Your Seat at the Table - Real Conversations on Leadership and Growth
Join hosts Mike Maddock and John Tobin as they delve into authentic stories of leadership, decision-making under pressure, and the invaluable lessons learned along the way. Each episode offers candid conversations with seasoned leaders, exploring the challenges faced, the triumphs celebrated, and the insights gained from real-world experiences. Whether you’re an aspiring leader or a seasoned executive, pull up a chair and find your seat at the table.
Your Seat at the Table - Real Conversations on Leadership and Growth
How to See the Future with Deloitte's Chief Futurist, Mike Bechtel
What does it take to truly see the future — and help others act on it?
In this lively episode, hosts Mike Maddock and John Tobin sit down with Mike Bechtel, Chief Futurist at Deloitte. Mike shares his fascinating journey from ska bands to anthropology, consulting, venture capital, and teaching at Notre Dame.
They discuss the power of curiosity, why expertise can sometimes be a liability, how to stay relevant, and what it means to be a "dot connector" in a world dominated by AI.
Mike also gives us a bold (and fun!) prediction about where brain-computer interfaces could take us next.
Packed with laughs, sharp insights, and inspiring stories, this episode is a must-listen for anyone who wants to understand what’s coming — and how to lead in times of rapid change.
About the hosts:
Mike Maddock is the founder of Flourish Advisory Boards, a public speaker, and a serial entrepreneur known for helping leaders transform big ideas into reality.
John Tobin is the co-founder and president of Slalom Consulting, a global consulting firm helping organizations tackle their most ambitious projects and build a culture of innovation and trust.
Timestamps:
00:00 — Intro and welcome to Mike Bechtel
02:00 — Growing up between a landfill and a steel mill
05:30 — From ska bands to anthropology to consulting
12:00 — Dot connectors vs. dot perfectors
18:00 — Is expertise a liability?
24:30 — Advice to the next generation
32:00 — The importance of curiosity and humility
39:00 — Staying young and relevant
47:00 — Bridging the gap between future ideas and practical action
54:00 — Teaching at Notre Dame and empowering liberal arts students
1:02:00 — Humbling career lessons and learning to care
1:12:00 — Mike’s bold prediction for the future
1:17:00 — What is Mike’s seat at the table?
1:23:00 — Final reflections and thanks
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Pull up a chair. There’s always room for your seat at the table.
So what is your seat? What do you consider your seat at the table, like that you finally arrived or have you arrived in your mind?
SPEAKER_01:You know, John, it's interesting. There's this old joke that CIO stands for career is over, which isn't fair to CIO. You told a CIO joke, John, just for you. I know. You did it. Listen, I've been one, right? I tease myself because I should have been over, you know, back in 2011. But I think the idea was, where does one go from the chief seat when one is part of an established organization? And I think the answer is anywhere you want. You know, for me, even without the fun title, I think my best seat, my highest order you set the table, guys, is... helping others navigate what's new and next.
SPEAKER_03:Welcome to the Your Seat at the Table podcast with your hosts, Idea Monkey Mike Maddock and Ringleader John Tobin. We're two founders, a serial entrepreneur and a billion-dollar operator who talk to leaders about how, when, and why they made their most pivotal decisions in life. Join us as we share wisdom, mistakes, and a few laughs learning from the brightest minds in business today. Okay, so this is really fun. John and I get to talk to Mike Bechtel, who is the current chief futurist at Deloitte, aka managing director, aka chief future. What do you, Mike, I have to know, you're at a party. How do you introduce what you do? People go, so what do you do for a living? How do you, what do you say?
SPEAKER_01:So I borrow the language of an old friend and a great man named Mike Maddock. And the first thing I do is I deploy the sparkle fingers.
SPEAKER_00:Jazz hands. Jazz hands. And
SPEAKER_01:then the real answer is if I'm facing skeptics, guardians, ringleaders. I say self-deprecate, right? No, no, no. We make sense of what's new and next in tech. It's a less snoozy way to say emerging technology research director. But if I approach somebody who's more pioneer energy, I just lean into full-blown time travel. Like, well, we've got a crystal ball and an array of DeLoreans. What else can I tell you? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:That's awesome. How did you wind up? So you and I have known each other for the better part of 15, 20 years now ish. Um, and I know a little bit of your origin story, but I'd love for you to share it. You grew up where and how did you, how did you wind up? Like it's, it's got, it's a zigzag for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. It is. It is. You know, you know, Mike, I, um, editorial note. I've loved all those 20 years with you, and it's great to be chatting with you here, pal.
SPEAKER_03:Thanks. Me too.
SPEAKER_01:So I grew up in Calumet City, Illinois, between a steel mill and a landfill. And, you know, like the Wonka factory, right? Not a lot of people go in, not a lot of people come out. But it was an amazing place to grow up because it was a great, and I think, nurturing community. And I think a lot of the A lot of what marked my childhood was being in smaller schools where you needed an extra body for the soccer team and a lead for the school play. And so you couldn't help but flex and stretch and maybe embrace a little bit of breadth and versatility. And so I remember in eighth grade, in our graduation booklet, I said I wanted to be a computer engineer or an entertainer.
SPEAKER_03:That's it. And you are. Congratulations. You did it.
SPEAKER_01:You did it. And who knew that you could shoot for the and, right? But I'll tell you, in college, it really felt like an or. Do I want to write and communicate and create, or do I want to do hard math and make better money? And I chose door two, majored in engineering, lasted all of one semester, hated it, headed into political science and government like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. If the engineers were too cold, these cats were too hot. They seemed to literally enjoy shouting at each other for a living, and I didn't like that. fell into anthropology with my fellow long-haired hippies in the 90s, the alternative kids. And honestly, Mike, that's what I think set me off on the defining thread through my career, namely learned in anthropology of all places that technology is just a puffy-chested, four-syllable synonym for tool, and that humans have been tool-building from the jump. Nice. Stone flakes and written language and the rest, and so... I was an inventor for 12 years back at Accenture. Taught me the art of the possible. After a short stint as a CTO operator, I wanted to get back into the creative side. And that's when I met you and we partnered up and put Ringleader Ventures together. And that taught me enough about the art of the profitable to be dangerous, I suppose. I think the futurist work is really kind of a mashup of of those two, right? The inventor brain around what might we do and then that investor brain around what should we do.
SPEAKER_03:You know, there's a website of the world's best opening lines of books and each year they upgrade it. Like here are the top 50 and the first line, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I think you have the line of to start your book. I grew up between a landfill and a steel mill in Calumet City, Illinois. What a great opening line.
SPEAKER_00:That is good. Yeah. Plus the inventor and entertainer, or the computer science engineer and entertainer. I think those differences are pretty amazing. So Mike, just to take you back a little bit, I grew up on the South Side as well. and uh so like i i think i saw you graduated from morgan park academy that must have been i mean especially at the time it might have been pretty interesting i didn't know a lot of people like i knew like that whole neighborhood in the area but i didn't know a lot of people from there um and then again growing up on the south side you can't help but you grew up loving Notre Dame. So was that like a big goal coming out of high school? Were you valedictorian? How was that in terms of getting into Notre Dame? Was that like a wishlist thing that you always had or even your parents had for you? Or was that just like... I mean, because that in itself was kind of a cool goal for anybody coming out of the South Side to go there. So I'm curious your reflections on that.
SPEAKER_01:Well, John, from one South Sider to another, you know how the Notre Dame fandom is sort of bimodal, right? You either love it or you hate it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_01:And interestingly, my folks were a little more in category two. My dad grew up sort of non-denominational Christian, and I'll never forget he told me back then, When I was first looking at Endy, his actual quote, he says, you know, the only thing worse than a Catholic is an uppity Catholic. And I remember thinking like, oh, no, here we go. But I have to tell you, John, my mom's side of the family, being Southside Irish, they... They loved Notre Dame, but nobody had ever gone to college in the family. And so I think it was such a long putt that maybe nobody felt like they wanted to putt commit. Fast forward, the day I got the acceptance letter, my dad went from cool to neutral. And the day we got the scholarship letter, he went from neutral to all in, full march. All in.
SPEAKER_03:Nice.
SPEAKER_01:What a great idea. Nice.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I knew the Notre Dame Victory March before the alphabet because my father went there. And you made my dad's dream come true for you. I could not. They would have shot to kill if I was anywhere near that campus. So it's a great tradition. And let's talk about starting ska bands in college. This is something you did, right? Your Look at All This Junk Food, was that the name of your album?
SPEAKER_01:That's a deep cut. Mike Maddock, and I'm here for it. I'm ready. I saw the haircut. Let's go deep. It was rough. Somebody told me that I look like David Spade, but not quite as put together. And I thought, wow, that's a little
SPEAKER_03:bar. That's hard to recover from. But
SPEAKER_01:congratulations anyway. It was a hard team. team experience um you know uh as a musician I was just happy to play and and I remember this this this fellow by the name of Joe Cruz um Filipino American fella um he was in a popular campus band at the time he came up he said hey do you want to join a band a new band and you know It would have been 20 years before Sheryl Sandberg said, if you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, you don't ask which one. You just say yes. But I said yes. And then he handed me the warm-up cassette. And it was a bunch of ska music, which is like double-time reggae. It's impossible to
SPEAKER_03:sing. I don't know
SPEAKER_01:how you do it. But it was a riot. It was a blast. And I think more than anything, it taught me that people can make a bigger impact together. You know, it feels a little, maybe a little saccharine, but you get seven people together with different bags of skills and you go through the creative act and you come out with something way better than I think any of us could have done alone. So it was a real riot.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think that I have been talking to my youngest son about, he's been on football teams and soccer teams and baseball teams and I'm trying to get him to understand that working as a team sport and being able to connect dots. You said recently, so you're making me think of Brian Utsi. Remember Brian Utsi, Northwestern Social Capital Theory, came and spoke out at Maddox Douglas years ago. And he recommended, he made the point that people that have great social capital usually do something that brings all types of folks together. in a room, like he talks about piloting, golfing. For him, it was handball, I believe, or squash. You said, I just watched your South by Southwest speeches. Thank you. Really good, Mike. And I will promise I'm going to push it on social media. I just watched it this morning. You said the future favors dot connectors over dot perfectors. And being in a band, meeting people that you wouldn't normally meet, talk about how the future favors dot connectors over dot perfectors, because it gave me a little bit of hope, having not gotten into Notre Dame. I
SPEAKER_01:can assure you. It's good. Pots of golds at the end of all sorts of rainbows, pal. Working as I do in all things Newfangled, You come across the flavor du jour technology, it feels like every couple of years. And whether it was mobile, social, blockchain, you name it, they tend to follow this hype curve. They burn hot, then they burn out, and then they're merely very useful. AI hits different. And I realized it. When, back to John, our South Side roots, my Aunt Treece in Evergreen Park, she's putting sweet potatoes on my plate. At Christmas, this is late 22, and she says, did you know that robots can paint pictures and write poems now? It's nuts. And I'm thinking... What does this retired ceramicist from Evergreen Park have to say about this deal? What are you
SPEAKER_03:talking about?
SPEAKER_01:Right. And that's when it hit me that this had blown past the geek squad and into gen pop.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Right? Which is all to say, Mike, I think dot connectors are going to be having a better time because as AI learns... and excels at known things, right? And we all hear that the language is very sort of instructive here, right? Training data. Anything AI can be trained on, it will do great at, right? But I think what we pesky humans have is this inimitable ability to cook up novelty. I mean, Mike, look at that beautiful light and logo behind you, right? Machines ain't yet better at ideation and cross-pollination and synthesis than we are. And what's that dot connecting? So I think the future favors folks who can get past best practices and onto next practices. So
SPEAKER_03:is expertise a liability?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, well, I'd love to learn for both of you on this matter. I know, Mike, you and I talked about this for years. I do. I think it can be. I think it can get in your way. It cracks me up, guys, when I'll be with a client putting together some white hot innovation. The side of fries. Right. But here's the thing. I've seen this movie enough to know that that thing will mature into a standard operating procedure, and then it'll calcify into a best practice, and then it'll metastasize into a thoughtless orthodoxy. And then their kids are going to show up and challenge that, and rightfully so. And so I think holding on to expertise is– I've heard you use the term before, Mike, chasing ghosts. Or running from. I do think expertise, if you hold it as too sacred of a cow, it causes more harm than good.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, let me put you two on the spot. And just keep in mind, we can edit anything out. So I'm a tiny, small-time entrepreneur. I start stuff. I'm terrible at finishing. Good at starting, bad at finishing. Mike, you've worked for... a giant consulting firm, a nonprofit, a tiny consulting firm, and now you're at a giant consulting firm. So you've been on both sides of the wall. John, you started a giant consulting firm. I'd like to hear from both of you. What do you tell your kids? What do you tell your kids they should be doing and not doing in a world where the robots are coming on, you know, fueled by Moore's law faster and faster and faster every moment? What do you tell them? What do you tell them to do? What do you tell them not to? I'm like, become a plumber. No, the robots are not going to fix plumbing for a while. That's a sure bet. What do you all tell them? John, why don't you go first?
SPEAKER_00:Maybe I'll just go first. But, you know, we're mic'd. where your thought was taking me was just in terms of thinking about expertise versus having almost abilities and abilities to learn, abilities and that wherewithal to work hard and just kind of never being satisfied with like, oh, I know enough, I think is really critical. And if you think of like, The gen AI world of prompts and being genuinely curious is actually the skill set that you want. To be the person that asks the best questions, that's really what you want. It's helpful to have an expertise that maybe gets you in the door somewhere, but the people that will move ahead are going to ask the right questions. know one of our core values stay humble and curious kind of be that lifelong learner
SPEAKER_03:yeah i'm about to
SPEAKER_00:i've got the connection those are the people that are gonna you know move ahead and so that i mean in terms of telling my kids i do think that understanding technology a little bit and and like like you said um with your aunt in evergreen park um I think it's reached the mainstream, so everybody should leverage it. I think every professional pretty much out there will leverage AI. They will. And so if you are sitting on the sidelines thinking, hoping, or wishing, oh, this isn't going to impact me, you're wrong. And so for me, like anything that you could do in your kind of daily world that you're leveraging, Gen AI, I think makes a lot of sense for everybody. literally every professional in my opinion and so i'm encouraging my my my kids to you know jump into it learn it leverage it it's not replacing you per se but it's enhancing what you do and so for me mike i think you have a little bit of expertise but be the learner knower and right now you got to keep keep going with the different technologies that are out there and right now the flavor of the day is gen ai
SPEAKER_03:perfect and how about great mike what about you mr bechtel
SPEAKER_01:well john i i you said it so well that lifelong learning and curiosity is such a virtue and you know mike maddock i've always been smitten with your personal value statement to inspire and empower curiosity and i feel like um In the same way that in the 90s, it didn't matter what band you liked, you just need to like them before they were cool.
SPEAKER_03:I feel
SPEAKER_01:like you were on to this. Springsteen,
SPEAKER_03:he's sold out.
SPEAKER_01:But you were on to curiosity before I think this AI moment showed folks that it continues to be the rocket fuel. for these elevated ambitions. You know, John, I would say a plus one to everything you said with a humble maybe ad, I got to talking with an engineer about go-forward skills, as it were. And he landed with, he said, so in short, prompt engineering. And I said, you know, man, prompt engineering is exactly how an engineer would describe critical thinking and the humanities. And so that's all to say, for two and a half years, we call this witchcraft, voodoo, prompt engineering. I think for the last 2,500, we've just called it critical thinking, the humanities, Socratic method. And so that's kind of what I'm showing my kids. And I'll tell you, at the university at Notre Dame, where I teach part-time these days, first time in 25 years, we've seen the pendulum start Just start to come swinging back from stem, stem, stem with a side of stem.
SPEAKER_02:Because
SPEAKER_01:Python doesn't write your ticket anymore. So what are you going to do? Maybe I should learn how to read great books.
SPEAKER_03:I think Socrates said, I know that I know nothing. That was his brilliance. And I connected, you kind of stole my thunder here, John, but as you were speaking and Mike was speaking earlier, Mike, I never met your dad, but I've heard a lot about him. And you just told the story earlier, John, I did meet your dad. And one of my favorite compliments to give to someone after their parents have passed away, when I hadn't met them, I say, I didn't know your dad, but knowing you, he must have been extraordinary. The humility that that you guys roll with is really infectious. And I think in order for curiosity to actually happen, you have to be humble enough to admit that you don't know something. And that's hard to do, particularly as a leader, because when people are looking up at you on stage and you are the, what is it, the chief futurist managing director, what's gonna happen? Uh, I don't know is like, how do you have a job that like, you know, I'd be like, yeah, I knew you were going to ask that. I, it's like, it's so being humble enough to, uh, to be able to say in front of people, they expect you to have the answers. Um, I'm not sure what's going to happen. Who can help me? What do you guys think is, is like fundamental. And you guys both had that in spade. So, um, You know, I, I'm, I'm inspired by it. So do you think Mike, you would be, this is a little bit cliche, but do you think you would be where you are if you didn't have like the South side chip on your shoulder? Do you have that?
SPEAKER_01:You know, it's interesting, Mikey, you and I've talked about this in spurts over the years, uh, that I think there's a creative drive and there's a competitive drive. And Mike, you've always been notable to me, like truly brother, as somebody who I've seen is ambidextrous. I see you, you're... you create blue sky where you need it and you throw those elbows out and you win those red oceans when you need that too. And I think that's a gift. Um, I think for me personally, uh, it's less of a chip and maybe more of, maybe more of that only child, um, inability or, or let me, let me restate that. I think as an only child, um, my go-to punch has always been to create. And like you, Mike, I think more of a starter than a finisher. And in part because I didn't have to fight for the second helping at the dinner table. I didn't have to think about zero-sum games. And I always thought about creating my way out. And so I think in future's work, there's a requisite amount of Research and data and geekery, and that's maybe part of how God made me. But then there's also that sort of creative bit that says, okay, what might happen? in light of that.
SPEAKER_03:How do you, how do you, this is a John, this is a question for John. How do you move from blue sky thinking to practical? Okay. This is what you need to do with it like this year. So someday this is going to happen, but here's what you can do practically with this blue sky, futurist stuff. How do you do that?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, me personally, I think, I think I, it's fairly easy to work backwards from a goal and get to What are the first steps? How would I start? And usually if I just honestly challenge myself or, you know, our teams on how should we start, whatever the first instinct is, it's probably correct. It's probably like, that's probably the right move. And I've learned over time to just trust my instincts on those things and, and just, just get going and then things will evolve. I mean, it's, it's kind of like, uh, agile working is the way my mind works is like, just get started, get going. It's not gonna be perfect, but it will get me toward the goal. And so I think that's probably how I think about it, Mike, starting with the goal in mind, the outcome in mind, and then working on very tactical things, whatever's top of mind for me.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so for those of you listening, John Tobin is the best operator I know. Like he can operate the snot out of any company. And I think that, John, you are likely to be triggered by ideas that are like, what are we talking about? Too
SPEAKER_00:big.
SPEAKER_03:Too far out. And so a futurist who's talking about what's going to be possible in 10 years, let alone six months, how do you guys bridge the gap?
SPEAKER_00:The one thing, Mike, I would say, though, like I– there's, there's oftentimes that like, I don't think I realize how much exposure I'm, I have. Like I, I don't, I don't realize. And then something comes out later. Like that was revolutionary, but like I heard it maybe six months ago because when you're having lots and lots of conversations with many different industries, many different executives, many different technical partners, you can't help, but be a little bit ahead of a lot of people. So I think that does help. But, um, That said, I think– like when I think of– I don't think of big goals. That's where I shortfall. It's not like that I can't see ahead necessarily. It's that I can't– if a goal is too out there, I struggle. I struggle and it becomes like that's just baloney and I don't believe it. And so therefore, I kind of get into that victim mode of like, what am i doing here this doesn't make sense and he becomes not necessarily seeing the future that i can't see it it's more the goal's too ridiculous so therefore i struggle with it but i need those people i need those people that are shooting for the moon you know because it pushes me and encourages me and okay so you know i've been lucky enough to surround myself for that but that said mike maybe Yeah. Back to your question, the question to you on The Futurist. I mean, do you ever, do you push yourself to say kind of really wacky things and like, On real things, like do you find like, oh, that's just kind of like, yeah, of course I know that. Or do you actually seek out an edge or something
SPEAKER_03:that catches
SPEAKER_00:you in a
SPEAKER_03:way? Real quick, before you say anything, I remember going to Ruth and saying, hey, I want a name. This is my late wife. I want to name our first son Elvis. I really didn't. But I figured that if she said no to Elvis, I could get my way in any other name. So like that, Mike, do you say, and that's where we have Gunner. as our oldest son. So do you hedge with crazy ideas, Mike, or just what do you do?
SPEAKER_01:You know, what's funny here to me, John and Mike, is I tend to find that one of the most disarming and important things that my team and I do is we open with a bit of a womp womp and say, hey, we're not here to predict anything.
SPEAKER_02:And
SPEAKER_01:that gets people going. And then we follow with a series of predictions. But I think the story behind that is we're big believers that per good old William Gibson, the science fiction author in 1984, he wrote a book called Neuromancer. He said the future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed. And one of the neat things about Deloitte is is because we're so global, you can put that into practical practice. You know, I've seen stuff at NASA that would blow minds at nationwide insurance and insure, right? That feels intuitive. But I've seen things at nationwide insurance blow minds at NASA.
SPEAKER_03:And
SPEAKER_01:some of the most mind-melting AI stories I've ever seen were, drumroll, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Tourism Authority. And so... That's all to say, I don't come in hot with an intention to provoke. It's more of a cross-pollinator mindset where you say, hey, there's faces of your zany tomorrow being cooked up today over here. It would probably be pretty good for you to at least be aware. And then that way people don't see us as provocateurs so much as... frankly, just widening the lens.
SPEAKER_03:So you might have already answered this, Mike. But by the way, I love the way you alliterate. You've got such a great way with words. I think it's because of your musical background, but you're just so good with alliteration. So geek turned geezer is something that I've heard you say a few times now. Do you, A, for A, number one, do you really feel like a geezer? And B, number two, how do you stay... relevant and young. I mean, I miss South Park references. And like 15 years ago, Raph is like, what is wrong with you that you don't get South Park? But I was busy. I was doing other stuff, you know? So I miss these references. Throw a Seinfeld reference at me. How do you stay relevant? I know your kids are younger. You've got three, so that helps. But is it just pollinating with all these different clients? Or do you do anything to stay relevant and you know, up to speed? Or are you really worried about being a geezer?
SPEAKER_01:Well, so, I don't feel like a geezer unless my frame of reference finds me with a room full of 25-year-olds.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And, you know, not that we need to bring the movie Dazed and Confused into this, right? But, you know, as I get older, these cats stay the same age, right? And... And so one of the things I guess I've seen, fellas, is the best way to stay current is to make a proactive point of surrounding yourself with the currency, with young people and young pioneers. And something you taught me, Mike, I remember years ago, you talked about how you know, established board members or C-suite members at a, at a given company can't help, but look at these young Turks as their kids. And there's an antibody there. But I think if, if you lean into that and you acknowledge in the dialogue that, Hey, this stuff might feel zany, provocative, uncomfortable, and rife with youthful abandoned, right. And you should still listen because there's gold in them, their hills, then, then, it can be disarming and it can be really, really powerful.
SPEAKER_03:Do you do guys, do either of you do anything in your organizations to like, I have a friend who started a millennial board and he did it just for this reason. He's like, we are full. We are a bunch of middle-aged white guys who, My words, not his, but that's what he was feeling like. He goes, I'm going to start a board of millennials. They're going to have their own board chair. And once a quarry, I'm going to go and listen to what they're talking about because I want to see what we're missing. Do you all do anything intentionally around making sure that the younger people in your organizations are part of the decisions? Is there any intentionality there? And you can pass if you'd like. I'm just curious.
SPEAKER_01:I'd love to hear from you, John, like Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:we do a ton. I mean, we almost survey too much, but we have once a year employee survey and then we do what we call the anniversary survey. And you get the statistic on the, the employee survey is a little bit more generic. Like you can't tell who's saying what in the anniversary survey, you can kind of get the analytics on like how long they've been at, our company, how long they've been in the market, how much experience they have, their discipline, where they are in the world. So you get a lot more analytics on it. So I think listening to those different voices from lots of lenses I think is super helpful. I will say, although potentially toxic, social media platforms that are anonymous are really, really interesting to me. I think they're hilarious. They're super funny. But they also, they sting. They sting in the way that like, damn, that's the kind truth of how a population is feeling. Now, you don't get any demographic information, but it's still, there is a set of voices out there that is saying this. So I think that actually social media in the right way in getting the view on how they feel about your company or things that are happening, I think is actually healthy. And then like a lot of people rip on me from like my executive team that like says like, why are you paying attention to this thing? You're in
SPEAKER_03:the hedges kind of like.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like I'll be at the airport and I'm like, I'm looking at fishbowl. Mike, do you know? Bechtel, do you know fishbowl? I'm an
SPEAKER_01:18 year old to say I am aware.
SPEAKER_00:Everybody is like Tobin, get out of that thing that you're just going to get depressed. And I'm like, I find it interesting, funny, but it's like a way to, you know, There is a voice out there that does feel this, and I believe it. And so that's helpful. So I think, again, maybe just you can't close your mind off to stuff. You can't close your mind off to people. And then the other purposeful thing, Mike, that I always do– is we have a lot of quarterly meetings where we get everybody together once a quarter within that office or, you know, the market. And I will purposefully not pay attention and talk to the people that I know or people that maybe are the leaders. I purposefully in those such sections seek out people that I don't know or groups of people that are standing together. And I just kind of walk, like get in there, jump into it and, um, You know what's
SPEAKER_03:funny about this? He winds up, I can see the scene. He goes and sits and starts having lunch with people and they're just talking to him and he leaves and someone eventually comes along and goes, you know, he was the founder of the company. What? So what about you, Mike? Do you... By the way, I remember meeting with a young entrepreneur about 15 years ago and he's like, hey, I'm going to start a company where you give anonymous reviews. Then I'm going to go to the companies that the reviews are about and they're going to pay to change the reviews or sponsor. So I'm going to get paid on both sides of that equation. I'm like, that is brilliant and so evil. And then it actually happened. All right. So, Mike, what do you do?
SPEAKER_01:Pardon me. So. I actually, when I started up with Deloitte, it was on the back of the righteous and blessed partnership with you on Ringleader Ventures, Mike. And I remember one of the features of Ringleader was that we, through some mix of intentionality and market dynamics, we had really young investors. folks on the team right interns aspiring to get into vc uh a subset of whom would we would invite to continue on as associates and what i found was that if you've ever seen that tv show tmz
SPEAKER_02:there's
SPEAKER_01:this guy howard in the middle of the room and all these young people essentially just tell him what's happening in la he's sipping a diet coke on
SPEAKER_03:oh i don't know i don't know
SPEAKER_01:But it always blew my mind that if the things these young people found in the wild were interesting to them, then they were certainly interesting to that guy.
SPEAKER_02:And
SPEAKER_01:that was good enough to get a pulse on, I think, what was new in town. And so with the Ringleader Ventures experience in tow and a little bit of energy from that TMZ example, I thought, okay, let's intentionally build a team that skews young as a feature, not a bug. And so we have essentially built a team of sharp young folks who are hip to what's new and next in tech. And by the time their insights make it to the team, makes it to me, makes it to our leadership, there's enough checks and balances where you can sort out signal from noise and make some real hay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I remember during the interview process, You had found a technology that would wrap. I've actually interviewed with this technology since, but it would ask you questions. You would record your answers and like it was just rapid fire. And the last question was, tell me a joke. And on the spot, someone had to tell a joke. And I thought it was brilliant because it demonstrated a whole bunch of stuff. You could talk about it better than I could. But A, are they quick on their feet? B, do they take themselves too seriously? It was a great little innovation that was part of the process. And C, it went right to culture. You know, you could feel based on their response, whether they're going to be a fit. John, I know one of your core values is smile. And I love that. Like you can see if someone just like smiling, oh my gosh, a joke or locked up. I love that. You also teach at Notre Dame, Mike, and you just joined a board, right? That has to do with something around this topic. Talk about that a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you know, I guess lectured in the College of Business for years, and I always wondered what it would be like to teach for real. And it was actually the spouse of one of the business profs who said, hey, you could come do it in our entrepreneurial graduate program. I said, okay, that would be swell. So awesome. And that was my first taste of sort of moving between departments at the university. And it occurred to me that for all of that cross-pollination, I hadn't yet engaged with the College of Arts and Letters, a.k.a. the liberal arts crowd that I came from. Spawned you. Yeah, exactly. Spawned me from whence I came. And long story short, there's a fellow by the name of Jared Marzynski who's ring-leading a program focused on the liberal arts college called called Beyond the Dome. And it's really all about saying, hey, listen, we're going to meet the philosophy majors, the history majors, the sociologists, and the French majors, and all these folks who aren't really preparing for one known thing. We're going to meet them where their skills and interests lie and help open their eyes to all the things. And so it's a board really focused on options, not obligations. And I think... you know, with or without this AI moment, it's timely because to me, fellas, like I'd love your take on this. I feel like we've been in this 20 year musical chairs game where fewer and fewer viable majors lead to fewer and fewer viable jobs. And that's a bummer. And so, so, so this idea of, of widening the aperture again and letting curiosity and creativity back into the mix, like sign me up. That is cool.
SPEAKER_00:That is cool. It brings me back. Did you say you were an anthropology major at the end? Yeah. I thought Accenture AC back in the day, they did a great job of taking people from a lot of different walks of life, I thought. There was the Accenture way in school and everything like that, but still, I thought that was really cool how they did that. I agree with you. That would be really... Really, really great. If people came from a lot of different areas and different thinking, and that's all, I don't know, that's only going to improve the way we're all starting to see the world. Um, I love that. Mike, Mike, do you, so you're teaching this grad class. Is that right? And is that, is that part time? Is that full time? Or like, how does that work? And then I guess I I'm curious, like, how do you, how do you come up with a curriculum for that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. you know, you know, John, so it's a part-time course. It's a, it's a one credit hour graduate course. So eight, eight sessions a year.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Yep.
SPEAKER_01:And you know, the curriculum, it's a mix of, it's a little bit of high concept and a lot of hard knocks. And so, you know, one of the privileges of working in partnering and ringleader with Mike Maddock was we were at you know, one of our primary investors was Maddox Douglas, the innovation consultancy. And so a lot of, a lot of what I was able to learn through osmosis and peering was things that are, I think, clear to an innovation person, right? That, that, you know, issues precede ideas and that, You need to have clear articulations of pain points before you go hot with the whiteboards and the beanbag chairs and the rest. And so that's all to say, I teach enough of that theory stuff to be useful or dangerous. But I think more of it, John, it's really just, hey, this one time I did that, these things happened. And as Mike, you've taught me, and I think YPO taught taught you or EO or both, I try not to frame it as advice because advice feels patronizing. I haven't walked in their shoes. But if I frame it as in my experience, this could be a hot mess. Or in my experience, this could make you a lot of money. I think there's a realness there that helps with the higher concept stuff.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, intelligence is painful. It leaves marks. It leaves bruises. Wisdom is a gift given generously by someone who's lived through it and maybe wants to keep you from doing the same. I think it's funny that we're talking about Ringleader Ventures, an organization started by people that really had no business starting such an organization. What could possibly go wrong? Yeah, and John's nodding knowingly, like, tell me about it. I mean, it's... But it's amazing to me that we talked about Napster moment back in the day when someone with no business being in their business comes along and puts you out of business, just like two 16-year-old kids did to the record industry, basically, because they were trying to solve a problem that the record industry didn't want to notice because that's not how they made their money. And I think that there's something about being around naive dreamers and being able to go, yeah, in my experience, you're onto something. And, but that's the painful route. And this is, this might be a little bit easier for you. So good on you, Mike, for being, you know. Shepard. Yeah, Shepard. An idea Sherpa, if you will, or an insight Sherpa in this case. Yeah. So, so Mike, any lessons that, that were formative? Any, like we're talking about like humbling things. Well, I'm talking about something that was humbling. Anything that happened in your career that left a mark and changed the way you think or changed the way you behave or
SPEAKER_01:role? Do we have three hours for my various and sundry wounds? Yeah. Absolutely, man. I mean, one of the things... I think I've learned something at each and every stop, guys. I mean, in 2005, I remember we had this employee engagement survey. I think it was designed by Aon Hewitt at the time. So it was peer-reviewed, good stuff. And they had boiled the entirety of one's work engagement into six factors. was the pay, the perks, the people, the work today, the opportunities unlocked tomorrow, and the sort of mission, vision value stuff. 99% of my buddies filled that thing out once, never thought of it again. Being the nerdlinger I am, I set a reminder to fill that thing out every six months for the rest of my life. Yeah, I
SPEAKER_03:remember. This is really interesting. And then you put a graph to it. And he came into my office one day and said, I was here, now I'm here.
SPEAKER_00:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:We either need to change the people or the pay around here.
SPEAKER_03:I'm low on the possibility mark.
SPEAKER_01:But the reason why, though, is... Without an instrument like that, you fall prey to that whole frog in the boiling water parable where, you know, how you doing? Fine. How you doing? Fine. How you doing? Super dead. Versus, like, it's getting hot in here, right? And, like, you start to plan. Well, I think what I learned in the tail end of my Accenture journey was that if I weren't filled with my own innate enthusiasm for a given subject, I couldn't be great. Like I couldn't fake it. If I couldn't sell myself on something, I couldn't sell others. And the basket of work I happened to be working on towards the end of my Accenture days was not interesting enough for me to keep going. And so then I went to not-for-profit, which was impossibly intrinsically exciting. It was amazing. But I learned that the lack of,
SPEAKER_02:well,
SPEAKER_01:clear metrics– Financial outcomes is an ultimate aligner of people's mission and intent. It found me feeling a little stuck. And I also learned there that I wasn't built to be an operator, right? I didn't have that John Tobin gift. I was a little more of a Mike Maddox starter. I think what I learned in venture capital with ringleader Mike, and this is a gift, it's actually a gift to talk about this, not just with you, but with your listeners, right? I feel like filling in the blank with all kinds of nasty stuff. Go ahead. No, no, no, no, no, not at all. It was, it was, it was, it was a great experience. It really was. But, um, pardon me. I learned that, um, uh, the universe didn't put me here to be a critic or a judge as much as a creator and a maker. Yeah. And so I felt that in the venture community, you know, you're either, um, you're either Carrie Underwood or you're Simon Cowell. And you can try to be both, but at the end of the day, you're either the maker or the, or, or the sort of decider.
SPEAKER_03:That's interesting. Cause I, I know lots of venture capitalists and they are killers. Like they are so brutally critical and that's what makes them really good. Right. So boy wonder being Simon Cowell doesn't, doesn't float. No.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean, I still have the black shirts.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. And you can pull them off. So that's good.
SPEAKER_01:But I'll tell you, I'll tell you though, the, the, The tell for me on that last one, it was interesting, fellas. It was more– it was like the Chicago private equity venture capital luncheons where you go to enough of those and you still can't find a table of kindred spirits. You start to wonder, oh, wait a minute. These things are
SPEAKER_03:not like the other.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, right. And so I think those are maybe some of the scars or the wounds that I've learned is that, okay– I need to care, right? I can't be set up as a keep things running kind of guy. I need to be either a good to great or a zero to one. And then I'm better cast as the maker than the sort of judge.
SPEAKER_03:You know, you're making me think of something. It's really
SPEAKER_00:good.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's great. And I think that values-based leaders... One of the necessary attributes of a great leader is to inspire people to take the hill. And I think that people that have real values, if they don't believe in it, they can't do it anymore. They get to the point where they're just like... And the best of them will go into the room and do everything they can to... work through the stuff so that they can believe in whatever we're gonna do enough to take it out in front of the masses and go, okay, we're gonna charge the hill. But what I see happening is they get worn out They get worn out and they don't have the energy or like they got to get away from it. They got to do something else. And then they can come back and go, OK, I can see the top of the hill. But so often, you know, like if you if if you can't believe in it, you can't sell it. You got to go. I tell my kids that and I simplify everything. If it gives you energy, keep doing if it takes energy, notice and stop. And that's with people and career and everything else. Is it taking energy or giving you energy? Because it's a real sign that something needs to change or not. That's good. It makes sense.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, John, I'd love to learn from you, buddy. As a historically more operations-minded leader, what does success look like for you and what gives you energy? Is it seeing the result in black and white or... or God forbid, black versus red, but when do you know that your cup is full? I
SPEAKER_00:think I constantly take on new missions. And so I'll take on a new mission. And then the fruits of anything I set my mind to always comes back to me based on the people that are now running it, leading that, or whatever. uh having success in whatever they're doing so like for me it's like there there's there's a goal there's a measurement there's an operational piece of it but where i get the most joy is when i hear the feedback back from either them directly like oh this you know this mapped out to exactly what we thought it would be i'm so grateful that you know got to go on the journey or for their from their people that say wow i can't believe this leader I work for established this business or this part of the business. And I'm so grateful to you, John, for helping start the overall thing. So I continually get, I don't know, the cup keeps filling up from the people, frankly, from the people providing feedback on that. Yeah, these views you had about what consulting can be, it actually is now playing out that way all over the world. And I just put different little missions in place over time, and that's how I keep going. But the cup being full is really the people, frankly. It's not necessarily that operational metric. It really isn't. It's more about the feedback we get. Mike, I want to do something kind of fairly fun for people. Oh, I'm ready. for fun for people listening, because I think they might expect it. So I want one prediction that you do have that you're most excited about, like something that is not mainstream, but that you think it's going to be a real thing and it's going to be fun.
SPEAKER_01:Ah, that's super fun. And I'm thrilled to have not known the question in advance because I can... roll with the punches with you, and that's what makes it fun. Thanks for asking, John. I think the thing we're missing right now, the piece of the plot we're missing in this AI moment, is that we're all becoming wizards. And it's to the point where we can literally cast spells. And here's what I mean by that. The early computer programmers were seen as wizards of a sort. They could put arcane codes into a machine and the machine could spit back a game or a picture or a financial statement, you name it. But what is that dark art? It's beyond me. We're at a moment right now where you can use English or when I'm abroad, right? The Vulgate, whatever the local language is, go nuts. You too are a wizard, Harry. And where I think it's headed, to honor your question, is we won't even have to say it. Brain computer interfaces are super weird, but they're super common. So this idea of a wizard hat for the brain, that term I credit to Tim Urban, great writer and tech communicator, but this idea of I'm feeling cold, I'll think towards the thermostat to adjust that. Or better yet, the thermostat just knows because I'm goose bumpy. It might feel a little like peak Orwell, right? Thought crime, thought police. But I'll tell you, you know, I'm pretty open with my multiple sclerosis. And, you know, John and Mike, the idea of being able to have a little bit of a Tony Stark super suit that helps me walk and move around without sutures up and down my spine, right? Without, God bless him, but without all the claptrap that Stephen Hawking put up with, just being able to think natural and therefore act natural thanks to tech, I think that's coming with brain-computer interfaces, and I'm here for it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:great answer.
SPEAKER_00:I love the wizard idea. Last question I have, Mike. You know, this podcast is called Your Seat at the Table. What do you, again, you have kind of a unique title. So what is your seat? What do you consider your seat at the table, like that you finally arrived or, and have you arrived in your mind?
SPEAKER_01:You know, John, it's interesting. There's this old joke that CIO stands for career is over.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Which isn't fair to CIOs. You told a CIO joke, John, just for you. I know. You did it. Listen, I've been one, right? I tease myself because I should have been over, you know, back in 2011. But I think the idea was where does one go from the chief seat when one is part of an established organization? And I think the answer is anywhere you want. And, you know, for me as– Even without the fun title, I think my best seat, my highest order of use at the table, guys, is helping others navigate what's new and next. And whether that's in tech, whether that's in culture, society, business, I think the way my noggin works is I'm always translating, right? Dr. Johnson, or Mr. Johnson, what Dr. Kishore here means to say is this could make you money. That translational function is, I think, my calling. And so I tend to use it on the new and next dimension, but if I have the opportunity to continue to do this work for the next 20 years, that'll be rad. But if the universe curveballs me, I'll know that Regardless of where I turn the boat, it'll be in that direction of, I think, helping others navigate what's new and next.
SPEAKER_03:So Mike, we started all this by me saying I've known you for a while. And one of the things I most admire about you is, so Plan D, a book about disruptors. It's
SPEAKER_01:in here somewhere. I love that. What makes a
SPEAKER_03:disruptor is that they have the ability to see possibilities where other people see problems. And I remember when I first talked to you, you were just coming off a nonprofit. You mentioned it earlier. And you had some, like going from for-profit giant Accenture consulting firm to running an innovation group or being instrumental in running one to a nonprofit because your heart told you that was the right thing to do. That's a rough re-entry into some kind of atmosphere. And I remember you talking about The things that it had taught you and how you were a better person and how the friction had shined the gem. It was really inspiring at the time. And as you were just talking about what's next, I think I can't wait to see what's next for you. And I know that whatever it is, where you just came from is going to be like, wow, that was amazing because this possibility happened because of it. They're wrong.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much, Mike. Really. This has been awesome. And we've, we've got so many great soundbites. It's going to be, it's going to be a pretty amazing to go pick, pick back through the different sound lights and sound bites. And like Mike said, I think it is the, the musician in you that make you makes you so lyrical somehow in your speak. And it's, it's just been, it's been awesome talking to you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you, Mike. Thank you. Thank you fellas.
