the context, right? The key is being able to recognize when we're in and to get stronger and better. So, in so many ways, that's the term that comes to mind, right? You know, I think we just get stronger that way. So, that's great. Well, I want to wrap up and make sure that I give the stage back over to uh to to Dave and ultimately I hope Mitch or Jim. Um look look, no, I not Well, we sure took that in the wrong direction. That is the last time though. by God. The last time I'm going to pick on Dave. Um I want to leave you guys with a thought. Um and and it goes back to the way I started this this conversation about authenticity and the outward mindset. I got to spend some time I've I've gotten Arbinger has given me opportunities that I never ever ever would have had in my lifetime. You know, I was a homeless kid rescued to the farm working for a buck 75 scrubbing waters in a turkey farm. uh you know hole and hay uh you know I went to the military at 17 uh you know I the opportunities that I have gotten because of Arbinger and the way they've expanded my my way of seeing is just off the charts amazing and so I've made some great friendships um as a result of that um I got to spend some time with General Stanley Mcristel uh in October up in DC and um he and I had a conversation around leadership and I shared a bit with him about what we were doing here at Arban and he shared a bit with me about what they were doing at the Mcrist group and we were talking about just leadership in general. And I brought up this this idea of the outward mindset and and authenticity. And he said this to me and I want to leave you guys with this because the way he said this, it just it just it just struck me. He said, "Chip, authenticity is incredibly important. People will forgive you for not being the leader that they think you should be, but they won't forgive you for not being the leader you say you are. Thank you all for the gift of your time, for letting me come up here and chat with you guys. Awesome.