"There are other places where I would say the leaders are arising to the moment and seriously saying, "Hey, that which we have been doing for 20 or 30 years isn't working." -- Chris Powell

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ROB RICHARDSON
So we've talked about your journey already to get to entrepreneurship. Now let's talk about the specifics of Talmetrics and really think about how you did that in terms of getting your first customer, understanding things.

Everybody has these great ideas about how things are going to work out in their head and then there's the concept and how it actually goes when you go do the customer discovery and you do the customer validation and then see if your customer will actually pay you. Those things are all three different levels.

Walk through the most challenging part of that first. What was the hardest part of this process knowing you have all of this knowledge but then applying it to... as a founder and getting that first customer?

CHRIS POWELL
Man, that's a really good question. Let's talk about the customer journey. So clearly, we know the space. We knew how to design measurement and data systems and dah-dah-dah. But the real question was, "All right, how do we know what we're doing actually is of value and finding that first customers to be a pilot customer” -- you know, our first iteration of the product so we can learn from.

One of the principles that I learned over time, and in particular, working in the media industry at Scripps was pilots. "Hey, let's just test this out. Let's see what we can learn from a couple of clients and customers to see, "Hey, is this really doing what we say intentionally says it's going to measure and the impact and the efficacy of what we're doing?"

We were fortunate from a couple of things. One, we were part of the CincyTech portfolio companies here in Cincinnati which help fuel early-stage startup companies to build networks with corporations here in Cincinnati. So we had to reach into some of the local companies here to start just working with them to pilot some of our new solutions.

Also, coming from a deep background in the area of HR talent and diversity, I had a network of friends who were willing... because they knew me. They were like, "Hey Chris, I’ll be a guinea pig with you on these things." So we were fortunate to really have some really notable early stage clients test and help us prove out -- from Ernst & Young to Deloitte to Coca-Cola to P&G here locally. So we really learned what that was.

But what we discovered was that even once we tested it out and proved that it worked, those organizations had enterprise grade solutions and consultancies and other partners in place and so trying to scale up and develop a product and infrastructure and technology that meet that need was the next challenge that we had to figure out, right?

"Yeah, all right, you know how to measure but now how do you operate and scale to meet the demands and complexity of larger organizations" because we wouldn't do the entire P&G, hundreds of thousand employees who would have a little sample.

ROB
Sure.

CHRIS
We learned but still wasn't real world yet, right?

ROB
Yeah. What I’m finding… I'm working through my own journey on this, figuring out the right balance of, "What's the right MVP level to test out and how do I get that without losing all my cash and then not having a client" or “not having enough clients to actually pay for the product?”

How did you learn through that process? You can take us through some examples of learning through that because I think that's a struggle for a lot of entrepreneurs. It is for me so I’m just asking you for myself so I want to hear.

CHRIS
Well let's go back... You probably heard the frame "Product market fit," right?

ROB
Yep.

CHRIS
So for us, we probably could have gone about this a little different. First, we're making sure that the product did what it said it needed to. Well we decided to test that with large enterprises.

But then when we started to start to think about from a market fit when we started going deeper with those enterprise customers, they were like, "Chris, we already have that in..." dah-dah-dah. Almost like, "Oh so we have product but we didn’t have market fit for the enterprise.”

So then we had to go through some analysis to figure out who would be the target buyer or type of organization that could use this type of product that we just created and validated with the enterprise players.

We broke the market up by employee size of organizations -- so "Small, Mid and Enterprise." So then when we did the triangulation and did some market research, we realized that, hey, the mid-market was a great sweet spot for us as well as high-growth small companies who needed the knowledge and insight that enterprise companies had to figure out how to get it more right on the front end as they were growing.

And the mid-market ended up being a sweet spot for us because a lot of companies in that mid-market don't have the internal capability like enterprise customers to do the things that we needed.

So once we triangulated there, we then figured out, "Hey, we need to be focused on fast-growth small organizations and mid-sized organizations."

That took a while for us to figure out that product market fit because my experience to date had all been enterprise. So I'm trying to figure out how to support my friends who were head of HR at Disney and Comcast. They were like, "Chris, what you're doing is great but I don't need it."

ROB
"We got you. We're too big." Even if they need it, it's so difficult to get a big organization to change because it takes them so much work to change that they were like, "Nah, we're not losing money now. We're not going to risk changing" versus a smaller organization needing to figure out every way they can to scale because they have different issues. I get it. It makes sense.

CHRIS
Right. I would say nobody gets fired from using Deloitte.

ROB
Exactly.

CHRIS
I mean just as an example. Nobody gets fired for that. "Talmetrix, hey, you guys are new. You're not proven yet.” So we had to go with people who had more appetite and willingness to work with us but also understand how to trade on the assets that we already had. Not only did we have the assets of the technology and the products but we had a team of folks, myself and others, with deep knowledge and experienced professionals. So we ended up trading on all of that to build a pipeline over the years of companies we work with.

ROB
Yeah, that makes total sense.

CHRIS
Mm-hmm.

ROB
All right, let's talk a little more about people in general though. You're going into climates and trying to assess climates, engagement. Obviously, you're using technology but you're also using some of your… just that 25...20-plus...10,000 hours plus-plus-plus experience there.

CHRIS
Mm-hmm.

ROB
I want to really talk to you about the current environment we're going through specifically with... obviously, George Floyd and... It's not just him but of America seeing what we already know and we, all having to go through it, collectively, go through the trauma. It's been, I know, particularly pronounced with black folks.

What challenges have you seen with organizations when you're assessing their diversity, I guess, or their environment? That's my first question. I have a lot of questions on this. We'll start there.

CHRIS
Rob, there's a couple of things as I kind of scan the landscape of work that we're doing and helping companies understand their culture and climate, overall, specifically, around the framework or constructs of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. There's a couple of things that--

Clearly, what we are known for is helping organizations get quantitative insights directly from their employees and aggregating and mining existing data that they already have. So we've got the quantitative framework to how to do that.

What we've had to do to help companies move through this current phase we're in is also expand our ability to get at some of those qualitative insights -- so doing a lot more... And this is non-tech and this is one of the things that I think is a beauty about us is that data is very important but also having context and understanding that data can't tell you through one-on-one interviews and focus groups and town hall meetings.

And back to your earlier point, having that nose or that ear to be able to understand and translate has been very important because what--

How I would describe what's happening in America and also happening inside a lot of organizations is that for all that we'd like to purport who we are to the world -- our positive attributes and all the things that are rosy and candy bars and candy canes, all that good stuff -- we are now meeting that underbelly that all organizations have, right?

ROB
Yeah.

CHRIS
But we're meeting the underbelly and the light is being shined on the underbelly. So that's what we're having to reconcile with is the dissonance between who we say we are and to who we are in totality.

So organizations are having to get underneath that. And you can get underneath that both from a quantitative data standpoint as well as a qualitative. And I think that reconciliation of redefining or reimagining… Hey, once we turn the light on and we saw that the... as they used to say, "the cockroach is running,” what are we going to do about that? How are we going to clean this up so that we could be in a healthier and better place?

For all that's going on, yeah, it's stressful and it is challenging but it is the work that is required to evolve into the next level of existence as individuals, as society and as the overall collective.

ROB
I have so much to say. That was very deep. I'll say a couple of things. One, about using data versus... or technology and not over-relying on the technology.

An advisor of mine, Will Hayes, has been on the show and what they do is they build out... They basically help organizations build out smart engine websites so they can be more like Netflix and responsive and things like that, so they can do that in a more dynamic way, really understand what the customers do.

But they don't just rely on AI. If you just rely on AI, you'll do what Microsoft did where they created a racist bot. Technology worked. I mean what they did is they got their information from Twitter and it regurgitated what people say because guess what -- people are racists.

And people get defensive about that. I understand why people get offended. But I don't think it's offensive for me to say that you're racist because I think it's natural. The harder part is working against your bias. It's easy to keep a bias and then not challenge yourself.

I've had this conversation with people. I say, "Everybody is racist." I mean it's a natural default and unless you work at it, you're going to be that way. It's not saying you're a bad person because people get this out to be like, "This means I'm a member of the KKK?" And I'm going, "No. Those are violent, crazy people that act on their beliefs.”

But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about why you have beliefs that you can't understand, that there's a different experience because I am black -- nothing else. It's a different experience I deal with police. Nothing else other than me being black -- all things equal -- and you understanding that we come from different places.

There are different challenges for people and it's not based upon merit. I think understanding that as a fundamental… -- I know you want to say something. Go ahead.

CHRIS
No, no, no. You're getting me charged up here on some stuff.

ROB
I... -- [Crosstalk] Yeah, go ahead.

CHRIS
You know, Rob, there's a couple of things I always talk about this stuff and this is so near and dear to the work we do is it's really called what I call... What we do is help organizations. I call it "Mirror work."

ROB
Self-awareness.

CHRIS
Exactly --"self-awareness." And once you realize, hey, there are things... We call it like an "iceberg." There's the water line. These are things that you see on top of the iceberg and you're celebrating them and you're recognizing. You may critique them every now and then.

But the things that we're talking about that need to get addressed are those things that are below that water line -- those unconscious beliefs, those beliefs, attitudes and attributes that you're not even quite aware why you even have them because research has shown that most of our belief systems aren't our own anyway. We've adapted or adopted them from some other body...

ROB
That's exactly right.

CHRIS
...from family, from the community or from what you see on TV. Like, "Hey, [inaudible - 13:54]--"
ROB
This is why social media and everything is so dangerous right now.

CHRIS
Oh my god.

ROB
I mean it's allowing people to create their own realities and they don't even realize that it's an alternate reality being created.

CHRIS
This is the whole thing about... That's why I said the moment right now is needed because it is bringing people into the awareness that, "Oh wait a minute. Wait. I just been signing off on stuff and I haven't been consciously aware of what I’ve been in-taking and what I’ve been holding in unconscious beliefs and how it's shaping and informing my life" and therefore how it shapes and informed our communities, the places where we work, our society, our country, etc. You know, go to the moon with it, right?

ROB
Right. Real self-awareness is a really tough journey. It requires looking at, you said, that underbelly which makes you uncomfortable. If you're not uncomfortable, you're not in a self-awareness moment. That's what I feel.

One of my convictions I have... What was the book I read – from Zero to One, a question that they ask is like... I think it's Peter Thiel. He said like, "What's an important conviction you have that very few people agree with you on?" Mine is this: Most people are nowhere near as good as they think they are and the people that they think are bad are not even as bad as they think for the most part because we lack self-awareness. We like to think that we are a lot more innocent than we are.

And I use this context a lot to talk about race because people... That's why I think people are so reactive to it. They're saying, "What you're saying if you're calling me "racist, bias," is I’m a bad evil person" and that's not what we're saying. You have to challenge this part of yourself because bias is a natural tendency for all of us and it takes us working on it.

Another really good book is... Robert Greene. He has several good books but the one he talks about is “Mastery.” And what I’m talking about is Mastery here. He's been on the show as well. He also wrote the 48 Laws of Power and some other books.

But Mastery, this line really sticks with me. He says like, "You want to judge your self-awareness? You want to become better at it? You need to see yourself as others see you" -- not as you want to be seen, not as you hope to be seen but how you're actually viewed.

And you can do that by going back and seeing some of the most negative reactions, even if you think those things weren't your fault. You play a role in every interaction you have with people. And that really stuck with me. I’m like, "Okay."

And I think that also applies to America. And I love America and that's why I can criticize it. America has a lot of problems and we don't like to deal with our problems. Every time we have race, we run from the conversation and try to figure out how to move past it which I think is the wrong way to go.

How does that apply to organizations -- and that's in my question as I went on -- because I see organizations challenged with this. I know organizations. I know people can be good-intentioned. Some just do it to check the box. But how do we get people to really understand how to go about this and really change their culture in a real intentional way to really focus on equity and inclusion? How do you go about doing that with organizations that really want to do it but actually have challenges? How have you done that?

CHRIS
Rob, I think there's a couple of things. First of all, I think the method and path that has typically been applied like a top-down from a leadership down perspective of how to evolve a culture or deal with the underbelly issues is being disrupted. We are hearing and seeing far more what I--

And I want to be mindful of how I use this word so just know I’m putting in context this conversation. Employees, being activists inside their own organization, demanding that their leadership address these issues. You've seen it in the news with Google and other companies where the employees are like, "Hey, not here. Not if you want us here."

ROB
Exactly.

CHRIS
Right? So you're starting to see that in some places. There are other places where I would say the leaders are arising to the moment and seriously saying, "Hey, that which we have been doing for 20 or 30 years isn't working" because if we're still seeing these challenges even in our own workforce, that means that we've got to do something different. So in that standpoint, you're seeing leaders take time.

And this is what happened like right after the George Floyd. You heard all these companies coming out, making these prolific statements of things they were going to do and support, blah-blah-blah. And I said, "Mm." I said to myself, "Mm." I said, "Mm."

ROB
[Laughter]

CHRIS
Very few of them said what they themselves as leaders were going to go do.

ROB
Exactly.

CHRIS
I have a coach that I work with -- this dynamic brother, Kurt Hill in Chicago that I work with -- and he said, "Chris, it's important for you as a leader to do your research, your inner search of what you need to do to ship back to your point to show up differently and better so that you can influence and lead others through their journey to do that.” And that's what I wasn't hearing from leaders.

But we are seeing some organizations and leaderships. We're working with some organizations here in Cincinnati that I’m quite excited to see how they're approaching this work and taking on that leadership role of saying, "Hey, what do we need to do as leaders to change, to create a different culture and environment" because in the world that I work in, leadership and culture are two sides of the same coin...

ROB
Absolutely.

CHRIS
...because if the leader has not set an expectation in terms of the behaviors, values, performance, how people engage, then the culture is going to be that which of the leader sets.

ROB
Yep, absolutely. I actually think the most important asset for a leader is to set the tone in the culture. That's what a great leader does because you can find a lot of people that can execute on a vision but you need to have a leader that can set a culture. It's very hard to set a culture because people are hard.

Again, people will regress to the mean; go back to what they are comfortable with. And people are comfortable with what they know but that doesn't mean it's best for the organization.

And you have to have systems in place which is why your company is so important. You have to systems in place and be intentional as a leader and as an organization if you really want to be this innovative inclusive organization.

I’m at the point, too, where... I’m not asking you for... because it's the right thing to do. It is, right? It is the right thing to do. It's also the profitable thing to do. We can show you the data.

CHRIS
Dude, yes. Yeah, I’ll give you a little case story. Jeez, this is over 25 years ago -- this is really dating myself. I was working at Marriott and Marriott was advancing its kind of diversity and inclusion efforts. And I remember working on that team there 25-something years ago talking about, "Hey, it's a very labor intensive workforce." So you don't have hotels that people don't know how to work. We were talking then, "How do we make sure that there's equity... human equity experience for all employees to feel like they could show up, contribute and grow?"

That was back in the mid-'90s. You look at Marriott today. I know the hotel industry is suffering due to COVID and people not traveling. But if you look prior to COVID, Marriott continued to expand and grow and be profitable because they got and understood people.

ROB
Yep, that's it.

CHRIS
You need this. So they got that. But the thing that I can say about that, using them as an example... You mentioned a word about "Intention." They were intentional about what they did. But not only did they have intention, they also kept their attention on it.

ROB
Oh that's good.

CHRIS
And that's what gets lost. I mean you hear these prolific statements and these people, "Wax on, wax off," what we intend to do, and then it falls off because there's a lack of accountability and a lack of attention to follow through on the things that you say you're going to do.

It's too easy for people to get distracted or run to the next fire and forget about this very same issue that gets chatter up here but then gets run under the rug again and then the shadow or the underbelly gets fatter and fatter and then all of a sudden, we get gas.

ROB
[Laughter] Yep.

CHRIS
And we're going like, "Who ripped one?" [Laughter]
ROB
That was a good metaphor.

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]

"That's the one thing, I think, has been interesting is that I think people are more aware of how fragile and dynamic this thing called "Life" is." -- Chris Powell

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ROB RICHARDSON
I want to talk about kind of what you see as future for Talmetrix but also kind of the industry and the workforce. What do you think a post-COVID-19 economy and workplace looks like?

CHRIS POWELL
Oh man. Oh this is a hell of a topic. I just facilitated a panel talking about the talent mindset for the future of work and Rob, a couple of things came out of that conversation. You remember when COVID first came out, everybody was rushing to go to the next normal?

ROB
Yep.

CHRIS
Not the "next normal,” the "New normal," right?

ROB
The "New normal," yep.

CHRIS
One of the colleagues that was on the panel with me said, "Oh I don't know about a new normal but I know there's going to be a next normal. And whenever that happens, it will happen.” So that's one thing I would say.

ROB
There's going to be just a next normal.

CHRIS
There's just going to be a next normal. But it won't be what was. And here's why: You've got roughly over 60% of the professional workforce still working remote, and you know how habits get formed. So even though some people are under the stress working remote, other people are figuring out how to make this work for them, right? So guess what? When the "return to work," I don’t think you’re going find that many folks that are going to be that dying to run back to...

ROB
Agree.
CHRIS
...or getting up at 6 o'clock in the morning, getting the kids ready for school, getting dressed and driving 45 minutes to an office where they're only really productive maybe 60%.

ROB
Because we've seen it. You don't have to do any of that now.

CHRIS
Right.

ROB
[Laughter]

CHRIS
I'm saving money on dry cleaning. What?

ROB
You see what I'm wearing? I don't have to go out anywhere no more. This is great. It's opened up--

I mean for me, it's been double-edged. One part of it is I am a social being. I would love for us to be able to do this in-person, get drinks, talk, whatever, and be able to wrap in person. At the same time, I also embrace and was prepared for the next normal because I was already doing virtual interviews before this.

Some people looked at me crazy before. They were like, "What do you mean "Virtual interviews"?” But COVID was the... I think it accelerated trends and like, "All right, we'll do it" and now everybody does it. And you're right, their behavior has adapted to it.

CHRIS
Yeah. So that's the other thing. There were so many things that we thought from a change initiative or a transformation, it was going to take longer to get to, COVID accelerated that.

ROB
Oh yes.

CHRIS
So you know on the S-curve of innovation, we move through some of those transformations to the next normal faster in terms of using technology, working remotely and virtually and all these things. So you know it's creating new innovation. So that's the other thing.

We still don’t know yet because one of the things we talked about on this panel was, yeah, there's the future of work -- what work is going to look like -- but what are the future of business going to look like? Retail has taken a hit. Is retail ever going to come back? What's going to be the shopping experience like? So there's so much yet to change in terms of the next normal.

And I think it's a ripe opportunity for folks who are courageous enough to go out there and be entrepreneurs and be innovators because there's going to be new stuff that gets created. So we just created a new playing field to innovate from.

ROB
Agreed.

CHRIS
Because one of the things that's always been fascinating to me when I think about innovation, it's like we're in pursuit of... You know, they say the “God particle” back in Indiana Jones? Everybody was looking for the... It's like we're in pursuit of that all-knowing omniscient kind of power.

So we're constantly chasing that of evolution, right? So there's always going to... you know. The universe is expanding at a faster rate so there's more stuff to do and create as it expands.

I think for organizations who get the idea that they're going to have to constantly evolve... because one of our other premises here when we're working with clients are, “Organizations are dynamic human systems.”

So organizations that better understand the human and the human experience of workers and employees and customers are going to be the ones that, I think, went out in this next normal coming up.
,
And then those of us who are out here in the entrepreneurial world who are constantly evolving and ingesting new technologies and new innovations faster, I think are going to find ability to be able to sustain these changes.

I was just talking to my board early this week and I said, "2020 was weird, right? We had our best Q1 and our best Q4 but Q2, Q3 was like tumbleweeds."

ROB
Yeah.

CHRIS
"So you think about 2020, half of it was bad but the other half was great so let's go great and let's figure out what we can continue to do and evolve and be more effective and sustain and thrive as change" because that's the one thing, I think, has been interesting is that I think people are more aware of how fragile and dynamic this thing called "Life" is.

ROB
Yeah.

CHRIS
Right?

ROB
I agree. So people will be hopefully more... just grateful and intentional in the moment because I would have never thought everybody--

When this stuff happened, I was like, "Okay, it's going to be a few weeks. All right, maybe it's going to be another month. Okay, maybe it will be over in the summer." I just stopped guessing now. I just say, "We are where we're at. Whatever the next normal is, we are there and we have to figure out how to adapt to it."

I'm an extrovert. The good side is that I've been able to get more done than I ever had because you sit down... And I have more time to just do concentrated work than I did before. Now I can get in five hours what used to take me eight or nine or 10.

CHRIS
Let me tell you, my friend, running a business and making sure we've got good client relationships and partnering, I was on a plane 60 to 70% of the time before COVID. For the roughly 25-30 years I've been working, I've always travelled. This is the first time that I haven't traveled nearly at all. In the 12 months that we've been in COVID, I've been on the plane twice. It's so bad that I forgot how to use my Delta app.

ROB
[Laughter]

CHRIS
And you're talking to a dude with over two million miles on Delta.

ROB
Oh that's serious.

CHRIS
I'm a world warrior.

ROB
Right.

CHRIS
So for me, the quality of, "I feel better. I'm sleeping better," I, as an operating system, am far more effective and efficient even in the midst of COVID than I think I would have been had we not had this moment. I know it's not the greatest thing for a lot of people but I'm trying to make some lemonade out of these lemons.

ROB
You can control the controllables. We can't control COVID. We just can't. We can only control protecting ourselves and doing what we can to make sure that we can thrive and our families can thrive and our communities can thrive in the moment. So I do think that is the right mentality to have.

And I also think the upside could be, you now don't have to go out and do as much traveling because now people have been socialized. Their habits have changed. You don’t have to fly out to San Francisco to have a two-hour meeting. Like, "Why do we have to do that?" I mean I'm sure we'll do it some but we don't have to do it at the level that we thought was always necessary. So to that extent, there's some benefit.

CHRIS
Yeah, totally. We just on-boarded a lot of new clients in Q4 that I've never met face-to-face.

ROB
Yep. All my clients now have been remote clients. It's just kind of funny how that has worked. But people now socialize this way. We can now do this. So there is opportunity in this.

I was telling some of the... I call them "Kids" -- God, that makes me feel old -- but college students that I have mentored -- some engineering students -- because they're all like really, really down. I get it. In college, it would be awful, right?

CHRIS
Awful. Yeah, that would be... Oof!

ROB
I get it. But the same advice that you're giving the listeners, and we're talking about now, is that... Take advantage of this moment though. There's a whole bunch of people that are not in this virtual spaces. You can meet people at these conferences -- because I was trying to get them to my conference and it was free. It was hard to get. Like, "I don't want to go to a virtual conference." I'm like, "But you can meet--."

I'm telling who's here. Like, “We have the CEO of this. The CEO of that." I'm like, "You probably wouldn't be able to do this in person so do it." Some of people did take advantage but a lot of people didn't, not understanding that there is opportunity in this moment. And the door is going to close. You either walk through it… or closes and then hope for another opening.

CHRIS
Yeah. I mean all good stuff. Other part of your question you asked me, Rob, was "What's happening with Talmetrix going forward?"

ROB
Yes.

CHRIS
Well one of the interesting things, we continue to innovate. One of the things we are discovering, that people are using social platforms far more… and actually data lot more, what we call, in our world, "Unstructured data" -- the ability to mine and understand sentiment of what people are saying and are doing. But also themes.

So we are advancing our technology and capability to do much more on natural language processing which also uses AI but also making sure that we are sensitive to the programming. We know that from a diversity and inclusion standpoint.

So we're just seeing some really interesting new product technology development but then also evolving our work with our customers and our clients that are out there. We're fortunate that we're partnered with some really noted firms in the diversity, equity and inclusion space. DiversityInc and the National Organization on Disability are partners of ours that we work with.

So we're working with them, too, to help amp up and amplify how to use data and insights to inform culture and diversity, equity and inclusion programs and overall employee experience because as we said, we won't be going back to where we were so let's equip and enable organizations to move forward into that next normal, whatever that is.

ROB
Yeah. Final question: You have a billboard, Google ad that is a slogan for what you want Talmetrix to stand for or you or your slogan for life. What does that say and why?

CHRIS
Oh man. Well… [Laughter] Oh man, I got a couple you should ask be but--

ROB
Okay.

CHRIS
All right. So you're on Highway 75 on your way to Detroit or Louisville, you see all these signs. Anyway, I would say, one, for us at Talmetrix is "Stop Guessing. Start Knowing" because a lot of leaders will guess -- take uninformed guessing about what's happening with their employee population. That's one.

The other one is around humanizing the experience. That's what we do with how we present the information and data and intelligence. [What] we do is really to bring that humanity back to the workplace, back to the communities where we live in and work because I think that's what's really been lost over the... At least in my lifetime, it feels less humane than it did when I was a kid.

ROB
Yeah. Final question for you here: You got a committee of three, living or dead, and they can advise you about... since you're in business, the people. They can advise you about the business, people and how to go best forward. Tell me the three people you choose on this board. Again, they can be with us, not with us, and why do you choose them?

CHRIS
Ooh, jeez. Boy. Man, that's a really good one. Let's see. Lao Tzu who wrote the Tao Te Ching, who was a Chinese philosopher... I forget the time period. But just some really solid principles of living life and spirit from a setting, what I call the "Moral compass," of how I comport myself in this time and space.

Martin Luther King, being an advocate for human equity -- back to my whole thing about bringing humanity and grace back into the conversation.

And then I might go with Steve Jobs -- relentless innovator.

ROB
Yes, he was.

CHRIS
And not the kind of innovation I used to tease some leaders and organizations; not the marginal innovation like a new flavor of Kool-Aid. Like breakthrough stuff, right?

ROB
Right.

CHRIS
Yeah, give me a little bit of that that's on that edge where... Actually, as I mature in life, I am more comfortable being on that edge of... being the break in the water versus the wake in the water.

ROB
Yeah. What is your definition? I want to hear your definition, as we close, of innovation? What is it? Give me what you think what your definition is. I know there's no way to really summarize it. But everybody has their own kind of way to view it. What's your view of innovation?

CHRIS
For me, as I was just describing, it's not that kind of iterative innovation. That is a form of innovation but for me, it's really about that which creates new learning and new opportunity. It creates new space -- uncreated. It has not been created. In my world, that's where it looked like.

If I explore the combination of A plus B, it's not going to give me C. It's going to give me Z or something -- you know, something breakthrough. And that's how I look at the world because the space we play in, there are a lot of folks who are doing really great -- what I call "Marginal innovation.” But what we're constantly looking for is, “What's that breakthrough that helps us better understand ourselves?” Through all the noise, what's going to give you that bit of insight about you as an individual or that organization, the insight about them, to make them better than who they are?

ROB
Yeah. My definition is "Innovation is a rebellion against the status quo and not accepting things as they are and starting from that premise” because it's when... So similar to what you said because people--

CHRIS
Yeah, you just said it. You just said it shorter, sweeter and nicer than I did. You had time to think about it. I had to come off the top of my head.

ROB
No, it was very good. You know, I've been thinking about this for a while. But that's what I consider at its root. It's not accepting things in their current circumstance. It's not being just weighted by the current pitcher and saying, "The only way to get to C is A and B," right?

CHRIS
Right.

ROB
To go back to your metaphor, I can may be do A, D and E and then I get Z or I get Z, C, whatever. The point is you don't find yourself having to be stuck in that limited mindset.

I think why a lot of innovations fail though, as I'm learning... I consider myself an innovative thinker, where I struggle, where I have to keep going back to is also, "Okay, how do I go from the innovation here to also the execution?”

You got to marry both and often the two don't come together. When the two come together, that's when you create because Steve Jobs had Wozniak, right? So you still got to have... Often, you don't have that. You have a person that is the marginal person but they make a successful business different from being an innovative business that becomes ultra-successful.

CHRIS
Yeah. I will tell you, you bring up a really good point. I am very comfortable in exploring the unknown. I thrive in it. But one of the things I've learned through coaching and developing mentors is you do need to have the capability of the partners, of the team, who can blueprint so that that which you were thinking and creating can start to take form and structure and move through that whole manifestation process into reality. Right?

ROB
Yep.

CHRIS
So that, too, for those folks who are out there in the entrepreneurial space and then thinking about it, we all play different roles. There are some folks who are that cutting-edge-innovative-out-of-the-box thinker and then there are other folks who are crazy innovative on how to create blueprints to bring things into being. And then there are other innovators on how to operate and scale. So that's been the learning and the journey for me on this is that, “Hey, dude, you ain't got to do it all."

ROB
Exactly.

CHRIS
I mean with the S on your chest every day.

ROB
You can do anything but you can't do everything, brother.

CHRIS
Right. Right.

ROB
Yeah.

CHRIS
Yeah. And being open to leveraging the competencies and skills and talents of others is a huge part of being an entrepreneur, I think, as well.

ROB
Yeah. -- Chris Powell, Talmetrix. -- Man, I appreciate you. Man, this is good conversation.

CHRIS
Hey, Rob, thank you for having me, my friend.

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