In this enlightening episode we jump into the fascinating intersection of business strategy, creativity, and personal growth with Robert Bradford, a renowned strategic planning consultant. Robert shares his insights on making strategic planning accessible and effective, emphasizing the power of simplicity and creativity in achieving ambitious goals.This episode is packed with actionable advice, thought-provoking ideas, and a touch of nerdy fun that will leave you inspired to rethink your approach to goals and strategic planning.
Key Takeaways:
Strategic Planning Simplified: Learn about Robert’s approach to strategic planning that focuses on answering three fundamental questions: What do we sell? Who is our customer? How do we beat or avoid the competition?
Personal Growth and Engagement: Insights on how creativity and continuous learning can increase personal engagement and development.
Small Changes, Big Impact: The concept of making minor changes that can have expanding effects over time, akin to the butterfly effect.
Leadership and Development: The importance of developing leaders and valuing the unique capabilities of individuals within an organization.
Practical Applications: Robert shares practical advice on how to implement these ideas in both personal and professional contexts.
Resources:
Visit CSSP.com for more information about Robert Bradford and his strategic planning services.
Email Robert at rbradford@cssp.com for direct inquiries and problem-solving assistance.
Check out Robert’s book, “Simplified Strategic Planning.”
Tune in to discover how you can simplify your strategic planning process, set more engaging goals, and make impactful changes in your personal and professional life!
Unedited Transcript
Avish Parashar
Hello, Robert, and welcome to the podcast. How are you, my friend?
Robert Bradford
Wonderful. It's great to be here, Amish.
Avish Parashar
Excellent. Well, thank you for, joining me on this, relatively brand new podcast. This on this podcast my goal is to talk about all things Yes, And, specifically designed for people who buy into the idea of Yes, And and want to learn how they can bring more of it into their organization, their teams, their work, and even their personal lives. Now you are not a yes and person. You are a speaker and consultant who specializes in simplified strategic planning. So before I jump into all these questions I have for you, for people who might be unaware of simplified strategic planning or even the idea of strategic planning in general, I know it's challenging, but could you give us, like, the 32nd, 1 minute overview of what it is you do for clients and and and what the benefits are of it?
Robert Bradford
Sure. So strategic planning is just looking at where you are right now and thinking about where you'd like to go in the future, choosing a course that is going to take advantage of of your capabilities and competencies, and hopefully steer you away from direct competition as much as possible. So that's what I do with clients.
I sit down. We look at where are we, where we wanna go. And then the third part, which is really critical, is we look at how we're gonna get there. So what what things we need to do? What things do we need to change to, to make that work? Usually for business, I work with a lot of nonprofits too.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. And one of the ways, I know you, I've we've known each other for, gosh, almost 20 years now. And, Robert is also a speaker, part of the National Speakers Association. And, I met Robert through that, and Robert came and did a presentation for my speakers association chapter where you even then applied this to the small business and for speakers, the solo business. So it's really something that can apply large corporations, small business individuals. Mhmm. Now I I know you're not a, a life coach, But but what I see in going over your material and knowing you for years is there is application not just in professional where there's many, but you can apply these same ideas, personally even.
Robert Bradford
Yes. Yeah. And I you know, I've I've actually, I've done a little bit of that just voluntarily for my friends, and it absolutely does apply. I think one of the key things people miss in their lives is that if you're not doing the things that you're really great at doing and you're not really building up some core of competency in your own life, then you're just kinda bobbling along, just training hours for money, I guess. And that's not that's not nearly as productive for a career. So a lot of my friends, I've I've really coached them to, you know, drive in directions where they're, they're doing more of what what they are great at doing and sort of building their expertise around that so that that's who they are and that's what they do.
Avish Parashar
So I I love this idea because I, I talk about this. So also the other thing about Robert is that Robert has also performed improv comedy. And, in fact, we did a show together for a speaker association convention, which was a a ton of fun. And if you go to my website, I actually have a video clip of of a little bit of us doing that up there. I don't even know if you know that. But,
Robert Bradford
Right. I I didn't know that, but that's great. I'll have to go check it out.
Avish Parashar
So, but I one of the things I love about improv and creativity is because it's in the moment and because it's fast, it sort of strips away the conscious filters we have. And I've used it as a tool to help people kinda figure out that that core, that authenticity, or as you describe it, the core competency. You know, because a lot of times we think about what we should and the the limiting beliefs, the the the the little yes, but voice in our head. So I wanna talk I was gonna talk about this later, but since you brought it up, could you share you you use the term core competency, which might be something that not everyone is familiar with. So when you say core competency, let's start with the business side. What what do you mean by core competency?
Robert Bradford
So I I like to use the word strategic competency because core competencies just leads people into a lot of nonsense, and they're they're consulting spouting this gibberish all over the place that don't get it right. So competency is is a combination of skills, processes, and knowledge. And for an individual, that's going to be, this sort of unique organic combination of those things that you have, behind you. So, for example, you have a unique combination. I mean, you you know, the nerdiness is there. Right? The improv, you're brilliant at improv.
You're very good at humor. You also have some background in things like IT. And when you weave all that together, sometimes when you're working with certain clients, there's, like, this brilliant thing that comes up that's amazing, and nobody else in the world can do that. And so when I think about competency, I think about those kinds of things. Strategic competency is when you've got something like that that does two key things for you. It sets you apart from others, and it also creates value for others. So, example, if it sets you apart from others, you know, I used to use the example, my my consulting firm, every everybody who works for my consulting firm is a suit of certified scuba diver.
And there probably aren't many people in consulting that could say that, and yet it's not valuable for customers at all.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. Well, let me just let me just pause for a second. Is every is everyone a certified scuba professional diver? Is that a requirement to work for your company, or did that just happen?
Robert Bradford
It it just happened. And and and sometimes these things just happen. Sometimes they happen for a reason. Like, I know I've attracted a certain type of person into my organization, and that happened for a reason. Some of it is me. Some of it is the kind of people I'm looking for. Some of it is you know, some people might look at my organization and say, that's not for me.
And so that is a combination of things. Some of them are intentional filters and some are unintentional filters.
Avish Parashar
Okay. Gotcha. So it's okay.
So so sorry. I just wanna know about that. Okay. So returning, you're saying that, alright, everyone is certified in scuba, but that doesn't provide value. So that's not a actual Right. It's a differentiator, but it's not a strategic competency.
Robert Bradford
Exactly. So, a a real strategic competency creates value for customers in a way that's different. So it's not just you know, I look at myself. It's not just that I know strategic planning. Lots of people know strategic planning. I've done over 25 100 strategic planning meetings. Nobody in the world can say that.
And and so that's a differentiator. So I always say to people, look. If you want someone who's just done it a 100 times, there are probably a 1000 people who can do that. If you want someone who's done it, you know, thousands of times, there you don't have many choices.
Avish Parashar
Okay. Got it.
So there's gonna be people listening. I'm assuming people who are some of my more regular audiences. They're not necessarily people who own companies. Right. They might be people who lead teams. They might be working in HR or accounting. I've done a lot of work with government, employees. So can this same idea of strategic competency be applied to someone who's not at the top of the food chain and can make these broad decisions about, like, who do we serve and how do we serve it?
Can a can a team leader or an HR person apply the same idea?
Robert Bradford
Absolutely. Because, I mean, if you take a department and organization is a a most common example. A department does certain things, and they do certain things very well, and they probably do those things better than any other part of the organization. And they should really focus on honing what that is that they do well, and and also delineating why something is something that your department does versus something that maybe another department could do. You know, an example that I used to use was back when I was in banking. I I was running IT, for this big bank, and, the purchasing of computers was something that was kind of in my department, but a lot of computers are not. It's it's not like you need an IT professional to say, hey, run out and buy a notebook or something.
So we had another department in the organization that was very good at purchasing because they handled, you know, the mail room and, and outside contractors and things like that. And, and for a lot of the purchases we did that, if they weren't, like, core to the IT world and decision making, I didn't wanna wanna touch those. So I said, look, that's not that's not my thing. You do these things really well. You can go out and negotiate a, purchase of, you know, 500 computers or something, and and I don't really wanna play that game. I wanna play the game of looking at what the core system is, what kind of software we're using, a few things like that that are gonna affect my people, but that's where I wanted to stay focused. So that's a really good example of me saying, look.
I'm good at really the the systems architecture side of things. And if you wanna, you know, if you wanna build an empire around, you know, purchasing all the office supplies and, oh, by the way, that includes some IT, that's fine. But, you know, I'm I'm happy to move that out of my department.
Avish Parashar
So a lot of it's identifying what your unique strength is, and then leading into it. So I have a bit or a lot of the ADD. I think it's safe to say that I don't I don't think I'd be consulting by saying you also do.
Robert Bradford
Very much.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. And I and I think in the world of overstimulation, social media, constant inundation of stimulus, it's so easy to get distracted. So when you're working with organizations or teams like, I think it sounds great in theory. You know, just find the thing that you do, what's your strategic competency, and focus on that.
Robert Bradford
Mhmm.
Avish Parashar
How do you, for yourself and your clients, stay focused on that? Because I've done this. I feel like every month or so, I redefine and rethink about what's the one thing I really should be doing. And then I'm really good about focusing on it for a week or 2, and then life gets in the way. And the more time I spend focusing on a strategic competency, this little voice and this pressure builds up in my brain that's like, oh, but what about you're not doing these things right now? So how do you stay focused on a on a strategic competency when life is trying to pull you in a 1,000 directions?
Robert Bradford
Well, and there are 2 ways to do this that that I use a lot. The first is systems. Okay? And the system is, I have a way that I say yes to things. And if I say yes to something, I'm fully committed to it. And in that moment, when I say yes to something, I know that the most powerful thing I can do is say no to something. So that that's a that's a really important, part of the process for me.
It's like when I'm talking to someone who might be a a client, just whether I even sometimes whether I call them back is about that system of how I determine when I say yes, and that relates to the second thing, which is filters. I use a lot of filters, and the filter is just, okay. In some cases, that's not what I do. And sometimes the filter can be a simple thing, like, in a lot of companies, your your price can be a filter. Right? If I charge $10,000 for something, there are a lot of people who aren't gonna buy it who might buy the same thing at a $100. So that's a filter.
But, also, if I say this is for you, for a certain group of people, that ends up being a a a sort of inverse filter for the people who are not in that group. If I say this is for people with ADHD, if someone who doesn't have ADHD sees that and say, oh, that's not for me. So filters are really important, and they're important for me internally too. Like, I I have to filter in what what comes into my life.
Avish Parashar
Right. So taking the time to figure out what those systems and filters are. Yes. And
Robert Bradford
And then once you put that in place, then you don't have to change it. And and you it it defends you from the distraction.
Avish Parashar
And what's interesting about that, it's something you've you've talked about for years, and it was in your book. And, I I still remember this from the presentation you did for my chapter almost 20 years ago, is you talk about this idea of having an island. And, and I I don't know how our ease are gonna be to represent in in podcast form without the visual. But, basically, the more narrow your focus, the higher up on the island you are, and the brawl, like because an air, kinda comes to a peak. And at the bottom is where people are brought. They say yes to lots of things. They wanna serve all the clients or do all the things.
Robert Bradford
Yes.
Avish Parashar
So could you and I'm probably butchering it. So could you talk a little bit about because right now what you're saying is if I focus on this, it makes it easier for me to say no, but a lot of us don't wanna say no to things because we feel we're missing opportunities.
Robert Bradford
Right. So, and you do miss opportunities. That that that the important thing to remember as this is especially critical if you have ADHD is you will always miss opportunities and you with ADHD, you are always very aware that you are missing opportunities. Yes. And so and so what you have to say is, well, if I'm gonna miss opportunities, I wanna make sure I miss the opportunities that, yeah, I could do it, but I probably shouldn't. I probably should, you know, stay in my lane more or less is a term that a lot of people use. So the concept is that when you're really good at something, if you represent that, you know, the things that you could do spatially, what you find is your effectiveness goes up as you reach the the central point where that that thing is that you're good at.
And so, you know, years ago, I sort of started thinking about this when I was looking at a client that owned a gravel pit, and I learned that there are literally across the entire United States, there is, just a series of circles that there is one gravel pit inside that circle, and there there aren't 2 competitors inside the circle. And the reason is they're selling gravel. It's
Avish Parashar
it's it's
Robert Bradford
it's not, you know, it's not that special. So what is the cost? The cost is getting up out of the ground and shipping it to where it needs to go. Right? And so it it you need gravel if you're making a road or something like that or making concrete, but you can't do that if you got competitors because then what do you compete on? It's like, well, we've got better gravel. No. Gravel's all the same.
So so you have these circles because outside of a maybe a 10 or 15 mile radius, it the cost of the shipping of the gravel becomes the biggest issue. And so if I have a gravel pit here and you've got a gravel pit 15 miles away, the only place we're ever gonna compete is where there's there's a a a little bit of equality in the cost of moving the gravel to the site, if that makes sense.
Avish Parashar
Yes. So we're trying to like, we're almost being, like, the gravel pit. Right? This is our area, and this is all I'm gonna focus on. Right.
Robert Bradford
And if
Avish Parashar
I've got a gravel pit, but I'm like, oh, I wanna expand, and then I start reaching beyond my area, I'm gonna suffer because
Robert Bradford
Right. Because, suddenly, it costs me twice as much to to truck the gravel over to somebody else's town, and and I'm competing with a guy who has much lower cost. So they're always gonna be
Avish Parashar
Yeah. It's it's funny. Kinda and and one of the things I talk about is similar. It's like identifying your big yes and. Like, what are the things you really wanna say yes and to? What is the the core? I I talk about it.
I use the word core. I don't say core competency, but, like, what's at your core?
Like, who are you really? And that's the thing to say yes and to. And it's and my yes and yes but thing is not about never saying no or but. It's about knowing what you wanna say yes and to, which then gives you permission to say yes, but, or no to those other things.
Robert Bradford
Yes.
Avish Parashar
But the first step is identifying that strategic competency.
Robert Bradford
Yeah. I and and it's a hard one to get at for a lot of people because because you can be good at something, and that's not necessarily your strategic competency.
Avish Parashar
You know? What what's what would differentiate it then? Like, what's what's something you're good at versus something that would really be a strategic competency?
Robert Bradford
I I think it's the unique blend that we bring as individuals. Now if you look at an organization, it's the unique blended organization brings that that they're really good at it's not just, you know, one of my clients makes packaging, but it's not just the packaging. They're really good at making package that fits seamlessly into the operations of their customers. And that means it's the usability as as important as the, you know, fancy design because they they wanna make sure that your machines don't go down. So, for an individual, it's a it's sometimes a combination. For example, for me, I've just got this huge range of stuff I'm interested in because I have ADHD. And so that leads me to say, gosh.
You know, if you want me to talk to you for half an hour about, you know, medieval farming practices or something, or yeah. I mean, something that nobody really cares about, I know it. And what's interesting about that is that the synthesis of that very strange, often obscure knowledge with the activities that I do suddenly allows me to say, hey. This strategic planning situation, this strategic situation in this organization reminds me of what happened to the French during the 100 years war or something like that. Mhmm. And and and those connections lead to stories, and stories are always a really good foundation for understanding that people have.
Avish Parashar
Got it. Okay. So I want to well, before I move off of a strategic competency, there's one thing you mentioned, which I wanna follow-up on a little while ago. You said a lot of people, a lot of consultants are talking about core competencies and spouting a lot of gibberish. Right. Ed, I'm I'm just curious, like, if you could explain what you see as, like, the gibberish around core competencies versus what it actually should be.
Robert Bradford
So the first piece of gibberish that is the most common is that people think that, I go into organizations and say, look. We have 15 core competencies. I say, you don't have 15 strategic competencies. Okay? You have one strategic competency, and that is really hard for people because that one strategic competency idea means that you have to really, really narrow in the focus quite a bit to the things that you really do well. So I I like to use the example of Disney. Like, when they started, all they did was, you know, cartoons, short short cartoons, before Snow White.
And and today, they do, you know, hundreds of different things. They have publishing and a cruise line and hotels and, you know, clothing, you name it. The competency that got them to each step beyond that grew as they grew as an organization. So they stayed really focused on cartoons, but then they made bigger cartoons, longer cartoons, different cartoons. And then they started to say, well, what about you know, they did the Disney true life adventures. They did nature films. That was a mess for them.
They never made a lot of money on it. They did the theme parks. That worked really well. Why did theme parks work and not the documentaries? Well, the theme parks were related to cartoons. Right? It was about this fantasy world that you create.
And so every step they went on, they added something and grew a bigger and bigger competency, and that's what it is. A a big organization that does thousands of different things still has one strategic competency. And for Disney today, I'd say that's family entertainment. It's not all entertainment, and it's not family stuff. They don't they make, you know, car seats for kids and, you know, they don't make that kind of stuff. What they do is family entertainment. And so Yeah.
You can get big by making your competency bigger and actually having it grow to envelope, more and more things. It's like the blob. It sucks things in and and Right.
Avish Parashar
But you keep that.
Robert Bradford
Yeah.
Avish Parashar
For strategic Exactly. Competency. Okay. Cool. No. I was just the way you had mentioned, like, there's all this gibberish around it, I was curious what
Robert Bradford
So that the the prime one is we have 15 core competencies. No. You have one strategic competency. The other the other item that I think is really rough for a lot of people is the idea that a competency is know how based. It is not an asset. It is not a person. It is not a location.
It is know how, and a lot of companies resist that. They don't wanna treat their know how as as valuable, but it is.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. And it it kinda brings to the next point. It's, like, the things that we see as valuable. And, you know, obviously, we're talking about strategic planning and things like that. There's a lot of idea around goals and strategies and and tactics. And I think most people who've picked up a business book are familiar with the idea that before you focus on tactics, you gotta think about your strategy and you gotta think about your goals and objectives, right, before you and a lot of people will jump into action and tactics. And I agree with that model.
And here's kind of the idea, and I'd mentioned sort of vaguely that I wanna swing this idea past you. I've kind of been thinking about this and the new material I've developed is I think the goals before strategy, strategy before tactics model is incomplete. Because to me, there's 2 steps that come before the setting the goal or acting on the goal, and that is mindset comes first.
Robert Bradford
Mhmm.
Avish Parashar
That then leads to emotion and feeling. Mhmm. And then you go to goals. Because if you got the wrong mindset, it leads to this kind of negative, unuseful emotion, which then leads to either less empowered goals, less impressive goals, less innovative goals. It leads to mundane strategies and least inefficient tactics.
And I think that so I I work a little bit more small groups and individuals. I think a lot of people struggle because everyone jumps into the goal setting. Like, here's what we want to achieve, and then strategy around it and tax.
But they never stop to say, what is our mindset? When I think of this goal, what is the mindset I'm bringing to this? Mhmm. And what is the feeling I have? And so then they spin their wheels, and then they wonder why their their people are resisting or they're wondering why they can't get themselves to take action. And if we step back and look at this foundational piece that in my opinion comes before the goal strategy and tactics, Once you adjust the mindset and feeling all that stuff, it basically smooths the road to those things happening. Yeah. And so I'm curious because you've obviously had 25 100 sessions of these, and I'm just curious what your kind of thoughts are on that sort of idea and model.
Robert Bradford
You know, what's interesting to me about that is that it makes a lot of sense. There are really 3 areas where you have to look at mindset.
1st is, what is my individual mindset? You know, if if you're calling the shots for a department, you're calling the shots for a business, you're you're just calling the shots for yourself, your individual mindset is a really important tool that you bring to the table. And being aware of that and thinking about it beforehand will will lead you in different directions. So I think the the idea that you can have a boring mindset or an interesting mindset is an interesting one. Psychologists talk about sort of an an open mindset or a closed mindset. Right? So open mindset is is seeking new knowledge, learning from people, incorporating new ideas.
Closed mindset is you already understand everything. And and you see both of those in individual And it's Right.
Avish Parashar
It's almost like you could describe those 2 as a yes and mindset and a yes but mindset. Yes. Yes. Exactly.
Robert Bradford
Exactly. 1 is a yes and mindset. And that's true for for teams of people that a team can culturally adopt a mindset that is that is a yes and mindset. It's open. It's collaborative. It's flexible, or there can be a closed mindset. And you see this in different organizations.
You know, a lot of banks tend to have very closed mindsets because they worry that people are gonna steal their money because they have a lot of it. A lot of people in creative worlds, tend to have a more open mindset about some things, but sometimes it's a little too open, and they say they say yes and to everything, and they don't have those filters that help center. Right? Right. So there's a balance. And then there is for the whole organization, not just for a team, but for the whole organization, you can have a mindset. You can adopt a a culture for the organization just like you can for a team or for yourself where you you think o in an open way or you think in a closed way, and it's it's a choice.
Sometimes that happens by default and not intentionally. Some people don't choose those mindsets.
Avish Parashar
Well, I think that almost no one does. Yeah. And certainly organizationally, I feel it's it's goal. Right? And sometimes it's a top oftentimes, the top down goal. Right? The executive or, you know, the new CEO comes in with their new vision or new managers, like, here's what we're gonna do.
And I agree. Obviously, we can achieve goals without addressing mindset and emotion, But I think it's it's happens in 1 of 2 ways. Either it's like you said, by happenstance. Right? You happen to have the team already with the right mindset or the goal happens to be one that gets people positive. So
Robert Bradford
Mhmm. It's
Avish Parashar
by chance. The other is I do think as in many areas, you can short term brute force it. You know, if it's a goal that needs to be achieved in short term, you can say it doesn't matter if you got a yes but mindset and people are negative. You can kinda force people to do something for a short period of time. But if we're talking about long term retention, morale, productivity, engagement, you know, That that's why you see these organizations end up. Maybe they get immediate short term benefits, but then it tapers off because it's only so long you can you know, the the beans will continue until morale improves type management style.
Robert Bradford
Yes. And, sadly, there are a lot of people who think that that's how you manage people. That's how you supervise people, which is terrible leadership.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. And, it's funny.
I was at I was at a conference and a speaker before me, not surprising, an older gentleman started talking. He was very motivational. He was a great speaker, but he he said the whole section about feelings. Like, why did feelings become so important? Like, when did feelings look you know, there's this whole thing about people saying feelings don't matter, feelings shouldn't matter, I don't care how you feel. And And what's interesting to me is you ever noticed that people who say that are generally in highly emotive states? Like, they're like, I don't care how you feel.
Feelings shouldn't matter. Like, so angry.
Robert Bradford
They're angry because for those people, anger is the only valid feeling.
Avish Parashar
Yes. And what they're really saying is not feelings don't matter. It's that I don't wanna deal with your feelings. It's like but the people who say feelings don't matter forget one very important thing is that we are human beings. And Yeah. They were just emotional creatures. And, so I feel like the the I you I don't know. It's interesting.
I know you generally work with the top level, so maybe you don't see this as much. But the times when I'll go in and do a a training or work with a group, it's amazing how the manager will call you in and they'll outline, here's kind of the issues. Here's what you wanna work on. And then when you get in and talk with the group, the the issues from the group's perspective is all the demeanor and leadership style of the management. You know? It's like, oh, we want our team to communicate more effectively and take more initiative.
And you get to talk to those people. It's like, oh, yes. Because every time we do, they yes, but us or they don't listen to what we say. It's like, oh, okay. Like, you gotta work on the mindset for yourself and your people if you want them to adopt the change. That's why so many people resist change is because we're just trying to use it straight from a logical standpoint. Like, oh, here's why you should do this is my soapbox.
I could go on, but I'm here to I'm here to talk
Robert Bradford
to you. That's great. Yeah. That's fabulous. I I think that's a really good that's a really good way of, in a nutshell, talking about the cultural issues so many organizations face. Because if it's just top down, then you're always telling people how to do their job, and that's that's always a mistake. You never tell people how to do their job.
You you give them an objective and let them figure out how to do their job. But if it's all bottom up, then people are just you know, you got people at the bottom of the organization just running around saying, look. Let's just do it my way, and you've got, you know, a 1000 people doing it their way, which can work, but it's it's like herding cats and all that situation.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. And I find it for leaders.
And you, you you talk about this in your book, which I like a lot, is that it's not about like, I talk about the SEN mindset, which is not about doing what everyone says and giving in and being a pushover. But it's about engaging them, asking questions, and listening. Now you as the leader then have to synthesize that information and come up with the best plan, and sometimes that plan will not accommodate what everyone wanted. But I feel like if a employee feels like they were able to contribute, they were respected, and they were listened to, that even if you don't do what they wanted you to, they will, like, feel differently. They'll feel more positive about the direction you chose because you actually listened to them.
Robert Bradford
Yes. And that's that's a rule I use in strategic planning that when we go into a the room to do strategic planning, everyone understands that you're not gonna get everything you want. But when we come out of the room, we're going to have our plan. It's going to be our plan, and you're a part of that us. So we came up with this, and you're going to be listened to. You're gonna be heard. We're gonna we're gonna bring your perspective into the the process, but it is not the only perspective that we have to look at.
We have to balance a lot of different issues.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. And I I I I love that approach of we versus you or we versus me.
It's like it's ours. It's not me as yours. And that's a nice way of of setting it up because I feel like when the leader comes in, it becomes about me. Or, you know, sometimes and you you probably have to encounter this. Right? Sometimes in a team or a workshop, a plat facilitation like you're doing, you get that sort of alpha personality who tries to drive everything. Every time you have a question, they're the ones who want their and if it's been a long time, everyone else might be so beat down by that person that they don't even bother speaking up after that alpha has spoken because it's like, you know, whatever.
Bob is gonna get his way. What's the point? So do you encounter that, and do you have ways of dealing with that, like, dominating personality?
Robert Bradford
Ab absolutely. It is it is it is one of the challenging personalities that I deal with. There are a lot of different ones, but that's that's a really common one in entrepreneurs and CEOs that, you know, they come into the room saying, you know, we're gonna do it's gonna be my way or the highway, and I just have to sort of make sure that the processes don't allow for that. So, for example, in a lot of processes where we we might just let someone talk and listen to them talk for 10 minutes, which always ends up being that alpha personality, what I'll tend to do is say, look, we're gonna have to come up with about 30 different things here. And so what I want you to do is think about the things from your perspective, then we're gonna go around the room, and each person's gonna give a thing until we until you run out of I run out of ideas. And so we'll get those 30 ideas, but each person on the team has brought up their ideas, and that alpha personality is only one person on that team. So they they don't come up with 90% of the ideas.
They come up with, you know, 10 or 5% of the ideas depending on the size of the team.
Avish Parashar
And this kinda goes back to what you said earlier in a slightly different way about having, systems and filters. Like, you said you have them for yourself, but if you've got this person having a process or a system to deal with in advance, I think a lot of us, and I'm guilty of this as well, you just sort of hope they won't be a problem today even though there's never been a time where they haven't. But you're like, oh, maybe today he won't speak up like that. But having a system in place, like, alright. We're gonna have a system where each person only gets this amount of time, so everyone has to contribute, like and I think once you have, like there's something weird about putting something down in writing or having a system. Everyone sort of goes along with it, versus just trying to say, okay, Bob. Why don't you, like, let someone else speak?
It's like Right. Because when
Robert Bradford
I get some of the rules, then they have to obey the rules. And and since I'm defining the process, I can I can make up rules? And so, you know, over the years, I've made up different rules, and I found that rule of of going around the table only I mean, each person put one idea in until you run out of ideas helps to balance it. Otherwise, you get the guys from sales are talking a lot or the CEO is talking a lot, and and the guy from IT or the guy from accounting isn't saying much, but they know some really important stuff that we have to pay attention to.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. And and two quick strategies I've used in this in in various environments. One is, sometimes when I present to a speaker's chapter on on some topic, you wanna do quick introductions to get a sense, but, you know, speakers, if you give them the introduction. So I'll just I'll literally set a timer, on my phone.
I'll be like, alright. You got 30 seconds, and I got a bell because I use it for my presentations. I'll just ring the bell. And so having a fixed time helps. And the other thing, you know, to that point, like, the IT guy or the accounting woman or whoever who's, you know, not speaking up as much but has great ideas, I will sometimes start a brainstorming ideation, quote, unquote, session with 5 minutes of individual writing. Like Oh. You just write on your own. Mhmm. And then you share what you came up with because now the extroverts would hate this because they just wanna speak and get it out.
But the introverts love because they get to generate their ideas and then look them over, and then they could pick ideas off their sheet to share. It's a way of tapping that, that genius of the people who maybe won't speak up Yes. Which I encourage people to do. I I the free writing thing, I think, is incredibly powerful. That's a whole whole other thing.
Robert Bradford
I I like to frame the free writing for people. I like to tell them, you know, write something down. I want you to have at least 5 bullet points, and I wanted the bullet points to be 1 or 2 words each. And the reason I do that is if I do free writing, there will be one guy who does war and peace, and he wants to read the whole thing
Avish Parashar
out loud as the group and everything. Comes in. Well, this brings something else you mentioned years ago, which I owe and I still I've quoted this at times in various presentations I do, is, for for brainstorming sessions. You will go in sometimes and say, what's the stupidest thing we can do?
Robert Bradford
Yes. Absolutely.
Avish Parashar
So talk more about that and about like, what do you mean by that, and why do you do that, and how does that work?
Robert Bradford
So if I ask for what's what are the good ideas in any organization, everybody thinks about this all the time. So they're kinda coming up with the same good ideas. And it's not that they're terrible ideas, it's that they're the same ideas that your competitors are thinking. So if I ask what are the stupid ideas, what I find is the best ideas, the most unique and most creative ideas are often hiding behind the stupid ideas. And we we don't we don't think those ideas partly because we go there and a part of our brain says, oh, no. No. No. We can't do that.
That's, you know, that's not right because none of our competitors do that. But if I ask you to come up with the stupid ideas first, what ends up happening is there is a reason why the idea is stupid, and examining that reason in some cases, and it's not most of the case. Most of cases, it's stupid for a reason. But in some cases, I understanding why the idea is stupid can help us to take a jump ahead of our competition by doing something they would never consider because it's connected to a stupid idea.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. I and I love this, and I kinda talk about something similar, with the free writing. Like, you're right down the stupid. I have literally said almost the same thing. Sometimes the best ideas are hiding behind the worst ones. So let's let's let's shift that then to a little bit on the personal level. Let's say you've got a person who's got some goal in their life.
They want to lose some weight. They wanna write that novel they've always, you know, been thinking about doing. They wanna, you know, develop their own board game or video game. And none of these goals are personal to me, by the way. Let's just say, I'm not looking for free coaching right now. But but let's just say you've got you know, it's one thing for a a business to say, alright. What's the stupidest thing we can do?
We got this product. Alright. Here are the dumb marketing ideas. But for an individual who maybe wants to bring a little more yes and in creativity to their life, how could they use this idea?
Robert Bradford
So the idea of of looking at the stupidest thing, one of the things I like to challenge people to do, and I usually do this before I ask for the stupidest thing. To me, that's that's the last straw. If if I find I can't get a rise out of a team, then I ask what's the stupidest idea.
Because they're you okay. And the reason is that I they they feel they need permission to come up with some weird stuff. But I'll start by saying, let's come up with some weird stuff first.
Avish Parashar
Yeah.
Robert Bradford
And so if I say to you, well, okay, Avish. What is the weirdest thing you can do? You know, if you wanna do a novel and a game and you also wanna do some coaching and consulting, it's like, what's the weirdest thing you could do? And say, well, why don't I do all 4 of those things at once? And and that's probably dumb for a lot of reasons, but there probably are, like, 2 or 3 of those you could do at once that would actually be a little weird, but kinda cool. And and probably also really well connected to your unique talents because you have talents in all those areas. And if you could have a way to sort of set the hooks in so you pull them all together for 3 of those ideas, maybe not all of them.
Maybe you don't do, a video game and a board game and and consulting and so on, But maybe you do. Maybe you write a book about it, and you can do consulting about whatever you write a book about.
And the question
Avish Parashar
is really funny about that is, I didn't do this process, but I just finished the first draft of a novel finally after 40 years. Oh, wow. The premise, though, and you'll love this, and, I might be revealing this too soon to the public here, but, you know, the 7 people that might be listening to my brand new podcast. And, actually, you, I was gonna talk about this with you after we were off recording, but, hey, why not do it here? I'm gonna look for beta readers when draft 1 when, you you know, I got a lot more work to do. The premise, though, is it's a superhero story.
Robert Bradford
Mhmm.
Avish Parashar
The main character is a consultant who's hired by a supervillain to learn how to make his system the process more efficient so he can be more effective in achieving his evil goal. So that combines my experience as a speaker and in business with my nerdy love. And then had I gotten a walking desk, a standing desk with a walking treadmill pad, right, you could have combined the the fitness goal with the writing of the business goal, and my mind's always working. I'm like, how could this become a game as well? So it's it's funny, though, this random idea out there, but it is amazingly true how and what I find and tell me if this there's this whole thing. I have this thing about SMART goals. Great SMART goals, obviously, tried and true project management.
But I think smart goals are also limited because what I talk about is the I think most of our goals should be smart goals. I think our I think one of our aspirational goals should not be. And what I mean by that is that the strength of a smart goal is that you don't have to think. Right? Mhmm. You come with your goal.
You make your plan. You get your checklist. Check. Check. Check. Check. You achieve the goal.
The problem is the strength of that though is the weakness. And because we don't have to think for a smart goal, that means we don't have to engage our creativity. Mhmm. And what I find is what increases engagement on a personal level is creativity. The more I'm using my creativity, the more engaged I feel. So when I'm trying to achieve a smart goal, it doesn't access that part of my brain. When I set a goal and I talk about setting a goal you don't know how to achieve or something weird.
Because what then you have to do is you have to engage your creativity, and it is amazing how. If it's a goal that matters to you, right, not just a goal like you feel you should do or, oh, this would be good for our business if we achieve this impossible goal. But something like, wow. I would love to do that but I have no idea how. Mhmm. Now you're engaged in your creativity. Well, how could I do that?
And now you gotta think about what's the stupidest way. What's the weird thing I could do? And so for, like, 99% of your goals, make them smart because you want to achieve those. But if you're feeling like you wanna go for something bigger, setting a goal you don't know how to achieve and then engage in this creative process like, even just now speaking to you about the book and the treadmill. Like, I started to feel excited.
Robert Bradford
Mhmm.
Avish Parashar
And I already wrote the book, so it's not even like a goal I'm gonna do. But it's like
Robert Bradford
Well, yeah, there are a couple things that that makes me think of. 1st, I I think the creative piece that a lot of people struggle with in using SMART goals. And and and so SMART is an acronym for specific measurable achievable result that is time related. I think the one that people struggle with the most is the result. Mhmm. They when you ask people to set a goal, they will often come up with an action. So for example, when I wrote my first book, I started out thinking, I wanna write a book. Okay? But that wasn't the result I was looking for.
Like, there are there are hundreds of people, thousands probably, who've written books that, you know, are just, you know, sitting on a shelf somewhere and nobody's ever gonna publish it. But, obviously, I wanted a book that was published, so I had to say that that was the result. But then I had to say, well, why do I wanna write a book?
And I had to get creative about, okay. You know, my market you know, a really successful book in my market is gonna sell, like, 50,000 copies because I'm doing management books. It's not like writing, you know, Harry Potter or something like that.
Avish Parashar
Right.
Robert Bradford
You're a
Avish Parashar
little bit behind JK on that one.
Robert Bradford
Yeah. Yeah. I'm doing really well if I hit 50,000.
So, when I wrote my first book, I sat down and said, what do I want that book to do for me? It's not just that I wanna write a book because somebody said they'd pay me a higher speaking fee. I wrote a book, although that is true. It's also that I wanted to accomplish
Avish Parashar
to Amisha's first book. Yes.
Robert Bradford
And and the second thing that's interesting, and that is a really good example of something I had no idea how to do when I wrote my first book. And I said, okay, the real objective is to get a book published and sell 50,000 copies and have it, you know, build my credibility with a certain group of people. I didn't know how to do that. And so what I find is I write action plans for the for the objectives that I set for myself every year. And the action plan for that was much longer, and it took much it it took much more research to write it than the sort of, oh, yeah. I can just rip I can just do this. I can just Right.
Knock that out. Right? So those are the really strategic action. Those are the strategic objectives, the ones you don't know how to do because you're gonna learn something that you bring into that competency we talked about earlier.
Avish Parashar
Yes.
Robert Bradford
So it's really
Avish Parashar
That's the other thing is, like, you're creative, but you have to learn and grow and improve
Robert Bradford
Exactly.
Avish Parashar
Which also has creates a level of engagement. You know, there's, like, the Gallup poll surveys, right, when you talk about what are employees looking for and opportunities for career growth and and personal development are often or professional development are often higher than compensation, because it's just something that people crave is, like so we could bring that to ourselves, set a goal you don't know how to achieve, but then learn and grow and use your creativity. So I encourage people to do that all the time. Like, pick something that stretches you, that you'd be excited to do, and then, you know, make that a task to go figure out.
Robert Bradford
Yeah. And and that's you know, it's one of the things when I hired people, I always I always sat down with them and said, like, what what do you wanna learn? What how do you wanna grow in this job? Because I I don't just wanna hire you and have you be a consultant for 10 or 20 years and then retire. And some some did that, and they they they that's what they wanna do. That's fine. But, you know, there were some of them went on and got jobs at CEO as CEOs at much larger companies, or they moved into private equity.
I had one assistant who started a a web, a web design firm. I mean, it's it's always there's always should be a next step, and that next step may be outside of your organization, which is fine.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of the how you grow leaders. Right? Like, you don't you don't get the great people. You keep forever. Like, your job as a leader should be to grow leaders, which means they will inevitably leave you.
Robert Bradford
Right.
Avish Parashar
Which, yeah, people don't like change, so then it's not for a lot of people, it's not an appealing goal. But for the best leaders, that's kinda what they're striving to do.
Robert Bradford
If if you keep people forever, it may be because they don't have the ambition to move out or they don't have the courage to to go do the next step in their lives, it may be that you're overpaying them.
Avish Parashar
Oh, that's a good point too. Yeah.
Robert Bradford
I mean, there there are a lot of reasons why people stay forever. It might be you're overpaying them, and they look around and say, look. Nobody else is gonna pay me $200,000 a year to, you know, do this. Yeah. And It's
Avish Parashar
a good point. I didn't think about it.
Robert Bradford
That you're giving them too nice a job. Hey. Nobody else is gonna pay me to sit around the pool at a hotel. You know? There are a lot of different reasons why people don't leave.
Avish Parashar
Alright. Well, that's great. And we're coming coming to the end of our time here.
Robert Bradford
Oh, darn.
Avish Parashar
I know. This is great.
You give me you give me a lot to think about and stuff that I feel like I gotta go and throw out my you know, a new strategic plan for myself, really, which it is you know, you you start out the one thing I didn't ask you about, you know, we're talking about individuals and, like, oh, you know, Robert does, like, multi day, multi you know, year long engagements. What does it have to do with me if I'm just a team leader or myself? But the whole thing is that your book and your business is all about simplified strategic planning. And you mentioned in the early, it's like simplified doesn't mean simplistic. But your goal is not to overcomplicate the process. Right?
Robert Bradford
Right. I I I mean, consultants, as a rule, tend to bring in a lot of jargon and complicate things, and I wanted to move in exactly the opposite direction. I want people to understand what I'm doing. I want them to feel connected to the process, and I don't want them to get all caught up in you know, what's the difference between a core competency and a strategic competency?
Well, who cares? You know? Yeah.
Avish Parashar
How does it work? Podcast everything. Yeah. Well, what I love about it is that, you know, you simplify it. Like, you got a whole book, and you go into depth into things that you need to do, and there's a lot.
But, really, you start out, it's really just answering 3 questions. Right? It's, it's, what do we sell, who's our customer, and how are we gonna beat or avoid the competition?
Robert Bradford
Exactly. That's all you need to know.
Avish Parashar
It's 3 questions. Now the process and the journey to answer those questions is why your process might take a week, or multi days or, because they're not necessarily the easiest questions to answer, but they're very simple. It's like just answer, and you lay in the book. It's great. You lay out, like, a whole process, how you can do it yourself, how leaders can take their own teams through it. So, I mean, I think that's one thing that I think a lot of people find comfort in complexity. It's like, oh, in that, like, oh, here's my, like, 20 step process and then what?
Versus just, like, 2 or 3 real simple things, it seems almost too simple, but it's like, well, if you take the time to answer these three questions, business will get much easier for you.
Robert Bradford
Right. Complexity is the smoke and mirrors that a lot of people use to hide the fact that they're idiots.
Avish Parashar
Yes. I do like I made a highlight here in on page 29 of your book. You wrote, thinking is a very underrated skill.
Robert Bradford
Did I really write
Avish Parashar
that? Yeah. You did. It's right there in your book. Page 29. It's That's hilarious. But it's true. Right? We don't wanna think, and we don't No. Deep market.
It's, it's great. Oh, well, before we finish off, I have one question for you that I didn't tell you in advance, and then I wanna end with so one of my premises is, like, small but impactful changes. So I think the world would be a better place if everyone started with a default mindset of yes and instead of yes but. Mhmm.
Robert Bradford
You don't
Avish Parashar
have to say yes and to everything, but your default was yes and. I think everyone would be nicer to each other. We'd be more understanding, more compassionate, more empathetic. So for you, what is or is there what one small thing do you believe that people just started doing differently, it would make the world a better place?
Robert Bradford
I you're familiar with the butterfly effect. Right?
Avish Parashar
Yes.
Robert Bradford
Like like the, you know, the if you step out of butterfly
Avish Parashar
wings in Tokyo and it changes the weather.
Robert Bradford
Right. Right. Okay. So the thing that is exciting about that to me is that that is very true, but it is also true that the little things that you do today are going to have those kind of expanding effects in the future. So the thing I always like to ask people to think about is what what minor changes can I make in my life or in my organization, that might be just small changes in processes or filters, but will have a growing and expanding effect on the world around me that will change things? So that's the one thing that I I love working on is what's
Avish Parashar
that small little change you can make.
Robert Bradford
What's that, yeah, what's that one easy simple change?
Avish Parashar
And it
Robert Bradford
may be that it's easy for me, and it's hard for everybody else, and that's fine.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. That's And that's one of the things that we overlook. Right? We take for granted the stuff that's easy for us. Whereas other people, they might think it's amazing. We're like, oh, it's not a big deal. So we we really downplay it, but that's the stuff I think.
That's that strategic competency almost.
Robert Bradford
Yes. Yes.
Avish Parashar
Easy for me.
Robert Bradford
And that that really the core element there is valuing yourself. Right? Valuing the things that are easy for you is being valuable because you're unique and really capable, and you do make choices every day that can have this growing and expanding effect on the world.
Avish Parashar
Well, it's funny. As a, fellow sci fi fantasy type nerd, you'll appreciate it. It was a meme I saw, and I don't know if it's attributed to anybody. But it's basically premise is that in science fiction, the protagonist is always we're always cautioned. We're always worried about if I travel back in the past, you don't wanna change anything because the smallest change you make in the past could have massive impacts on the present.
Robert Bradford
Mhmm.
Avish Parashar
Right? And we all believe that. But we never think about, well, that also means that the smallest actions I take right now could have massive impact in our future. Okay. So we accept it for science fiction, but in our eyes, like, oh, yeah. No. That little small thing you do right now could could have a huge effect down the road. Right. Well, thank you, Robert.
This was fantastic. I learned a lot. I had a great time chatting with you. For people who may want to check you out, read your book, you know, maybe even, you know, engage your services for strategic planning because they're gonna have a huge impact on an organization or a team. What's the best way to contact you or learn more about you?
Robert Bradford
Well, my website is, c s s p dot com, center for simplifiedstrategicplanning.com, and that's a great way to reach me. And if you want to email me, you can always, email me atrbadford@cssb.com. And I I get emails all the time. I love to answer questions people have, and I love solving problems. So if anyone has a puzzle in their work or in their business that they and you love that too. I know you do. Yeah. If if anyone has a problem, that's where I really shine.
I I think I you know, clients always ask me, do you think you're worth the money? I said, well, did I solve any problems? I said, yeah. Then then then I'm worth the money.
Avish Parashar
I love it. Alright. So
Robert Bradford
wanna solve $2 problems. I wanna solve $2,000,000 problems.
Avish Parashar
Well yeah. So if you I mean, whether you've got a $2, $2,000,000 problem, you know, reach out. Robert, you know, can can help you. Probably $2,000,000 problems, but, you know, $2 problems. Always open the doors of things. Yeah. So, again, cssp. com. Yes. Thank you everyone for, listening.
I'll put some of this information also in the, show notes, for this thing. So, Robert, thank you very much for your time. And, yeah, I'm definitely gonna invite you back on again so we can, talk more about some of this stuff.
Robert Bradford
Awesome. Thanks, Avish.