Episode 239: The Science of Action - Unlocking Your Conative Strengths with David Kolbe

Darrin Peppard (00:00.718)

All right, everybody, welcome into the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. This is episode 139. And, you know, one of the things I've always believed about great leadership is that it begins with knowing yourself, knowing what your strengths are, knowing what your blind spots are, and knowing how it is that you take action. It's that self-awareness that is the foundation of clarity. And clarity is exactly what we have been focused on.

here at Road to Awesome. Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing in emails, in videos on YouTube, in our social media channels, all of the things we're doing. What's exciting next chapter as we expand that Road to Awesome mission, helping leaders not only in education, but across every sector. Find the clarity and the confidence they need to lead intentionally.

We've got some real exciting things coming your way. Can't wait to share those with you. I'll even do a special episode here on the podcast to talk specifically about that. Look for that one on October 20th. Here's the bottom line. All these exciting things. Honestly, today's conversation fit right into that vision. Yeah, my guest on the show today is David Colby. David is the CEO of Colby Corp. And he joins me to talk about how we take action.

cognitive strengths and how we understand them and how that can help us transform the way we lead, way we hire and the way we build teams. You will even hear my Colby A assessment results. Yeah, that's right. The Colby A assessment is one of the tools that Colby Corp offers that allow you to dig in and learn about your cognitive skills. And I'll be honest with you, their assessment

Nailed me those of you who know me and know me well when you hear when we talk about this when David and I unload and unpack the pieces of my Colby a assessment you'll say yeah, they're in they absolutely nailed you on this one. It's so much fun. And this is just such an insightful conversation. So here's the thing as we move closer to this next big chapter for road to awesome this episode to me really drives home.

Darrin Peppard (02:26.184)

one really powerful question that ties into our next big chapter. And that is this, how do you take action? And more importantly, how can you do it in a more natural way? This is an awesome episode, folks. I know you're going to love it. So let's dive in with David Colby.

Darrin Peppard (00:01.196)

So if you've been in leadership for any amount of time, odds are really strong that you've taken a large number of different assessments, whether that's a strengths finder or the Myers-Briggs or true colors or any of those types of assessment. And every one of those will tell you certain things about yourself, about your personality, maybe about how you think or what you're really good at.

But what if there was a way for you to find out what is it that makes you and how do you go about taking action? That's what we're gonna talk about today on the show with David Colby. And I'm really excited to talk about this, the Colby A assessment I have taken. We're gonna talk about my results here on the show. So folks, you can learn a little bit more about me. Those of you who know me well will not be shocked by my results on this assessment, but.

Before we get to all of that, David, welcome into Leaning into Leadership.

David Kolbe (01:04.075)

Great to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Darrin Peppard (01:06.562)

Yeah, absolutely. Looking forward to this conversation. You you and I talked a handful of days ago and just, getting prepared for the show and thinking about all of this stuff. And then certainly having the opportunity to take this assessment. Let's maybe have you jump in the way back machine. I know your corporation has been in business for a long time. Maybe go back to a point wherever it is that you want to go and

catch us up on who David Colby is up to today.

David Kolbe (01:40.331)

Wow, that's a big question. guess starting with me rather than the company, I've been at the company for 28 years. It was founded by my mom, so just about 50 years ago now. We're having our anniversary this fall. But I never planned to be in the business. I went off and did other things, went to school for business.

I worked in politics for a while, then became a lawyer, did that for a little while. And then my mom recruited me to come work for the company as general counsel, because I was a lawyer. So I started as general counsel and then eventually took over as CEO. So I've been doing that for, gosh, I never remember exactly because I don't know when I got the title, but 20 years or so. So been here a while and

Yeah, I guess I'll stop there for now.

Darrin Peppard (02:39.382)

Yeah, no, that's okay. So let's talk about the company itself and maybe share a little bit about the work that you do and how you help leaders and companies and so forth.

David Kolbe (02:52.329)

Yeah, so you were talking about assessments and really the foundation of what we do is we help people understand their cognitive strengths. You mentioned other assessments like Myers-Briggs, Predictive Index, et cetera. Those are great ways to learn about what's called the affective part of your mind, your preferences, desires, motivations, perhaps. you know, oftentimes the big five personality factors.

And those are really important a lot of it is kind of why you do what you do, you know Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Are you you know, where are you on the conscientiousness scale? So different things But what it what we tell you is about this cognitive part. That's the the way you take action So it's not the why but it's the the actual pattern with which people take action I should mention the third part of the mind, especially for all the educators out in the audience the cognitive

Is the thinking part so thinking feeling and doing so obviously there are tons of cognitive tests everything from a you know, fourth grade spelling test to an sat to you know, if you want to Become a doctor you've got to pass different cognitive tests there even after school and those are all important just like the affective side So these three parts of the human mind and by the way this concept of three parts of the human mind goes back

to ancient Greece, literally Plato talked about it. So we're talking 2,500 years of people thinking about these three parts of the mind. But we focus on understanding that doing part in the way we take action. And it's important because it really does drive the way we will be successful. So we can operate operate in different ways, but we've

What we found and really i'm being generous here the we is kathy my mom i'll just talk to her talk about her as kathy in this context, but She figured out there were patterns and we could assess and kind of measure and explain These fixed ways that people approach problems. So just to give you one example And they're four what we call action modes. One of them is what we call fact finder It's how you gather and share information And they're all on a spectrum. So in fact finder it's from somebody who

David Kolbe (05:08.208)

Needs a lot of detail facts figures become an expert Don't just guess at something without doing the research about it The other end of the spectrum is somebody who simplifies is like I don't need to get distracted by too much information Just a couple key data points and that's you know, and then I move forward So they avoid analysis paralysis So that's just one example of how that works and we help people understand that in all kinds of contexts themselves

And then if you're going to be a leader, you really need to understand a that this thing is out there because so many people just they've never been taught about it. And if you're a leader and you're trying to get the most out of the people around you, and that can be, you know, in business, in schools, whatever, just in families. If you don't know what makes a third of their mind work, where the way of the third of their mind does work, you're going to be missing out on so much.

Darrin Peppard (06:02.155)

Yeah, absolutely. I was, I was really, really fascinated listening to you talk about the cognitive as part of this. The other day when we were talking and, certainly I've been doing a lot of homework and really digging into the work that, that you guys do with, with Colby Corp. And I was really intrigued by this is, this will maybe be little bit of a squirrel chase, but then we'll come back and talk a little bit more.

about the four areas and then we can kind of dig into my specific area, but or my specific score. But I noticed some pieces in there. You you made some reference to a few of them. Certainly, you know, the support that you guys provide in the corporate and in the business space. But there's some pieces in there that I found really interesting and I didn't get a chance to ask you about these the other day. So I want to dig a little bit into the team aspect. This is an area that for me,

David Kolbe (06:55.903)

Great.

Darrin Peppard (06:58.285)

is a big part of the research that I'm doing. Actually, the next book that I'm working on is specifically on team development and team performance. So I want to pick your brain a little bit about team performance and how that cognitive science plugs into that work.

David Kolbe (07:17.642)

Sure. So we've done some research, the two notable ones, think really University of Chicago, University of Arizona, looking at how does the cognitive makeup of a team affect performance or does it? What we had seen, so the hypothesis going into the research was we had worked with so many companies we'd seen that you need to have a mix of cognitive talents, a diversity of cognitive talents. If you go in

And while stick with fact finder, cause that's the one I've described so far. If everybody on the team is like me or like any one individual, if there's one pattern, but I'll use me, I happen to be the person on the end of the spectrum where I do need information. gather, facts and figures do research. If everybody on the team is like that, the team will feel like they, Hey, we can work really well together because all of us have this need for information. We approach problems in the same way.

Seems great. But at some point in the project, you're going to need some somebody with a different talent in that area. You're going to need that simplifier. And so teams work better. And that's what the research both those places showed is teams work better when you have a balance and you have a mix of all of these strengths. So if you are overloaded on in one or the other area, the results aren't as good.

And on the one hand, it seems like almost obvious, like, well, yeah, that makes sense. But team formation generally happens the other way. If people aren't thinking about it, they so often pick the people who are like them because maybe they have worked on a little project and, it went well, went smoothly in little bits. So, hey, why don't you join the team? You'd be great to work with. I've watched you, you approach things the way I do. And again, since we don't know about this cognitive part of the mind, it's like,

You don't even think that there'd be a missing piece to it. You just think, well, you work the way I do and that's great. So do it. it's not until you have the problem where the team has those gaps. But again, so often people misidentify what that problem is. They think, well, I'm not motivating my team well enough, you know, as the leader, I guess that means, you know, let's give more bonus opportunities or let's have more team building exercises where we bond emotionally, you know, that the affective side.

David Kolbe (09:45.323)

And those you can see short bumps in improvement or short bumps in the productivity of the team, but it's not lasting. What's lasting is actually getting that balance of strengths. So seems obvious, not so easy in practice though.

Darrin Peppard (10:04.939)

Yeah. Well, I noticed too, that that some of the work that you guys do also then connects exactly what you're talking about to the hiring process. So I mean, this is something you actually help support different businesses in their hiring process. What what does that look like?

David Kolbe (10:21.352)

Well, you for starters, it's kind of the same. If you think about a team, if you're forming a team, you're hiring people for that team, even if they're already inside the organization. So in that case, what you're looking at is, they're going to be operating on a team. that team dynamic is so important. need to have a diversity of those talents. So let's look at everybody when we're starting. If you're just looking at one open position in an organization, the most important thing usually. So yes, there's, if they work on a team, you might want to look at that.

But more people are, you they spend most of their time as individual contributors and then they work together with other people here and there. For that role, what you want to look at is, what drives success on this individual job? So we help people build a profile, essentially what we call a right fit analysis to look at what are the cognitive demands of the job and then figure out.

Who are the people that are going to fit better have a range of success? It's you're never looking for just one precise thing There's always a range but you get that range of success and then match candidates to it to figure out who's most likely to do well in that job over the long haul again Anybody can come in and for six months, even if it's not a great fit They just they put their nose to the grindstone, but they'll get burnout a lot more quickly if they don't fit the requirements of the job

Darrin Peppard (11:44.077)

No, I completely agree with that. And I think there's a lot of power to that. You just listening to you talk is kind of taking me back to a moment in my career when I was a high school principal and I was hiring for an assistant principal position and my, my superintendent after meeting my top candidate, you know, had said to me at a point in time, he's like, well, you know, you can hire it, but you're hiring yourself. Why would you hire somebody you already have? And certainly we didn't have the

you know, that that cognitive piece to, to, you know, really be thinking about how is this person going to go about taking action and that type of thing. I did still hire that person and he was phenomenal though. So you never know. Right.

David Kolbe (12:23.272)

Yeah, well, and to that point.

Well, that's what I was going to say is sometimes you do want to hire yourself if you are hiring somebody who's going to learn from you Really do things that you know, they need to do things in a way similar to the way you do them the position You know kind of demands that and maybe it's succession planning they're gonna take over after you leave the position and they're gonna be principal and You fit the the job demands. Well, so yeah, you want to hire somebody like you?

So there's absolutely a place for that, but you need to be deliberate and intentional about it. What am I hiring for? If you're hiring somebody who's going to take the load off of you a lot of times, it's, so I'll introduce another one of the four action modes. So follow through is how we deal with systems structure organization. I happen to be the kind of person that's very open-ended. I find shortcuts in processes and systems.

If it's a, know, so for me, lot of times I'm looking for somebody to be a compliment to that. Who's going to create systems and structure, do a lot more of the initiating follow through kinds of tasks. So I hire for that sometimes. I just need to understand what we both need to understand. We're different then. And this actually gets back to team performance and being a great leader. Um, great leaders need to understand they need to check their ego sometimes. And I might have.

You if you look at a hierarchy or a, you know, the org chart, I may be above somebody, but there are times when that person should be leading and directing me because what they are doing, you know, their, their approach to a problem is a better fit. So I need to support them really. And they need to take the lead, but often leaders don't think that way. It's like, well, no, I'm, I'm the principal. So it all has to be me. I've got to take the lead. Like you don't have enough time in the day to take the lead on everything.

David Kolbe (14:25.652)

So thank goodness you can hire people who compliment you and do things differently when that's the right role.

Darrin Peppard (14:33.866)

Yeah, absolutely. mean, it kind of, you know, it takes it takes what we do, you know, so often in so many interview, you know, processes where we have the whole team kind of put down, you know, hey, what are we looking for? What are going to what are some of the traits we're looking for? And maybe just takes it just that much further, which which I think is really powerful. So so let's let's dig in a little bit further. So you've mentioned them. And certainly, if you want to go further with them, you've talked a little bit about fact finder and follow through. But I know we have two other big pieces here.

Let's talk about those and then we can talk about my score or do you want to pull my score in with that process with we'll go dealer's choice here.

David Kolbe (15:10.078)

Well, yeah, we'll finish the two and then we'll bring your score in. the, the, the next one I'll talk about is quick start. Quick start is how we deal with, risk taking, dealing with the unknown. sometimes the way we innovate, although that word is kind of fraught because everybody wants to think of themselves as innovative, but it's kind of that taking risks, jumping into the unknown. so on one end of the spectrum is somebody who really

Darrin Peppard (15:15.028)

Okay, sounds perfect.

David Kolbe (15:39.435)

They they flourish when there are fewer knowns they can experiment they will you they'll kind of force experimentation again, whether it's needed or not They just that's how they're wired the other end of the spectrum is somebody who stabilizes who figures out what's working and stays with and builds on what's already working so rather than Starting all over and trying something out new, you know, those are the two ends of the spectrum

And I'll also mention here I haven't talked about the mid-range most people fall kind of toward that mid-range think about you know, the normal distribution the bell curve They tend to be more centered toward the middle. So most people respond in any of the four action modes, so I'll go back to follow through just to add a little bit of depth to that one Most people are in in an area where look I don't create systems and structure all the time, but I live within them

I, I take, if things are a little chaotic, maybe I will organize it, but I also won't, force chaos all the time. Like, you know, just throw out the systems. So all of us, or not all of us, but many of us fall in that mid range.

So, all right, now let's jump back into the fourth one. The fourth one is what we call Implementer. I'd kind of like to change the name because it's a little misleading. It's not how we implement as in carry things out. It's how we deal with tactile, tangible, three-dimensional tasks and problems. So, an initiating implementer is somebody who literally works with their hands. They build, they construct.

you if you think about it, this person will demonstrate, they won't just talk, if they have the opportunity, they will build you a little model and show you, here's what I'm talking about. So it is that very concrete kind of action taking. The other end of the spectrum there is somebody who imagines, they think about solutions, but they don't necessarily physically build them.

David Kolbe (17:52.491)

So it's a little different than the other three in that sense, because it's all about this tangible world that we live in and take action in. Yeah, so those are the four. I'm trying to think what other notes. Oh, a couple of notes on all of that. We don't see differences by gender. So if I know you're a man or a woman doesn't tell me anything about your Colby result, I can't guess. Same thing with age, with race, ethnicity. We just we don't see differences there.

You see differences by job, career, because people tend to go into a track that fits them and if they go into one that doesn't fit them, they get weeded out. So you you'll see big clumps. Like if you go into a school or an office and you have everybody do the assessment, there there will be a lot more similarities than just the general public. But that makes sense. That's because that's what they're doing. But let's talk about you.

Darrin Peppard (18:46.475)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I said, kind of at the outset, going through the assessment, it's 36 questions, and it's just, I guess, for some background for folks, and David, you can certainly fill in the blanks here, but for the most part, it's, know, when we're talking about this kind of a subject, do you think you tend to lean more here or here? And here's a few choices.

Which one do you feel strongest about here? Which one do you feel least strong about? And I mean, you go through the assessment pretty quick. I think it took me maybe about 15 minutes to do the assessment. And of course, know, results are almost immediate. And I really felt like, yeah, that captured me pretty well. But I'd love to have you talk a little bit more about kind of what my score not necessarily means, but like, you know, maybe explain a little bit more.

so that we can really find out, wow, did the Colby A assessment really nail Darren or did it miss? I can tell you right now it didn't miss. So I came in, my score is a four, four, seven, four. So I'm a four on FactFinder, which when I look at the of the you know, the color slider folks with, that's kind of how your scores come into you. The fours tend to be more towards the top where my seven is quite a bit.

David Kolbe (19:49.354)

Sure.

Darrin Peppard (20:12.683)

closer to the bottom. is it like a 1 to 10 slider or what are we looking at?

David Kolbe (20:17.694)

Yeah. Yeah. So it's one to 10. And we would consider four to be in that mid range I was talking about. So all of your fours, so four, four, seven, four, those fours are what I was talking about where most often people fall in that mid range, four, five, and six. To be initiating at seven, eight, nine, 10, and to be what we call counteract or resistant in a mode is one, two, three. So

Here's i'll start kind of big picture with your result. One of the interesting things is there's no mode where you really push back hard You're not a one two or three in in any of the four modes. So what we see a lot with that pattern is You're pretty adaptable. You will kind of figure out. Okay, how can I how can I work in that area fact finder follow-through implementer? Those are the three where you're the four You don't really

Dig your feet in and say, you know, no, I'm, I'm not going to gather more information and detail. You'll get to that point, but that's not, know, somebody who's a one in fact finder to talk about gathering and sharing information. They really push back on somebody saying, okay, well let's, let's list the six priorities, you know, one through six, and then, you know, we'll rank them and we'll analyze each one. They're like, no, no, no, let's just talk about one. Like what's the next thing we're going to do.

We don't need to look at all that and prioritize in detail and examples and history and So you're not again big picture. You don't push back in any of those then the next Kind of most noticeable thing is you initiate in quick start. So with that seven in quick start You experiment you take chances you try things out and what's really important to understand here is You don't just do it because it's the smart thing to do

So there are times sure, you know, any of us can use our cognitive side and we can analyze the situation and realize Okay, we really need to do something different because the things that we've tried before and done in the past aren't working So we're gonna kind of force ourselves You're the kind of persons who could be like, yeah Things are kind of going along smoothly. But you know what? Let's let's shake it up. Let's try this new thing It might it might be the greatest thing ever you will come up with those ideas You will push them You'll treat if others push back

David Kolbe (22:41.448)

You'll figure out a way to do them yourself whether or not that kind of disrupts the system and you're not crazy. You're not a 10 in this area. So you're not like way out on the extreme. But what I will say is we've worked enough with educators and you coming from an education background. That's the exception in the kinds of roles that you were in most especially elementary and high school level educators.

both teachers and administrators, they don't tend to initiate in quick start. Kind of less than the general population would you see. So you were probably noticeable in that regard. You stood out a little bit.

Darrin Peppard (23:21.851)

Yeah, so that was the one that jumped out at me. And as you've done a wonderful job really of encapsulating what that specifically means. And in essence, you just described me. I mean, really, that is who I am. I am one who loves to just try something new. I'm at 30 years in public education and, you know, people will say things like, Darren's a retired superintendent.

No he's not. I'm not retired. And I'm not drawing retirement. didn't say I retired. I was ready to just do something new. I was ready to try something new. And, you know, God bless my wife, who's much more the grounded individual, she probably would not be a seven in that particular category. Probably would be more like a two or a three. But said, yeah, let's do this. Because that is very much...

who I am, but it gave me the opportunity, I think, as a school and district leader to see opportunities to innovate, to do something different, to move our school or our district forward. luckily, I was surrounded by a lot of really good people who were strong in other areas that could take my ideas and go make them reality.

David Kolbe (24:42.708)

Yeah. And you know, a smart leader understands there are limits to it. So just because the leader might be, even if they're a tenant, quick start, if the organization, whether that's, you know, a school, a classroom, a business, a whole school district, there, you can only push so hard and change. And you also have to understand, and this is where not knowing about the cognitive part of the mind is a real disadvantage for people.

Now that you know how some of this operates, you can probably look back at situations and think, well, you know, I knew I needed to bring people along, like, so they understood the vision and where we were going to go because it was new. But, but here's a common thing that initiating quick starts who don't know about coordination that happens to them. They think, Hey, the way to motivate people is to get them all excited about the future and where we're going and what the opportunities are. Well, if it's a two in quick start and you spend your time telling them about how

everything's going to change and isn't it going to be great because all these unknowns that we have, they are just, it's, they're getting, yeah, and you can actually see it. You probably have, you, start that pitch and then you see them in meetings, you know, the body language changes, the scowl might form. You don't have to go through the heartache and the struggle of figuring out and learning the hard way, like, this group doesn't respond very well to that.

Darrin Peppard (25:50.201)

you're gonna freak out.

Darrin Peppard (25:55.537)

Uh-huh.

Darrin Peppard (25:59.38)

Right.

David Kolbe (26:11.56)

you can learn ahead of time what are the right levers to push. And this isn't in a manipulating kind of way. It's also, makes the end product better because the whole community needs to move in this direction if that's what you're doing. So for instance, you can explain when you're an initiating quick start, you know what? There's so many things, well, you talk to them about what isn't gonna change and what we're doing well so far. So I was describing that counteract quick start who...

Stabilizes, know sticks with what's working. Well, so you say my gosh, we're doing such a great job We're going to continue to do those things. We're also going to do this Experiment or you don't have to call it an experiment, but we're also going to try out this new program But then you explain to them if this is true. Hey, we're not the first ones to do it It's it's met with a lot of success in this district and I talked to this person who did it and you know They had great success in their company

So you let them know it's not as weird and outlier, brand new, never been tried kind of thing. Whereas if you're with a room full of quick starts and you start trying to get them on board by talking about how it's not really that new, like, no, no, no, just stick with, guys, guess what? We're going to try this out. Isn't it going be cool? And because they naturally are kind of those experimenters, it's more easy to.

pull them along and have them join the endeavor that way.

Darrin Peppard (27:42.921)

Yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense. you know, certainly I'm processing actually a lot of the teams that I work with currently, and how you know how beneficial this would be to them for them to just know this much more about about each other. Certainly a couple of teams that I work with that, you know, have leaned in heavily into strengths finders. So at least I mean, they understand, you know, yeah, that's right. You know, you're really strong in this area, or these are your top five or whatever.

But I definitely see a lot of benefit here. if people want to work with ColbyCorp, whether that's, maybe it's a mid-size business or a startup, or maybe it's a school district, like the district level leadership team or something like that, what does that look like? Is that something that's done virtual? Are you onsite or are they coming to you? I know you're located in the Valley there in Phoenix.

David Kolbe (28:39.454)

Yeah.

Darrin Peppard (28:42.73)

What does that look like?

David Kolbe (28:44.948)

You know, it's kind of all of the above. We've developed different ways to do it that'll work for our clients. So I think frankly, the best way is still in person. Virtual is fantastic to make it more cost effective. I still love getting with people. So we, it's not just me, there are team of people here and 850 some independent Colby certified consultants who will go.

and work with the team and that can start all kinds of different ways. Usually it's one person brings us in and then we work with the team on, understand yourself first, understand the individuals sitting around the table. So you have a better insight into what drives all those people and then look at the kind of composite team dynamics. that can be a, a one-off session. I, I like it best when it kind of happens over a longer term so we can stick with a little bit.

And yeah, as I said, it can be in person. We also do do those virtually. So it's both.

Darrin Peppard (29:50.366)

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, well, man, this is just this is just such incredible information. And it's really got me thinking a whole lot about, again, the teams that I work with, but also it's making me think about, you know, people that I've worked with in the past and just kind of rehashing some of the some of those memories a little bit, which which is great. But we're at that point. go ahead. Go ahead, please.

David Kolbe (30:10.739)

Do you see, well, I was gonna ask you, do you see patterns in what you would expect the teams that you work with? Do they skew one direction or another?

Darrin Peppard (30:21.479)

You know, it's interesting. I would say, I would say no. I think actually what, and this is just initial blush thinking, is that many of them are kind of all over the place. Like if we were to see their Colby A scores, I think that they would be kind of a mishmash. But I do believe this as I'm thinking that through following that question.

one of the highest performing teams that I work with, and I've been with them for a number of years now. I would say they probably are for the most part, that one is a team of six, probably most of them are together, but then there's two members who might be like exact opposites of the rest of that team. And I think that's a big part of why they are so, so good together, because they do have kind of that.

that interesting mix, but if we were to sit in a room with them, we would probably see these four sit over here, and yes, they would probably all be scored the same, and these two would be sitting over here, and yes, they would probably be scored very similar.

David Kolbe (31:34.527)

And they've probably figured out how to, although they may be sitting on separate sides, they actually do work together. Cause one of the things that can happen is, you get that split and it becomes an us versus them. And that's not productive. That is not going to be a high performing team versus the people who actually respect, appreciate, know, love the fact that they're people who are different than them on the team.

Darrin Peppard (31:43.721)

Beautifully, yes

Darrin Peppard (31:51.059)

Right.

Darrin Peppard (32:00.743)

Yeah, absolutely. And again, I think that's a big part of why that particular team is is really, really effective. and I don't see them at all as seeing us against them. just typically when I'm there, it's that's really how it kind of plays out is like these four sit here and these two sit over here. And that's I think they would score similar to where they sit, which is really super interesting. So

Yeah, mean, we, man, we could dig into this for hours and hours and hours. This is really fantastic stuff. And I'm definitely going to be doing a little bit more looking into this, all of the work that you guys do. really does fascinate me. But we have reached that point in the show. Our time has just flown by. So I want to ask you the same question I ask everybody here on the show. This is the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. So David, how are you leaning into leadership right now?

David Kolbe (32:51.582)

You know, I'm leaning in by taking the time to work on culture. It's always important. it's just something that I'm really more focused on right now. helping everybody and it's an interactive thing. It's not, you know, it, it starts with the people probably at the top and myself in that instance, but it's gotta be two ways or it's just not going to work. So it's really that. then I don't know that it's leadership as much, but it's.

An important thing going on, artificial intelligence. mean, so many people are talking about it. You know, I'm figuring out what does our strategy look like over the next, you know, one to five years. think even five is really pushing it with respect to AI as a user. We need to develop and are developing stuff for our clients to use, but we're also using it internally so that we can be more efficient and productive. So, but then tying that back into culture.

That's upsetting for a lot of people. They're worried understandably about, am I going to have a job? I mean, you're talking David about bringing in AI and being more efficient. Doesn't that mean you're going to let people go and it's reassuring them? No, it means we can do more. And you guys can be freed up to do higher level things, but you have to have those conversations and not just assume everybody's going to be fine with it just because I'm OK with it. We live in different worlds and have different.

ability to affect the way the company is moving. So it's probably those two things are my main drivers right now.

Darrin Peppard (34:25.511)

Yeah. Yeah, no, I think that's excellent. I mean, that that takes me back to a conversation we had recently with a brand new author here on the show, Brad Wade, whose show I think released in early September, mid September. And part of his his his book, Racing the Future is about how

technology is reshaping work and how it is reshaping corporations and what corporations are doing, not to just simply eliminate individuals, but to retrain and to allow them to do higher level things and replace some of the maybe more menial tasks that they're doing through different types of technology, whether that's robotic or artificial intelligence or whatever the case may be.

So no, I think that's outstanding. And man, you really hit home when you talk about culture. That is one of my number one things. So I love every part of that answer. So people are definitely gonna want to check out a little bit more about Colby Corp. They're gonna wanna know more about you. What are the best ways for people to get in touch with you and to check out the company?

David Kolbe (35:39.42)

Easiest way to find both of us is the website www.kolbe.com. You can find my email there and get in touch with me or find our phone number and give me a call and look at all of our resources.

Darrin Peppard (35:56.475)

Outstanding stuff. All right. Well, we'll make sure sure that that's down in the show notes. So everybody has a real quick and easy way to get to that. Man, this was a whole lot of fun. It's a really great conversation. Thanks for digging into my results and honestly for absolutely, you know, nailing it with that assessment on on who I am. That was that was a lot of fun. Thanks for joining me here on the Leaning Into Leadership podcast.

David Kolbe (36:21.802)

Well it's great to be here, thanks for having me on Darren and I hope you get your wife to take it too and then you can see the complementarity between the two of you.

Darrin Peppard (36:30.69)

Yeah, absolutely. I can't wait to do that. We'll see if she's willing to do it.

David Kolbe (36:34.65)

Great.

All right, folks, what an awesome conversation with David. Make sure you get down in the show notes. Get connected with Colby Corp. They offer so many insightful and

interesting methods for you to dig in and understand those cognitive skills and to help your employees, the people around you understand them as well. Fantastic stuff. Make sure you hit the show notes for all that. And again, David Colby, thank you so much for joining me on Leading Into Leadership. And now it is time for a pep talk.

Darrin Peppard (03:26.776)

Today on the pep talk, I'm going to talk about sports. And I know I almost never do that. Many of you know I am a diehard Denver Bronco fan. And last weekend, the Broncos went on the road and beat the Philadelphia Eagles, the defending Super Bowl champions, undefeated defending Super Bowl champions in their stadium and were trailing by 14 points as they started the fourth quarter. Now you would think, and I did certainly, that

A young and upcoming team like the Denver Broncos are right now. A good team, talented team, still young, still learning how to win against a tried and true, a tested team like the Eagles on their home turf. They're not going to come back and win a game when they're down by 14 points in the fourth quarter. But that's exactly what happened.

It was interesting to watch the game and I apologize to Eagles fans. Don't turn this off. There's a point to this. It's not just about talking about my Broncos, but there was a point in that game where you could absolutely feel the momentum shift. It was like you could see this young team all of a sudden believe in themselves, really genuinely believe in themselves and this tried and true tested team. You felt like they just couldn't seem to put it all together. Now what's my point in telling you this?

I point in telling you as this, as many of you know, leadership teams has become a massive, massive focus for me. That is the direction the next book will go is how do you build those quality teams? How do you put a team together that learns to work together, that learns to believe in each other and learns to put their egos aside, their individual pieces aside in a way that allows for team success? To me, that game on Sunday,

absolutely encapsulated that. is a young team who's not thinking about their individual statistics. A young team not worried about their touches, not worried about how many tackles they make, not worried about making some goofy gesture to get connected to the crowd. No. One solo focus. Win. Their coach, Sean Payton, said after the game, when asked why he chose to go for two only down by one,

Darrin Peppard (05:49.634)

He said, we came here to win. We didn't come here to just play it close. We came here to win. And that team rallied around that leader. Meanwhile, on the other side, and again, not speaking ill of the Eagles, but right now on that team, you have individuals who are going on social media to complain about how many passes are getting thrown to them. And you have players who are quitting halfway through their routes because they know the ball's not coming to them. So they're really not giving their full effort.

That to me is the difference between a team that really has a shot to get where they need to be. Maybe this is a team that isn't quite talented enough yet in the Denver Broncos, but they're a team who every single person is playing for the same goal. That's what we want to see for our teams. We don't want to see the other side of it. We don't want to see the diva behaviors or the, this is all about me. Look at my sales this month or look at

Look at the scores my students have in this classroom versus everybody else. This is not about that. When we work to develop great teams, the number one thing we want is that team to genuinely set everything else aside and say, I am all about this one primary goal. When I talk on this show, and I do frequently, about that clear, compelling vision, that is what I'm talking about.

Take that for what it's worth, folks. That was a bit of a rant today, but it just to me seemed like such a powerful example of what happens when you're building a strong, unified, collective, focused team. And you can do that as well. Hey, if you need some help, reach out. Let's have a conversation. You know this is my passion. My goodness, if you're still listening, you know you just heard me.

Talk about this. This is something I'm so very passionate about. I would love to work with you and help you and your team get focused in that same way. Hey, until next time, folks, thank you so much for joining me here on the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. Get out there and have a road to awesome week.