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Alan Weiss, PhD, is a consultant, speaker, and author. Through his consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., he has worked with more than 500 leading organizations, including Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, The Federal Reserve, and the New York Times Corporation. Serving on boards of prestigious organizations like Trinity Repertory Company and Festival Ballet, he's also chaired the Newport International Film Festival. With a background in psychology, he's a renowned speaker, delivering keynotes at major conferences and teaching at esteemed universities. He is a prolific author with 60 books and 500 articles, including the bestselling Million Dollar Consulting. he's earned accolades and recognition. His latest book is Sentient Strategy: How to Create Market-Dominating Strategies in Turbulent Economies. He's inducted into the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame® and has received the National Speakers Association Council of Peers Award of Excellence. With a global reach and a legacy of influence, he's made a substantial impact.

 

In this episode, Jason and Alan discuss:

  • Leadership Insights from Alan Weiss
  • The Need for Continuous Innovation
  • The Power of Gratitude
  • Gratefulness and Minimizing Suffering
  • Creating Value Over Seeking Approval

Key Takeaways:

  • Decipher the nuances of effective leadership as interpreted by Alan Weiss
  • Realize the role gratitude plays in decreasing life's adversity
  • Understand the significant shift of focusing on value-addition over acceptance hunting
  • Dissect the contentious and troubled symptoms of the present state of the nation
  • Realize the joy of wealth and happiness derived from the potent act of giving

 

“Leaders need to have the courage of their talent and be fearless in their pursuit of success.”
-Alan Weiss

Connect with Alan Weiss:

 

Connect with Steve and Jason:

 

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Alan Weiss- Who and What Do You Want to Be?

Hello and welcome, everybody. This is the next episode of The Insight Interviews- Powered by REWIRE. I'm your host, Jason Abel, and I've got a special guest today. I think every time we say we've got a special guest and I'm excited, but when I did the research for this episode, I did get excited. I've got a guy here that has published over 60 books. He's consulted to some of the world's largest companies. And Alan, I don't know. I'm excited to talk to you today. Alan Weiss, welcome to the show.        

Thank you. Good to be here.

Got an opening question for you that we ask all of our guests, and you have no idea what I'm about to ask you. It probably doesn't have anything to do with coaching or consulting or anything, but our listenership is really into this idea of gratefulness. And so, I'm going to ask you today as we enter into our conversation, who or what are you particularly grateful for today?        

Well, I'm very grateful for we just celebrated our 55th wedding anniversary, my high school sweetheart and me, and we celebrate it every year in Nantucket, where we love to go. And I'm very grateful that through some miracle, a woman who lives six blocks away from me and I have forged this life together. So, I'm very grateful for that. I'm also very grateful for this country, for America, because it to this day, has opportunity such that exists nowhere else. For someone like me, who was born very poor, inner-city poor, to have made it to the extent I do, might be due to my talents and it might be due to support systems, but it is also largely due to the unfettered kind of opportunity that this country provides people. So, since those are the two things that immediately come to mind, they must be the most important.

That's absolutely right. Well, congratulations on 55 years. I know that having somebody supportive and somebody that you love by your side is hugely important in life, and it sounds like you've got that. So, congratulations on that. That's amazing. I do have to ask. Tell me just a little bit more about what you said about our country right now. And I guess every generation thinks this, but boy, it just seems like there's just so much divisiveness and all kinds of stuff going on in our country, but it's something that you thought of initially, and so just tell me a little bit more about that, if you don't mind.

Well, I think you hit the nail on the head in this regard. These are hardly the worst times we've ever had. Since 1776, we've been through a variety of great highs and horrible lows. You could talk about the Spanish American War, which we never should have waged. You could talk about Vietnam, which we never should have waged. I mean, I can go on and on, but the fact is that nobody pretended this country was perfect. We're dealing with social justice issues today, which we should be dealing with. The country is not perfect, has blemishes, what they call it, a stain on the ascusion they call it, which means your coat of arms is somehow despoiled.

That's right.

Fact is, you have to look at this in perspective and this too shall pass. And what we're seeing today with this divisiveness and with what I feel is a very poor response from both political parties. Very poor. This too shall pass. We really haven't had great states people here, probably since Franklin Roosevelt, but we've gone through those droughts before. I think there are only three great presidents. Anyhow, so I think that this is not mine. I don't take credit for this. I read this. I don't know who said it, but it's brilliant. And what they said, a politician looks at the next election and a statesman looks at the next generation. And if you look at climate, if you look at immigration, if you look at abortion, if you look at these terribly controversial issues, we're not looking at the next generation. These people are looking at their next election. And that’s the problem.
        


Yeah, yeah, okay. So again, one more question here, and then- I didn't know that the conversation come on, this is good, though, Alan. This is really good. I know people need this. Heck, I know I need this. And so, this idea, I think it does bleed over, and it segues into your work, because as far as I could tell, when I did my research on you, you do think way in advance. Like there's a chess game going on with the manner in which that you've run your professional life, and so, I think it relates to what you're saying right now about the country with statesmen thinking about generationally as opposed to a politician thinking about the next election. And so, if you could give advice, I know we're going to get into business leadership, but if you could give advice to the leaders of our country today, the politicians, what advice might that be?        
            

As you probably know, I advise and coach consultants and experts around the world. I have the strongest independent consulting brand in the world. And when my clients who are dealing with corporate clients come to me with a quandary, I say to them, what's in the client's best interest? That's the first question you ask. And so, to answer your question, I would tell these politicians, you start asking yourself: what's in your client's best interest?  And your clients are the citizens, the people of this country. And so, stop looking to your party, stop looking to yourself, and start looking at the people here who need help. And when I say they need help, it ranges from people who are destitute, people who are homeless, people who lack proper education and health benefits, to people who are let's call the middle class, who are trying harder and harder to make ends meet because confiscatory, taxes, prices rising and so forth. So, you can't help everyone every day, all the time, but you can ask yourself: what's in their best interest and stop worrying about being reelected.

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Okay, perfect. I will end it there. This has already been a really good intro. I would love for people to know. even though in your world you're big, you're very well known, there may be some of our listenership that doesn't know who Alan Weiss is. And so, would you just give us a minute on who the heck are you? Why are you even on a podcast like ours?

I'm going to read you something. This is on my desk and is a present from my wife. And it says, this is from the Gospel of Mark.   A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.

That's right.

And I look at this every single day that I'm sitting here. So, here's my story. I can't get arrested in most places, but if you're in the consulting expertise world and you don't know who I am, you're an amateur. You might not agree with me. I mean, you might think I'm full of crap. That's fine. I don't care. I'm not here to be liked. But outside of that, yeah, I'm known because I'm philanthropic and things like this, but basically, I was boarded Prudential Insurance. When I got out of undergraduate school, I was recruited by a consulting firm in Princeton, New Jersey. I spent eleven years there learning the business and had global responsibilities. Traveled the world. To this day, I have 4 million air miles. I went up to Providence in Rhode Island to become president of a consulting firm there. And the owner and I hated each other. And 15 months later I was fired - W. Clement Stone worth $400 million. So, we didn't agree with each other at all. So, he threw me out. And my wife said, what do you want to do? 1985. And I said, no moron will ever fire me again. I'm going out of my own. And she said to me, she put her finger in my chest, and she said, okay, but you better get serious. I said, that's a deal. So, we had very little money. We had two kids in private school. And I was like well, I'll make it up in the future. So, I went out and I bought, now in 85, I bought a $2,000 suit. I traveled first class, I got limos. And my wife said, Are you crazy? I said, no. One sale will take care of all this. Cannot walk into a buyer's office, an executive's office, late or rumpled or sweaty or worried. And sure enough, I got my first big sale at Merck, which became a client for twelve years. And you let Packard for ten. And so on and on it went. And don't kid yourself. Anybody listening here, executives, buyers, not HR people, buyers- they make decisions based on peer to peer reference, just like you and I would ask each other, since we respect each other, where's a good vacation spot? I need a good dentist, I need a good realtor, and so forth. They do not go on the internet. They do not look at advertisements. It's not social media. They ask peers whom they respect. And so, once you're in that system, on that radar, it's like a chain reaction. And today, in fact, I have a trademark phrase the reaction of chain reaction. And so consequently, I built my business. Built my business. And then, my fourth book was Million Dollar Consulting. Today, it’s in its 30th year and 6th edition. I've written more books on consulting than anyone ever, but that was my fourth book. And people started asking me for free advice on consulting. For four years, I gave free advice working with organizations. My wife said, you're spending a lot of time on this. I said, I'm going to charge, and she said, what are you going to charge people? I said, $3,500 to be mentored. And she said, what research did you do to get $3,500? I said, It's the monthly lease on my Ferrari, and if I get twelve people, I'll pay for the car for a year. Well, I got a lot more than twelve people. And so, I migrated from the corporate world, what I call wholesale, to the individual world, which I call retail. And man, did that change the game. Much less travel, much less dealing with politics and all that kind of garbage, and the ability to help people where I could see results instantly. They'd talk to me about a meeting. The next day they'd go to a meeting, bang, they close the sale. And in the mid ninety s, I introduced value-based fees for consulting. And today, I have the strongest independent brand in the world, because what we look on now as Disruption and Volatility, which, by the way, would make a great name for a law firm. Disruption and volatility personal injury attorneys. These are really offensive weapons, and we don't understand that sufficiently. They are not offensive weapons. And so, if you look at Amazon and Apple and Dyson and FedEx, yada yada yada, these people all disrupted their industries, and that's why they're on top.

Yes, okay, you said a lot there. Thank you. That gives us a lot about who you are, where you came from, and I don't know, I have 18 questions based on even just your one statement about I'm not here to be liked. So, I hear that right now, knowing where you came from, what you're up to these days, what do you want leaders to know? You're a guy that speaks to some of the top leaders around the world. What is it that you want leaders to know right now?        
            

One of my books came out a couple of years ago. It was called Fearless Leadership. And I tell individuals, you need to have the courage of your talent. And leaders are too afraid right now. They're not sufficiently trustworthy, trusting of their own judgment. And so look what you have. You have people who work in offices, people who work at home. You have hybrids who do both. You have social justice demands. You have profound demographic change right now in the west especially, and in China, for example, Japan, fertility is being outpaced by morbidity. This portends tremendous change. So, either you have to allow immigration replace labor at all levels, or you'd better get your technology and AI in shape because you're not going to have enough people anymore. And so, if leaders look at these changing things like economy, demographics, social justice, technology and so forth, you've got to be able to accommodate this. Two years ago, I invented a new strategic process called Sentient strategy, because Peter Drucker was my hero. But he developed strategy at GM with Sloan 70 years ago. And it occurred to me one day, you can no longer take two months to create a strategy that looks at ten years. It's an exercise in futility, right? The Sentient strategy takes one day to look out one year. That's what we have to get used to.        

Okay, thank you. That's a great segue into your latest book, Sentient Strategy. And so, tell me, you gave me the one day, one year deal, but dig into the big idea of the book and exactly what you want leaders to know today with that time frame in mind.

The Sentient strategy looks at two axes. One is the impact of your actions in the environment, and the other is the consciousness of the impact of those actions. And when I say environment, I'm not talking about green. I'm talking about being a corporate citizen and so forth. So consequently, you have to determine who and what you want to be a year from now. Not what you want to be doing. Those are tasks. Those are tactics, but who and what you want to be. So, I've turned the strategic process on its head a little bit. In other words, we hear value, vision, mission all the time. It's like a mantra. My feeling is that mission is the important thing because it's the raise on debt. That's why you're here. I say to Merck, why are you here? They say, we bring the greatest and scientific research against the greatest areas of human health need, period. So, if you want to work for Merck, that's what it is. That's what you’re doing. So, you've got a raise on debt. Your vision, therefore, is looking a year out approximately. Is the justification of that raise on debt? Or in other words, is our vision a fulfillment of why we are here? And going back to your point about leaders, the first thing to know is why you're here, not what you're doing, and God forbid, how you're doing it. In a lot of the strategy sessions I've led over my career, they immediately devolve into how. My wife and I have done a lot of nonprofit work, and you'll be in front of a nonprofit board, and you'll be talking about a strategic issue, like, we've got to fund the next year, and so forth. And somebody will say, well, we need a fundraiser. And then the next person will say, well, should we serve chicken or veal? I mean, it devolves tactics.

Sure.        

And so, I got to yank people back up. I said, we're not talking how - you talk how I'm going to shut you up. We're only talking what, and then we're talking why. So, I think that's the key to my approach to strategy, and by accident, I arranged it so it could be done virtually.  This is pre pandemic, but you can bring your key people together virtually. You can spend two half days on this, and it's based on accountability.

                                                                                                     
"No strategy fails in its formulation. Strategy fails in implementation. Formulation is perfect."        


And so, my approach is based on accountability. You assign accountabilities for making the transition to implementation, and you hold people's feet to the fire.


There's a lot there, Alan, and I want to dig into the weeds a little bit on there. So, you say, I think of this analogy of be versus do when I hear you say things like, hey, in a big strategy meeting, it devolves into how. I think I know what you mean, but I want to tease that out a little bit more, because I see this also with leaders where there's details that want to be talked about. I think of, like, six minutes ABS, as opposed to you want to be a person who's strong and healthy. Right? That's what I think about when I hear you say people devolve into the how. And so, I think of Simon Sinek. He talks about finding your why. I think it's the same idea as what you're talking about, but, boy, it's a lot easier to say in sound bites like you and I are doing right now than it is actually implementing it. And so, I'd love for you to, I don't know, I just want to hear more about what you have to say on that topic.


Well, the tactical reason is that it's immediate gratification. And so, when you talk about how, you're talking about something you can do tomorrow. But there's an existential problem here. And the existential problem is this: one of the things that leaders are lacking and one of the things that most people are lacking today, because I believe our educational system at the primary and secondary level is failing because it's based on a 900-year-old model, the existential problem is a lack of critical thinking skills. And so, this simple notion of separating what from how goes beyond most people. They don't know what it means because they think their life is about task. They think their life is about input rather than output. And so the colloquial example of this is that nobody needs a drill, they need a hole. You didn't need a hole, you'd never buy a drill. So, what it kills me is that you see drills in the stores, and they're sort of modernistic and they're shaped nice.

Yeah, they're beautiful.        

I'm not putting your damn drill on a shelf in my living room. I need a hole. No, just give me something makes a hole. So, there's this existential issue of critical thinking skills, and I have to slap people around, metaphorically speaking, to get them to understand that difference. I mean, I have to shake their shoulders and get them to understand the difference. And that happens at all levels. And the tropism here, the natural movement, is toward how, because it's so much more immediate rewarding. I give you a quick example from the business world. I don't think you'll ever hear an executive sitting down with a subordinate at senior level and saying, listen, you had a great quarter, I'm proud of you, you had a wonderful quarter. Big bonus. Now you didn't meet a lot of your strategic goals, so we're going to have to punish you because of that. That's never in the conversation. The conversation is how'd you do last quarter?

That's right, yes. The hole, not the drill. Understood. Understood. So, your book, you've given us the big idea about it. Give a few tidbits or even I took a look at your website for the book. I know you've got some stories in there. What's maybe one or two stories that illustrate the big idea of the book?

Well, I can't name names, but I'll give an example. When I was working with a very large Fortune 500 company headquartered in New York, the CEO was obscene. He was profane and he was ruthless on his top circle. At one point, he threw the CFO out of the room and said, look, you're only here string of invectives to provide these numbers. Don't come back till you get them, and so forth. And so, I'm going down in the elevator after this with the president of the consulting firm, and I said, why would people take that? And he said, because they're weak people. Who else would work for this guy?

                                                                                           
"He said, strong people are surrounded by strong people because they won't tolerate weak people. But weak people surround themselves with other weak people."


That's right.        
            

And what I try to do in this book is I try to provide a means for telling whether you've got strong or weak people by the kinds of contributions they make. So, for example, I have a litmus test in there and the litmus test says, if these are your key strategic factors, how do they stand up against disruption and volatility and speed and innovation? I'll tell you one more thing. I make this point in the book. I make this point in a lot, a great deal of my writing, and that is that we achieve success and we get on these plateaus and we bend our arm out of shape, patting ourselves on the back. Look where I am.

That's right.

Organizations and individuals. The trouble is all plateaus because of the laws of entropy, erode, and eventually it declines. And the only people I've ever seen coasting are coasting downhill. You cannot coast uphill.

That's right.

So, what's involved in growth? Okay? If you extrapolate this, you get off the plateau. You need growth. And to get growth, you need one thing. You need innovation. And the leading organizations and the leading people in the world are constantly innovating. And that's an extraordinarily important facet for any organization, any person.        
            

If someone feels like maybe they heard what you just said there, and they know in their soul and their heart, like, I'm not innovating, I'm not innovating, what's the first thing that they can do to get themselves out of that trap?

Great question. There are three kinds of innovation. I like to boil things down. Clarity. I mean, consulting is about clarity, not complexity.

That's right.

One is opportunism. So, there was a Dunkin Donuts here near me. One day, its power goes out. Not the town, just its power. But of course, people don't know that, and they go in to get their coffee. Guy drives in with a canteen truck, the kind of truck that goes to plants and things. It's filled with coffee and pastries, because he learned that they're down. He goes into the parking lot. So, people park anyway because they got a parking lot. They want their coffee. He's cleaned out in 45 minutes. Does this entire day. That's Opportunism. Now he can't go back the next day. Powers on, back in business.    
    

That's right.

Second kind of innovation is conformist innovation. And that means you take something that's good and you make it better. And that's Uber. And so, Uber is a glorified taxi service.

Sure.

They've got ride hailing. They've got - I mean, I think one of the greatest inventions of my lifetime is the fact you could schedule Uber in advance, right? London, Paris, Brisbane. Doesn't matter where I am. I need you here at 05:00. They're there at 05:00.

That's wonderful. That's right.        

The cars are clean, the drivers are bonded, the whole business. So that's conformist innovation. They made a better taxi. Non-conformist innovation is the third kind of innovation. And that's Amazon. Amazon started as a bookseller.

I remember.

And then Bezos says, wait a minute. It's not about the product. It's about the distribution system. And bang. Look where they are today. I mean, it's astounding. I got two dogs outside my door here, right? He was thinking about making deliveries of food because he bought best foods or something, making deliveries by drone. I want to see these. It's only a matter of time before the dogs realize the drones carrying food. This thing's going to be shot out of the sky by dog biscuits or something, right? But what an example of nonconformist innovation. It's brilliant.

Yeah. Okay, so that's how. Is there a particular project that you're working on right now that you're particularly excited about? Like what excites you these days? What’s coming up on the horizon that you're excited about?

Well, I continue to write books. I've got another project in the works I can't talk about yet because the contract is not signed, but my books have moved from strictly Consulting quite a few years ago to things like Fearless Leadership and Your Legacy Is Now and Sentient Strategy and things like that. But what's excited me in the last couple of years is that I wanted people who can't afford my help directly, they can't afford even to attend my remote sessions, they can't afford my live sessions, they've been buying books, but nobody ever read a book to learn how to ski. And so, I designed an online program for $115 with, I don't know, 15 modules, whatever it is, and the videos are of me. The videos are of people in my community, their peers. There's text, there's audio, there's all kinds of things. So, for $115, you get that- you can watch it as often as you want in any order you want. You keep it.

And what are the results of that?        

The results are that people who are struggling to build consulting and professional services practices, let's just say they get nervous in the buyer's office, they don't know what to say next. Well, there's a video that says in the buyer's office. They watch that before they go in. Now they're prepared. They're not quite sure how to put their proposal together. There's a video on value-based fees and proposals, and so now they can get four or five times what they thought they could get. So that became so popular, 45, 47 countries, so popular that I put together an advanced program, another 15 modules. But this is more sophisticated kinds of things, and I'm proud of that, and I'm happy of it because I didn't want to put all my intellectual property out there for free. I wanted people to have some skin in the game. $115. It's not so bad. To my surprise, I'm constantly surprised at how stupid I was two weeks ago, right?

We all are. Yeah. Our brains know for sure and certain that we're right today, but when you look at yesterday, you go, damn, what was I thinking?

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Yeah, that's right. Not only have people in 47 countries done this, but a lot of veterans- I see their names, who have been through my programs, and purchased the series. So, I'm happy that's filling such an important part of people's development.        
            

Yeah, well, thank you. What's that program called? There's going to be people that are - and we'll put it in the show notes, but what's that program called?

It's called the Global Program Million Dollar Consulting for the World. And there's an elementary program and an advanced program.

Okay. On your site, you've got all kinds of free stuff as well. So, I know you just I don't want to say you plugged that. You didn't plug it. I asked you a specific question, but I know on your website you have all kinds of stuff that people don't have to pay $115 for. How does that happen? What do people do, and what benefit would they have from taking advantage of some of that?        
            

Well, you go to Alanweiss.com, and you'll find free text articles, you'll find videos, you'll find audio, you'll find all kinds of things. I have three or four newsletters that go out weekly or monthly. I have a daily video called A Minute with Alan. I have a monthly video called The Writing on the Wall. And I'm very proud of all this stuff. Now, I blog every single day. I'm on social media every day on Twitter, for example. But I'm very proud of my podcast series called The Uncomfortable Truth. And again, that's free. And not only do I do this, but about every other week, I have a thought leader on it, an environmentalist, a business executive, a college president, an author like Dan Pink or Jonah Berger, and I interview them, I converse with them, really. It's a conversation for about a half an hour. And this has been very well received. And all this is free.

Okay, perfect. This has been a wide-ranging conversation. It's kind of been rapid fire, and I have a feeling a lot of your conversations are like that. But first of all, thank you for all of that. And lastly, anything that I haven't asked you that you would like our audience to be aware of or to know, or any last thoughts for us today, Alan?

Well, I always have trouble with the question, what haven't I asked you that I should have? So, I'm kind of prepared for it. I would just say this to your audience. You talked about gratefulness, I believe, at the beginning here.

That's right.

I believe that we should all be grateful for what we have. And I'd like to make two subsets of that, if I may. One thing is that pain is inevitable in life, but suffering is voluntary. And so various religions, the Christians usually use awake or a viewing. The Jews use sitting shiva. I mean, I'm not familiar with other religions do. So, there's a time to mourn, a time to grieve, but suffering we can control, and we have to minimize it as much as possible. We can't let it rule our lives. I think the second thing I'd like to convey is this. We have no more right to consume wealth and happiness unless we produce wealth and happiness. So that has to be a two-way street. And if we're doing that, we're helping others, and we're doing well.        

Thank you so brother. So, so good. I hope we have the opportunity where our paths cross again. On those two notes, I appreciate your preparation for that question, and I think that's a great place to end it. So, Alan Weiss. Thank you very much. We will direct people to you for all the free stuff, and thanks for your wisdom today, my friend.

Well, thanks for having me here. I really enjoyed it, and I appreciate your putting up with my rapid fire.

Good stuff, Alan. Thank you. Boy, were there a lot of different things that Alan said that Gosh made me just have insights. Here are some of mine. I mean, the very first thing that he thought of when I asked him what he was grateful for was his wife for 55 years. And then he gave very tangible examples of that. I thought that that was just amazing when he said, I'm not here to be liked. How many of us are here to be liked, as opposed to just adding value? And so that just struck me there. When he talked about this too shall pass, all of the things that are going on in our country today and the divisiveness and whatever, he kind of waved it away with this, hey, this too shall pass, and I just thought that was refreshing. And this thing about what he said about leaders need to have the courage in their talents, that seems to be the antidote, to me. That's the antidote to people that have the impostor syndrome. And I know that myself included, I run across so many leaders that suffer from impostor syndrome from time to time, and there's just this idea that we wouldn't be in the situation that we're in leading people through the time and the situation that we are, if we weren't meant to be there. So why don't we just have courage in that? So that was an insight for me. And then that last point of pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice. What a great way to end the podcast. That was just a great reminder for me and something that I'll be pondering today. But as we end every episode, The Insight Interviews- Powered by REWIRE, it doesn't much matter what me as the host, what my insights were, but what really matters, dear guests, are what were your insights?        

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