Adrian Koehler - Taking New Ground in Leadership - Part 1
I don't think you could have a conversation with Adrian Koehler and not get excited about becoming a stronger leader. You will definitely pick up on it in this two-part episode with him! I had a great time getting to know Adrian and his clear and determined view of how to take leaders to a higher place where leadership will look, feel, and be different.
Links and Resources from the Episode:
Click here to connect with Adrian on LinkedIn
Click here to learn more about The Revenant Process
Click here to listen to The Naked Leadership Podcast
Click here to visit the Take New Ground website
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The Bosshole® Chronicles
“Adrian Koehler - Taking New Ground - Part 1”
Original Publish Date: 12/5/2023.
Host: John Broer
John Broer: A warm welcome to all of our friends out there in the Bosshole Transformation Nation. This is your host, John Broer, and I'm telling you what everybody. You better buckle up for this episode. This is a two-part episode with Adrian Koehler.
I'm going to tell you a little bit about Adrian. He is a senior partner at the executive coaching firm Take New Ground and his experience runs the gamut coaching executives and entrepreneurs, helping them understand themselves, their team, the clients, and just really helping them focus on fulfillment and their work, and that's what we do. He's a leadership coach, training and consulting experts, based in Los Angeles, and Take New Ground Partners has some amazing programs that you'll learn about in the episodes, but make sure you check out all of Adrian's links in the show notes. I'm telling you amazing guy, amazing expertise and insight. Let's jump in. The Bosshole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, the talent optimization firm, helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode. Adrian, it is so good to have you on the Bosshole Chronicles. Welcome.
Adrian Koehler: John, so good to be here, man. First, I just love the name. This is amazing.
JB: Thank you, I appreciate that and you know I want our audience to know that. You know you and I had a chance to connect a couple of weeks ago just to get to know one another, talk a little bit more about the work you're doing and share with you our work around Bosshole prevention and helping managers, supervisors, truly understand what their role is, and I've been really excited about this opportunity to introduce you to the Bosshole Transformation Nation and the work you're doing at Take New Ground and they know about it. By the way, go into the show notes. You will see all of the links to all of the things that Adrian is doing podcast work, workshops and so forth.
But let's start with the work you're doing around self-awareness and your leadership coaching and specifically, you know you have an offering called the Revenant Process and that's a public offering. People can register for that. But you really do emphasize self-awareness and we always say that self-awareness is the number one competency for effective leadership. How do you help people understand and galvanize that idea of self-awareness to just get them started on their leadership path?
AK: Well, there's a really long answer to that and I'll try to do it in a really short amount of time. Just because this is, I think this is core. Yeah, I think you know, I think meaning and when I say core I mean like essential, like in this question is baked in when we're 95 on our deathbed and wondering about our life. This is there, right? Yes, like who the hell am I and who was I to other people and legacy is baked into this question. So my first response to that is I would agree with you that self-awareness is essential, and I, but I don't even think that's enough. Okay, at least the way we talk about it is.
When we talk about effective leadership, there is a commitment to generating new results. Obviously, you got to get something done. You pay to get results. There is a team leadership, which is obviously a big part of the conversation here in the Bosshole Chronicles. And then there's this other thing, which we don't call self-awareness, we call it self-mastery, okay, which is to take self-awareness, which is, I think, the first step is to be willing to wonder and then know and then own how I am with other people. But then am I willing to put myself through a rigorous process of consistently recreating myself so that I can meet the needs of the moment, and that could be business needs, that could be relational needs, that could be personal needs, whatever. But can I master myself? And that, if someone's willing to do that, then the sky's the limit.
Because I just got a text from my ex-wife last night about 10:30 at night, and my kids I have my kids half the time and that my nine-year-old boy was saying that dad's on his phone too much when he's over here. And first off, it's like oh, wow, okay, and I've got lots of things to fly through my head. But the thing that flies through my head is oh, wow. First off, I want to hear that. Second off, I wonder what's missing in the relationship that he wouldn't tell me that because I asked him for feedback all the time and he hasn't mentioned that yet. So, anyway, so I'm dying to get connected with him and not to defend any of that, because whatever I'm doing stuff on my phone, some of it might be silly, some of it might be essentials. You know, sometimes I say, hey man, dad's got to get back to a client real quick. Give me 30 seconds. You know, all that to say is like I'm wide open because I love the kid like deeply and and I want, I'm committed to being the type of father that he is proud of, like that he knows he can come to right. So there's both in there.
First off, I was unaware of my impact on him, so that's the self-awareness piece. And second is I want to make it right, whatever that is, and there might be a mix there, because I might need to be on my phone more than a nine-year-old can understand. He doesn't know what I'm doing on my phone, so there might be some training and some understanding that needs there. I'm not gonna like bow to like he wants a hundred percent of my attention, a hundred percent of the time. That's not gonna happen. He's not necessarily saying that, but anyway there's a there. That's- that's vital for me. It's like okay, I'm alive. Like okay, I'm so grateful he gave that feedback to her. I wanted him to be able to, in the moment, say that to me and I'm excited about that because I'm not spending any time defending anything. Right, right and to you, to the, to the question.
Like most of us, first off, there's lots of the experience of being a human we can't avoid. First off, our brain is not our friend, because our brains up for doing two main things. One is our brain wants to survive, right, number one, that's the number one Mission of the brain survive. Make sure Adrian makes it to tomorrow. Now that's not quite that drastic and not quite that mortal. These days, more survival is much more of an ego driven thing. Now for us because I'm not scared of the, you know, the the rain gods are not scared of the saber-tooth tiger. Now it's more of an ego-based thing and we call those ego needs are to look good and to feel good and to be right and to be in control. Those are our core survival needs. No one will escape those. Those are happening at all times, 100% of the time, at some volume level in everyone's mind. At some volume level. It might be a point one, it might be a 10 out of 10.
We know people that looking good is the most important thing in their mind. These are the major Bossholes, right, it's like everything's about them and they're gonna take every meeting and make it about them. They're gonna take every idea and make it about them and make every conflict about how they were hurt. Blah, blah, blah. Looking good and their own eyes are looking good to other people is number one for them anyway.
But none of us get to avoid this, which is kind of good news, because then, if, if I know my own tendency to settle for survival, then I can empathize with somebody else.
So when somebody else is a total Bosshole and I can, if I know my own dark side, how I can do that and how I've done that in the past and ways that I've hurt myself or or chickened out or hurt other people or whatever, then I can immediately have empathy for them, like not not sympathy, not like understanding or not like making it okay, but I can understand why they're doing that and I, so I don't spend any time villainizing them, because the, the challenge is, if I'm around a Bosshole, I- people tend to be victimized by the boss. Oh, act, victimized, not like we don't have bad feelings, but like I tend to feel like they're doing something to me, right? Therefore I give up my own agency and then I'm now playing the victim to them and now they're my problem. So they're no longer a person, they're just now this problem right, right so but it.
But if I can own my own stuff and then empathize with them like I know what it would be like, I've done that before, okay, good, so now I can befriend them like I befriend myself when I'm a jerk, when I steamroll somebody or when I'm like, "ou're using my example, if I'm like in my, the mind of my nine-year-old, not giving all the attention that he wants, I can own that and I can like go safe, go from a great place, say hey, "what's going? I mean, I just got off a call with a client and he's got a boss.
That's a Bosshole okay and we spent an hour talking about his relationship to the dynamics, which is different than his relationship to the person, his relationship to what's happening, because I always say be really hard on the problem, really soft on the person, because his boss is probably a well-meaning guy, but he's known as being a dick in the office and I was asking him hey, how, first off, are you willing to quit and go somewhere else? Because if you're not, then that changes the game here. But if you are, it gives you lots of leverage, lots of power, for sure, you know, because then you can really play to win. Because if you're not willing to go for plan B, then you'll try to dress up plan A as if it's okay, right, right, you'll just play not to lose. I call that versus playing to win. If I'm willing to leave, you know, plan A because there's more dignity in plan B and, for this guy, a lot more money in plan B, then I'll play to win. I'll be really honest with the guy and I won't hold back, blaming him for holding back, which is what everybody does, right, I would say that.
But he blah, blah, blah, which is our own irresponsible view of the world, because no one else can make you do anything. I say no one else can make you feel anything either, and that makes me crazy, right? I think we know from neuroscience is we are always generating our own experience, because our experience comes out of how we relate to things that happen. Yeah, it's not from things that happen, it's how I relate to it. So, to end this very long answer to your question, it's the scariest thing on the planet to be self-aware, because we all fear that if I'm as bad as I think I am, people are going to walk away. Yeah, so we'd rather. Ignorance is bliss. That's the math we typically do, but it's in the other side is actually as, or even more, true that if I am willing, I want to see anything that's not working, that doesn't and when I say not working I mean doesn't generate the future that's worth having, which is my definition for vision, is a future worth having. If I see any ways that I'm not contributing to that future, I want to know, because then I can do something about it. And if it's my problem, that's the best news, because people love to blame other people, because it looks, it feels safe and we get to in our own ego that we're not the bubble, but if it's me, it's so good, because if it's me, great, I can shift me, I can control this guy. Yeah, no one else gets to control this guy but me.
So that's why, like self-awareness, is, I think, that really the key, the willingness to be self-aware, and then, I guess, to double down on my other point, self-aware and then willingness to reconstitute myself at any moment in time to meet the need. That's superhero level thinking. Most people don't do that. When we get around people that can do that, we're impressed by them. We don't know why we're impressed by them, but they're just versatile, they can move around, they have emotional agility, they're willing to pay the price, they're willing to be humble, which is, you know, humility is such a rare thing nowadays If you're like, really honest and humble, and you can't be those things without really believing in yourself. And there's not a human on the planet that doesn't want to be more confident. Sure, but we get confident by trusting myself, and I can only trust myself if I'm willing to have all the conversations with myself that I'm scared to death, at least to start that I'm scared to death for the people. I need to have them with myself.
JB: Yeah, so step into the danger with yourself first, and I love that. I love the idea of the self-awareness, foundational, but the thing that is more actionable is the self-mastery. And I actually, Adrian, I love, I mean as a dad, and I can think of no greater privilege. I mean, you know, we've been blessed with two great sons and I say that everything good about our boys they got right from their mom. That's good.
But the thing is just in, even with a nine-year-old, you had the self-awareness, the emotion and you hit it emotional intelligence to be able to say, "oh my gosh, this needs attention, this needs my attention, this needs me and this needs me to adapt. And, by the way, we never profess that we're going to change people. Circumstances change. People need to adapt through self-awareness and self-mastery. Right, but to your point, you realized that this warranted a pause to be able to understand. How do I reconcile this, how do I figure out the best way to adapt so that this doesn't become a chasm or a barrier with my nine-year-old? You would never want that to happen. But you negotiate through. You can't have a hundred percent of the time, but you're listening to them and you're receptive to it.
Therein lies. I think that is very easy for you and I to talk about. I think that is incredibly hard, a monumental step for a lot of Bossholes that are out there that would even take the moment to pause and say well, why do I even give a crap what this person thinks? Get with the program? I got my own problems to step up and suck it up, buttercup, you've got work to do and I'm sorry that you're unhappy with the circumstance. Now, I'm not talking about a nine-year-old, I'm talking about a fully grown adult. Sure, I think this is a new problem, but the receptivity being able to even let that guard down the hubris and the arrogance and say I have a lot of work to do on myself to be an effective manager, leader, coach to this individual we're running into managers and supervisors that don't think that's an issue.
AK: And that concerns me.
JB: This isn't new, but why are we? We were having this conversation 20 years ago about managers and leaders. Why are we still having it? And we will be right back.
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JB: Okay, let's get back to the program. We were having this conversation 20 years ago about managers and leaders. Why are we still having it?
AK: Well, we're never not going to have it. Just because, back to what. I don't want to get too philosophical here, that's okay.
JB: Go ahead.
AK: Well, I'll see if I'll try to lose the audience here for one minute, so stick with me audience. So, first off, any conversation you're in, it's not your conversation. Meaning there have been conversations happening since the beginning of time and we know this because every bit of classical leadership, the classical literature, is filled with the exact same dynamics. Different clothes, different forms of transportation, different language, same dynamics. Like anybody that feels shame, most people are arrogant because of shame and because of insecurity. That's been around since the beginning of time.
I mean, even if we read some ancient religious texts, it's like two people in a garden that God made something goes sideways. What do they do? They blame each other. The guy blames the girl, the girl blames the snake, everybody blames God. We don't trust anybody and the whole thing blows apart. So, anyway, we've been avoiding responsibility from the beginning of time, even like, metaphorically speaking, like that scripture. From the beginning of time we've not wanted to look in the mirror and say you know what, it's me. Yeah, you're right, I blew it. You know what I didn't trust. I didn't trust you, I didn't trust the dynamics, I didn't trust this benevolent thing that put us here. So I just did what made sense for me, and that's not going to work, is it? Yeah? So from the beginning of time, all that to say, since it's been here for eons of time, it'll probably be here for eons, right?
So I would just, in this context, a couple of things come to mind. First off, anybody listening am I willing to do what I wish other people would do? Mm-hmm, that there's power in that question. And if the answer is no, then shut your mouth about it, otherwise you'll just be like everybody else, yep, and. But if the answer is yes, then go ahead and take a stand for something. Reality honors the truth, mm-hmm.
So if I'm one that wants to claim current reality and just be truthful, like let's get real about what's really happening, I mean, everybody I work with, they all want to talk about the future, which is great and very romantic, and talk about future goals and where we're heading. All that that's wonderful and it's a great ride and let's talk about that. But it doesn't take much courage to talk about the future. It takes a lot of courage to own now, yeah, for sure. And so people want to talk about the next but not talk about the now, and so most of my work with these very high-functioning, intelligent, ambitious visionaries that I get to talk with on an everyday basis. Their biggest challenge is getting language for what's happening right now. Mm-hmm, and language that's neutral meaning like we tend to, because we're human beings, we tend to throw things in moral categories.
This is good, this is bad, this is helpful, this is not helpful. I like him, I don't like blah, blah blah. We throw things in these black and whites instead of, you know, being able to dance with the complexity of every situation, because every Bosshole is actually a person that's struggling. Yep, now, they don't want to look like they're struggling. They want to look like they've got it together and that they're self-righteous and blah, blah, blah, but they're just struggling.
JB: Mm-hmm.
AK: And you know so. There are. I mean, there's lots of conversations here. So let me get back to your question. What do we do about it? First off, we decide to stand out. We decide to be the example. We decide to stand out, and that is a risk. That is a risk. That's why people don't do it. Because if I decide to like be the first one to confess, be the first one to take responsibility, be the first one to ask for help, to be the first one to put your hand up and say, "you know what I really blew it, that's risky. That's why we don't do it, that's why human beings don't do it. But if you're willing to do that, that sets you apart from everybody else and it actually changes. You know. It changes the dynamic Like we talk about in our trainings, like especially the thing called the Revenant process.
People come in, they want to talk about especially their core relationships, like with their spouse or family members or whatever. And we'll ask the question like how many people does it take to change a relationship? And the answer is for everybody. They always say it takes two to tango and I say no, it takes one person to change a relationship, because if you've got a dance that's happening. Think about you if you've got a Bosshole right now or maybe you are the Bosshole, hi, glad you're here. If there's two people, there is a dynamic and both people contributed to the dynamic. Nobody is passive, everybody's involved, even if, like your involvement, is to be withdrawn and feel hurt and feel not seen and feel taken advantage of. That's also the way you're participating. So, but if when there's two person dynamic, when one person stands up and says, "hey, this isn't working, I don't like the way this is going. Like you know, we're really focused on results, but our relationship sucks. We don't have any trust and I don't trust you. You don't trust me. You're full of judgments from me. I'm full of judgments for you. Can we talk about this? Because I'm not very happy and eventually I'll leave you know, or eventually I'll you know with me.
My leadership strategy in my 20s was I would walk in any room. I would naturally ask who's in charge here, I'd scan the room, who's in charge? This is very 20s, Adrian, it's kind of like that today, but a little bit more mature. Look around, who's in charge and I would. Then I'd go get to know that person and I would do.
I knew there's one of two roads is coming. Either I'm going to be their best lieutenant, right, and I'm going to be a ultimate resource for them. They're going to think, "oh my gosh, where did this guy come from? He can do anything. He's wow, wow. I want to be the wow guy in the eyes of whoever's leading the room, and so that's going to happen. I'm going to be the best lieutenant or I'm going to lead the coup. That was always it. Either. Great leadership must happen. If I'm going to be in this is maybe a little bit arrogant, but whatever it's like best, great leadership must happen. Why? Because leaders set everything. Leaders set the context. Leaders set the vision. Leaders set the. You know the temperature in the room. How much joy can happen on a team? How much connection and learning can happen on a team? Leaders sets that.
JB: Yeah.
AK: And I just I. You know we have this thing called the Harrison Assessment, which is phenomenal. Assessment that we use is based on this enjoyment performance theory. There's a metric on that that's called once a capable leader, which means how much of a preference is it for you to work with someone that you really respect? Now, some people have a really low preference for that, like they can be a three out of three out of 10, they can work with anybody. They're really adaptable. I'm not that guy. I'm like an 8.9 out of 10. So I got, I know I must work with somebody I respect, right, and I'm not spending any time trying to change that. That's just my choice. I like that. I want to work with somebody that I look up to, that I trust that. That's smarter than me, that's more capable than me. That's a huge gift to me because that's aspirational, it's mentoring, that happens all this Sure. So you know it's. But some people are like that and I've just always. I've always been like that. So I don't work with Bossholes very long. Voluntarily, voluntarily.
I mean I'm, I guess, blessed in the way that I've never, never, really had, I've never been in a job I didn't love.
JB: Well, that is a blessing. And let's get back to something you said, when you talk about being willing to, as Lyn Cheung, he says, step into the danger, just offer up that vulnerability to either it's like your client, your client is working for a Bosshole. There's a situation A or B. You can either leave or you can step into the danger, show that vulnerability and say, hey, listen, something is not right here. I would really like to talk about it. And it's either going to be well received or you're going to get crickets and you're going to know I mean, just as you said, I'm going to know what the future of this relationship is going to hold. But one of the things I like that you said, Adrian, when we spoke a couple of weeks ago is you know, and we know this because this is what we work with in analytics, and whether it's Harrison or PI or our EQ assessments, humans are pattern machines, right, and I believe that's also one of the reasons that we like patterns. We're sort of hardwired to offer up certain characteristics and I think that's why we have trouble breaking away from. You know, this has worked. You know we. You know, as we say, Bossholes, beget Bossholes, beget Bossholes. It's because that framework that has you've been used for so many years, while it hasn't been great, it has worked, and breaking free from it is a little bit scary and that.
And when you do find those leaders and you're absolutely right, they walk into a room. The way they, their countenance, their presence, there's something unique about them. Those are the people that generally have a an extraordinary amount of, not only self awareness but, say, self mastery and emotional intelligence. Yeah, but they're not afraid to be vulnerable. Yeah, they're the ones that are going. I don't know, man, I would love to pull people around me that know and make things happen. That's right on. We need more of that and and I know that's the work that you're doing at take new ground, but we do a real good ventures. But, man, I tell you what it's a it's a slog. It can be really. Really. We got to be patient with that for sure.
AK: Yeah.
JB: I mean you and I both, I think patience has never been one of our strongest attributes. We want to move things along, but it is. It is. It is happening may not be happening quite as fast as I'd love to see it. Go ahead. One of the things I love.
AK: First off, I guess we could talk for seven hours because we have a lot of affinity and I think we're in some key conversations here. Yeah, I, one of the things I love about my job is I don't actually have to be patient, meaning you know, there's lots of great coaches out there. I'm sure I don't know many of them, right, but if you, if they work with us at Take New Ground or with me, you know I'm the smelling salt, so I'm unapologetic about that. I'm let's, let's, let's wake up, let's wake up. Let's act as if the future is right now. Yeah, you know, and people are dying. This is scary. Ownership is scary. Only because you know, we, we're all insecure about things. I'm insecure about things. There's things that I've regret from my past. There's, there's parts about me that I'm insecure about. When I walk in any kind of room, if I'm sitting down with a fancy client or whatever I'm, you know I'm full of insecurities. That's there. I didn't vote that, that's gonna happen.
JB: You're human. Yeah, it's gonna happen.
AK: t's there. Now. There's lots of things I can do, and I do do about that in order for me not to be controlled by those fears, you know. But I leverage those fears in order to get me to the table in a very powerful way. Right, and you know, we're just not going to be able to avoid those things.
And the beauty is that, you know, everybody, we, I say at a core level, we all want progress, we all want hope, we all want to think tomorrow can be better than today. And what's always necessary I'll use a little bit of a religious reference here is that we, you don't get the resurrection without the death. Yes, yes, something new only comes after the death of something old. We try to morph things and make things a little bit better, and we use that language all the time, like what's better, what's different? You know what's more or less, but that's, we know that. That's like slowly inching our way towards something, but we're all dying for something that's exponential, like holy shit moment, like, wow, the heavens open. And wow, okay, that conversation changed my life. Now, we don't aim at that because I think we live in, you know, knowledge that not every day gets to feel like Disneyland, right, man? That level of of conversation can happen if we're willing to die for it, metaphorically speaking, mostly like an ego death, if I'm willing to go. You know, I like what Peterson says.
You know, always tell the truth, or at least don't lie. And we know it, we all know it. When we're lying we don't call it lying because we call it oh, "it's not the right time to have the conversation, or he's not in the right mood, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But we're lying and that's okay, you know. I mean like we're not being fully truthful and there's time for that and you got to be strategic about it. But at the end of the day, you know we're not being that honest with ourselves. But if we dare to be that honest that actually have trust in ourselves, trust in humanity, trust in some kind of benevolent arc of of the future, right, okay, let's just lay it down right now.
JB: Okay, was I right? Was that just an amazing experience with Adrian Koehler? That's the end of part one, so make sure you tune in next week for part two of our discussion with Adrian Koehler from Take New Ground and guess what? He's going to be making an announcement of some really cool technology that they have coming forward. Make sure you tune in next week, we'll see you then.