How to Decide if a US Masters Is Worth It in 2026 (Purdue MBA Director POV) - w/ Prof Dunford transcript

I've got international students that can run circles around the domestic ones because they have more experience. That's Professor Benjamin Dunford over two decades at Purdue Kellogg ISB and the former academic director over Purdue's entire MBA suit. If you're an international student eyeing a US masters, this is the conversation you need. But you never make a shot you don't take. It's a differentiator regardless of where you are. But getting in is really only half of it. What happens after you're already here?

It's hard to compete for people with 5 to 7 to 10 years of work experience. If you get a 4.0 when you get out of an NBA program, you're wasting your time. time. And the market that everyone is so scared of right now, even in our current environment, I would say go for it. Please join me in welcoming Professor Benjamin Dunford to the Ready Set Do podcast. Without any further ado, let's jump in. Professor Dunford, welcome to the show. Thank you, Namon. Great to be with you today. today. So, as we were discussing, you know, on offline here just before recording, I've been just itching to pick your brain regarding not only just the couple decades plus of expertise you have around teaching management, around teaching leadership, but um so we'll be getting into all of that, but where I want to kick off actually is you were

involved with the MBA program at the M Daniels at the now Miss Daniels School of Business. Can you talk to me about so the degree of your involvement wasn't clear in my really you know top of the surface research so can you help share uh what exactly you were involved with? Sure. Uh well I've been involved in our executive MBA programs for about 15 years. years. Gotcha. and I I assumed the role of the academic director over our suite of MBA programs which included the traditional residential as well as the executive programs. So that was an administrative role on top of my um teaching and re you know my full-time faculty appointment role. So there I I I I spent quite a bit of time understanding the landscape uh of degree and non-deree programs, getting to know executive MBA students, uh and also doing custom programs. I've

been involved in many many custom programs for corporations. So that's that's kind of the the the objective summary of it. I I learned a lot. lot. Yeah. So the thing is so maybe I don't know if I shared this when we were syncing up earlier but I went to Purdue School of Business but like only in part cuz my degree was engineering management. management. So so half my credits came from the school of business and the other half came from the engineering school. So I got to sit in the classes they were incredible. Um there there used to be a course called I'm sure there still is but it it was called strategic management. Um and 3058 if I remember the course number correctly and we had a ton of MBA students in that as well and this was I think the STEM version there there's only the STEM version right there's no

non- STEM Purdue MBA version is that right right to the best of your knowledge we have we have really tried to gravitate towards the STEM model that's been a it was a competitive advantage at one time gota because of OPT um but yeah I'm glad you had a good experience with it. Yeah. Yeah. So, no, I guess what I was getting at was Yeah. First of all, I that those students were like they were killers. I could tell in like 10 minutes of talking to them that Yeah, I would never make it to like the MBA program because you definitely could for sure.

No. So, I guess they they they just had such strong profiles, right? And they had pedigree. they they had like started companies. They were just better. I just felt like a baby in front of them. So I I guess what I'm like all of this is teeing up is in your experience with the program which um I I know some of these things are evergreen, right? Like what makes a good student in 2020, 2026 and 2030. So if you had to maybe share for those interested in pursuing an MBA, not just necessarily at Purdue, but really at any elite business school in the US today, what do you think are some of the traits that really separate, you know, the cream of the crop versus the more like normie type profiles that you see?

Sure. Oh, that's a really good question, Aan. I think a couple of things off the top of my head. The first is that comparison is the thief of joy. Uh the fact of the matter is that everybody has strengths and weaknesses and MBA programs are good, very very good at at um putting you face to face with your own weaknesses. Uh so I've never met an NBA student that that was perfect. Okay? and and that that imperfection should not prevent you from jumping in and and just trying to square up with your weaknesses. In fact, uh you you don't want a 4.0 when you get out. I think if you get a 4.0 when you get out of an NBA program, you're wasting your time. What you need is experiences that transform you so that you're a different person when you leave than when you come in. And that requires you to go right after your weaknesses and then also

harness your strengths. So I I see that a lot. I see especially in the executive programs there's a reason why people didn't stay in school. Yeah. Yeah. Because they they compared themselves and they felt bad. They didn't like that feeling. Um so the second thing kind of follows from the first which is perfectionism. Perfectionism is different than striving for excellence. Um, Um, perfectionism is when your self-worth or your identity depends on outcomes.

Striving for excellence is well, if I make a mistake, I you know, I'll get them next time. I'm not going to turn against myself. And I think I think MBA programs and many other masters programs, but especially at the mast's level, are breeding grounds for perfectionism. The fact is you're you're a star. You're a star and and others are too. We all have strengths and weaknesses. Some of us have more work experience than others and that's a big differentiator. differentiator. Um this is it's it's hard to compete for for people with five to seven to 10 years of work experience. And so many many business schools uh present business school included have gone to specialty mast's programs that are considered pre-experience and and got and so those are just for folks without work. Is that the implication?

Interesting. I had no idea. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. So those are becoming more profitable. Um Um and and there's a there's a segment for that. that. But a big differentiator is experience. Uh that doesn't mean that that people are inferior. It it doesn't Right. Yeah. Of course. That's that's one of the factors that that sets the ground game for competition among business schools schools and with the you know current state of the world and the job market in mind something that I see online a lot and it's usually by you know like the loud minority that actually knows nothing about anything they're just loud on social media but there has been a notion that has perpetuated that if you don't have a ton of work experience from, you know, if if you're like an international student, doesn't matter where you're

from, you should probably not consider moving to the US for a masters because you're not going to make it, right? You you'll be found out. You will struggle like anything to find a job. And I I won't even like exaggerate. This is accepted now. Like people accept this as a fact. So I I tend to disagree although as I said I also don't have any credentials to back or go against this but as somebody that does I do want to ask your take on this entire debate.

Well there's no question that in our current environment um there there are major headwinds and I see it every year. I see it every semester. I've got I've got international students that can run circles around the domestic ones because they have more experience and they have got better credentials, but they have headwinds because of citizenship issues. But you never make a shot you don't take. take. [clears throat] And And uh you you it it's a differentiator regardless of where you are to to come to a a place whether it's the US or somewhere else. And so I would not discourage anybody from from pursuing a master's degree here or abroad out of their native country because it will it will push you. It will stretch you and you'll be you'll become that different person. I these things change. I've been around

long enough to see them eb and flow and you'll always have that degree. So, I would not discourage anyone as long as you go in with eyes wide open and as long as you as you're willing to to uh have a backup. I I would I would even in our current environment, I would say go for it. I love it. Yeah, that's kind of what my spirit if I can use that term. Yeah, you know and like so people will reach out to me like kids from India and they'll ask me and I just feel petrified in terms of okay this is a person that's asking me such an important question I know what I feel in my excuse me heart of hearts but it still feels scary to say that to a person so I'm very glad that I got to ask you this question and we got to hear your take that yeah like nothing's guaranteed right you're Not saying that you will definitely make it, but you're just

saying that how can you know unless you you try. Yeah. Yeah. And I the other thing I would say and this this is going to sound critical of business schools but they're business schools have to make money of course and they're willing to take people's money even if they don't return a job to them. So that's another thing that that people coming in I think should understand is that yeah I mean my school cares about me but they're here to to be profitable as well. Mhm. Mhm. You know we're all playing a game of sorts. sorts. Yeah. Yeah. And if we understand each other's game then that will prevent me from making bad decisions. So I am actually really glad you say that because then naturally that opens the door for let's take the POV of a student, right? They worked really hard to get accepted. They, you know, jumped through like 10 million

hoops. They're there now. So we'll assume that they're doing all of the baseline stuff, right? Right. So they pay attention in class. They they're very, you know, they study and they do their homework. They do class participation where there's points for that, especially when there's not points for that, they do it anyway. What are some of the other more underrated things that you you feel students would really benefit from doing that they don't do enough of in your experience? Well, one is I hinted at this before, but letting go of grades, especially if that's programmed into your ethos, you know, and and maybe even the family when you've got to report to mom and dad back home what your grades are.

That's going to actually leave you holding an empty bag at the end of their program. What you need to be doing is getting experience. you need to be getting networking, uh, relationship building, experiences that stretch and challenge you. Mhm. Mhm. And that's that's actually being honest, it's going to require to you to get poorer grades. I tell my students every semester, if you're getting a 4.0, you're wasting your time. And I say that, you know, with full caveat, you have to meet a certain standard. You have to jump the hurdle. But have to you have to jump the hurdle. But if if you're not leveraging the relationships you're in and and having what I would call leadership experiences, then then you're not going to be as marketable as you would be and and the val you're you're leaving value on the table. Man, I think of all the like

amazing things I've learned already, the thing that's probably going to stick with me the most is this exact notion that, and it's so funny cuz so many of my friends have 4.0's. And I can't wait to just use this one out of context clip of yours to just spam them and be like, you wasted your entire master's experience. I'm just kidding, obviously. But well, I got to say it's true and and I've I've done this, haven't we? All right. We we look at outcomes rather than results. Totally.

You know, we look at sort of we go with what's measurable rather than what's meaningful. Yeah. It's so true. And I it's so interesting now that I think about it because even when I was at Purdue, people told me that your GPA won't matter. You don't even need to put it on your resume. There was like this funny notion that you only put your GP on your resume if it's higher than 3.5. If it's lower, you just skip it. And I was completely on board with that. It turned out mine was 3.58 at the point at the time of graduating, which trust me, in like my peer circle, I was like the bottom I want to say 20th percentile cuz they were just all monsters. I don't know what they were doing.

Yeah. It Well, it's it's hard. It's hard not to. And when I see a 4.0, I see often times I see people that are either really gifted, but more often than not, I see people that are only playing to their strengths. Mhm. Yeah. And if you're the same person that that you entered, then you've failed. Yeah. Yeah. If you got a 4.0, it means you didn't take classes that really kicked your rear end or or you didn't like you didn't network. you didn't you didn't have you know you didn't fly to a conference where you didn't know anybody and had to talk to strangers in a foreign you know in a language you you're not native in and you you you did what was comfortable that's that's a 4.0 No.

Yeah. No, I agree 100%. Or, you know, even stayed up way too late for way too many nights just doing nothing. Wasting time as they say, but obviously all that time you enjoy wasting is, you know, not wasted. There is value in that. So, no, I love that. And I I just want to say that it's not common for me to hear people of your credentials and stature, you know, be so like transparent with with these notions. So, I do want to give you a shout out for being, you know, for lack of a better word, cool, as the kids would say. You're pretty epic.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Uh yeah, I mean mean this is not something that we want to talk about in academia. Um now there like if you want a PhD or something then maybe your grades will matter but yeah and again you have to hit the you have to meet the bar but but other than that of course. Yeah. Well so yeah so I mean again this has been so incredible. For the final segment here, I just wanted to ask you in the direction that you see obviously having been around for so long with all of these changes happening in our world when it comes to AI, everybody having like a master professor in their pocket essentially, where do you see leadership education headed in general? Do you think much will change or do you think mostly it's going to still remain the same same? It's a great question. And if I if I had

the answer to that, I'd probably be a very wealthy man. I think that many things will change. It's already changing. I I think that the there's a lot of disruption. I think management education is fundamentally broken. broken. Um the the top business schools in the world are they can't rely on their reputation anymore. That's true. the the research practice gap is so wide now that too much of what they are presenting isn't relevant and it's not worth the investment anymore.

So we're going to see more certificates instead of degrees. We're going to see a lot more non-deree work. We're going to see, you know, badges. I think there's always going to be a demand for inperson. Yeah. Yeah. Always. because you can't you can't change people problems from the air and and so but but the commodity stuff is is is free now and so the there's going to be a combination of new and old I think yeah this notion of certificates is obviously very widely debated and I agree that the pendulum currently and for the past couple years has swung to a point where they're they were nearing just getting obsolete. So, it's very interesting to hear you say that that they might make a comeback because one of my like just life philosophies is that the pendulum always swings back.

It's just the when that is, you know, that changes. So, that's fascinating for for for me to hear that, you know, this is might something that might happen. And as I think more about it, I have been seeing more and more of like just on my LinkedIn and such already. I actually recently got a cold call from I think it was a John's Hopkins agentic AI course. I don't know how they found me, but it was very compelling. Like I played along. I was like, "Yeah, sure. Tell me more." And then they were like, "It costs like $30,000 or something." So I was like, "Yeah, maybe maybe another time." But that is not something that I think anybody right now is considering. So yeah, yeah, that is really cool to hear you say in terms of the badges and certifications piece for sure. Yeah, it's the other thing I think is

going to be that the talent may not come from universities. I think universities screw things up and charge you an arm and a leg for it. Mhm. So it's it's it might be that the the training comes from some organization outside of academia. And I think that the nature of degree programs is changing. They're getting shorter. They're getting much more practical. So it's going to be a combination of things. I think one of the things that will stay the same is that you'll always there'll always be a value in having a degree from someplace in a in a in a good good place.

it and and and I don't to your point I the the badges and certifications haven't taken off as much as everybody expected expected and that might be due in part to the fact that that universities often underdel and overcharge. So we have that right and I'm agreeing with what you're saying but on the other hand we still find that in the biggest companies in the world the folks that end up making it are almost overwhelmingly from you know very prestigious high pedigree institutions. institutions. So that doesn't seem to change either and those two things feel counterintuitive to me. So which is true and what what is going on? Yeah, it may be that there's a paradox be it may be that there's a paradox inherent there that they're both true and there's, you know, there's there's truth in the the inconsistency,

but it also may be that this takes time. You know, it it's something that's generational. generational. In two generations that might look differently. differently. I see. Interesting. And AI is AI is clearly disrupting things, but we're still in the middle of that. And AI is evolving as we speak. you know it the the pace of it changing and getting to agentic is faster. So who knows I I don't know I by now I would have expect if you would have asked me 10 years ago I would have probably predicted that certificates and badges would have change would have completely replaced degrees and that hasn't happened at all.

Huh. Yeah. I think that's again I've never once thought about this but you're so right. You are 100% right in that that is what certificates were made out to be 10 years ago and clearly that has not happened. So wow this is I mean 30 30 grand for a certificate is worth money. Well true yeah but then there's other certificates that are cheaper as well, right? But but then they're worthless. I guess that's the point. And good things maybe just cost money. Maybe that's what all of this is. could be. It's it's u it's a fascinating discussion topic for sure. No, I I definitely agree and it's not something I get to do with, you know, somebody like you. So, I've just kind of been, you know, going crazy cuz usually it's with like some, you know, dummy friend that we're just like, you know, shooting the so to speak. Pardon my language.

Um, last question here before I let you go. What if you could leave one piece of advice for early career folks that are trying to build influence either as entrepreneurs or building their personal brands online? Whatever influence word can take shape, what would your advice be to them? There are many voices telling you that you're not good enough, that you're inadequate, that this is hopeless, hopeless, that you can never make it. Don't listen to those voices, especially when they're coming from you.

you. Those are lies. They're lies. They're designed to to prevent you from from continuing. The hardest part of every change is not starting it. It's continuing it when it gets difficult. So, keep going. Keep going one step at a time. Um, don't do things the same way. Try to iterate instead of repeat. Iterate and and great things will happen. Yeah. I know throughout your career and your writings on LinkedIn and and LinkedIn and such, you've been really vocal about the idea that um change is a choice. It's not a command, which feels kind of counterintuitive for me because a lot of times it literally feels like a command. command. Oh, it well and that's because it is. It is in most organizations. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. I I think that we're very good as leaders at holding people accountable and keeping trains running and that's

kind of what we think of when we hear the word leadership. But that and it does get results but it's not the right kind of results. What we are lacking is voluntary change. we're lacking buy in. We're we're very good at creating what I call compliance theater, theater, which is what people will will disagree after the meeting instead of during it. I think one of the most commonly asked questions in interviews for a lot of my audience, which is young careers professionals, is exactly around what you just said, right? So basically the the whole notion of influencing without authority, right? So I'm a senior business analyst at my organization. I have no authority. So, but and yet I'm supposed to make, you know, like an SVP or like a VP director play ball according to an initiative that I'm aligned on. So, how does what you just

say translate into, you know, corporate life, professional structures in terms of how does one get that buy in, right? Cuz that isn't that the million-dollar question ultimately. It is. It is. So I've spent a lot of time thinking about this and I don't I would not pretend to say I have all the answers answers but but one of the answers I think is that we need to combine accountability with forgiveness. Um forgiveness is sort of the catalyst that unleashes the full power of accountability. accountability. Uh and that that requires an understanding of both what accountability and forgiveness are and are not. So in my view and in all my research I have found empirical evidence that that there's a a nonlinear benefit increasing benefit of of accountability and forgiveness together that that leads to voluntary change and and sustained

performance. Whereas accountability on its own at the very highest levels you actually get a a decrease in change a decrease in performance. It's it it After a certain inflection point, accountability becomes a demand on the shoulders of employees. W I'm going to need to noodle on that for just a little bit. Interesting. Okay. So, I see what you So, you're almost saying that it it it stops to help and actually starts to hinder the change that you've been trying to do because people are too accountable. They start stepping on each other's toes almost. Is that am I getting that?

Yeah. It leads to um so people are human. That's that's a given. Um we know that that's a mainstream con concept. But if if there are no second chances, if if we can't speak up, if we can't fail, then we can't harness the value of mistakes. Mistakes are the raw material that drive change if leaders respond well. Got it? So that's why we need discipline, second chances. And the root of the problem in my opinion is that too many leaders whether formal or informal believe that accountability and forgiveness are opposites rather than complimentary ideals. ideals. So uh if you if you see them as as complimentary then you can hold people accountable accountable you can you can give them the consequences they need to change but also give them an ability to to be better next time with a disciplined second chance.

So that part is clear now and I appreciate you sharing that so you know easy in such an easy to understand manner. Tell me about forgiveness because I'll be truly honest. I have never once heard the word forgiveness in the context of anything that has to do with leadership or uh you know business school knowledge and or any any of these worlds. Yeah. Yeah. Um I and and you're not alone. When I when I bring out the word forgiveness to CEOs, they get often very defensive. defensive. They say, "Well, that doesn't belong in the workplace." forgiveness is misunderstood as as simply permissiveness or letting things slide slide or or something that only belongs in the spiritual realm. It does not belong in a corporation. It doesn't belong in the workplace. It doesn't belong in society really because it it creates an incentive for people to

do the wrong thing. No, that's not what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is has everything to do with hanging on to your own agency. We are agents to act, not objects to be acted upon. So forgiveness is upholding consequences, making sure that they follow choices but letting go of the personal contempt. Right. Right. Now tell me about your recent visit to India. I know you were there recently. Talk to me about what brought you there.

I know you were involved with the ISB, the Indian Indian School of Business. So, and I'm assuming maybe were you teaching there? Actually, I'll just let you answer. What what brought you there and what what was going on? So, I I've been engaged with India several times in the last year or year and a half. Um, I started I started teaching at Master's Union. Mhm. Um, and then I've been I've been having talks with ISB for some time now and and did my first teaching there in in one of their master's programs meant for family business owners. Interesting. Interesting. And this was up in their Mojali campus.

I taught negotiations there. So I I was there two and a half weeks and and had a fantastic time engaging with a very unique group of entrepreneurs who are usually second and third generation in very successful companies who have incredible uh responsibility at a young age. I work with family business owners in a lot of places. Um I teach at Kellogg. I teach in their family business executive program and and those folks are also very senior but they're much older.

What's unique about the students at ISB and in the family businesses in India in that segment is that they're in their 20s. So these are CEOs, company presidents who are in their 20s leading companies and having having demands on their shoulders that most 20somes in the rest of the world, especially in the US, would never dream of having. So I'm beginning to feel a theme emerge here. Is there something about family-owned businesses that particularly appeals to you, or is that just something that kind of keeps falling into your lap? Uh it's very appealing to me because it has so many unique challenges associated with it. You know there's governance, there's there's management, there's ownership and then there's family. family. Now and then especially as you get into multiple generations now you have cousins, you've got marriages.

I'm I'm very much a family person and I'm all about relationships. So when you superimpose all that together, you you get a very complex mixture of things which can be incredibly rewarding but also infuriating. I mean that's so interesting. It almost feels a little bit like something out of Family Feud or something, you know. Oh yeah. It's you know cuz you you can't even look at these things in isolation anymore. Suddenly you you have these various constraints to consider. Would you say the family element is stronger in like in the east versus the west or is are they kind of the same?

I I think um it can be stronger. I think those family ties and the the loyalties are stronger in some countries than others. others. The complexities are maybe different maybe not in not in magnitude but in in form. Um but I I I think that India is unique in that regard. There's um there's quite a bit of of of loyalty and commitment that I absolutely love. That's one of my favorite elements of Indian culture. It's just fascinating to me and and in fact quite well aligned with with my own values.

That's so interesting. And honestly, I think I would be remiss to not at least ask for, you know, like a cliff's notes of obviously not your entire class because I know that's like really long, but a lot of my audience is actually exactly what you just described, right? Young entrepreneurs that are inheriting or in the process of inheriting their family's business. So can you yeah maybe help set the landscape at least a little bit in terms of the biggest pitfalls maybe or maybe certain observations that you made while teaching that class in Mojali that you would find worthwhile to share over here. Sure. Well, what comes to mind is actually not from India but from here but I think has has direct relevance. So I had a many years ago I had an MBA student who who was an entrepreneur and he purchased his father's restaurant chain. Okay.

Okay. So there was a series of restaurants and and and the business model of that restaurant was somewhat outdated. It was very successful in the 1980s and 1990s but now the world has changed and he was losing money hand over fist. I think for three straight years he lost money. But he was so committed to his father. He loved his father so much that he could not bring himself to change the name of the the company or the business model.

And then his father died and had his uh on his tombstone literally. I'm not kidding you. On his father's tombstone was the logo of the company that he had created. So he's losing money on one hand and he knows that he needs to shift but he can't bring himself to do it because he wants to honor his father. Now I think that dynamic is very strong in India. I would agree. Yeah. uh uh people are loyal to their parents and grandparents grandparents and it's very difficult for them to continue the success that their their forefathers created in a changing world. So the the the the the part B of that story is that eventually he realized that what his father his father's legacy was actually innovation innovation that he could honor his father more by innovating than by keeping the same company name and the same model. So he shifted around.

He went to he sold all the old stores that were a large footprint, you know, high square footage. He went to small, highly highly profitable restaurants. the the chain is is alive and well now. It's actually thriving and he learned that he can honor his father more that way by than by hanging on to tradition. Um so that's an American story but it's actually an Indian story as well. Yeah. Yeah. Uh what I encountered in in Mojali this year about the Mahali campus is is that that paradox how do I honor my parents and innovate at the same time?

Wow. And and the solution to that is you honor them by winning, right? You honor them by Yeah. That's what they want. They want you to be successful. They want you to be happy. They want you to earn it. Mhm. Mhm. And and they've placed a great deal of trust in you. They don't want you to I mean it may feel like it is and they may actually drag their feet and actually be resistant to change but in their in their heart of hearts they they want you to succeed in and I think they're aware of that. I think that's just so cool. I mean that it it blows my mind that you get to work with challenges like this that with people that are working on these challenges. I just think it's the coolest thing in the world. In in like a really weird way, it reminds me of, you know, like the business version of um what's the Gordon Ramsay show called. Uh

the what? The Gordon Ramsay show where he goes into restaurants and and and fixes them. Yeah. Yeah. Uh Kitchen Nightmares. Kitchen Nightmares is what I'm thinking. Except obviously there's less yelling and more planning involved in this in at least in this Yeah. situation, you know. It's it's interesting. Sorry to interrupt you, Ne. It's interesting that you use the kitchen analogy because family business is where the knives come out. out. Yeah, I mean I can Yeah, definitely have seen that a few times already in in like my short life, but yeah, especially I feel like in the east, but to your point, right, family is family anywhere like that doesn't change. And yeah to basically what you were saying right once you have these emotions involved already businesses tend to be a spiky affair and then it becomes like the

perfect melting pot for just you know a a lot of spiciness. Um continuing on that same thread uh I am curious a little bit more about your management consulting work that you've been doing with Alberta. Do you can you share a little bit about you know why what sparked that why you started and kind of some of the cool things you've gotten a chance to do? Oh, thank you. I could go on and on. I'll keep it brief. [clears throat] I I saw many years ago that the there just needed to be a a practical application of what I've been learning. And and the good news is that there's so much of value, right? Kurt Lewin said there's nothing as quite as useful as a good theory. It's it's not the theory that's wrong. It's it's understanding how to apply it in a way that's practical and and useful. So, I've been working with companies more as an

advisor than as a consultant. Um, sometimes as a consultant, but [snorts] really trying to help them uh create and sustain competitive advantage by by working one team at a time, one relationship at a time. Early in my consulting career, I was all about theory and about macro models. I thought if there was a formula that I could just translate to them or, you know, I had this cat catalog of change theories or change tools, I I just pick the right one off the shelf and give it to them that they could follow a script and everything would be great. I was so naive. It's that real and ideal gap. The more I spent time in companies, the more I realized that that she it's not the strategy that's broken, it's the implementation and the implementation challenges are all human. They're all people oriented. So that's when I really

started to zero in on teams and relationships. So my my advisory role has been around that. It's about bringing tools and and experiences and facilitation facilitation that allows a critical mass of teams to kind of unite around a common vision, have good fights instead of counterproductive ones. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm I'm agnostic to industry. I started really in healthc care, but I've been in telecommunications, manufacturing, financial services, nonprofits. nonprofits. Wow. Uh, I've been in professional sports. I I had uh I remember one of the most interesting times of my life. I was room in a room full of about 200 judges. Oh, okay. I was teaching judges about accountability. I thought to myself, why am I standing up here? So, I' I've really enjoyed getting to know different organizations and seeing the commonalities, but also the

differences. Wow. I can you actually peel back one more layer on the difference between advising and consulting because I'm I bet there's a lot of folks in my audience that are not familiar and I'm one of them. Yeah. So I would say consulting is consulting has a very bad connotation to it for many. Sure. Sure. Um consulting I think is more when you when you you start working with an organization or teams in the application of something and work through a project together and it's where it gets really messy. messy. So, let's say I'm I've got a client and they have six teams and I spend two or three months with that team and I take them through a process, you know, we do contracting, we do we do um follow-ups, we I teach them how to have good fights and I I like dig in with that team for three to six months. and I

interview people. We do we do workshops, you know, they have their their emotional fights, they cry, they laugh, they hug. Uh that's that's consulting in in at least in my in my field. Advising is is more of I'm going to be with the leadership team or I'm going to be with a hundred or you know 30 people and I'm going to do a workshop and that's it. Okay. So it's kind of like instruction. It's it's like trying to win a war from the air versus the ground.

Advising is the air and and consulting is the ground war. It's terrible analogy right now. But no, wait, why do you say that? I think that really helped it click click [clears throat] in my head. So I'm curious why would you say that's a bad analogy? analogy? Well, just current politics. Ah, okay. I gotcha. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to Here's why. Here's here. I mean, to politics aside, companies really want change, but rarely are they willing to get their hands dirty. Mhm. They they they they're notorious for this. And that's why that's why it gets a bad name, right? I mean, the companies spend so much money on workshops that don't do anything. In fact, they make it worse because now you've teed up the issues and people have started to bring things to the surface and then nothing ever changes. So, so people lose trust

even more. Yeah, I think it's interesting be especially also because um consulting I think as you said already gets a bad rap which has slightly gotten worse I feel with the advent of AI cuz now everybody's consultant is chat GBT right and it's like the greatest consultant that was ever ever made because not only can it consult but it can do things now with the agentic capabilities and all of that. So obviously, yeah, I think a lot of like the consulting firms and such are on edge. Not that it's not my take that they're going to go away. I don't think they will. There will always be like as long as there are humans, they will need other humans to help them figure out their stuff just from the POV of having an external pair of eyes on your dirty laundry. I feel like moves mountains a lot of times. Would you

agree with that? Like is consulting dead? Do we think or do you hold a different opinion? I wouldn't say it's dead. I think it is. There's still a need for it. I think right now people are hesitant to spend money on things. Everybody's kind of waiting to see what happens. They're sitting on cash and they're they're we're in a great period of trying to understand AI and figure out how to use it. So it's a combination of financial uncertainty with learning how to use AI and kind of what's the proper use case. Uh I know I know for a fact that that managers don't believe that it's going to replace the the human interaction and you know human problems require human solutions but but we're we're in this process of discovery and trial and error which which is in every industry that I see.

Yeah, I think that's so spot on also because that has been my experience as well where I think right now we're trying to draw the boundaries between where human interaction could end and where AI could begin and that part is just so fuzzy right now that it's hard for, you know, anyone to to do anything. So yes, I do agree that I Yeah, you I am picking up what you're putting down