Unlocking Strategic Leadership in a World of Chaos with Dr. Lance Mortlock

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* Book: Outside In, Inside Out: Unleashing the Power of Business Strategy in Times of Market Uncertainty

Timestamps:
00:00 — Cold Open & Intro
04:00 — Surviving Chaos: The Fast-Paced Leadership Shift
04:12 — Speed and Agility in the Chaos of Change
05:00 — The Big Disruptors: AI, Climate Change, and Global Instability
07:23 — Turning Uncertainty into Strategic Advantage
16:39 — The Outside-In, Inside-Out Framework for Success
14:56 — The Pitfall of Focusing Only on the Now (Horizon 1)
22:09 — Learning from the Failures of Kodak, Motorola, and Target
25:10 — The Role of Leadership in Managing Chaos
28:12 — Clarity, Strategy, and the Importance of Prioritization
38:53 — The Importance of Talent Strategy in Leadership

Dr. Lance Mortlock (00:02.99)
There’s, COVID’s an interesting one where, you know, as part of my research for disaster proof, I looked at, there was a set of scenarios that were put together by an organization called Event 201. Another example would be Kodak. You know, that’s the classic business school example that, you know, management teams and MBAs kind of learn about.

Again, like they actually had a digital camera, but they were so vested in, you know, the advancement of different chemicals with traditional film technology. They’re like, this is never going to happen.

Skot Waldron (00:48.162)
When I’m not hosting Unlocked, I’m speaking at events all over the world. I’m helping leaders and I’m helping teams communicate better. I’m helping them build trust faster and actually enjoy working together. I’ve spoken for companies like The Home Depot. I’ve spoken at national architectural firms. I’ve spoken for pharmaceutical company offsites. I’ve spoken at associations, you name it.

With 99% of attendees of all those events, over 1800 people have reviewed me at this point. 99% of them saying they got some value. That’s pretty awesome. Even the caterers have thanked me. And if they are thanking me and they’ve heard a lot of talks and they’re busy doing their jobs, that’s saying something. If you’re an event planner looking for a speaker who’s really easy to work with, trust me, I want to be the last thing you’re worried about on event day. I’m going to take care of you. And who actually delivers value for your audience that they are going to use on Monday morning when they return to the office, then let’s talk.

In this world, speed is everything. But is it? I don’t know. Chaos? What about chaos? Well, I just learned in this episode talking to Lance that chaos is actually opportunity. Chaos can be opportunity. Flexibility. This is another soundbite from this thing. Flexibility is essential. Strategic agility, though, is the key. So, I like this. Execution often fails us.

And we have to understand why. We gotta understand what strategy has to do with all of this and how we play into our priorities and focusing on outside in thinking and what’s really going on here. So, Dr. Lance Moorlach is going to talk a little bit more about that. He is a pretty smart dude, and it was really fun talking to him.

He is the Managing Partner at EY Canada, where he leads strategy and transformation consulting across the Energy and Industrial sectors. So those are the two he focuses on a lot. He is the author of Outside In, Inside Out: Unleashing the Power of Business Strategy in Times of Market Uncertainty. Do we have some market uncertainty right now? Yes, we do. And he wrote another book called Disaster Proof: Scenario Planning for a Post-Pandemic Future. That was back in 2021.

With more than two decades of experience advising global organizations on strategy, risk, and leadership through disruption, he is recognized for helping executives navigate volatility with clarity and confidence. Do we have volatility right now? Yes, we do. Dr. Mortlock also serves as an adjunct professor at the Haskayne School of Business and is a sought-after speaker on strategic foresight, leadership, and change in uncertain times.

Let’s talk to him a little bit about this whole thing called chaos and how do we recognize the things on the outside and how do they inform the inside? Y’all ready? I am. Let’s go.

Alright, here we go Lance. We’re going to talk a little bit about chaos because, you think a lot of people know something about that, maybe they don’t know something about that, they just experience it all the time.

Dr. Lance Mortlock (04:12.00)
That’s right. Yeah. I always like to characterize these conversations with, you know, there’s a great quote that Rupert Murdoch once said that the big won’t beat the small anymore. It’ll be the fast beating the slow. So, I think today’s fast paced environment, speed is everything.

And, you know, that’s what we’re going to talk about. Think a little bit is how you kind of front up and level up to that level of speed that’s required for success.

Skot Waldron (04:42.00)
Well, I didn’t plan on talking about this, but you mentioned the word speed, and we’ve all been taught that slow is bad. Like our culture has revolved around this idea that slow is bad. You know, is that true?

Dr. Lance Mortlock (04:58.00)
Yeah. I mean, like think about it. The level of change that we’re exposed to right now will never be this slow again. You look at all factors that are out there and change is abundant. I spend a lot of time, you know, working with organizations on dealing with change and the level of disruption. And you think about the last 50 years, whether it’s the OPEC oil crisis, the dot-com bubble, the tequila crisis, global financial crisis, the war in Ukraine, war in the Middle East, AI, and increasingly aggressive China. The frequency of big disruptive events that are happening is the cycle is getting smaller, shorter. And so how do you deal with that disruption is the big question for many organizations. And part of that is pace, speed, and strategic agility. Which is something that many organizations are grappling with.

Skot Waldron (06:01.00)
Okay. I can go with that. I mean, I struggle a little bit with this whole idea. I think that some things, thinks speed also crashes us. I mean, I think that one idea of AI adoption is speed, right? And with the “AI slop” that’s created or, you know, the lack of quality and other things that speed really does us a disservice in certain elements, like the fastness, the way, the quickness of which we’re doing things. Um, so I mean, it’s a tension, right? It’s a, it’s a tension that we’ll always need to manage in this. And so how do you advise companies on that?

Dr. Lance Mortlock (06:49.00)
Yeah, that’s a great question. I think part of it is successful organizations. I remember working a couple of years ago with a very, very large energy company, is thinking about the good, bad and the ugly in terms of how the world can play out and thinking about as it relates to those different futures that could play out.

Full of risk and uncertainty and bad things that can happen to an organization and the other, you know, full of opportunity and growth and great prospects and maybe another option in between. Using those different futures and saying, okay, let’s stress test that against organizationally what we’re focused on and saying, well, in terms of our strategy, what stays the same regardless of how the world plays out. But what also might dial up in terms of our strategy or dial down as it relates to those different futures that play out. You know that’s the essence in my mind of strategic flexibility.

You know, Mike Tyson once said that everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. And I think he says it well, that like you’ve got to be flexible in this fast-paced, average, you know, changing environment.

One of the things that I realized during COVID was, and you know, and this was the impetus for my first book, Disaster Proof, was, you know, there’s a lot of management tools out there that I think are underutilized. I know they are underutilized. One of them being Scenario Planning, which is a great tool in terms of helping management teams. You know, think about

different futures and stress testing their strategy as well. And importantly, also distinguishing between, you know, what I would call signal, which are the really important things out there that are happening and noise. And there’s a ton of noise right now. And your ability as a leader to distinguish between those two is, you know, the difference between, I think, high performing organizations and those that struggle.

Um, but adaptability and flexibility, is everything. I had the opportunity recently to, um, you know, spend time with another organization and infrastructure company, lots of risk and uncertainty in their world, but also opportunity. Again, thinking about the good, the bad and the ugly in terms of how the world can play out super important for them in terms of preparing for that.

Skot Waldron (09:48.00)
I often when I’m doing either strategic playing with somebody or what not, talk about the, what our Rumpelstiltskin is like the story of Rumpelstiltskin of naming the beast to tame the beast in that story. The princess had to name, find the name of this, you know, monster goblin, whatever it was that was going to take her first born. And you had to name it in order to become free from the curse.

And it’s all about naming what that thing is. I like this scenario of naming the good, the bad and ugly so that we can understand what we’re up against, understand and prepare for that thing. Because when we don’t do that is when the chaos consumes us. Not saying that there’s never going to be chaos. I’m just saying that chaos consumes us and that becomes a huge liability, for everybody involved.

Tell me about the chaos thing? Cause I like how you talk about chaos in the sense of like, do you think that you can extinguish chaos, or do you think chaos is just something we need to live with?

Dr. Lance Mortlock (10:57.00)
Oh boy. I mean, I’d like to think we could distinguish it and live in a more normal calm world. It’s certainly be easier in terms of performing.

But look, like I don’t think it’s going to go away. I mean, it’s a big trend that I think about. And you know, we can talk about that, but whether it’s the World Economic Forum or other institutions, Think Tanks out there, a lot of these organizations are saying, you know, the percentage of risk and instability is quite high and going to remain high for a while. And you know, we’ve to get ready and continue to be prepared for that. What I find interesting though, is this idea that, you know, these disruptive events keep happening. And it’s almost like every time they happen like COVID, we’re like, somehow surprised.

COVID is an interesting one, where, you know, as part of my research for Disaster Proof, I looked at, there was a set of scenarios that were put together by an organization called Event 201. And Event 201 was a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University, the World Economic Forum, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And so, these three organizations came together and said, what would happen? And this was before COVID. What would happen if a coronavirus type situation occurred, and it’s spread from bats to pigs, pigs to humans. How would the world play out in terms of different potential scenarios?

And so, they played this game where they had a cross-functional set of people that looked at this situation. And one of the things that they thought of as part of this exercise that global travel would shut down, private sector organizations would get super involved in helping think about protective equipment, manufacturing some of those items, that we would have economic chaos, etc. etc. Tech would become more important. So, this activity almost perfectly predicted what played out literally six months later. And I think that’s a great example of how you know, we need to listen to, you know, what we’re learning because like six months later, we’re like, oh my God, how did this happen? And then two of said, you know, we said that there’s a possibility of this, you know, population densities are quite high. You know, we’re seeing these viruses become more prevalent, etc. etc.

It just shocks me how every time we’re surprised and we feel ill-prepared. We get it, we get nullified into this malaise of like normality and then like, oh my God, like big destructive event. Well, like these keep happening. So, let’s continue to challenge ourselves as corporate management organizations to be prepared strategically. And that’s a big part of what I’m trying to do through my writing and my work with different organizations.

Skot Waldron (14:24.00)
You talk, I mean, it’s really, you argue the fact that leaders fail in this whole idea of chaos because they either stare way too far out or they get trapped inside of their own echo chambers. And so, what’s the biggest mistake leaders make when they try to make sense of the chaos but are actually making things worse?

Dr. Lance Mortlock (14:56.00)
Yeah, think a great example of what you’re talking about is Motorola. So, Motorola, great organization back in the day. When you look at it, you know what happened to them, you know, multi-billion-dollar company, great performance, but they failed to see 3G technology coming at them. And they were focused in, what I would call Horizon 1, which is, you know, right now, what’s focused, what’s important to them in it was right in front of them, the flip phone. But the outside in thinking, which is what I talk about in my latest book, was telling them, hey, this 3G technology is going to be consequential. It’s going to be important. We need to pay attention to this. But they failed to look at Horizon 2 and Horizon 3. They were focused on the now, not the next and the beyond. So that’s a great example of where organizations fail.

Another example would be Kodak, you know, that’s classic business school example that, you know, management teams and MBAs can learn about. Again, like they actually had a digital camera, but they were so vested in, you know, the advancement of different chemicals for traditional film technology. They’re like, this is never going to happen. You know, Canon and some of the other providers, like their launch, again, they were focused on what was right front of them and they also sort of think about, well, this digital technology could self-cannibalize our own business, but we’re going to invest in that, you know, as, thinking about Horizon 2 and the Horizon 3, you know, technology.

So, those are two, I think really good examples of, you know, failing to look at multiple horizons.

Skot Waldron (16:50.00)
And our friends that I use often as the example of a blockbuster and Netflix and blog, video chain that said, know what our brick and mortar stores are the cat’s pajamas and all of our late fees are the way we are profitable. And you dumb little store that’s sending DVDs out, you’re going to go bankrupt because you don’t charge late fees. And then Netflix said something different.

Dr. Lance Mortlock (17:15.00)
And you know, like Target is another example. I mean, you’re down in the US, I’m up here in Canada. It’s a good example for this conversation where, you know, think about Target as a US company coming into Canada, assuming certain things in terms of the customer. I dedicate an entire chapter in my book around understanding different stakeholders and customers. They assume certain things in terms of the Canadian customer and what they wanted. And actually, a lot of Canadian customers that travel to the US, maybe not so much at the moment, but when they used to travel to the US.

Like when they would go to the US, they would expect certain US based products. And then when they got to the Target stores in Canada, they were selling different products and they were like, well, this is not what we wanted. But again, not understanding the outside in perspective and how it informs your strategic choices as an organization is really important.

The other thing that I would share with you is, you know, I said, I looked at these sorts of the big trends that are impacting organizations strategically. Last year is a really important year. And the reason it was an important year was 8 out of 10 of the most populous countries around the world held national elections. So, like that was like a lot of people, in fact, 4 billion voters globally going to elections.

With that many elections, you’re seeing changes in government, therefore changes in policy, therefore changes in regulation. Again, important strategically for organizations because stuff changes when policy and regulation change. We see it in the US right now with the administration that fundamentally policy and regulation is transforming and that has massive risk, but also a massive opportunity for organizations to front up against that.

And so, looking at those, you know, I talked about signal and noise, looking at those key signals to say, what is the impact of those on the big choices that we need to make as a, you know, a private sector organization to be successful is critical. In my own industry, like I mentioned, I spend a lot of time with energy organizations, both in power, utilities, oil, gas, mining, minerals, those kinds of like really important heavy industry companies. When you change policy around climate change, as an example, like that’s huge in terms of long-term investment decisions that you might make around electrification or building a new mine or a pipeline, what have you. So, I guess suffice to say that outside in thinking and that part of the framework I talk about in the book, very essential.

Skot Waldron (20:18.00)
You talking about, I mean, you just mentioned, the noise versus signal idea, which is interesting to me. But when you think about what leaders focus on and what they obsess over, what’s actually distracting them from the real work? Because they’re looking at outside trends and which ones are they obsessing over, that’s actually distracting them for what they should be doing?

Dr. Lance Mortlock (20:45.00)
Yeah, I give you a few. One would be the emergence of AI and digital. I mean, we spent in 2024, $2.5 trillion on digital technology investments. And of that $2.5 trillion, $250 billion were AI related. Now, with that you have seen recently, Google’s come out and said, well, maybe the AI bubble is about to burst. It’s not sustainable. As what they see. But that would be one of those big trends that’s like, is consuming management teams and leaders wanting to know, you know, where to invest and how to make this improve the productivity and the success of the company.

Another is still climate change. So, I would argue that despite current momentum in the US to be, you know, climate change is this big hoax. I see that as a temporary blip on a longer-term journey that we will continue to see climate change and therefore sustainability, ESG and these things maintain long term momentum.

Last year, you can’t argue with the science. It was the hottest year on record. Maybe you can argue why it was the hottest year in record. Maybe it’s a natural cycle. Maybe it’s, you know, the cause of human CO2 emissions. But, like 2024 was the hottest year on record. So that has impact in terms of immigration, as an example, and the movement of people around the planet. It has impact in terms of weather patterns and resilience.

You know, as I said, I look a lot at energy systems. So not only AI, but also climate change, you know, really important focus for organizations. I think related to AI is talent. You’d be surprised that only 36% of organizations globally have a talent management strategy according to Predictive Index. And that’s interesting because I think we live in this world where we’re trying to figure out, how does AI and humans work together in a hybrid workforce, particularly with the agentic AI. But when you’ve only got 36% of organizations that are thinking about the future in terms of their workforce, that’s the real problem. And I think CEOs and leaders really need to grapple with that and say, well, what does success look like? What kinds of skills and capabilities do I still need in the future to support the strategic decisions that I’m trying to make. And how is this hybrid, agentic AI human interface really going to work? And it’s a big question that lots of organizations are grappling with. I don’t think I have a particularly good solution to that. But I do talk about my book, and I dedicate an entire chapter to this, around the importance of aligning talent management with the strategic choices around where to play, how to win the emails. And that’s the big gap. And at the very least, at least have a talent management strategy, which most organizations don’t.

Skot Waldron (24:21.00)
So, I was about to ask you about the, you know, so in the midst of all the chaos, of all the things that are going on, when everything feels chaotic and you’ve got these different initiatives, whether it’s climate change or AI or anything else that’s happening, political disruption. How do we turn that into a strategic advantage? Because you talk about that in essence too. So how do we do that?

Dr. Lance Mortlock (24:47.00)
Well, I think part of it is deciding in all of this risk, uncertainty, ambiguity, complexity, what’s our point of differentiation? And this is why I have found with different organizations thinking about the outside-in perspective. So, you know, what are our customers saying? What are stakeholders, policymakers, regulators saying? What are the external signals saying? Thinking about the outside world and saying, like, let’s make sense of that. What does that mean? But then, like combining that with the inside thinking, where are we performing? How’s our portfolio doing? Like, where are our strengths? Where are our weaknesses? That inside-out thinking and combining those two to say, okay, given the outside-in the inside-out, therefore, what are the winning choices?

You can probably tell from my accent; I’m originally from the UK. I’m a big rugby fan. I once had the opportunity to speak to, you know, one of the top rugby players ever to play the game. His name’s Jonny Wilkinson. And he said to me in an interview that, you know, he never looked at his kicking percentage, but he was always accountable and he’d always have notes explaining what he did, why he did it and what he would do differently next time in terms of the next game that he would play. And he was actually the guy that kicked the winning goal for England to win the World Cup in the 2003 rugby World Cup final against Australia. And, you know, rugby would be a bit of a foreign game, maybe some of your US listeners, but it’s a, it’s a great game. It’s up there with football. But I think he says it well in terms of, you know, that inside-out perspective, like what, what went well, what doesn’t go well, like what would we do different? And then, how do we front up against the choices that we need to make? And think about how we’re going to differentiate, what markets we’re going to play in, what capabilities we need to build in the future. That’s what success looks like.

Skot Waldron (27:19.00)
I just had a guest on my show recently talking about KPIs and OKRs and how those are the things when we focus too much on them that will actually destroy our progress as a company. But when we use them as a signal, I’m trying to use your language here and tell me if I’m using it right. But it’s like, we use it as a signal to spark us into the discussion of what went well, what did we learn from that? What action are we going to take as a result of this information and build on it a learning process and something that we can take a strategic initiative at a strategic approach on. We would just monitor OKRs and KPIs like, it’s like, okay, you know, but then what are we doing?

Dr. Lance Mortlock (28:03.00)
How do you drive behavior from that? One of my favorite analogies is this idea of Watermelon KPIs. That when you look at the watermelon, it’s green on the outside. But when you scratch the surface, it’s red pretty quickly. And so, it’s interesting when you look at KPIs that often a lot of the time people feel incentive to say, yeah, yeah, things are good, green. The organization’s going well.

But then when you scratch the surface, it’s red pretty quickly. So, a couple of things I would say about KPIs in terms of driving performance, one would be, you know, like be honest with yourself. If it’s red, it’s red. And actually, red is good because something’s going to get done in the organization.

And the second thing that I would say is to prioritize the critical few. The amount of organizations that I work with where like they measure everything and it’s like, hold on a sec. Like as a leadership team, you should be looking at maybe the Top 5, maybe 10 at a stretch, but more than that, you’re distracted. And like, if there’s not red on the scorecard, somebody’s lying. That’s not true. There’s always issues and issues are good because you can move the needle and make improvements. So, get after the issues and avoid the Watermelon KPIs.

Skot Waldron (29:29.00)
Exactly. Well said.

Talk about some trends you’re seeing, some of these macro trends. We don’t have time to get through it. I know you have kind of like 10 that you really work on. Let’s talk about a few of them that you think are relevant to this conversation right now as far as dealing with chaos and how do we operationalize, I don’t know, operationalize chaos or operationalize what we do as a result of that. I don’t know. Anything you’re seeing out there?

Dr. Lance Mortlock (29:56.00)
Yeah, I mean, one trend would be 1 in 10 CEO appointments fail within the first two years. It’s actually 1.5. So, it’s getting harder to lead.

The other trend would be 15% of companies in the top growth quartile sustain performance for at least 30 years. So, this idea that companies stick around forever is hard. It’s incredibly difficult. We talked about the number of elections out there. And we touched a little bit on, you know, the percentage risk of instability, which is very, very high right now.

Probably the other trend for your listeners to really think about is this idea of prioritization. 64% of executives report that they have too many conflicting priorities. So how do we do a few things really, really well versus lots of things (unintelligible). You know, I cannot say enough about the importance of prioritization in today’s world. Again, I dedicate an entire chapter to, you know, what good prioritization looks like.

Maybe the other trend that I would share is this idea that strategy typically fails 90% of the time, not because you’ve got poor strategy. But actually, because you don’t execute well. 90% of strategies fail because of poor execution.

We talked about climate change. I mean we talked about digital and AI investment. Those would be some of the key trends that I think about a lot because it’s consequential in terms of the choices you make strategically as a company. And we’ve got to grapple with those.

And I think some of those are call it more manageable by a leadership team. Take prioritization, for example, like get on that. Think about the few things that you’re going to focus on. Don’t layer stuff on without changing the capacity of the organization. Cause if you’re going to keep the capacity of the talent in your organization the same, if you layer something on, take something off.

Skot Waldron (32:34.00)
Yeah, I was, and again, doing some strategic planning stuff this fall with some organizations and it is really tough when you get in the strategic planning mode, cause everybody’s thinking about, well, these are our Top 5 priorities and the whole, and I’m on the boat too. And somebody pointed this out. It’s like the whole word priority is because it’s above all the others. When you make something a priority, it’s all above the others. Can you have 5 priorities?

I mean, I know I’m picking at words here, but I mean, can I have 5 priorities? I mean, I kind of think you can, but putting them all on the table at the same time, I think is the problem. Like I got to prioritize the priorities that I want to initiate over the course of the next 5 years or whatever I’m trying to work towards, right? So, I don’t know, how do you think about that?

Dr. Lance Mortlock (33:22.00)
Yeah, I think what I would add to what you just shared there is the idea of what are we equally not going to do? So, you’ve got this malaise of medium and low stuff that gets worked on, including pet projects. But what are we not going to do? There’s a great author, Michael Watkins, who I had the opportunity to connect with. He wrote the book, First 90 Days. New York Times bestseller. And I’ve used that book quite a bit over the years. And he also wrote a really timeless article in the Harvard Business Review called Too Many Projects. If you haven’t read it, and if your listeners haven’t read it, I would highly recommend it. One of the things he talks about, Michael Watkins, in this Harvard Business Review article is this idea of pet projects that, we have, like you pointed out, these top 5 priorities that we’re going to be focused on. I’ve got these projects that I really care about, and even though it’s not a priority, I’m going to keep doing them. The problem is those things that you keep doing, it consumes capacity in the organization, and it’s not furthering the top priorities that if they’re priorities, they should be in support of the strategic choices that you’re making.

And so how do you really hold people accountable to saying that other stuff, pet projects, no, it’s not going to happen. And if I catch you doing that stuff, there’s going to be consequences. Like, you know, we need to be aligned as an organization focused on the things that we think are important. Anyway, that’s what I would say about that.

Skot Waldron (35:09.00)
Yeah. Well said. Alright.

I like to do this and sometimes it turns into a slow motion lightning round, but I don’t wanna, cause I get curious with people’s answers sometimes. But I wanna throw these questions at you and I want you to do your best. Throw your answers back at me and let’s see how we can move through this thing. Aright, so one word, give me one word that you think leaders misunderstand the most about chaos.

Dr. Lance Mortlock (35:43.00)
Risk. And what I mean by that is they see chaos as just risk, but chaos can be opportunity.

Skot Waldron (35:53.00)
That’s good, okay. Let’s talk about uncertainty. What is the biggest myth about uncertainty?

Dr. Lance Mortlock (36:06.00)
That it can’t be managed. And what I mean by that is I think I’ve seen and worked with organizations that you can manage uncertainty by thinking about the good, bad, and the ugly that we talked about earlier using scenarios.

Skot Waldron (36:27.00)
Outside trend that you think leaders should stop obsessing over.

Dr. Lance Mortlock (36:44.00)
Ooh, that’s a tough one. Stop obsessing over.

Skot Waldron (36:48.00)
I thought you were going to say AI. No?

Dr. Lance Mortlock (36:52.00)
No, listen, it’s important.

Skot Waldron (36:56.00)
Totally important. I was gonna push you on it. I was gonna wonder like why you would say. I thought you were gonna say just to be controversial is what I thought you were gonna say.

Dr. Lance Mortlock (37:06.00)
Yeah, no, no. I mean, I think AI is, I mean, three weeks ago was in Silicon Valley and some of the organizations, including Nvidia, but the other interesting organizations that are advancing Agentic AI is blowing my mind, the capability that we’re building. It’s crazy how fast it’s happening and the sophistication of the models. Obviously, it relies on the data, and the data relies on the data centers and we’ve got Bottleneck there, but it’s going to be massive.

You know, the other thing that popped into my mind is China, but I don’t like, I think we need to obsess over China because like they are growing and having an impact at a scale that again blows my mind. I mean, did you know that the Chinese shipyards made more ships, boats, and vessels in one year than the U S made since World War Two?

Skot Waldron (38:15.00)
I’m kind of not surprised, but I’m surprised.

Dr. Lance Mortlock (38:20.00)
It’s wild. The speed, the capability, the influence that they have in terms of trade. We do need to obsess about that. So, I’m not really asking, answering your question. I’m just giving you things we need to obsess on.

Skot Waldron (38:34.00)
I know. I like your twist on it though. I mean, I think leaders need to be thinking about some of that stuff. Is there anything that they should stop obsessing over that you’re like, oh gosh, like I roll, like stop talking about that or worrying about that so much.

Dr. Lance Mortlock (38:53.00)
No. I mean, we need to think about talent. I mean, I think leaders sometimes spend a bit too much time obsessing about risk and uncertainty and sort of half glass empty and successful leaders need to turn that into what’s the opportunity. What’s the angle that, you know, we can position to help, you know, create growth and opportunity for the company.

Skot Waldron (39:16.00)
So, it’s almost a mindset thing you’re talking about.

Dr. Lance Mortlock (39:19.00)
Yeah.

Skot Waldron (39:20.00)
So, I like that. Okay, what’s an internal behavior that leaders underestimate?

Dr. Lance Mortlock (39:29.00)
Trust, power, control. These are things that I see in companies that really can undo things. Lots of big companies, you know, operating in silos, still it blows my mind. It’s crazy how you’re like, why can’t we just get to a place where you know, different functions and businesses work together in a cross-functional way. You’d be way more successful. Part of that comes down to control. Part of that comes down to trust. I don’t trust that function, so I’m just going to do it myself, create a shadow organization. So, I think a lot about power, control, and trust, you know, and the influence that that has on big corporations in particular.

Skot Waldron (40:26.00)
Yeah, good. Okay, last one. You’re gonna finish the sentence. This might tie into it, but it’s gonna kind of put a little bow on everything, okay? Finish the sentence. Chaos is only dangerous when leaders, blank.

Dr. Lance Mortlock (40:41.00)
Failed to see the opportunity.

Skot Waldron (40:44.00)
Amen. I think that that is when we talk about the idea of a growth mindset versus a scarcity mindset, and fear, when fear leads us, we are going to see it as it is going to be a threat. But you’re saying looking at it as an opportunity, what is the growth potential from this, there’s a lot that can happen.

Dr. Lance Mortlock (41:08.00)
That’s right.

Skot Waldron (41:15.00)
Tell me about your book, Outside In, Inside Out: Unleashing the Power of Business Strategy in Times of Market Uncertainty. Tell us about how that’s structured. I mean we’ve hit on pieces of it here, I’m sure, and then where people can get it.

Dr. Lance Mortlock (41:34.00)
Yeah. The reason that I wrote Outside In, Inside Out was I looked at other popular strategy books out there from, you know, top authors. I wanted to create something that really simplifies strategies. You know, I think, and we talked about this partly organizations more than ever, need some way of simplifying the why, the what, the how in terms of strategy formulation. And the book does that really well. In particular, the framework, the Diamond Framework, which we’ve touched on, but I can share a bit more about that.

I also think from spending 25 years with more than 80 organizations globally, I’ve learned that there really is a bit of a secret source to the right way to strategize. And I share that in the book. I’ve probably shared a bit too much. But I do think that there’s the right way to strategize. And that’s what I tried to convey in the book. And I do that through, you know, clear and effective lessons. I use over 200 real world examples, case studies, techniques, some of my own experience, but also public examples from around the world, lots of examples. From US companies which I know resonate with your audience, examples from Australia, the UK, Canada and elsewhere. And then I think, you know, and we talked about this a lot in this discussion that we live in this risky, you know, this risky world of business.

I’ve tried to help through the book, leaders think about, you know, how to deal with those risks and deal with, you know, the common pitfalls that are out there, you know, completely talked about examples from, you know, Target, Kodak, Motorola, but also like, how do you make sure that you avoid poor execution, how do you make sure you’ve got the right level of quantitative analysis, the right engagement and buy-in from employees? And I know that your podcast has a bit of a spin on the importance of talent. How do you make trade-offs? How do you keep things practical? The timeline, thinking about, and we talked about this Horizon 1, 2 and 3 and simplifying strategy and finally this idea of the importance of flexibility.

So, all of those things I think I’ve tried to distill in the book. There’s this super simple diamond framework which I’ve developed over the last 25 years, and I share that as figure one in the book. The book’s based on that. We can talk about that a little bit at a high level if you want, but yeah, those would be the main reasons, right?

Skot Waldron (44:46.00)
Very cool, I love it, man. Dr. Lance Mortlock, the Chaos Whisperer, right? I just created your tagline for you, so you’re welcome. The guy who turns noise into actionable clarity, you know? So that’s awesome.

I really appreciate you being on. Thanks for sharing your wisdom and your thoughts and trying to make us all better, because I hope that we’re all trying to be better. You’re helping us do that. thanks, man.

Dr. Lance Mortlock (45:18.00)
It’s a pleasure to be on your podcast. The final thing that I would share is I think that those people, both in leadership, but also in life that can think, but also act strategically will be those that are successful at the end of the day.

Skot Waldron (45:41.00)
So, are you going to think a little bit differently about the chaos, about the things that are happening out there in the world and how can we use those as an advantage? I heard something about today, interesting enough about our times today and which we’re thinking about this concept of when bad things happen, when we think they’re going to be bad forever. It’s a psychological principle that we believe that things are just going to be bad forever. And that is not the case.

In fact, the things that are rough with us right now rarely ever stay. We end up coming out of them and sometimes not even remembering that we were having a bad time in the first place. Those types of things are interesting. We’re trying to inform our business strategy and where we go and the idea of speed and chaos and opportunity and flexibility and execution and all the things, y’all, all the things. We need to focus on our priorities. Talent management does matter. The way the people we hire, the things we do there, the culture we’re building, it all matters. And when we use the outside to inform the inside, there’s a lot of opportunity, a lot.

If you want to find out more information about me or check out the show notes where there’s going to be more information and links to the things referenced in this episode, visit skotwaldron.com. And lastly, I’m asking for a little bit of love, just a little bit. So please take a moment, follow, rate the show. The algorithm is like that; it helps me get the word out. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. And until next time, stay Unlocked.