Shownotes:
What do we do when life gets foggy?
In part two of this conversation with Jim Collins, we pick up right where we left off and explore the bug book, simplex stepping, luck versus return on luck, and why not all time in life is equal.
We also talk about retirement as a cliff, the power of Who Luck, and what Jim would add to Good to Great after writing What to Make of a Life.
If you haven’t listened to part one, I recommend starting there, but you are also welcome to jump in right here.
As Jim says, What to Make of a Life is “not a self-help book. It’s a self-knowledge book.”
Thrive Global Article: Jim Collins on What to Make of a Life
About Our Guest:
Jim Collins has published multiple international bestsellers that have sold in total more than eleven million copies worldwide, including the perennial favorite Good to Great. His writings and teachings are based on extensive research projects designed to uncover timeless principles of human endeavor and have had a lasting impact across all sectors of society. All of Jim’s books share a common thread: the study of people and how they navigate the big questions of leadership and life. You can learn more at www.jimcollins.com.
About Lainie:
Lainie Rowell is a bestselling author, award-winning educator, and TEDx speaker. She is dedicated to human flourishing, focusing on community building, emotional intelligence, and honoring what makes each of us unique and dynamic through learner-driven design. She earned her degree in psychology and went on to earn both a post-graduate credential and a master's degree in education. An international keynote speaker, Lainie has presented in 41 states as well as in dozens of countries across 4 continents. As a consultant, Lainie’s client list ranges from Fortune 100 companies like Apple and Google to school districts and independent schools. Learn more at linktr.ee/lainierowell.
Website - LainieRowell.com
Instagram - @LainieRowell
LinkedIn - @LainieRowell
X/Twitter - @LainieRowell
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Transcript:
Transcripts may contain a few typos, so I appreciate your grace in advance!
[00:00:00] Jim Collins: Often in the wake of a cliff, you can be really lost, confused, disoriented, uncertain, reeling, right? You can, you can really feel lost for certain times. And in the wake of a cliff, you can feel the fog often rolled in very, very thick, but there are other types of fog, fog of youth we've talked about.
[00:00:19] But there can be like the fog of disappointment. The fog of grief, the fog of retirement. The fog of success, right? There's these different permutations of fog. And what I, what I came to, first of all, just a great sense of compassion for people going through the fog. Mm-hmm. Because I think sometimes you'd almost wanna judge people, why are you so confused? But actually you're supposed to be in the fog at some point. It's an artifact of living. It's not a defect. It's simply is gonna happen. But then the question is, how did they get out of the fog?
[00:00:50] Welcome to the Evolving With Gratitude podcast. I'm your host, Lainie Rowell. I'm an author and speaker, and I'm here to help you optimize happiness, [00:01:00] relationships, and performance.
[00:01:02] Hello, friend. What do we do when life gets foggy? More on that soon, but for now, welcome to part two of our conversation with Jim Collins, author of multiple international bestsellers, including Good to Great, with more than 11 million copies sold worldwide. Jim has described himself as reclusive by temperament and naturally selective with his time, which makes this conversation such an extraordinary honor.
[00:01:31] If you haven't listened to part one, I recommend starting there. We talk about his new book, What to Make of a Life, the decade of research behind it, encodings, getting in frame, and the cost of doing what you love. But you're also welcome to jump in right here.
[00:01:46] Let's get to it
[00:01:48] Lainie Rowell: I'm curious if it would be a good time to talk about the bug book.
[00:01:51] Jim Collins: Oh, yes. The bug book.
[00:01:53] Lainie Rowell: Because I do feel like this is a very practical way Yeah.
[00:01:56] Yes. That you have figured out. Yeah. Is the stress and [00:02:00] drudgery, I mean, do, do you make that? Am I making that connection outta nowhere or
[00:02:03] Jim Collins: connect? Yeah. So there's, so there's two parts. Let's break this into two parts with, with the bug book. One is how I use the bug book to get outta the fog of youth. Okay. And the second is that, we'll, after we chat about that, how I use an a, a, an evolved version of the bug book Yeah.
[00:02:19] To kind of manage the stress and drudgery tax and, and, uh, navigate my life today. So, uh, so first of all, the bug book, uh, when I was lost in the fog of youth in my twenties and trying to, well, I didn't have the language for it, but what I was doing was I was searching for my encodings and how I could be in frame.
[00:02:38] Now I could put language on that, but I was just kind of fumbling around through the fog of youth. And I had a wonderful teacher, uh, by the name of Rochelle Myers, who co-taught a course on, uh, on, on a variety of things, but it's called Creativity and Business at the Stanford Business School. And, and, uh, Rochelle said to me, she said, well, you should, you should study yourself like a bug. [00:03:00] And what, what she meant by that. So actually I got this, I got this, this, uh, lab notebook. You remember those lab notebooks we used to have with the little classic, like the
[00:03:07] Lainie Rowell: composition books? Like
[00:03:08] Jim Collins: black and white? Yeah. Like the composition books. You, you and you. And I just, I just, I wrote on the front of it, Jim and, uh, not that Jim owns the book, but the subject under study is Jim The Bug.
[00:03:22] Lainie Rowell: Yeah.
[00:03:22] Jim Collins: And the idea was that I would observe my, I wouldn't judge myself. That was the rule in the way Don't judge yourself. I would simply observe. How the bug gym behaves. So if you were like studying a bug in a Petri dish, you wouldn't be like, oh, that's a bad bug. 'cause it's got, you know, it should have eight legs.
[00:03:39] It's only got six. I mean, you, you, you wouldn't say that. You would just simply record. It has six legs.
[00:03:44] Lainie Rowell: Yeah.
[00:03:45] Jim Collins: And, uh, under these conditions, it does these things. Right. You would just observe. So I started carrying this bug book with me, and I'd be, I was working in a large company and I, I was not encoded to work inside a large company.
[00:03:57] And so there's a lot of bug book entries in [00:04:00] there about, uh, how frustrated I would be in meetings that went on too long and didn't accomplish anything. I'd be frustrated that people would wanna actually have traditional productivity at three in the afternoon and I'd want to take a nap because that's actually how I was encoded.
[00:04:16] I, I'm encoded a nap in the afternoon and whatever, and I'm just simply observing these things. And then, uh, through the use of the bug book and they go on, I still have the bug books. There was a moment when I was asked to, uh, make sense of the early days, this is way back in the eighties, of what was gonna become network computing and to share it with the rest of the team.
[00:04:38] And all of a sudden I noticed something clicked into frame, which is I had to take something big and complicated and seemingly amorphous, make sense of it, put it in a framework that I could share and teach that all the other people on my team in the division could understand.
[00:04:53] Lainie Rowell: Mm-hmm.
[00:04:54] Jim Collins: And that's when all of a sudden the frame shifted and I realized that there were these encodings of wanting to make sense [00:05:00] of the world and be able to.
[00:05:01] Package that understanding and then to be able to convey it.
[00:05:04] Lainie Rowell: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:05] Jim Collins: And that's what began to lead me to a series of steps that ultimately led to me teaching at Stanford, starting my research career, et cetera. It was the bug book and the self observations. Um, and so it's a fog of you thing. Let me, let me pause there because it, it obviously captured your interest I use it today to deal with the stress and drudgery attacks too.
[00:05:24] But, uh, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the bug book.
[00:05:27] Lainie Rowell: I just find it so fascinating. I'm gonna tell you, I, I have almost two dozen questions. That was not one of them, but I just, as you were talking about the stress and drudgery, it just like clicked for me. Like, oh my gosh. That was how, and I don't remember, maybe I'm just remembering from the book, if you connected those dots directly or if it just hit for me at that moment.
[00:05:45] But I do love that you found a way to observe That's right. And you, you, you operationalized this protocol and now you've, and now it's evolved and I really am excited for people to hear how it's evolved to like Yeah, [00:06:00] you, you use this every day, but it's
[00:06:01] Jim Collins: a different every single day.
[00:06:02] Lainie Rowell: Yeah.
[00:06:02] Jim Collins: Every day. And, and so first, for those who are in the, in the fog of youth, we were talking earlier, what I was doing, I didn't really, I wasn't
[00:06:11] so clear as I could be now about exactly why it was working. But what I was doing was I was, I was mapping that constellation, right? I was looking at which parts of the constellation had big stars and which didn't, and, and then moving my life in that direction. And the bug book was kind of my way of doing it.
[00:06:26] So today it's evolved to where every night I have a spreadsheet and I open up. And in that spreadsheet, there are three pieces of information that go in. One is kind of a diary entry of everything that was in the day, right? Mm-hmm. So I have a record of what was in the day. The second thing that goes in there is the number of creative hours I got that day because I track that to make sure I stay above a thousand creative hours every 365 days.
[00:06:50] So that's just a, a tracking of an important metric for me, of my own kind of 20 mile mark. But the third thing I put in every day is I put in a totally [00:07:00] subjective score plus two plus one, zero minus one minus two. And the idea being that plus two days. Those are just wonderful days. Those are the super positive days.
[00:07:11] They don't have to, I don't have to justify it as I know what a plus two is, right?
[00:07:15] Lainie Rowell: Yep.
[00:07:15] Jim Collins: And minus twos are the really negative days. And, and then by doing this systematically every day I can begin to see what are the elements of days that have a lot of minus one or minus two, or that have a lot of plus one or plus two.
[00:07:34] And then I can begin to make a series of iterative choices while I'm still gonna have minus one, minus two days.
[00:07:40] Lainie Rowell: Yeah.
[00:07:41] Jim Collins: Uh, I can begin to make choices to do more of the things that have the. Plus twos in them.
[00:07:47] Lainie Rowell: Mm-hmm.
[00:07:47] Jim Collins: And less of the things that have the minus twos, even though I'll always have some there.
[00:07:52] Lainie Rowell: Yeah.
[00:07:52] Jim Collins: And I, I track, uh, the total percentage of positive days to negative days. And if the negative days start [00:08:00] growing as a percentage in some significant way, then I start wrestling with the question of what needs to change to kind of bring those back down.
[00:08:08] Lainie Rowell: So as you notice these trends hopefully for the good, but if it, it is not, would you say that's your simplex stepping? Is
[00:08:15] Jim Collins: yes.
[00:08:15] Lainie Rowell: that when you start to do some simplex stepping? 'cause if you could tell people what that is.
[00:08:19] Jim Collins: Yeah. So I found, again, so, so there's so many things Lainie in this, in doing the research over the years that, for me were a great sense of relief. When I came across them in the research, there were some things that ended up quite challenging me as, as well, and lots of things that which I just didn't, uh, didn't see coming.
[00:08:38] Right? They were real surprises, often wonderful surprises, but one of them, so one of the surprises that ties to simplex stepping is that we've used this word fog and I was surprised to discover the extent to which there are episodes across these lives that were what I simply call fog.
[00:08:58] Yeah.
[00:08:58] Often in the wake of a cliff, you [00:09:00] can be really lost, confused, disoriented, uncertain, reeling, right. You can, you can really feel lost for certain times. And in the wake of a cliff, you can feel the fog often rolled in very, very thick, but there are other types of fog, fog of youth we've talked about.
[00:09:18] But there can be like the fog of disappointment. The fog of grief, the fog of retirement. The fog of success, right? There's these different permutations of fog. And what I, what I came to, first of all, just a great sense of compassion for people going through the fog. Mm-hmm. Because I think sometimes you'd almost wanna judge people can't, why are you so confused? But actually you're supposed to be in the fog at some point. There's, it's an artifact of living. It's not a defect. It's simply is gonna happen. But then the question is, how did they get out of the fog?
[00:09:50] Lainie Rowell: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:51] Jim Collins: And that was the simplex stepping piece where, so suppose you're lost in the fog and you're just, you're just kind of wandering or [00:10:00] you, you don't know what to do.
[00:10:00] Maybe you're reeling from a cliff, maybe you're in the fog of youth, maybe you have retired and, and you still got all this energy and don't know what to do with it. But there's all these different permutations, but you're in the fog. And one approach would be, I'm just gonna sit and contemplate, but that didn't seem to be what they did.
[00:10:17] Or I'm just gonna make a bold plan to get outta the fog. But that can just throw you over another cliff because if you can't see and you go leaping off into space hoping you're going to land, you might just be jumping off another cliff. Why? 'cause you're in the fog and you can't see. And so what they did instead was, imagine you can only see two or three feet in front of you and all you do is you look around and say, I don't really know where I'm going.
[00:10:39] That that, that was one of the interesting things is they often didn't know. It's not that. It's not that they knew where they were going and it was just a bit foggy when they were really in the fog. They didn't know where they were going. They really didn't know. And so then, okay, so I don't know where I'm going.
[00:10:55] All I'm gonna do is look around at the possible steps that are right in front of me. [00:11:00] I'm just gonna take a single step. Yeah. And then I'm gonna reset. I'm gonna look around again. Oh, okay. Now that I'm here, this looks like the best next step. And then I'm gonna look around again and, well, this looks like the next best step.
[00:11:12] And that iterative sort of step by step by step movement as they move through that the fog would begin to clear. They be getting clues as to what might be on the other side of the fog. And that pattern of a small iterative series of steps through the fog was really the way that they initially started to get through.
[00:11:34] And they stayed with it until the fog began to lift, and then they, then they might make some really big moves once they were clear. But you could be in that simplex stepping for years.
[00:11:44] Lainie Rowell: That was another thing that kind of gave me relief, reduced stress. Mm-hmm. Is like, okay, this could be something that is gonna take a while.
[00:11:52] And I think,
[00:11:52] Jim Collins: mm-hmm.
[00:11:53] Lainie Rowell: As, as a not patient person mm-hmm. As someone who. I love to be in control.
[00:11:59] Jim Collins: Yeah.
[00:11:59] Lainie Rowell: To, [00:12:00] to, to release yourself of that and to have clarity. An easy thing to do it. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:12:04] Jim Collins: Yeah. I, I, I think that's, that what's so striking to me is there were times in their lives when they were in a phase of great clarity and they were, I mean, once they were clear, they were moving.
[00:12:15] Yeah. So when Katharine Graham finally stepped outta the fog, it took her a number of years that she's a primary case in the simplex stepping chapter. Once she was clear, I really am gonna be CEO of this company, fully own that, and I'm responsible, and this is really, I'm really well, well constructive for this.
[00:12:36] Then she was just on her way. Right. Just bam. Up until that point, there's a series of small steps. And that took about seven years as I, at least based the way it looked to me on the research. She didn't have it figured out after a single year. Mm-hmm. And so to be able to give yourself a little bit of realizing like, I don't have to have the answer right away.
[00:12:57] There are times when I'm gonna be really clear and I'm gonna be [00:13:00] moving in a really bold and direct way.
[00:13:03] Lainie Rowell: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:03] Jim Collins: And there are gonna be times when I'm really unclear and I'm gonna be simple stepping through the fog.
[00:13:10] Lainie Rowell: I dunno why it popped to mind, but I know at some point you said the word retirement and I know you've said you have more energy now than you did in your thirties, and
[00:13:18] Jim Collins: I do. Yep.
[00:13:19] Lainie Rowell: And
[00:13:19] Jim Collins: I'm,
[00:13:19] Lainie Rowell: and it,
[00:13:20] Jim Collins: I'm 68 and I have more energy than when I was 38. I can't totally explain it, but it's true.
[00:13:25] Lainie Rowell: But we feel it. We feel it. And I wonder if over over maybe this research, or even before that, if you're just over your life, your, your ideas about retirement have evolved.
[00:13:37] Because there are some cultures where retirement's not actually a thing. Mm-hmm. Uh, we, we happen to live in this culture where it's like, well, you're gonna hit a certain age and then you're gonna be playing golf all day, or you're gonna be knitting, or you're be doing mm-hmm. Some of these things, but I don't really.
[00:13:53] Feel like that's the best, healthiest move necessarily. Um, I know that there are gonna be things like you've talked about with the NFL players. [00:14:00] Yeah. There will come times where you're not gonna get a choice and you will be told for this chapter of your life, for this thing that you're doing, you are gonna retire from it.
[00:14:08] Mm-hmm. But it doesn't mean retire. So I just, I don't know, I didn't even have this on there, but you mentioned the word retirement at some point. It made me think like, has your, has your thinking there evolved?
[00:14:17] Jim Collins: So, uh, I, my own thinking has evolved. I'll put it this way. I think the book will evolve a lot of other people's thinking about it.
[00:14:26] Yeah. For me, I've always been somebody who, I think once I really came into frame, I realized I would be, I'm just gonna go until. I can't go anymore. I'm too curious. Right. Yeah. And I'm too interested in what I'm doing, and I, I still, I'm willing to pay this stress and drudgery tax to continue to do what I love to do.
[00:14:45] I don't ever have to work again. My life has been very fortunate, started out in a very difficult place, and then I had a lot of really good things go my way. Some bad things too. But basically I, I keep going because I never want [00:15:00] to stop. Right? But then I thought, well, maybe I'm just an, a really unusual bug with that.
[00:15:06] But then through the lens of this study, I began to see it really differently across a wider swath of people.
[00:15:11] Lainie Rowell: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:12] Jim Collins: And what I really came to see is, first of all, to accept that retirement is a cliff. So once you understand that retirement's a cliff, it is the end of life as you knew it before. Mm-hmm.
[00:15:28] So by that definition, it's a cliff.
[00:15:31] Lainie Rowell: Yeah.
[00:15:31] Jim Collins: And it can be a really murky, difficult cliff. And one of the things we know from the research is that some of our best, most creative things that we can do in our entire lives happen well past the midpoint happen for the people in our study. Some of their most remarkable things in life were, and creative things, impactful things.
[00:15:50] Breakthrough things were in their fifties or sixties or seventies, sometimes even eighties or nineties. Mm-hmm. And so if all of a sudden you retire at say, [00:16:00] 60, but actually your best, most creative stuff is yet to come. Yeah. Well, you got a real problem. How do you think about that? What happens if you retire just as you're finally starting to get really good at what you do?
[00:16:14] And, and so, uh, what, when you accept that retirement is a cliff, the, you change the question, not from what do I do in retirement?
[00:16:24] Lainie Rowell: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:25] Jim Collins: But to a different question, which is, how do I come into frame again with maybe a new definition of what it means to be in frame and what new responsibilities do I want to choose with my life that will feed my fire and that will have me in frame.
[00:16:54] They just may be a different answer to the question. Just as the NFL players faced [00:17:00] it earlier, it's still the same question. What's the next version of being in frame?
[00:17:07] Lainie Rowell: Yeah.
[00:17:07] Jim Collins: And you may answer it in a different way than you did pre-retirement. The part that the debilitating definition of retirement is the one where you never get back in frame again.
[00:17:18] You just retire.
[00:17:21] Lainie Rowell: Yeah. Oh, okay. That's, that's really helpful. I love that. So, I'd like to get to, I wanna make sure there's some that I just can't not ask you. Yeah. Um, could we talk about the difference between luck and return on luck? Mm-hmm. I don't have a great segue for this.
[00:17:36] Jim Collins: Yeah.
[00:17:36] Lainie Rowell: But I do think it's something that I, I, I just find it very interesting the idea
[00:17:41] video1214518749: mm-hmm.
[00:17:41] Lainie Rowell: Of what do we do when. The good things come our way.
[00:17:46] Jim Collins: Yeah.
[00:17:46] Lainie Rowell: So
[00:17:47] Jim Collins: Or the bad things.
[00:17:48] Lainie Rowell: Well. Or the bad things. Yes. Yes. E,
[00:17:50] Jim Collins: e, e. Exactly. So, so my colleague, uh, Morton, Hansen and I back on an earlier piece of work called Great by Choice. Morton was a great [00:18:00] collaborator and we were able to study the variable of luck.
[00:18:05] And we were doing it in the context of companies At that time, we were studying entrepreneurs that built some of the great successful startups of the second half of the 20th century in very, very turbulent environments, in contrast to others that started in the same place and didn't build a successful companies.
[00:18:20] And one of the questions we said was, wait, how much of this is just luck?
[00:18:24] Lainie Rowell: Yeah.
[00:18:25] Jim Collins: And, and so Morton, being a tremendous methodologist said, well, if we can define luck as an event, then we can actually study. The, the, the luck events and ask the question, which is, were those big winners luckier than the others?
[00:18:41] Lainie Rowell: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:41] Jim Collins: Because we could count them. And so a luck event, a luck as opposed to a return on luck. A luck event is any event that makes three tests. One, you didn't cause it. Two, it has a potentially significant consequence, good or bad.
[00:18:57] Lainie Rowell: Yeah.
[00:18:57] Jim Collins: And three, in some form it [00:19:00] came as a surprise. Either that had happened or when it happened, or what form it took.
[00:19:06] Right. And it can be bad luck, it can be good luck, but that's a luck event.
[00:19:10] Lainie Rowell: Yeah.
[00:19:11] Jim Collins: And so then, uh, what we discovered in that research is that the big winners were actually not luckier. They didn't have more good luck, less bad luck, better timing of luck, bigger spikes of luck. What happened was when they got their luck events.
[00:19:27] They made more of the same luck events.
[00:19:30] Lainie Rowell: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:31] Jim Collins: And so, uh, and it was the return on the luck that made the difference. So when the luck event came, they recognized it and said, this is not all time in life is equal. This is a time to grab that luck event and make more of it.
[00:19:51] Lainie Rowell: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:52] Jim Collins: And it's that return in the, in the distortion time, the not all time in life is equal time.
[00:19:59] When you grab [00:20:00] that luck event and make the most of it, you kind of respond to with 10 x intensity.
[00:20:05] Lainie Rowell: Yeah.
[00:20:05] Jim Collins: In the Wake of the Luck event, that's what produces the return on luck.
[00:20:11] Lainie Rowell: You mentioned not all time in life is equal. Mm-hmm. The N.A.T.I.L.I.E.. Yeah. And could you just talk a little bit more about that?
[00:20:19] Jim Collins: Yeah,
[00:20:20] Lainie Rowell: yeah. Yeah.
[00:20:21] Jim Collins: So there's, so there's, I've got some wonderful examples of that in the book, but maybe one of the best ways from people in this study, 'cause there's lots of them, right? That they come like, you just realize, but I'll, I'll use a, a personal version of this because it was so profound for me.
[00:20:35] There's three different types of luck, right? There's What Luck.
[00:20:39] Lainie Rowell: Mm-hmm.
[00:20:40] Jim Collins: Um, if I get a cancer diagnosis, that's bad luck. But it's a What Luck. Good luck can be, you know, something just positive happens that you didn't cause and it helps your life. There's Who Luck, which are the luck of coming across a wonderful person who really plays a role in your life.
[00:20:56] Lainie Rowell: Mm-hmm.
[00:20:57] Jim Collins: Mentor, teacher, maybe you got great who luck with [00:21:00] your parents, whatever. And then the third is Zeit Luck. That just, uh, something you're doing just happens to intersect with the zeitgeist at the time. So those are the three kinds of luck. Now, in my own case, I had, What Luck and Who Luck that led to this N.A.T.I.L.I.E.. moment when I was coming outta the Fog of Youth.
[00:21:20] The Who Luck was a great mentor by the name of Bill Lazier, who was the closest thing to a father I ever had. And, I was lucky enough to come across Bill because I wanted to be in another version of a course that was offered at Stanford when I was in the business school. And that course filled. And so there was this new professor named Bill Lazier, and I just got randomly assigned to his course.
[00:21:45] Total random. And he ended up taking an interest in me and was a real father figure in my life. Then when I, through a series of steps there was this other luck event, bad luck for someone else, good luck for me when [00:22:00] a, the person who taught the course that Bill taught along, you know, another section of it had a family tragedy just before the school year started.
[00:22:09] Lainie Rowell: Mm.
[00:22:10] Jim Collins: And they didn't have anybody to teach entrepreneurship and small business for those sections.
[00:22:14] Lainie Rowell: Yeah.
[00:22:15] Jim Collins: And Bill, my Who Luck went to the deans at Stanford Business School and said, why don't we give Jim a chance? And that invited me in to begin teaching at Stanford. So there was a luck event of a Who Luck and a What Luck.
[00:22:30] Yeah. That opened this moment, but then came the question of the return on luck. So this was just sort of a once sort of this luck event. I was 30 years old. And that's when Bill basically said to me, uh, okay, you're, it's sort of like the image I have in my mind of his little lecture to me was, you're, you're, you're gonna get a chance to pitch a game in Yankee Stadium.
[00:22:55] All the other pitchers, for whatever reason, aren't, aren't arriving at the game. You get a chance to pitch in ranking [00:23:00] stadium one game.
[00:23:01] Lainie Rowell: Yeah.
[00:23:02] Jim Collins: But if in that one game you threw a no-hitter, you're gonna get to play again.
[00:23:08] Lainie Rowell: Yeah.
[00:23:09] Jim Collins: And that was when Bill said to me that this is, this is one of those times when nothing is the same.
[00:23:15] You've got one shot, one opportunity, right. And this is the time to do everything you can to make the most of it. And so that was the N.A.T.I.L.I.E.. moment and that N.A.T.I.L.I.E.. moment changed my life.
[00:23:29] Lainie Rowell: I, it just reminds me there have been so many N.A.T.I.L.I.E.. moments and I actually feel like Who Luck has been something that has been so critical mm-hmm.
[00:23:37] To my entire life. I have been really blessed to have leaders
[00:23:42] Jim Collins: mm-hmm.
[00:23:43] Lainie Rowell: Who saw my encodings
[00:23:44] Jim Collins: Yep.
[00:23:45] Lainie Rowell: When I did not. Mm-hmm. I, I mean, I could list them all from Steve Glyer to Alan November to I'm currently working for Dr. Stefan Bean, and Yeah. And there are people who see things and there's so many I'm leaving out, so I'm so sorry.
[00:23:57] But, these are people who saw things in [00:24:00] me, and so this kind of is gonna be my moment to bring us to the connection of Good To Great. Mm-hmm. Because if, if you were to add a chapter to Good to Great based on this beautiful book, what to Make of a Life. Mm-hmm. What would that chapter be about? Mm. As far as leading people with encodings or maybe mm-hmm.
[00:24:23] Maybe it wouldn't be about encodings, but, you know, how would you, how would you see adding this research to that?
[00:24:30] Jim Collins: Well, so first of all, that's a really marvelous question. Uh, that is a, that's a marvelous, marvelous question. The, the thing that really comes to mind for me about that is ways I would enhance my understanding of a couple of the really key ideas from Good to Great.
[00:24:44] One being level five leadership and the other being about first who, the right people on the bus and so forth. I would tie them into the idea of encodings because, uh, what I found, so first of all, in the question of first two, the term that everybody grabbed onto, which [00:25:00] was, it was a, it was a nice way to phrase things in the book, and it became a way a lot of people talk, which is the right people on the bus, right?
[00:25:06] Mm-hmm. And that's still right. You need the right people on the bus. But what this study taught me is it's really about the seats, ultimately the right people in seats that put them in frame with their encodings. Yeah. And so if you think about this idea that you're leading a team, you've got right people on the bus, but then you look around at the people on your team and you ask, and you have somebody who's, they're sort of, they're, they're like a hundred watt light bulb.
[00:25:35] They're doing okay in that seat. It's not really, they're really not like, they're not like a giant lightning bolt. They're a light, light bulb in that seat. But if you were able to kind of shift the frame of their responsibilities or the seat that they were in. What you're doing is you're moving the frame of their life so that when they come into frame, when they, you move them into a different seat where the window frame shifts and bang, [00:26:00] a bunch of their encodings come through the window and now they're in frame.
[00:26:04] They go from being a light bulb to being a lightning bulb. And that part when you were talking about your, the people in your life who they help you see your encodings, they saw things in you that you didn't necessarily see as clearly yourself.
[00:26:21] Mm-hmm.
[00:26:22] And I think what, what I would add into Good to Great is that part of the whole question of first two is how do you get to know your people so well that you can begin to sense their encodings.
[00:26:33] Lainie Rowell: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:35] Jim Collins: And then you as Who Luck in their life. Move them closer and closer to seats that really fit their responsibilities. There's a wonderful story in the book about a member of my own team who I had out of frame, and then instead of firing him, which he thought I was gonna do and what I thought I was gonna do instead I moved him to a seat where he was in frame.
[00:26:58] Lainie Rowell: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:58] Jim Collins: And he had a [00:27:00] spectacular run of incredible success and contribution on my team. I feel so good about that because I didn't have, it wasn't resulting in firing somebody. The result was a marvelous young man in frame who had a spectacular result. So I would write that. The other is, there's no recipe book for leadership to do these 10 things because that's how somebody else leads.
[00:27:25] Lainie Rowell: Mm-hmm.
[00:27:26] Jim Collins: There's a whole section in the chapter 12 of the book about if leadership is the art of getting people to want to do what must be done. And level five is doing that with humility and will in in service to a cause bigger than yourself. The artistry of it reflects your encodings. And that what I really would say to people is, don't try to lead the way other people lead.
[00:27:52] Lead in a way that reflects your encodings and your leadership encodings will be different than other people's leadership encodings. [00:28:00] And that if you trust your leadership encodings, the way you get people to want to do what must be done, you will be a more effective level five leader than if you try to do, you shouldn't try to be like Grace Hopper or Katharine Graham.
[00:28:16] Lainie Rowell: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:16] Jim Collins: Or Benjamin Franklin, or any of the other really great leaders we write about that in the leadership roles in this book are Alice Paul. They were encoded different than you are.
[00:28:27] Lainie Rowell: Hmm.
[00:28:28] Jim Collins: They were successful, not because they followed a preset recipe book of this is how a leader leads, they were effective as leaders because they expressed their leadership encodings into their artistry of leadership.
[00:28:44] Lainie Rowell: Hmm. Okay. I am looking at the clock and I'm very sad that our time is almost up, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you just sadly, only like a couple more questions. Sure.
[00:28:56] Jim Collins: You've had marvelous, but I just wanna compliment Lainie. I, I love your questions. Like [00:29:00] that was a, that's a, I knew you'd be prepared, I knew you'd be curious, and that was just a really fabulous question to sort of bring those two pieces of work together through that question.
[00:29:10] Lainie Rowell: Well, thank you. I I really, I'm not just saying this like both your books are so special to me and really the way that they came to me at certain points in my life. First of all, both books should be read at every point of every life. But, um, but really just the way that they did happen to come into me, I wanted to make that connection because really good to Great has been a welcome guest in my brain for so long.
[00:29:35] And to be able to have this again, this is like, this is a trophy for me. And I will tell you, it was very hard to make the first marking in this book because this is so precious to me. But I had to convince myself to let go of it because this is how I need to fully engage with this book. And so it, they, they both have been well loved, well marked up.
[00:29:55] And I, I thank you for them so much. So
[00:29:58] Jim Collins: well, um, [00:30:00] well read books are what, uh, uh, most matter to me. I've always, uh, uh, bestseller great. But more important is Best Readership.
[00:30:09] Lainie Rowell: I love that. I love that. Okay. So I have to ask you this signature question that I always ask, and that is what is something that you cannot share enough?
[00:30:17] You, it means so much to you. Maybe it's something you already shared in our conversation, but you wanna reiterate it. Maybe it's something we haven't had a chance to talk about, but this is the thing you would wanna shout from the rooftops. Mm-hmm. Because it's so important. Yeah.
[00:30:29] Jim Collins: And so I'm gonna ask you the same question.
[00:30:31] So do you wanna go first or do you want me to go first?
[00:30:33] Lainie Rowell: Um, I'll go first 'cause then we give you more time. But, um, I would just say I keep coming back to you saying there's no recipe. Mm-hmm. There's no one way to do this. And it's not like your encodings are only meant for one thing.
[00:30:47] Jim Collins: Yeah.
[00:30:47] Lainie Rowell: And you better figure it out, or it's a, a total loss.
[00:30:50] So I really felt like the permission to there's more than one way.
[00:30:54] Jim Collins: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:54] Lainie Rowell: To live in fulfillment of your encodings. Mm-hmm. And so we're all unique and dynamic. Mm-hmm. [00:31:00] There's no recipe. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That was kind of my, my big thing from our conversation today. There's so many though.
[00:31:05] Jim Collins: Yeah. I, I think that's a great one because also the idea that, that, uh, as we, I write in the first chapter, it's not a self-help book.
[00:31:13] It's a self-knowledge book. Yeah. Right. And it's ultimately reflects the, the self-knowledge as you bring it to life in the world. I think that's a wonderful one to pick. I then one I I would pick there's, yep. It's the thing about doing a 12 year project, there's lots I could, I could choose, but the one I would highlight, the one that probably gets me the most animated is I would wanna shout from the rooftops that, um, you do not need to accept the idea that your younger self will tower over your older self.
[00:31:43] And that the, one of the things that. I mean, it's just, you know, that simple little statistic in the book from like Benjamin Franklin, when you ask what percentage of the biographies and major biographies are still left, how many pages are left when he hits age 60? [00:32:00] And it's 53% of the books on average. And this idea that when you hit age 60, you're not even halfway in terms of what's going to potentially be most interesting and creative and impactful in your life.
[00:32:12] And when I look at all the people in our, our study and the things that they did, I think of it as when you hit 60, you finish your warmup, right? Just finish your warmup. And so much of what the, what they did that was utterly spectacular in our lives came late. And this idea that somehow the creative stuff is what we do when we're young boy, these lives show that a lot of the creative stuff came well, well past the midpoint.
[00:32:39] Lainie Rowell: I love that and I'm so happy to still be warming up 'cause Yep. I'm looking forward to what comes next. I know I have to let you go. I wanna make sure people know that, What to Make of a Life is available now. Mm-hmm. And they should grab a copy and you should hug it like I do and, and really engage with it and mark that thing up because there's so much good stuff in there.
[00:32:59] [00:33:00] People can find you at jimcollins.com. Jim, is there anything else you wanna point people towards?
[00:33:05] Jim Collins: Uh, the website's a really great place to, uh, to, to get acquainted with all of our work actually. Not just, not just What to Make of a Life, which of course is there, but also back to Good to Great and Built to Last and the whole body of work at 68 there's been quite a number of decades of doing that. And I would just also, uh, love to say, uh, I think that you should get, uh, from me your own final first edition printed hard cover of the book, which I will sign to you and send to you. And that can be the one, you can mark up all the others. And that one you can keep on your shelf.
[00:33:40] Lainie Rowell: Now I'm gonna have two book trophies for What to Make of a Life. I love that. That would be so lovely. Thank you so much.
[00:33:45] Jim Collins: Happy to do it.
[00:33:46] Lainie Rowell: Jim. This has been a highlight of my life for me.
[00:33:49] Mm-hmm. I hope I've somehow contributed to a plus two day for you Yes. In your, in your bug book, in your spreadsheet for today. And I just, again, wanna thank you for your time and [00:34:00] thank everyone for listening.
[00:34:01] Jim Collins: You're, you're very welcome. I can, I can completely say that the, this will be a, a positive day.
[00:34:09] It'll be plus one or plus two, and either way, a big part of the contribution to the plus of this day, and perhaps a plus two, is our conversation today. And what I so enjoy about it is that we had a conversation.
[00:34:22] Lainie Rowell: If you're grateful for this episode, please be sure to subscribe today. And if you're feeling really thankful, please submit a review and share with others so they know the value. One last thing, please connect on social media using the hashtag EvolvingWithGratitude to share your gratitude stories.
