The Awakened Heart in the Boardroom: Where Soul Talk Meets Strategy, with Russell Bishop
How often do we pause to ask ourselves, “Who am I?” or notice where our focus really is before making a choice? Can we find purpose not as a destination but as a gentle unfolding, and recognize that real power lies not in control, but in the ability to choose again and again?
In this episode of the Spirituality in Leadership podcast, Andrew Cohn sits down with Russell Bishop to explore the intersection of leadership, personal transformation, and choice. Russell is a veteran leader in personal and organizational development, creator of Insight Seminars, and author of Workarounds That Work and From Self-Talk to Soul Talk. His work has impacted over a million people across 43 countries, guiding leaders and teams toward clarity, alignment, and purpose. Rather than pushing for dramatic change, he invites leaders to consider something subtler and more powerful: alignment with purpose.
Together, they unpack the difference between decisions and choices, between chasing outcomes and understanding the experience we’re truly seeking. Russell offers compelling examples from aerospace, healthcare, and corporate strategy to show how clarity of purpose unlocks creativity, collaboration, and momentum, often in places where progress once felt impossible.
At the heart of the episode is a simple but radical idea: real power comes from recognizing our ability to choose and choose again. When leaders learn to listen beyond self-talk and tune into what Russell calls “soul talk,” they create space for wiser action, deeper connection, and more humane organizations.
This episode is an invitation to slow down, ask better questions, and lead from a place that’s both grounded and awake.
Key Takeaways
Awakening is gentle: Lasting transformation and purpose emerge through inquiry by asking “Why does this matter?” not force or being told to wake up.
Choice Over Decision: Decisions often close doors; choices keep possibilities alive.
You are a transceiver: We constantly transmit and receive thoughts. The frequency with which we hold onto safety, possibility, or fear shapes teams and outcomes.
Self-Talk vs. Soul Talk: The loud inner voice reacts from fear, while the quieter voice leads from wisdom and alignment.
Purpose Creates Alignment: Teams perform best when they share clarity on why, not just what.
Reward the complainer: Complaints signal care. Inviting and rewarding constructive criticism turns resistance into innovation.
Prepare for Experience, Not Outcomes: Fulfillment comes from cultivating the inner state you want to lead from.
In This Episode:
[00:00] Awakening and purpose
[01:32] Guest introduction: Russell Bishop
[02:53] Conversation setup and welcome
[04:01] Russell’s spiritual and activist background
[06:05] Self-talk vs. soul talk
[09:10] Awakening heart and transformation
[10:16] Personal to professional: consulting journey
[15:39] Purpose and fulfillment in modern times
[16:39] The five whys and deepening purpose
[17:57] Focus, choice, and empowerment
[21:22] Decision vs. choice
[23:20] Attachment to decisions and organizational behavior
[25:17] Communication, purpose, and acting in common
[28:00] Review cycles and flexibility
[30:12] Leadership, orders, and redefining success
[31:14] Knowing when to quit: decision-making lessons
[32:15] Medical device partnership case study
[36:26] Fear vs. possibility and focus
[38:44] Tuning in: the power of focus and preparation
[44:02] Inner process and leadership support
[45:20] Seeing the invisible: inner vision and leadership
[48:49] Best practices and culture
[50:34] Call center encouraging contributions and rewarding complaints
[52:32] How to connect with Russell
Resources and Links
Spirituality in Leadership Podcast
Russell Bishop
Website: https://www.russellbishop.com
Email: russell@russellbishop.com
Russell's Latest Book: From Self-Talk to Soul Talk: Being More of Who You Already Are
Russell's Previous Book: Workarounds That Work
Andrew Cohn
Music:
Listen to the podcast here
Watch our Podcast episode
Transcript
Russell Bishop: The term awakening is very powerful because there's a lot of people out there in the world right now today screaming, wake up, and something about awakening can be rude, but it's better gentle. Purpose is the same thing. If I ask someone something about their purpose, then the question I asked, and why would that matter to you? And when we asked them why would it matter, not as a defensive response, but as a deepening response. When people start to notice all the things they've created in their life, whether it's good or bad, and that they were the ones choosing, they begin to identify that real internal source of true power, which is the ability to choose and choose again.
Andrew Cohn: Welcome to the Spirituality in Leadership podcast. I'm Andrew Cohn. Spirituality and Leadership is a platform for conversations with leaders at all levels about bringing our spiritual dimensions to our leadership, our teams, our workplaces, and all areas of our lives, in order to achieve greater success and fulfillment and build and sustain healthier organizations. If you'd like to connect with me to talk further about these topics and or about individual or team coaching leadership workshops or team alignment, please go to my website, lighthouseteams.com. Enjoy the podcast.
Andrew Cohn: In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Russell Bishop. Russell is a wise, tenured, amazing resource in the world of personal development and leadership development. Many people know him as the, a creator of Insight Seminars, transformational seminars back in 1978 that has changed the lives of over a million people in 43 countries around the world, a change strategy partner, and Accenture editorial director of the Huffington Post. Author of the book Workarounds That Work, which did very well back in the day in terms of corporate workarounds and more recently, his latest book is called From Self-Talk to Soul Talk, Being More of Who You Already Are. This is a wide ranging discussion about Russell’s experience and wisdom. He shares some fascinating anecdotes about leadership teams, some of which relating to developing lasers decades ago, to alignment in medical device organizations and leadership teams more broadly. He's a font of knowledge and an approachable guy. I'm grateful that he's in my orbit and I hope you enjoy the conversation.
Andrew Cohn: We are back on the Spirituality and Leadership podcast, and I am so happy to have with me a friend, colleague, mentor guide, whether you know it or not. Russell Bishop hailing in from, I believe, Santa Barbara, California. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just really looking forward to this conversation. Sometimes I prepare in-depth notes and there's 19 things I wanna be sure to touch on, but this is one of these conversations I'm confident will be flowy and wise and deep and unplanned. And for that I'm grateful. So welcome to the podcast, Russell.
Russell Bishop: Hey, thank you Andrew. Great to be with you. Absolutely.
Andrew Cohn: Thank you so. You have a long and storied career in the corporate space, in the personal development space as a consultant, author, mentor, advisor, a facilitator. Otherwise, broadly, as you know, this podcast is about the intersection of spirituality, broadly defined in leadership, and you've got a vast degree of experience in both spaces, and maybe even more importantly, the connection between the two.So, a general question I might ask you to begin here is tell me about your experience and your learnings and what's top of mind for you at this stage in your life, practice development about spirituality and leadership.
Russell Bishop: Well, that's one of those, uh, my goodness. What a broad question to me.
Andrew Cohn: Yes, sir.
Russell Bishop: And, but it's not one of those inch-deep things. This is, miles deep and miles wide. Absolutely. Maybe just a little arc would be helpful for context. Gosh, I was raised in a Presbyterian family for Presbyterian ministers. Went to church a lot. Never really liked being in the regular old sermons and all that, but I loved the music. I never knew why, but something about the music just was transformative. As I later learned in life and as as you know, there are some teachings that say two principle connections into the divine or into God are light and sound. And so I was moving on the sound without knowing that fast forward a number of years, I was one of those social activists back in the sixties. Just felt very deeply about how unfair life was for certain classes of people. So I was on protests and all that kind of good stuff. And on this one particular day, I was hit by a tear gas canister and they all said, well throw it back. But they never said it's gonna be really hot.
Andrew Cohn: Mm-hmm.
Russell Bishop: So I pick up this tear gas canister to throw it back, and it's like all of a sudden, bam. I had this snap where I was literally 25, 30 feet diagonally up and out of my body looking back, and I could see me as clearly as I can see you on the screen. And I heard myself screaming, why don't you, I'll clean it up a little bit. Why don't you idiots love us? And then all of a sudden, boom, I was right back in my body again. And I went, oh my God. My message was about love and peace and caring, and my strategy was yell, scream, and throw things. So this just went disconnect, disconnect, disconnect, disconnect. And I left the strike line and never went back. I went to a friend's apartment on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley. I had long hair. I cut my hair, I shaved the beard and I stared at the mirror crying, going, who are you? Because this other thing showed up inside of me. Today, I distinguish between what I call self-talk and soul talk. The self-talk was the one that was yelling and screaming and whatever, but the soul talk one said, Hey, you know, it's kind of like that old message you have to be the change. And so, that put me on a whole different path into my life. So today I like to encourage people, what's the loud voice inside screaming? What's the soft voice whispering? And the soft voice usually has more wisdom. For want of a better term, I call it our soul talk. It's connected to the deeper essence, both of who we are individually, but who we are as these beings of light, as I like to say. So there's sort of a 25 cent version of the arc.
Andrew Cohn: Well, and that's a 25 cent version that's very, very deep in its own right. There's a lot to pick up on, you know, from there. And I know on your website there's a wonderful line, I'm not sure if it's yours, forgive me, that says, you can never have too much of what you don't want. And this notion of I wanted peace and love, but my, what was I doing? I was screaming, I was shouting, I was throwing things. And my sense is that as I've heard and read about your work over the years, it's, is it perhaps moving a little bit more towards, and maybe it's about maturity, maybe it's about wisdom, maybe it's about just trying other things and saying that it's not fulfilling, moving towards that quieter voice, that more that softer voice as you said, and soft. And I, for me, we would, I feel compelled to say soft doesn't mean less powerful. It just means less loud most of the time especially in this culture.
Russell Bishop: Right. Well, that quote you're referring to comes from a now deceased longshoreman in San Francisco, who was also a philosopher and poet named Eric Hoffer, and he wrote, you can never get enough of what you don't really need to make you happy.
Andrew Cohn: Oh, thank you.
Russell Bishop: And then I just twisted it slightly and said, you can never get enough of what you don't really want. And so as you'll know from the Insight seminars, there's a section there where we look at, well, what is it that people tend to pursue lots of? And what do they think will be true if they get it? And so the classic example is most people want more money and they think if they have more money, they'll be secure and peaceful and happy and etcetera. And there's people with lots of money and they're not secure. 'Cause security isn't a function of the physical. It's a function of the internal. And so when we started Insight seminars way back in the seventies, we called it the awakening heart, not mind, body or emotions. And the term awakening is very powerful because there's a lot of people out there in the world right now today screaming, wake up. And something about awakening can be rude, but it's better gentle. And I know my spiritual teacher, We were facilitating a seminar together. And on a break he said, you seem very frustrated. What's up? And I said, grandma, they're so slow to wake up. And he said, oh, Russell, if you had a little baby and it was sleeping, would you shake it and say, wake up, grow faster? No, because the sleep is part of the process of growth. And that's why awakening was so powerful, because something that's awakened was previously asleep, which is obvious, but something that's asleep was previously awake. And so sometimes transformation means you're supposed to make a radical change of something external. But to me it's really coming back into, and that's why we, we subtitle that original course, becoming more of who you already are. And so that's the quiet voice. It's not given much credence in the world, so we don't learn to listen to it much less, give it a voice into the world that sort of begs the question of the intersection between the personal and the professional. And a lot of people went through the, the original insight seminar, found personal value, and then asked me, Hey, can you help my team the way you helped me? I said, I don't know. But that led to the consulting business that we grew and the main question in there was always the subtext of, so what is it you really want and what are we really offering?
Andrew Cohn: And so as you moved from that personal space to the professional slash corporate space, what were the themes that emerged to the extent that there were consistent themes? I suspect there were, but please tell the story about what did those teams, reflect back to you about what they really wanted? And I'm curious to know how it paralleled or not the Insight seminars and the personal development side. Like what did you learn and what did they learn in that process?
Russell Bishop: An anecdote might be helpful, and especially in the contradistinction between that strike line and tear gas canister, you would've thought that meant I would only go work for the soft and fuzzy snowflakes of the world. But instead, I thought, well, maybe what we really ought to be is right in the heart of where all the seeming conflict and distractions are. I wound up doing quite a bit of consulting in the aerospace industry and also pharmaceuticals and finance and telecom and all kinds of things. But there was a program I worked on called the Airborne Based Laser–was a joint project between Northrop Grumman and Boeing, and I can mention it because it's what's called in clear and there were articles published about us. The Airborne Base laser was supposed to be a laser in the nose cone of a 747. All was orbiting. In the event of a sort of enemy missile launch, the laser was gonna shoot the missile right out of the sky. Well, seven years in, they were supposed to have developed this laser within three years, but seven years in, they still didn't have anything except they had done a, a test firing of a static laser on the ground. So the Air Force and the other sponsors said, look, you've got one more year to get a second test firing of the count. Things canceled. So we've got this team of engineers and managers in the room from both companies along with the Air Force, and this colonel who was the, sort of the project manager, kept going, if we could have done it faster, we would've done it faster. And then this young guy and Nick, he's only 29, he said, wait a minute, I, we can do this. And this set up a little tension in the room. And so I said, well, let's pause for a minute. Right now we're arguing about if it can be done and if we listen, Henry Ford said, it doesn't matter whether you believe you can or you can't, you're probably right. So I said, well, let's follow that. You know, would we rather follow the path that says it can't be done or follow the path that it can be done? And if it can be done, what would we have to be able to do? But that still didn't resolve it. So I said, well, let's back up. Let's look at purpose. Why? Why are we doing this? Anyway, why does this matter? And it didn't take too long before everyone in the rooms settled on we're doing this to provide a sense of safety for the country. And they all lined up on safety. And as soon as they lined up on safety, their brains exploded with possibility. And to shorten that story they were supposed to get the second static on the ground firing when the year.One year and two days later, they had an orbiting 7 47 and they had a test missile fired out of the Guam area. The plane detected it and the laser shot it down.
Now how, how come? Well, because they aligned on purpose and as soon as they lined on purpose, it opened up the possibility for how to get someplace that out of the brain. But as that can't be done, so that's a way of, of thinking about it. And from the personal world, we always said, what's purpose? Well, that kind it goes to, am I try to live a life of more greed and mechanical things in the world, or am I trying to live a life that has more inner quality and predominantly one of more caring and loving?Most people would like more caring and loving, even if they want the other stuff too.
Andrew Cohn: Well, and I think that's a great point. It's not nec, it's not one or the other. It can be, in my experience, a at times a choice between the two and a prioritization. But it's not an absolute, of course not. And, you know, I spent my, I started, I did my first Seminar when I, after my first year of law school and then went to be, went on to be a litigator in Los Angeles. And that's very much not a caring and loving profession, but an essential one in our society. And people need good lawyers and just, for me, it's always been about the balance and the integration, hence the podcast many years later.
So, and I'm wondering, I've, I've asked you two broad questions so far, and you've come back with specific anecdotes, so I'm trying to learn my lesson and I want to ask you for examples of some other things as well. So, because the examples illustrate, but at this stage in time, we're here at the beginning of 2026, which is unbelievable. I'm still. If I were still writing checks, I'd be dating the 1987, but I'm not really still writing checks anymore. So for you at this stage, what are you seeing as the sort of current evolution of purpose and how are people resonating with the larger topic of purpose and fulfillment? In this world of increasing levels of static distraction, not a lot of distraction going on here. Of course, arguably the world is designed to make us forget. I've heard that. I know you have too, but where are you landing in your observations, and maybe you're not landing, forgive me, but where are you focused now in terms of your observations about how to best support people in finding that fulfillment and purpose as well as organizations?
Russell Bishop: Well, since you went through insight and all that, you will perhaps resonate with this thing. Sometimes when people ask me what I do in the world, somewhat cheeky answer, is I say, well, I help people get what they think they want as fast as possible so I can ask them. Was that it?
Andrew Cohn: Mm-hmm.
Russell Bishop: And so I think that the tricky thing about purpose is that that seems like an arrival point. A destination if I can only know my purpose. Well, yeah, I might have thought that too, maybe. 40 years ago, but it's a process of ever deepening in, in the world of understanding process in business, we often think about root cause analysis. So when something goes wrong and there's a basic principle that says there's five why's, what happened? Why did that happen? Well, why did that happen? Well, why? And you try to get down to the root cause. Well, purpose is the same thing. If I ask someone. Something about their purpose, then the question I ask, and why would that matter to you? And when we asked them why would it matter, not as a defensive response, but as a deepening response people keep going deeper into what really matters. So the question is, well, if you had that, what would be true in your life? And we start to ask people to notice the distinction between what they think should be true in their life or what ideas they bought from other people, or what kind of external goal into what's really meaningful for them. And if I can take care of myself, I might be in a better position to take care of others. And so one of the, well, I'm sure you will have heard this phrase, it says, peace is present. The only question is, am I present with the peace? And so in the world of anything. But I'll use peace as a simple example. I've asked people, have you ever been at peace in your life? Did you notice you were at peace when you were at peace? And for the most of the rest it goes well? No, I'm just busy being at peace. So how did you know you were at peace? Well, just after I left, because I went, oh man. But then the question which rarely gets asked is, well, what did I have to focus on to leave the peace? And so that then begins to go to the question you're asking me, what's my focus? It's helping people identify their focus, because as soon as they notice where their focus is, choices open up. And I've never felt it was my job to tell somebody what they should be feeling or experiencing or choosing, but simply to ask them the question and whatever answer they come up with is, and how's that working? If it's working well, keep doing it. If it's not working so well, well, what could we do instead? And that's a very empowering question, and most people don't come through life feeling empowered. But empowerment in the business world says, I'm gonna empower you. But that says, I'm the one who has the power. You don't.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah. To bestow it upon somebody else. Exactly.
Russell Bishop: It's in my graciousness. But when people start to notice all the things they've created in their life, whether it's good or bad, and that they were the one choosing, they begin to identify that real internal source of true power, which is simply the ability to choose and choose.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah. And so what resonates with me about that is, is just this notion of it can be so difficult to put our finger on the thing, but we know when we're not in it. Right. So what are the guardrails? What are the signals? What are the signs that indicate I'm deviating? And how can I have some level of self-awareness so I can be aware of when that's happening as quickly as possible? So that we can then, you know, pick up the puppy and bring it back or whatever else to redirect in a gentle, supportive way. Boy. But man, it's not easy in this world, is it? In my experience anyway. Well, until it is.
Russell Bishop: There's the great distinction between simple and easy. It is simple. It just ain't easy. The real key here is to ask ourselves or anyone, so regardless of whatever goals you may have, what's the experience you're hoping will be true when you get there? And when we ask people the question about experience and, and ask them to ask them to go more deeply into that, what will it feel like? What would you be seeing? What would you be experiencing inwardly, we can then back that out into saying, so one of the things that we need to do when we are making choices is keep asking ourselves, is this moving towards that?
Russell Bishop: And
Andrew Cohn: mm-hmm.
Russell Bishop: The people are being asked to make decisions a lot. And I almost distinguish between a decision and a choice and
Andrew Cohn: Yeah.
Andrew Cohn: Say more about that please.
Russell Bishop: Absolutely. Because in the dictionary, they're synonyms.
Andrew Cohn: Mm-hmm.
Russell Bishop: But they're actually antonyms. 'cause if you take the word decide, so imagine you're writing it in front of you. Decide, CIDE. What other words do we know? The end of CIDE. Well, suicide, matricide, patricide, fratricide, genocide, it goes on and on and on. 'Cause the root word is insidious, which is the Latin word to violently cut out or kill and de means of or from. So a decision, and I do a lot of that work in the corporate world, is to help people look at their decision process. 'cause the decision process looks like we got three, three things we could do. Three options. What's wrong with A? What's wrong with B? So we kill a model and there's C. We either go, okay, that's the only one left, let's do it. Or we kill it off and say, C, it's hopeless. But if I ask someone a question about choice, well, if you're choosing, are you choosing a thing? Are you choosing an outcome? Oh, well, it's the outcome I want. Oh, okay. So now if I make a choice and I, I take a, the left turn. And it's not going there. I can either go back and take the other turn or say, well, now what can I do? Because there's always a, now what can I do? It's only a available to me if I keep in mind that experience I'm going for, the outcome I'm hoping for.
Andrew Cohn: The word that's coming up as you describe that is for me a bit about attachment. So what I'm really attached to with a decision is making this decision right now and a few is subjective to me. Tell me what you think, please. And what I'm really attached to, what I'm focusing on choices is the outcome. If that's really where my energy is out there, then I'm more willing to make another choice as I need to. If my focus is more on or so concentrated on the short term decision and I can be attached to that decision, I'm less likely to let it. It relates a little bit, and I hope this isn't too tangential to some research and work that's being done around decision making now. Right? About how attached we can be to our decisions and how the research is showing this beautiful best practice. And you're gonna nod, like, no kidding, I could have told you that, but now it's coming out in some of the research, especially some of the faculty at Wharton, at the University of Pennsylvania and I am connected with those guys. Not because I'm a researcher. Forgive me. And when I say guys, I mean men and women–permit me to use that word. We tend to be very attached to our own decisions, and therefore it's a very important practice in organizational decision making that the person or people who have the right to kill a project are not the people who approved it in the first place because the people who approved it in the first place will not put it to death. They will have ‘cause they're attached to it.
Russell Bishop: See, there's a lot of ego investment. Into decisions and a lot of the ego investment is about protection, self-protection.So, you know, in some of the other spiritual work we've done, we talk about sort of four basic, we call 'em sacred cows, and one of 'em is self-preservation. And most people have somewhere in their personality structure the experience of having been punished and punished for having been wrong and punished for having made a wrong decision. So when we come into decision making in the corporate world we get very invested in the decision because that needs to be right, and there's a reward or a punishment depending on whether we were right. So where this really starts to break down is in two broad buckets. One is in communication. So let me do that one. If we, if you write the word communication. CO, the first word inside of communication is co. That's prefix? means what?
Andrew Cohn: Yeah. With together.
Russell Bishop: With together. The first compound word, two or more syllables, starting with co commune. What's that word mean? Well, we got more togetherness at the end of the word. C-A-T-I-O-N. Two letters out of order. If you switch the C and the A, make it A and the c. It becomes action. So now we have immune action. But if you take the word commune and you just change one letter, the U to an O, you have the word comment, and now what's the purpose of communication? To act in commune, and if you're writing the word out, who's stuck in the middle between action and common. I am.
Andrew Cohn: Mm-hmm.
Russell Bishop: So now how many times in a corporate setting have we had the meeting, or millions of them, and now we've come up with a decision and now we're gonna go act on it. And so I come back to you two weeks later and I go, and you go, what's that? It's what you asked for. It's not, it's too, it's not. Well, I said, well, you said, and so what's happened is. We thought we were acting in common, but all we were doing was acting. If we're gonna act in common, what do we have to know before we can actually choose something in common? We're choosing towards something. What are we choosing toward? Not a lot of words show gold, purpose, outcome, whatever, but what happened was I thought the purpose was X and you knew it was y. In good faith, I busted my tail to get you what you wanted. This wasn't it. So where should we spend more time in our communication? On the action or the outcome? And on the outcome. The purpose. Here's what now. Contrast that process again. This is about communication, decision making and choices. And now go up into the corporate review cycle. So, what's a common review cycle in corporate America? Well, obviously annual, but now we've got quarterly. But the problem with those is those are, now put this into some of your Wharton experience and in financial terms there's a trailing indicator and a leading indicator and a quarter review is trailing. But if instead we could break the stuff down into weekly. What do we do? What are we doing? What are we discovering? What are we learning? Do we keep moving in this direction? Or did some circumstance shift that says, wait a minute, maybe that original goal or objective isn't on purpose anymore. 'Cause the politics changed. The economy changed the new discovery showed up. We need to be able to stay flexible. So we all talk about being fluid and we're dynamic as we have all these different buzzwords, but still, we still have these review peers that are fixed and against something that was not something that is so Dr. marry all that together and you start to have a very dynamic, fluid kind of environment that can be very productive. That may be even more so than the others.
Andrew Cohn: When I hear you talk about the perils, if you will, or the downsides of those quarterly cycles what comes up for me is, as you said earlier about self-protection, about, you know, that, that the sacred cows are grazing nearby in those quarterly reviews. And the protection that justification, the, I need to protect myself, I need to protect my team, etcetera. It's, it's really the opposite of the empowerment. I mean, ultimately I think such a big dimension of leadership in my world is I, if I work with you, you can't empower me to make decisions. You can, but you can make it safer for me to be wrong. You can make it safer for me to take a risk. You can, let me see through your leadership that risk is tolerated challenge of col conflict is tolerated. Russell, I disagree. I don't think this is the direction we should go in. And how am I treated? And everybody else at the table is watching to see if I'm at work tomorrow or not. Right? Because can you create the conditions within which the inquiry and the longer term view and the safety and the broader questions can be tolerated and encouraged, which is a very tough thing in my view. Perhaps I'm steering in a different direction, or maybe I'm looking at the sign in the background here.If you're, if you're listening in the car somewhere, you don't see the cover to Russell's, I think it was the first book. Right? Work Arounds That Work.
Russell Bishop: Right.
Andrew Cohn: And you know that I believe, if I'm recalling part of that book, it's like what are the conditions that the leader's creating?
Russell Bishop: Well, like that aerospace example, the leader, because he had this strong military background, and it was about orders and you don't argue with an order. He was willing to just keep marching into the futility, so we had to create a whole new structure. And by the way, that colonel resigned six weeks into the project because they'd already made more projects at six weeks than they had in the previous year, and he couldn't stand being wrong, so he left.
Andrew Cohn: Right. Well, and for him, arguably success would be a successful march. Okay. That's successful. So you, you come back to how do you find success and what's the goal? Is the goal to carry through on these orders, which is ultimately to make this decision and stick with it, or is the goal to be successful in this mission?
Andrew Cohn: Here's another good word that'll be successful in this mission, which may involve obviously changing course. My work in the limited I've work that I've done with groups in the military is that they recognize the value in challenging one another, right? It's a little bit of like picking up on the work of Brené Brown and the work that she's done with the Marines is you've got to be able to challenge one another and be vulnerable because otherwise you could be on one of those. You make your decision and you march into wherever you're marching and you're not, if you're not hearing the voice that's saying, Hey fellas, men and women, you know, what are we moving into here? We need to change course. There's probably a very important book out there about changing course. Well, one of the books from some, a Wharton faculty member, a wonderful book is called Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away by Professor Annie Duke, and she talks about the difference. She was a professional poker player for years. It's fascinating and brings the experience around decision making back and says the most important distinction between professional poker players and novices is that experts, professionals fold earlier. In other words, they quit. They say, no, this isn't, we're changing course next hand, which is the opposite from the determined, arguably disciplined colonel who's gonna march his troops over the cliff.
Russell Bishop: Years ago I spent seven years working with a Boston-based firm called Vantage Partners, and they work basically the commercial arm of the Harvard Negotiation project, and they were founded by the authors of getting s and stuff like that. So some great bon days in terms of their ability to manage conflict. And I had an opportunity to work with a company in the medical devices and pharmaceutical space and the medical device company manufactured equipment that you would run assays on. So you could detect, say, west Nile virus or various kinds of things like that. The company that made the devices only made devices, and their partner company only developed assays, and the assay company was about, I don't know, at least 10 times larger than the device company. When they came together, they had a hundred percent market share in their particular area part, and they just went gangbusters. They were making all kinds of money, both of them. But over time, you know how leaders change and promotions happen and the new guys came in the small company side and, and said, wait a minute, these guys are taking advantage of us and well, we should be making more. And then the big company kept saying, let me see what you're doing in your development process. And they wanted to know that because that would help them figure out how to create new assays for newly discovered diseases so we could get to market faster. Well, the little company said, geez, not only are they taking money from us, but now they're trying to steal our IP so they can go into the device business. So when I got involved with them, they had been in seven years of litigation, they'd gone through three arbitrations and had shrunk their market share to 30%. So we got the leadership teams of both companies in a ballroom down in Laguna Beach and said, I want you to take a few minutes and, and think about why the other company's doing what they're doing, what's important to them? Why is it important? So they broke up into little teens and they said, and now by the way, I want you to think about what's important to you and why are you doing what you're doing? So they had two sets of self-discovery and sort of their thoughts about the other company. So we came, brought them back into the rooms and said, okay, now company a uh, want you to present to us what you think is important to the other people and why. So the little company says, well thereafter all the money they can make and they want to steal all the IP and they wanna move into, and the big company goes are you kidding? Oh my God. We couldn't begin to invest in that. We have none of that, but we thought we could just help get these new devices to market faster when we had more assays to run on 'em. Long and short of it was this one weekend, the two CEOs wound up inking a deal that ended all the arbitration, and the little company kind of went, oh, wait a minute. We only contribute one percent of the value to this project. The other guys if they, if we don't have their assays, our machines.
So all of a sudden they went, Hey, it's not that we got, it's that we got rewarded in a huge way. So then they went back onto climbing new market share again. But that's all when they start looking at purpose and we impute the motives of the other person, and it's never in their favor. But if we can have that larger conversation, pretty much like the aerospace guys had to say, the purpose is self-defense and security. Here it was mutual growth, but they never thought of mutual growth. It was, they were thinking zero sum. One of us does better than the other, as opposed to we grow the pie together. So a lot of that all starts to interleave. I don't know if that made any sense.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah. Well, I think it's, and what comes back to for me is where are we placing our focus and are we operating from a place of fear or from a place of possibility? Or are we assuming. You know, horrible intentions and assuming that people are out to get us, are we protecting something? Yeah, there's a, there's an awful lot in there. Let me just be sure to ask you about your newest book anyway from Self-Talk to Soul Talk, and perhaps this is redirecting the conversation back to the personal side. Perhaps it isn't however you choose to answer it. And if the subtitle is becoming more of who you truly are, we're back to a little bit of the awakening heart, or perhaps it's really the reawakening heart if we're coming back to something we already know. But tell me please about some of the ideas from that book and how it connects. Like Chris, for me, in my work, it's part of the reason for this podcast, the integration of the things we might call spiritual with leadership and organizational work and working in the physical world, et cetera. But what are some of the principles from that book that are gonna help me be more successful than my work. Maybe that's another way to ask the question.
Russell Bishop: Okay. Well, so the book is a collection of insights and awarenesses I've had over time, coupled with actual exercises a person can do to test them for themselves. So I come from that school that says, believe nothing, test everything. So if you can test it yourself and discover. So it goes through a few things about choice. It goes through some things about communication and that, that sort of thing. But it really looks at the difference between what are we pursuing and what are we hoping will be true. And then there's a few sections there where we look at the neuroscience of performance. One of my current clients is big not-for-profit exploring the nature of reality and consciousness. It's a blend of neuroscientists and ISTs. So one of the things, uh, like an anecdote in the book, well, not reading an anecdote, it's just sort of a, well, let's think about this. I will ask someone. I do this in groups all the time. Anybody here listening to the BBC radio right now? No. Is the BBC radio in the room with you right now? And most people go, no. I go Really? I mean, if you had a radio, you couldn't turn it on and hear the BBC. Oh. So in other words, there's something in the room you can't see, you can't hear. But if you have a tuning device, you can. So why am I mentioning that? Well, this unseen radio wave, maybe there's an unseen wave about what's connecting between us or disconnecting between us, and what are the differences between the radio and the radio wave? We are the tuner, but we're also the transmitter. Well, what's that mean? Well, careful of the thoughts you hold because they actually, there's, I don't know, four or five years ago now, some medical group up in Harvard developed some kind of, I cited in the book, but it's not in anything I do daily, so I can't remember what it's called but it's a device that can detect thought without any connection to the body. So we know we can put skull caps on and you can measure where the thought's happening. This isn't that. This just says new thinking is taking place and it can detect it by some transmission that's being received by the machine without contact.
Russell Bishop: Now people go, yes. So well just wait a minute. You've heard of things like mass hysteria. Well, that's because enough people start holding the same thought and other people pick it up and all of a sudden they're agitated and don't know why. Well, so what's the thought I'm holding and how is that both influencing me as well as possibly influencing others? And so that's a very powerful aspect of what's in that book, to help people think about how do you prepare for a future that doesn't exist except in your own mind. I give an example of, we all remember Sully, the pilot who landed his plane on the Hudson River. He'd spent a lot of time in, in simulators, but never one that said, let's land on a river with no engines, but enough time in the simulator. So what's that? Them? He's practicing safety. He's practicing instant decision making. He's practiced actually different choice making. Choose rechoose. Choose rechose. Instant, instant, instant. He didn't have time to think through that process. He just had to rely on his internal preparation and his ability to, in this moment, see an outcome where he could get the plane safely. Not to Tara firmer, but to Tara Aqua, I guess. But he did it completely safely, and he was completely at ease doing that. Why? Because he was prepared. So part of what the book says, well, how do you prepare for a future? You don't know its circumstance, but you can prepare for the experience. So we're just helping people look at that distinction and then look at, well, what gets in the way?How many times do you have a, a thought or a hope or a vision? And some part says, yeah, that'll never happen. You can't do that. Well, yeah. I mean, there's a section there where I talk about why positive thinking just doesn't work. The argument there is, well, of course, positive thinking doesn't work. You can't say, isn't it great? I don't have an arm anymore? But if you only have one arm, you can have a positive focus that says, now how do I succeed with that? So positive thinking versus positive focus. And when we change the focus, we then get more creative, and that's where that, that quieter voice, the soul talk comes in and says, oh, well we could. The other one is the one that wants to say we can't. So we start to distinguish those kinds of things about how do you create the life you really want instead of the one you settle for. So those are some of the themes that are inside the book.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah. Well, there's a lot there, right? How do you create the life you want rather than the one that you thought you wanted? Which comes back to the longshoreman uh, view, uh, right, yeah. I can do a great job creating what I thought I wanted, but ultimately don't.
Russell Bishop: Yeah. Well, and, and also the distinction between what did I settle for? So kind of like the, you gotta know when to hold them, when, when to fold them.
Andrew Cohn: Yep.
Russell Bishop: The other side of that is Edison said something about so many people fail because they gave up just before success showed. And so the classic example of a light bulb and over a thousand combinations and a New York Times science editor asked him how did it feel to fail over a thousand times? And that isn't went failed light bulb. And you know what? I know just no, no, no. You don't understand. The light bulb had a little over a thousand steps to it. I just didn't know the number of steps, but I knew light bulb was at the end. If I had your thought, we'd have this conversation by candlelight. So, yeah, that's kind of, uh, now how do you juxtapose? You gotta know when to fold them, and you gotta know when to hold them. So, am I holding them out of being obstinate or am I holding because something is guiding me and now what am I telling myself inside?
Andrew Cohn: Yeah.
Russell Bishop: Things.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah, when I hear that, that, that, to me it just, it rings up being such an inner process because from the outside it looks the same or you're just holding it.
Andrew Cohn: Right. How do you really know the difference? And so for me, there's that opportunity to honor the inner experience and to recognize that's each of our choices to make individually, you know, you were talking about their, their radio frequency in the room, and each one of us is the frequency, each one of, if I'm remembering this correctly? Each one of us is the frequency. Each one of us is the tuner and tuning device, and each one of us is the one. Who has the power to use the tuning device? Each one of us is someone with our hand or the equivalent energetically, of changing that tuning device with a protagonist. We're the actor, we're the decision maker using that tool, however we see fit, that to me and from a leadership point of view, is like, how can I support people in taking the space and the time? And not to mention myself, to give myself the space and the time. What do I want to tune into right now and why do I wanna tune into that? And perhaps there's a five why's there, right? What's my purpose that's gonna guide how I turn that dial, if you will. I know dials are from the 20th century. We don't use dials anymore. But how am I gonna, how am I gonna move that lever, if you will, to tune into what's important to me in a world that is orderly, review focused short term, to give myself the bandwidth, the space to honor that journey so that I can tune into the tuning, if you will.
Russell Bishop: Yeah, no, Francis Hesselbein passed away a few years ago. She was, I think 103 when she passed away. But I had known her, since the eighties and I guess around 2011, 2012. I hadn't seen her in quite a number of years, and I went to visit her, her Park Avenue offices that Mutual Omaha gave her for free 'cause she was such this amazing force and not-for-profit world. When I walked into her office, she didn't say, oh, Russell, good to see you. What? How you been? What are you up to? She said, Russell, what are you seeing that's not yet visible? I went, whoa. Now there's a great question and for me it harkened, back in 1978, I had an eye procedure called Radio Keratotomy. I was extremely nearsighted. I mean like almost legally blind. And this is where they used a scalpel. Put little slits in the cornea like spokes in the around bicycle wheel and it flattens the corn. And all of a sudden, you can see, the night before I went in my spiritual guide and teacher John Roger said, Russell, you know, the problem with your eyes is now physical, but the source isn't. I go, what do you mean? He says, well, for years you've been struggling to see with your physical eyes, things that can only be seen with your spiritual eyes self. 1978, now it's 2011 or 12, and Francis says, what are you seeing that's not yet visible? Woo. And it just, the dominoes clipped over several decades that my whole process, which even went back to the strike line, was pay attention to the inner vision and the inner hearing, and am I allowing myself to be attuned? And then that also then goes with, I'm both the tuner and I'm the receiver. And I'm the transmitter. And now how do I work with people? So if you've got a leadership team and you've come together for a meeting, the most wonderful thing to do is start with what's a good outcome from this meeting? Not what are we here to talk about? And then to have inquiry and say, so, Andrew, how do you see this? What part works? What doesn't? What could make this even better? And use the collective, but you have to have the frequency being transmitted in the room that says it's safe to have other ideas. In fact, it's better if we have more ideas, and it's nice to be able to know that we have choices and we can choose and choose again, I don't get stuck.
Andrew Cohn: Right. And that choosing and re will ultimately lead to better outcomes. The safer environments will promote those additional choices. Yeah, there's a lot there. And we could, looking at our timer here, and we could continue for quite a while, and there's a lot of, a lot of themes here. There's a part of me that wants to ask you about the next book, and I'm hearing. Some of what you're saying, and I already may have some ideas about where you're going with it, but, um, what, just if I were to ask you a final broad question, what advice, suggestions, best practices, although I hate the term best practices, might you have seen that help leaders at all levels have the permission to, or the questions they might ask themselves that would open up the inquiry to give more permission to ask those deeper questions?
Russell Bishop: I'm not a fan of the word, the concept of best practice, because it usually, it, once again, that's a trailing indicator,
Andrew Cohn: Right? Like benchmarking, you're looking back at what others have done in the past.
Russell Bishop: And we're, we're disguising it and pretending it's a leading indicator.
Andrew Cohn: Fair enough.
Russell Bishop: And most of the great business books out there tell great stories about things that happened, but don't include what was unique about the culture that allowed that to happen that way. So we try to move the practice into a different culture and it doesn't work. Because the culture kills the office. You know, we all know they have a whole thing about culture, each strategy for breakfast. Peter Drucker, Well, here's a strange one. There was I, I can't name the company, but a very large Indian outsourced company for call centers. And whatnot. And this one particular call center, most call centers measure success on how quickly can you get the person off the phone. Interesting. And this one particular client of theirs was in deep trouble with their customer base. So we suggested to that company and its call center, let's do something different. When a customer calls in with a complaint, we want you to be able to say Thank you. I really appreciate that. And I'll bet there's more. What? Yeah, but well, what else isn't working so well? And whatever they say, go. Thank you. I bet there's even more. What else? And their goal, their new metric was how many complaints could you get in one call? And at first they went, what? We said, well, let's think about if that's what happens. What is the customer thinking about you when you keep asking? What else? Oh, they think we must be a terrible company. No, they're thinking, God, you actually care and you listen to me. And now what could have been a very negative interaction became very positive. But guess what? The company learned all the things they're not doing well and where they could make improvement. So the idea here is to encourage the contribution and reward it even if it seems to be negative. So, in my first book, I talk about rewarding complaints in a different way. Complaint only comes from the person who cares enough to say something. So when the complainer comes up, they go, God, thank you. What, what do you think we could do about that? You begin to shift the complaint into the proactive, and then you reward the complainer by saying, well let's do that. Let's see if it works. And if it doesn't work, we learn something. So it's hard to say what that it translates to, but that's right.
Andrew Cohn: Well, and then that complainer becomes a contributor.
Russell Bishop: Exactly.
Andrew Cohn: It's like, tell me what's behind your complaint. Why does that matter to you? Maybe there's even why questions to be asked there, but why does that matter to you and therefore, what's most important for you in this interaction, this service, this outcome, this project, whatever it might be.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah.
Russell Bishop: And thank you for caring
Andrew Cohn: And thank you for caring. Thank you for caring enough to share that with me.
Russell Bishop: No matter what happens, we're beginning to infuse into the culture that we recognize. Everyone cares. They just have different ways of expressing that.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah. Beautiful. And how antithetical that is to the self-protection. It's like, no, I want to hear your complaint. Not like, Hey, I'm doing a great job. I don't wanna hear it.
Russell Bishop: Right.
Andrew Cohn: Right. No, I want to complain because I can do better and I'm secure enough in myself and in my position because of my leadership that I can invite that.
Russell Bishop: Yeah.
Andrew Cohn: Well, thank you so much. There's so much more, there's so many places to go. I like to try to keep these things at a certain time, so it's more, that's the feedback I've gotten from people they like when they're a little bit shorter, but would love to continue this conversation in some form, perhaps somewhere closer to the beach in, in Santa Barbara or otherwise, or Laguna for that matter. But thank you so much. If people want to learn more about you and their work, where would they go?
Russell Bishop: My website is russellbishop.com. Russell has two Ss and two Ls. So justRussell@russellbishop.com is the email. Russell bishop.com is the website.
Andrew Cohn: Okay. And if you'd like us to put a link to the book or otherwise in the show notes, we can do that. We can talk about that offline. But, um, thank you so much. Thanks for your contribution, your time, your wisdom, and your flowing with my sometimes broad questions. I appreciate that.
Russell Bishop: It's a pleasure. Thank you so much, Andrew.
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