[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Grow show brought to you by Marty Grunder's Grow Group where we specialize in helping landscaping companies to clarify their platform, grow their people, build their processes and realize profits. Everything we teach is grounded in real experience. Our team is actively involved in the day to day operations of Southwest Ohio's Grunder Landscaping Company.
New episodes are released weekly on Wednesdays and are made possible with the support of Bob Yard. Remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Now here's your host, Marty Grunder.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever the case may be. This is Marty Grunder from Grunder Landscaping Co. And the Grow Group. Thanks for downloading the Grow Show.
Very excited. Today we have my friend and best selling author Steve Shapiro on. He's going to be talking about his new book, you're Not Playing with a Full Deck. Cool title folks. You're going to love the conversation, I'm positive. But first a reminder. You can get the latest edition of the Grow show delivered to your phone, tablet or computer by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts or Watch us on YouTube for an enhanced learning experience.
The Grow show is the greatest thing since People who Smile in the Morning I am a morning person, folks, but I'm not always in a great mood. I'm very intense and sometimes my intensity gets the best of me in my facial expressions, which can be terrible.
Two people at my company always make me smile with their smile and comments in the morning. Brian and dawn, they both listen to the Grow show so I hope they're smiling now because I'm mentioning them. They're each on our leadership team and they have stress in their lives too, folks, but they always smile. In fact, Brian always makes me laugh and that's a difference maker. I need to smile more and so do you, I bet. Attitude is everything folks.
And a smile says you're approachable, you're happy, you're glad to be at work and that says a lot. Think about it. Now onto the Grow Show. Steven Shapiro. You're not playing with a full deck. Steven, thanks for coming on the Grow Show. I'm really excited about this conversation. How are you brother?
[00:02:04] Speaker C: I'm doing great Marty, and really looking forward to having some time with you.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Well, I am too. I'm excited for this conversation, Steve, because a lot of our listeners are busy growing companies in the 20 to 150 employee level and they're dealing with real world pressure every day. People, production, customers, margins, and lord knows what else.
So what I want to do today is to take your ideas from the book that I just finished reading and it's a brand new book coming out. I want to see how we can make them practical and how someone listening can actually apply what you have to share whether they read your book or not. And I hope they buy your book and read it. But I, I want them to understand this and I think to give a little background here you have a wildly successful book called Personality Poker. Can you talk about that book and what the message was in that book and how that's the foundation for what you're doing? I'd love for everyone to learn more about Personality Poker and tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to here.
[00:03:08] Speaker C: Yeah, so we'll go back just a little bit. So I've been in the innovation space for 30 years, and one of the things that I discovered is that for us to be successful, we can't have people who are similar to us. We have to collaborate with people who are different. But that's sort of an unnatural act in many cases.
So 20 years ago, I created a card deck called Personality Poker. And then I was approached by a publisher 15 years ago to write the book about Personality Poker. And basically, it is a card game. Imagine a deck of cards with suits, colors and numbers on them, like regular poker cards. But each card also has a word that describes a behavioral attribute like empathetic, creative, organized, analytical. And what we do is we trade cards, collect cards, gift cards to others to get the words that best describe how we see ourselves and how we see others.
And then from there, we can learn everything about ourselves, our team, our culture, our meetings, by understanding the suits, the colors, and the numbers that we have in our hand.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: You know, it's. This is kind of embarrassing to admit, but when I heard you just make your point about to the extent that these people that you're at odds with, maybe these people you don't like at work, or they rub you the wrong way, you know, my natural inclination is to kind of focus on strengthsfinder and get away from that because that doesn't jive with my personality.
And that's my epiphany from your new book. Was that God dummy? Like, you need to look at that there. You can still get along with them. Like you got to figure out a way to work with them. Their contrarian perspective can be helpful. And I know that's one of many points that you make and you're not playing with a full deck. So taking that into context, what you just said there, what does not Playing with a full deck really mean in business.
[00:04:57] Speaker C: So one of the things that happens is we, like you just said, Marty, we like to be with people who are similar to us. Opposites don't attract, they actually detract. So what ends up happening is in organizations and when we're building teams, we hire people who fit the mold.
But I always joke that if you only hire people who fit the mold, eventually the organization is going to grow mold because we're going to get stale ideas, musty ideas, the same things we've always had.
And so when I say someone's not playing with a full deck, and it's individuals aren't playing with full decks, teams aren't playing with full decks, companies aren't playing with full decks, it means that we don't embrace different perspectives, different personalities, different experiences, different backgrounds that actually allow us to see the world differently and develop something new and better.
[00:05:49] Speaker B: In fact, you tell the story in your book. I think it's in the opening chapter when I think you were with Accenture or Anderson Consulting. Was that it?
And you tell the story.
[00:05:58] Speaker C: Yeah, it's in time.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
You tell the story of someone you were teamed up with to work on a project that drove you crazy. I don't want to tell the story. Can you just tell that story real quick? Because that really grabbed my attention right when I opened up your new book.
[00:06:16] Speaker C: So there is one guy who totally drove me crazy. But as context, before we dive into that, it's probably important to talk about the project that happened before that one.
So back in. Yeah, it just, it helps because it'll share. It'll explain why we need to be around people who drive us crazy. So in 1995, I was able to, with the help of a lot of people, create a 20,000 person innovation practice at then it was Anderson Consulting. Eventually it became Accenture and I got a $30 million budget. And I'm thinking, this is a really large budget for this project.
Big numbers. And I'm a youngish guy at that point. I'm thinking, if this fails, it could end my career prematurely. So I decided to bring on a co leader, John, who was a big, jolly, happy guy. And John was exactly the same as I am. He liked ideas, he liked people, he liked creativity, he liked brainstorming, he liked fun things.
Unfortunately, the project ended up being a total disaster because we focused on novelty and people, but never on delivery.
So my next project, my budget was cut from 30 million to 6 million and I didn't get to choose my co leader. I was given this guy Ray, and Ray was this obsessive, compulsive, detail oriented perfectionist. He was in my face every day and he's like, steve, we're over budget. Where's the deliverables? I need it now.
And basically he drove me crazy to the point where my blood pressure was going up, my hair was falling out, and I knew I wasn't going to last much longer. So I pulled Ray aside and I said, ray, I got to tell you, I don't like you.
And he laughed and he looked back at me and he smiled and he said, I don't like you either. And then I said what I think was probably the most important thing I've said in my entire career, which was, I don't like you, but I need you.
We need to figure out how to make this work. And basically what we created together was probably the greatest thing that I've ever done in my entire career.
But it wasn't in spite of our differences. It was because of our differences, because we brought different perspectives. And when we figured out how to work together, we did some magical things.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: Can you give me an example for context here to understand this better? What did you do? Give me an example of how this ended up winning, like the tactics behind it.
[00:08:49] Speaker C: So one of the key tactics was for me to be very aware of what he needed.
Actually, the first thing was to have an appreciation for what we brought to the table as opposed to him being an annoyance.
I realized that Ray was going to be the person who gave me grounding to make sure that we got the work done. So that was step number one. Step number two then is we have to figure out those tactics like you're talking about. And in our case, basically we came up with a rhythm where I said, ray, I will give you instead of every five minutes a status report.
I will give you a status report on a particular rhythm. And you have to trust in between those check in points. I'm doing something of value and Ray. So Ray gave me that flexibility, but I also gave him what he needed was that stability.
And it's those types of things trying to figure out how do we work together in a way that acknowledges and values both perspectives. Neither are right, neither are wrong, but both are needed.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: Let's go on to innovation here because that's what that project was all about. What does a full deck have to do with innovation?
[00:09:57] Speaker C: So when I first created Personality Poker, I think I misnamed it, I called it Personality Poker, but it's not a personality test. It's not intended to be like you're talking about cliftonstrengths or DISC or Myers Briggs or any of those. It's not supposed to be those.
It was always an innovation diagnostic tool. It was always a tool to help us understand where things are going to break in the process.
And so innovation is a four step process that doesn't start with ideas. It actually starts with important, well framed problems and opportunities.
And if you have four steps, those four steps link to the four suits in the deck of cards which links to the four different innovation styles. And if you're missing one, innovation fails.
So I can very quickly predict by going into an organization playing personality poker, understanding where their innovation efforts will fail and how to correct them very quickly.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: So if I'm a business owner listening to this right now, how might I recognize I'm not playing with a full deck by the cards that my coworkers select?
[00:11:05] Speaker C: In most cases, what we first need to understand is as an individual we talk a lot about who we are, but what's more important is to understand who we are not.
So the first step is. So in my case in personality poker, again, the four suits link back to the four styles. So the spades are the ones who dig for data. The diamonds are the ones who are multifaceted and creative. The clubs are the ones who work the plan and plan the work and work the plan. And the hearts are the ones who engage the hearts and minds of people. So what I know is I love the creativity of diamonds. That's my main area.
I have a little bit of love for data. I'm a bit skeptical. I do sort of like people most of the time, but I don't like plans, I don't like planning. I find them restrictive. So that's who I am not.
And so the key is to understand the person you like the least or the person who is least like you is the person you need the most. In this case, those clubs like Ray is the person I need. And so we need to first understand who we are not.
Yeah, that's not a weakness, that's an opportunity for collaboration that tells me these are the people I need to surround myself with, not the people who I like and get along with. It's the people who drive me nuts. They're the ones I need.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: It makes sense. You know, as you're saying this, I'm thinking of all the people that have separated from our company in the last 42 years. And I'm thinking of the ones that, you know, maybe I had A personality conflict with and probably should have embraced that better. Let's bring this into a real company. Where do you see business owners limiting themselves without realizing this? Like, is this a serious problem? Is it just a little problem? What do you see there? If you're not looking at this right, like the way you're portraying it, I
[00:12:45] Speaker C: think it's actually the core issue that most organizations have when they bump up against growth. So your whole business is around growth. I think one of the big areas or one of the big reasons why we don't grow is because we don't have different perspectives.
And so if I'm running a business, the thing which I need to understand is people have personalities, but organizations have personalities too.
And the way you determine the personality of an organization isn't by how many of each style you have, but rather it is what gets valued, recognized, and rewarded. So coming back to something you just said, Marty, people who leave typically leave because they don't feel valued or are recognized, rewarded, or appreciated. And then what ends up happening is you have everybody who think the same way. So if we want to create a powerful innovation engine, we need to appreciate and value everyone differently the way they need to be appreciated and valued.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: No, I mean, I don't know how anyone could argue with that. You know, I do not want to go down a rabbit hole here politically, but I just want to say this.
When I was a student at the University of Dayton in the early, early 90s, late 80s, early 90s, Ronald Reagan was president.
And I distinctly remember that he went to lunch every Friday with the highest ranking Democrat, his, you know, Tip o'. Neill. And they would talk and they would work things out and I think there was probably a lot more progress. Then again, I don't want to get into politics, but that's like, you just make me think of that. Like I'm trying to think of some of, and I hate to use this word, but I'm trying to think of like some of who my enemies are and could I maybe, do I need to listen to them a little bit better? I mean, this is very, this is very thought provoking for me. And you know, you also just mentioned to me you're kind of talking about culture. And it's funny because you and I have a same little saying. I use it differently. You said in your book that, you know, culture is cult. And I always say to people that the first four, you want a good culture. And the first four letters of the word culture is cult. There are good cults too.
So it Just it's. It's funny, you know, because to me, you're talking about a culture. They're like, culture is what's going on when the owner is not there. Cultures are the rules, unwritten rules of behavior. They're the way we engage. They're everything. And I just think there's so much there. But if I'm running a 5 to 15 million dollars a year company, Steve, because that's where a lot of the people, then some smaller, that listen to the grow show.
Where does this show up the most? Does it show up in the people, the pricing, the operations? Where does this shift need to show up the most? Or where do you see it? You said it's the biggest problem companies face.
Do any of those make sense where the problem might be lying?
[00:15:34] Speaker C: Yeah. So I think there's a difference between operations. Like, if we're going to continue to do what we've always done, we don't need to have all different perspectives coming into play.
But if we're going to recognize the fact that the world is changing and therefore we need to adapt to the world, well, we can't have the same perspectives. We've always had the same expertise. We've always had. I always say expertise is the enemy of innovation. Our past experiences worked in the past.
They don't necessarily work in the future.
So what are we going to do to bring in new perspectives, ones that might be different than ours? And that's so critical. And I want to come back to something you just said with Ronald Reagan is there's conflict that will always happen when we're working with people who are not the same as we are now. Some conflict is good and some conflict is not good. So there's what would be called relational conflict, and then there's idea conflict. Relational conflict is. I don't like you as a person. There's.
Look, if you have dissimilar values, if you just are really a horrible person, it doesn't matter.
But where we get stuck sometimes around ideas. And we can have conflict around ideas, and that's good, that's productive. Because if we all agree around ideas, we're never going to do anything new.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: No, totally true. Totally true.
Before Aspire, I was guessing. And guessing in this business costs you real money. Folks, folks, jobs running over a little, and you don't find out until it's too late to do anything about it. Aspire connects my estimates straight to my actual job costs. So I can see exactly where I'm making money and where I'm not. In real time, if you don't have something analyzing your job costs, you're going to be left guessing. I was. Don't make the same mistake I did. Check out youraspire.com to get started.
What, what is a small shift that a company could make that would create a disproportionate result? Look, look at even just a Monday morning in terms of what that looks like in practice and being open to new ideas. And I wrote this down. I think you said expertise is the enemy of innovation. Is that what you said?
[00:17:47] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: So, like, if somebody's listening to this and they're buying what you're selling, they're going to go pick up you're not playing with a full deck and read it.
But maybe they're like, yeah, Marty. And I like Marty. He's disrupting equilibrium here with a little bit of a contrarian perspective.
He's kind of right. Like, I don't like working with people that don't think like me. Maybe I'm not listening, right? Like, what's a. What's a small little shift they could take to make this work?
[00:18:13] Speaker C: I think the first thing is to find your Ray. So Ray was that guy who drove me crazy.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:18:19] Speaker C: Everybody should have a Ray, and they should talk to that Ray. Appreciate that Ray, learn from them and have some empathy for them. Like actually try to stand in their shoes and see what it's like. So me as this sort of scattered, disorganized diamond, I need to really start to appreciate what it means for somebody who has this obsessive compulsive need for detail.
It works for them, it doesn't work for me. But I need to have an appreciation for that because I need it.
Maybe not 24 hours a day, but I need it. So if you find your Ray, appreciate your Ray, and start having conversations with your Ray, your opposite, that's the first small step as an individual and as a leader.
What I would have you think about is who's underappreciated, which suits are underappreciated in your organization and try to overcompensate by appreciating them.
So if there's something which you always recognize and reward, there's always going to be things that you don't recognize and reward. So have a contrarian of the month award or have a, you know, dissatis, disorganized scattered diamond of the month, whatever it is, right? Find something that works for you and your organization so that you are playing with a full deck, which means appreciating what everybody brings to the table.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: You just said a word that I use a lot now.
And in the late 80s, when I was in business school, early 90s, honestly, Steve, I don't ever recall it being talked about.
And I think it's a lot of what you're just talking about. There is emotional intelligence, not making it about you. And you use the word empathy, and that just wasn't something. I know I'm a little bit older than you, but we both were born on April 25, which is a little cool. Side note. And then we have a mutual friend, Waldo, the fighter pilot that has been on the news a lot lately, talking about.
We're recording this shortly after those two pilots went down in Iran talking about school and what we did. You know, empathy wasn't something that I even talked about. I don't even know if I knew what it meant. I know what it means now. I don't think you can be a leader today, Steve, if you don't have empathy. I don't think you're going to be able to grow your business if you're not empathetic for the quest that your team's going through and the quest that your clients are going through.
What do you think of that?
[00:20:45] Speaker C: 100%. I think one of the key things, I think we need empathy for our team, for the employees, and for our customers. Because at the end of the day, if we think about how people make decisions, decisions to buy from us, work with us, hire us, or work with us, they're emotional decisions. And so if we treat someone differently than they want to be treated, if we give them something that is not something that they want, well, then they're not going to stick with us as an employee. They're not going to stick with us as a customer or a client. And so, yeah, we need to start thinking about how do we really better understand the emotional pains that people have. And if we can solve those pains, people will want to be with us, do business with us. And that really is the key with all of this.
[00:21:45] Speaker B: So this is kind of a good segue there. In your book, you talk about rules versus roles.
Why does the environment that you're working in, innovating in, however you want to describe your environment, why does that matter so much?
[00:22:01] Speaker C: So this is actually one of my favorite parts of the book, because it's a little. It's a counterintuitive book that has a counterintuitive section within it. A lot of the times what we talk about is matching the role to the personality so if I'm an analytical person, I give them data. If I'm a planning person, I allow them to do all the planning. If I'm a diamond and I like to brainstorm, I let them do the creative work. But there's some, there's a great study that was done at Eckerd College here in Florida. I'm in Orlando there on the coast. And what they did was they wanted to see what would be the best configuration of people.
And I won't get into all the details of the study, but it's a really fascinating study. But here's the thing they found was the task mattered less than the environment.
So if I am a in personality, poker, a black card, a spade and a club, I like structure, I'm very rational now. It doesn't mean I can't be creative.
I just need to have a structured approach to creativity. And equally as a diamond or a heart, we might be more relational, maybe we're not as structured, but at the same time we can be great implementers and if we're given the flexibility.
And so we need to match the environment to the person. And so when you look at the people in your organization, don't stick them in a box and say, well, you're a data person so I'm going to have you working on Excel spreadsheets. No, no. Create an environment where they could be involved in creative thinking, where they can be involved in people oriented things. We can create the right environment for everyone to thrive.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: Are there things that leaders do, Steve, that shuts down communication, innovation, different perspectives without realizing it?
[00:23:53] Speaker C: I think there's quite a few things and one of them comes down to not recognizing their audience.
So when we are communicating, especially if we have a very strong culture or cult, we tend to communicate to the cult, to the masses, to the norm of our culture.
[00:24:10] Speaker B: We certainly do, yeah.
[00:24:12] Speaker C: And so the problem then is you're speaking to only a part of the group.
You know, I sort of like to joke.
It's like if you're going to another country where they don't speak English and you start speaking English and you get upset at them because they don't speak English, it doesn't make sense. Well, the same is true we're talking to in a club dominant culture, which is what most of them are about, results and numbers and things of that nature.
But we talk to everybody the same way. The diamonds feel like you're talking a different language because they're really about novelty, what's new, what's different, what are we gonna do to shake things up. What if we did this?
And even the emotional way that we talk about things are gonna matter. If it's very professional.
For some people, that's gonna be a turn off.
So we need to be able to learn how to flex as a leader, how to speak multiple languages and multiple styles in a structured approach. There actually is a process communicating that will be most impactful. But most of the time we just use a one size fits all strategy.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: What is the most impactful way there? And let's talk a little bit about that. Many of this is in meetings where we have some structure there. Give us some ideas on how that might get structured structure.
[00:25:32] Speaker C: So the work that I do around communication as it relates to personality poker actually goes back 2000 years to Aristotle. And he said ethos, pathos, logos, which is credibility, empathy, logic. And then we added telos, which is sort of vision.
Those map to the four suits. So if I'm having a conversation, the first thing I want to talk about is the ethos, the credibility. And the way to do that is to basically show the listener that you understand the problem deeply. This is the problem that we have.
And then very quickly, what a great
[00:26:09] Speaker B: way to connect with someone. Jeez.
[00:26:12] Speaker C: Yeah. So if we can talk about the problem, which are the spades and then the hearts, which are the pains, and those together draw people in. Hey, we're not growing. And I can see the stress that this is causing you.
We can move from one to the other very quickly.
Then only after people really understand, you feel them, see them, feel their pain, understand their problems. Only then do you move to the solution which are the clubs and that's the logos. And now we can start talking about what's the answer. But the first two are all around the questions and the emotion and the pains.
And then we close with the diamonds, which is the telos, which is about the vision. Because we don't want to just end, okay, well, here's what we're going to do. It's sort of flat and uninspiring. It's like, here's what we're going to do and here's what then we can create together. Here is the beauty of the plans that we have and the vision we have for a future of working together.
And so it's that pain, emotion, solution, vision. When we pull them into that rhythm, we. We speak to every suit and every perspective in a way that actually speaks to everybody's human beings.
[00:27:25] Speaker B: This is a fascinating discussion we're having today with Steven Shapiro, author of the brand new book. You're not playing with a full deck on the grow show here, Steve. Let's say that a leader's listening to this and they're having an epiphany and they're realizing that they're missing perspectives. You know, I'll be honest with you. When I was in my late 20s running this company, I don't even know if I was aware enough to realize I was missing perspectives. I.
That's a whole other story. But let's. You mentioned this a little bit before, but I want you to dig a little deeper on this. In your book, you talk about the rational mind and the relational mind and, and why you need both. Can we talk about what can leaders do right away if they realize their team is missing a key perspective?
[00:28:09] Speaker C: So the rational people are the, the spades and the clubs, Very logical, very structured.
And the relational of the hearts and diamonds. They're about connecting the dots. They're about connecting people, connecting ideas, connecting experiences. So when we think of creative people, they tend to be more on that relational side. When we think of typical business people, they tend to be more on the rational side.
And what we know is an organization can survive with one or the other for a period of time.
So I was working with a client, for example. It was a big company.
We played personality poker. This was a division that was performing terribly, like so bad that the parent company was debating whether or not they were going to even keep this company around.
And when we played personality poker, as it turns out, the two co leaders, I always joke, if the leader of your organization is a red, that relational card, the business may end up in the red.
And in this case, both co leaders had five red cards. There was no structure, no rationality, no logic to the way they worked. It was always around people, ideas and experiences. And so all we had to do was take somebody with black cards, bring them onto the leadership team, give them some training so they would appreciate each other and not drive themselves crazy. And within six months, they turned the group around.
So if you look at your leadership team, do you have primarily rational people or relational people? Most leadership teams are very rational.
How do you bring more relational people, those idea people, those people, people, onto your leadership team and give them an equal voice. That's the only way to grow a business.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: What's a question leaders should start asking their team that would improve innovative thinking immediately?
[00:30:00] Speaker C: So this is actually from a different book, but I think it's a really important concept to me. The key, I'll just say I think the main role of a leader is not to have answers, but is actually to ask questions. That gets everyone else inside the organization to ask better questions. Because when you have an organization that's asking better questions, you're now challenging the status quo.
And so I think that's really the key thing for a leader, is to have people ask better questions. And the one question I would have them think about is, what problem or opportunity are we really solving?
[00:30:37] Speaker B: What problem or opportunity are we really solving?
[00:30:40] Speaker C: Okay, yeah, because if we. What ends up happening is we want answers. We always say, don't bring me problems, bring me solutions.
But if we're solving the wrong problem, if we're solving an unimportant problem, or if we haven't even solved it in a way that makes sense, we're wasting time, money, and energy. So sometimes the best thing we do is hit the pause button and say, okay, what's really going on here? What problem are we solving? Like, what do we really need to do now? Let's look at it from multiple perspectives. And only when we do that, and after we do that, can we start saying, okay, well, how do we find the solutions? How do we get to the answers? So it is really hitting that pause button very quickly and early in the process to make sure we're not wasting time, money, and energy.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: You know, it's kind of funny is I just had, like, an epiphany. I think I have a lot different way of thinking things than you do. You and I were in a mastermind group for a couple years. I think we've been. Gosh, Steve, it might be going on close to 20 years. Friends. I don't know. It's. It's certainly more than 10. And I'm different than you, but I've learned a lot from you, and you and I get along just fine. So it. It's. I think there's. I just kind of had an epiphany here today. Like, you're really making me think about things, and you're. You've got my mind kind of work. And the next time I go into a meeting about looking at things differently and. And I almost think a lot of this can be alleved by the leader being the last person to talk. Like, let. Let others in the room talk first and do some of this. Is. Is there a sign inside a company that would clearly show you're not playing with a full deck?
[00:32:15] Speaker C: I think the main sign is you're not growing. I think so. If we look at the lagging indicator it is growth.
[00:32:22] Speaker B: Right?
[00:32:22] Speaker C: But we need some leading indicators to be able to make sure we're not falling off of a cliff too quickly.
And so we can start looking at how are we doing in terms of delivering new ideas. Have we thought about new ideas? Have we delivered new concepts?
So there are a number of things we can start to measure, but at the end of the day, it really comes down to the numbers. I mean, it is innovation. People think of it as this creative endeavor. It's actually an analytical, logical process.
[00:32:50] Speaker B: In your book, you have a quote. I think it's towards the end, and it's my favorite thing that you said. And I wrote down the quote here, to be exact. And you said, as the world becomes more digital, our value lies in what makes us human.
There's a lot of talk right now about AI, and I'm very concerned about it. I think it is a great tool.
I think if you leverage it right, it can enable you to spend more time with your team, and it can enable you to spend more time with customers. But it's not everything.
And that's kind of the vibe I got from reading the book. Can you elaborate on that quote? And I'll say it one more time. As the world becomes more digital, our value lies in what makes us human.
What role does AI play in our success and failure? Steve?
[00:33:40] Speaker C: I think AI is incredibly important. It will take on a bigger role in our work.
But I think the challenge is when anyone can spin up a digital business in 15 minutes.
Anything digital is a commodity. Knowledge is a commodity. So what we need to do is recognize as an organization.
If we think our differentiator is anything digital, we're wrong.
Our only differentiator is the humanness that we have, whether it is something physical in nature or whether it is something that is about human beings.
And when we look at the suits, they really do link back to things that are critical in the world of AI. So, for example, the spades can't just be about knowledge, because there's an infinite amount of knowledge. But if spades are about asking better questions and how do we get the data to make sure we're asking AI to solve the right problem.
That becomes important, Discernment becomes important. AI gives us answers. But. But are they good?
Many cases they're not.
Yeah, right. There are. So how do we know?
So it becomes more important than ever. I think.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: It's funny. My wife has a car, it's a year old, and when it slows down, we both thought it was the brakes.
So I put the model of car into a. Into ChatGPT. And I described the issue and it came back and it said, it's the brakes.
And I'm reading through it and I'm like, all right, well, I guess that seems plausible.
I don't know, though. It could either be the brakes or the transmission. So I call a dealership, I asked for the service advisor, and I said, hey, I did something that's very dangerous. I entered the. The issue I'm having with the car in the chat GPT and the guy knows me and he's like, oh, no. What did it tell you? I bet it told you it's the brakes, right? Yep. It's not the brakes, it's the transmission. We know about it. Get it in here. We'll fix it. It's a software issue. We'll reprogram. But it just made me think, like, I read it and it was like, so convincing and it told me what to do. And here's what you should tell the dealer so that they know the exact problem and it wasn't right.
And I just say that because, like, I think we think the computer's always right and. And there's some danger in that. Like, I'm scared about young people and old people's critical thinking skills going by the wayside. Any thoughts on that?
[00:36:18] Speaker C: I think we have the opportunity to actually increase our critical thinking skills. So one of the things which I always do if I'm using AI and I get a response back is I always play sort of devil's advocate. I'm like, okay, how are they wrong?
And I really try to think for myself.
Where's the flaw in the thinking? And here's the really funny thing is if you go back to and say, I disagree, here's what I believe, it'll come back and say, oh, you're right, I was wrong.
[00:36:46] Speaker B: Well, I'm going to go do that and I'll let you know, because I am. I'm going to do that. Yeah.
[00:36:52] Speaker C: So I think it's actually, I was just chatting with a group of people that I know about. This is. I think this is actually an opportunity to increase our level of critical thinking because we now have more data points to challenge. I think the key is not accepting what we receive as the truth, but receiving it as a perspective. Just like when we're playing with a full deck.
You, let's say, Marty, you're a club and you're like, you know, you got these numbers mindset and you're process driven.
What you say isn't true. And what I say as a diamond isn't true.
It's probably something in between.
How do we find the truth in that? And I think that's really the beauty of all this.
[00:37:33] Speaker B: And how much better will you be with that perspective in everything? Not just even in business, just in personal relationships as well. We're getting ready to wrap it up here. I want to land the plane. If someone listening wanted to apply one idea from this conversation today, Steve, what should they do?
[00:37:50] Speaker C: I'll come back to something I said before because it's where I leave people when I do a personality poker speech to say, find yourself your ray. If you know who you are not, then what you need to do is find the person that complements you. And I want to be clear, that's compliment with an E, not an I.
We want people who complete us, not people who tell us our hair looks great.
[00:38:10] Speaker B: I get it.
That's a good distinction to make.
[00:38:14] Speaker C: And so if we do that and we value and appreciate, listen and empathize with that person, that's the first step. And then we scale that to the organization because once we realize that our organization isn't playing with a full deck, our meetings aren't playing with a full deck, our teams aren't playing with a full deck, when you scale that concept, you get a multiplier effect. But the key is to start with you as the individual, to really practice it and appreciate it, and then you can grow it from there.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: This has been a lot of fun. I love every time I talk to you. This is probably one of the best conversations, though, I've ever had with you because most of it's just kind of shooting the you know what. And I've really enjoyed listening to you today, Steve. Tell us where people can learn more about the book and your work.
[00:39:07] Speaker C: So if you want to learn more about me, you go to the innovationspeaker.com the book. You would go to fulldeckbook.com and if you want to learn about personality poker, it's personalitypoker.com I have a domain addiction, just so you know.
[00:39:24] Speaker B: Well, you're very organized. You've been a great friend to me. I love listening to you. And we're going to bring you on again for your wisdom. Okay?
[00:39:32] Speaker C: I love it. I would welcome it.
[00:39:34] Speaker B: Folks, we just listened to Steven Shapiro go out, check his book out. You're not playing with a full deck. It's out right now.
[00:39:40] Speaker C: It's.
[00:39:40] Speaker B: And that's going to do it for this week's edition of the Grow Show. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to the Grow show and if you can give it a rating or share a comment that helps more success minded landscape professionals find us. And if you really want to help us, take out your phone right now and forward this episode to someone on your team, a landscape pro, you know, maybe somebody that's completely different from you and see what they think. Thanks a lot for joining us on the Grow Show. We'll talk to you next week.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: Join Marty and the Grow Group team at Grunder Landscaping Co. This year we host GLC Field Trip events at our living Laboratory, Grender Landscaping Co. Where we show you how we operate and how you can too. This event features small groups so you get the one on one attention you need and features a full 27 hours on site at GLC where we dive deep into everything from operations to sales to administration.
Find more information and sign
[email protected] and do it quickly. These events sell out every year.
