Episode 19 Edited
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[00:00:00] Richard Ellis: In the Accenture Life Trends 2025 report, two major trends highlight the consequences of tech fatigue. One, the dignity of work. As AI reshapes the workplace, leaders must prioritize motivation, agency, and human dignity to maintain high quality work. And two, social rewilding. 42 percent of people Reported that their most enjoyable experience in the past week was in real life, not digital.
[00:00:29] Richard Ellis: Businesses must recognize the shift towards authenticity and meaningful human experiences. Today's episode taps into these themes by exploring how leaders can stay grounded in the real world. Drawing insights from nature, craftsmanship, and lived experiences.
[00:00:51] Richard Ellis: Welcome to Some Goodness, where we engage seasoned business leaders and experts to share practical guidance and tips to help new and future C level leaders maximize [00:01:00] their impact. My guest today is my good friend and business partner, Mark Gatos, a revenue enablement expert with over 25 years of experience in sales, leadership, and strategic consulting.
[00:01:11] Richard Ellis: Mark's built and activated large scale revenue enablement initiatives across industries. And he's passionate about making leadership practical, experiential, and human centered. Mark is also the host of the video series, Rooted in the Real World, which takes unexpected lessons from the real world, nature, craftsmanship, and lived experiences, and applies them to business.
[00:01:34] Richard Ellis: Mark, welcome.
[00:01:35] Mark Gaydos: Hey, Richard. Good to see you. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:38] Richard Ellis: Yeah. I'm really excited to dig into the first couple of episodes of Rooted in the Real World. Talk to you about how this idea came to be and some learnings from the first couple of episodes and what we have planned for the future.
[00:01:51] Mark Gaydos: Love it.
[00:01:52] Mark Gaydos: Yeah. Excited to jump in and hopefully we can learn a thing or two by the conversation.
[00:01:57] Richard Ellis: All right. Well, let's just start with the beginning. The [00:02:00] video series is titled Rooted in the Real World, and I think the purpose is. Defined leadership and business lessons from tangible real life experiences. So how did this come about?
[00:02:12] Richard Ellis: Why did you create the series? You know, what inspired the concept?
[00:02:15] Mark Gaydos: Yep. Great question. It kind of came about through a couple of different factors. One, I was thinking about starting a podcast because let's be frank, who isn't doing a podcast these days, right? They're just out there, you ubiquitous. And so it kind of just noodling on the idea of.
[00:02:31] Mark Gaydos: Hmm. What's happening that is causing us as humans to be fearful, uncertain, and have that doubt about the technology that we're facing this day, this digital world of AI. So just thinking about how could we connect the dots to things that are real. So just the idea of real was in my head, right? Just how do we make these podcasts more real, a real conversation?
[00:02:54] Mark Gaydos: And certainly, yeah, you could bring on a guest and have them open up about their leadership or business [00:03:00] experiences and being more human. Certainly that's the thing. But Richard, as I was thinking about the idea of just being real, it occurred to me that, Hey, just getting out in the real world, right?
[00:03:10] Mark Gaydos: Getting out in the world away from the podcast studio, away from the microphone. And so just kind of. Happened upon where the idea of, first of all, the first thought was farming, like cultivating and just how our organizations have cultures that could be either healthy or unhealthy that produce the right fruit.
[00:03:29] Mark Gaydos: And of course that depends on the soil and the roots anyway. So I hired a camera crew actually just with the initial thought of, Hey, I want to go out into the real world and learn from people that are experts in cultivation, farming, regenerative. All that kind of stuff. So that's how it started and it germinated, no pun intended, germinated from there, just around, Hmm, okay.
[00:03:49] Mark Gaydos: I want to blend those two things. I want to learn things from the real world around an idea concept. And my first couple episodes are around farming and cultivation and future episodes will feature more, as you said, [00:04:00] more ideas from the real world, but take those real concepts and ideas from the real practical world, the organic world, not the digital world.
[00:04:08] Mark Gaydos: And then work with thought leaders, subject matter experts, and have them, you know, watch a documentary style clip and then have them react to it in real time on a podcast. And then now let's explore the intersection between what's happening in the real world with principles that we can apply in leadership, organizational, go to market, enablement, those kinds of things.
[00:04:32] Richard Ellis: You know, I like it a lot, and you're right, we're inundated with the digital, right, and the artificial, and there's concerns about AI replacing the real, and all of that good stuff. I'll tell you, when I saw the footage of the first episode, it was just refreshing, being out walking in a farm, right, on a Christmas tree farm.
[00:04:50] Richard Ellis: And we'll talk a little bit about that episode here in a minute, because I want to get into a couple of the principles that you uncovered. But it was refreshing. And then when you start to think about Our devices now have [00:05:00] the true tone setting to kind of diminish blue light in the evenings and we're actually buying blue light blocker glasses and we're monitoring our screen time and trying to reduce screen time, right?
[00:05:11] Richard Ellis: It's like how refreshing is it to get away from the screens and just get into farmland, right? Christmas tree environments and see what we can learn and observe from that. So I just think it's a refreshing approach podcast, but really video. Because again, even though we're watching it on a screen and I catch the irony there, but it is different, right?
[00:05:33] Richard Ellis: Well, let's dig into the first episode, right? And so we've released the first episode. I don't know how many hours you spent on a Christmas tree farm, but you learned a lot, right? Maybe you could tell me just a little bit about that experience spending the day. And one thing that intrigued me is. You know, this idea of these Christmas trees, they sprout multiple leaders, right?
[00:05:56] Richard Ellis: And they actually have to intentionally remove the [00:06:00] weak leaders to cultivate or to prop up one strong leader for the health of the tree. Right. Tell me a little bit about that and just some insights that came away from that experience and that learning.
[00:06:11] Mark Gaydos: Yeah. Awesome. In full disclosure, I'd never been to a Christmas tree farm.
[00:06:15] Mark Gaydos: So I had no idea what to expect. I just know that if I went out and talked to somebody who's mastered the skill of cultivating, growing, harvesting Christmas trees, I'm sure something good would come out of it. And I was pleasantly surprised. Just right off the bat, like when I was walking around the Christmas tree farm with the farmer, and I noticed a Christmas tree that kind of had two points coming up the top and I'm, that's not normal.
[00:06:39] Mark Gaydos: That doesn't look like the Christmas tree I usually set up in my home. That's not normal. What is that? And she basically said, and you'll see it in the podcast. So that's a double leader. Oh, what's a double leader? Well, a lot of times Christmas trees have two main stems that are coming from the trunk. And when they get to the top, they're fighting for prominence.
[00:06:57] Mark Gaydos: They're fighting for resources and [00:07:00] they become two equal double leaders. And that's not good for the Christmas tree. Number one, nobody wants a double leader Christmas tree. They want the pointy star at the top. Number two, it's not good for the tree itself and just the health of it. Right. It's taking up a valuable resources and everything it needs to, to do to, to be healthy.
[00:07:16] Mark Gaydos: And so, in fact, she was explaining to me, and you'll see it in the podcast that if you let the double leader go, that the tree will eventually get unhealthy, the leaves and the needles start getting Brown and they fall off. And so all of the things that you can imagine could happen. And so you've got to just be very good at recognizing when the double leader's coming out, do some trimming.
[00:07:37] Mark Gaydos: Do some proper cultivation so that you just get the one leader at the top. So the tree can really, once you have the right stem coming up to the trunk, now the tree can be in balance. It's all about health and it's all about balance. Right. And so, gosh, Richard, I'm sure you could probably start imagining all the organizations you worked with over your career, where you've seen examples of organizations that are [00:08:00] unhealthy, they're dysfunctional.
[00:08:01] Mark Gaydos: A lot of times it just, you can go straight to the top. What's happening at the top? Do we have unbalanced dysfunctional leadership at the top? If so, that's going to come all the way down through the rest of the organization, just like the tree. And that was the principle that came out of it is that you've got to address.
[00:08:17] Mark Gaydos: Quickly and often. Do we have double leadership? Do we have co visions? Are we fighting? Do we have political battles, silos that are happening at the top of the organization? If so, it's just got to be dealt with.
[00:08:26] Richard Ellis: That's so good. Just this idea of making sure you have a single strong leader at the top, right?
[00:08:33] Richard Ellis: I mean, sometimes a leader needs to be replaced or moved to the side. Right. And we've seen that, and that can be kind of a tough reality to accept any particular advice you have for leaders who kind of struggle with maybe letting go for the health of the organization, or even, you know, maybe a board that has to make a tough decision to go with a leader that's going to be the best single leader rather than co leaders that's going to lead to some ineffectiveness.
[00:08:58] Mark Gaydos: Yeah, certainly it [00:09:00] happens, right? For an organizational thrive, there's going to be times where you have that struggle of, okay, what do we do with ineffective leadership? And how do we do that? And certainly it's very crucial to address that head on early. And so I would assume that if it's a healthy board, if it's a healthy executive team, that they're on a cadence of quarterly offsites, yeah.
[00:09:20] Mark Gaydos: And then one time a year they're doing a two day planning off site and in those quarterly off sites in the two day planning offset that they do once a year that they are reviewing their values as an organization. What makes our culture. The culture that it is so that if we had a thousand people adhering to this certain value sets, we could conquer the world.
[00:09:42] Mark Gaydos: And so every quarter, especially every year, those values should be reviewed and the values are important because it determines the culture of the organization that you want to build. And so for leadership, the first thing that you want to address, if you give an unhealthy leader, is there's probably a disconnect [00:10:00] between the leader behavior.
[00:10:02] Mark Gaydos: And output and the values of the organization. And so I just always like to say, maybe you've heard this before, Richard, and there've been books written about this, but to get on the bus, just to be a part of the company, be part of the organization. No matter what the role is, you got to say yes to the values, at least, you know, 80, 90 percent of the values of the organization that just gets you on the bus and then to get you in the right.
[00:10:24] Mark Gaydos: See the right particular seat of the leadership. Then it's as simple as do they get it? Do they want it? And do they have the capacity to do it? And so a couple of things, once a year, offsite, two days, are these the values? Does everybody agree that these are the values? And now let's assess each other as a executive team, as a board.
[00:10:45] Mark Gaydos: Okay. Yeah, I demonstrate these values. I'm on board with these values. Now let's look at the role that you're in. You get it. Do you want it? Do you have capacity? And now you get into. Things like, do they understand it? Are they fulfilling the performance requirements? Or do they need too much handholding?
[00:10:59] Mark Gaydos: Those kinds of things. And [00:11:00] so from there, you can just very quickly determine, and this should be a cadence, like I said, every quarter, at least once a year, looking at those things.
[00:11:07] Richard Ellis: I like that. Just a good reminder of a couple of things, just to have a disciplined operating system or operating rhythm.
[00:11:13] Richard Ellis: foundational principles. Vision and mission. And then most importantly, culture and make sure everybody's aligned to that. That's really good. Well, that first episode feature packed with insights around leadership from of all places, a Christmas tree farm, which is really cool. I'd like to move on and just kind of talk about.
[00:11:33] Richard Ellis: Insights from the second episode. And this might actually be a little bit of a preview or a teaser to the audiences, because I'm not sure in the sequencing of this audio podcast or your next episode for the video, which one's going to come first, but I do know you gave me a preview of the footage and the second one.
[00:11:53] Richard Ellis: Rather than a Christmas tree farm, you went out to a regenerative farm and really dug into the [00:12:00] importance of soil and all things, soil and foundation and things of that nature. Tell me a little bit more about that visit.
[00:12:07] Mark Gaydos: Right. I was connected with a farmer in Tennessee who has a business called a living soil.
[00:12:12] Mark Gaydos: There's a practice going on around America and probably around the world right now that farmers, cultivators, agriculturists, if you will, they're recognizing the need to get back to a living soil, which just means what are those micro elements in the soil, the things that break down the nutrients that help the soil become a living thing.
[00:12:34] Mark Gaydos: Right. So the fungis, the bacteria, it's the older organisms, you know, the millions and billions of things that live in the soil. And so what's happened over time, most people don't know this. And I learned this myself, just doing the podcast. And you'll see this when the episode comes out. One thing I didn't realize is that over time, our farmers, which were individual families.
[00:12:52] Mark Gaydos: At the local level, they got overtaken by big agriculture and the big food companies. And what happened, because they had high [00:13:00] productivity levels of feeding the world and all of that, they didn't have time to wait for the microbiome and all the living soil stuff to take place. And you couldn't do that at a grand scale level.
[00:13:10] Mark Gaydos: That wasn't scalables, because what was scalable was just spraying the fields with herbicides, insecticides, all the chemicals, and that's what scaled. Well, what happened is we've killed our soil. over time. And so now because of that, because our soil lacks all the micronutrients and all of that is that our soil is dead and therefore our food is dead.
[00:13:29] Mark Gaydos: Our food lacks the nutrients that we need to sustain life. And so therefore me as a human being, I don't have my microbiome in balance with the food that I'm eating. And so therefore I'm getting sick. And so a lot of our sickness, the disease and health things that we face today is a lot of the food that we're eating, which lacks the right nutrients is because it's not grown in the right soil conditions because we've taken the shortcut.
[00:13:54] Mark Gaydos: What we thought was the right thing to do with the big ag and the big food companies with chemicals and [00:14:00] fertilizers and herbicides, pesticides, and all that kind of stuff. So I learned all of that. It was new to me. I was like super intrigued. And then of course, what you'll see in the podcast is I explored some of those ideas with a good friend of mine and great leader, Barry Sauerwein, who's just been a phenomenal sales leader his whole career.
[00:14:17] Mark Gaydos: And we explore some of those ideas of just the things that we don't recognize that are under the surface, the tiny little, these fungi and bacteria, and you can't even see them with a microscope. The things that you wouldn't think make such a big deal are the same things. Like it could be applied to whether you're a leader of an organization or a sales team.
[00:14:36] Mark Gaydos: It's those little things that end up hurting you in the long run, if not dealt with. Right. And so we talk about that on the podcast.
[00:14:43] Richard Ellis: That's really good. One thing comes to mind, which we just talked a little bit about, and that's kind of culture, right? When I think about healthy soil or a healthy foundation, I think of a healthy culture.
[00:14:53] Richard Ellis: So that's kind of a bit of an obvious one. But if you're trying to say, okay, in a business, right, in a [00:15:00] company, in an organization, what are those microbiomes that we need to be careful about? What else is there that comes to mind besides just culture?
[00:15:09] Mark Gaydos: Yeah. Good question. When I think about that and that question in particular, my mind always goes to that seminal book by Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Dean.
[00:15:18] Mark Gaydos: I always go to that, which is the absence of trust. You know, these are the hidden things, the things that people, it's hard to put your finger on it, but you know, when it's not there. And it starts a trust and then that leads to, okay, now there's going to be conflict because we don't trust each other. So there's going to be conflict, but we don't know how to deal with conflict in a healthy way.
[00:15:37] Mark Gaydos: And so, because I don't know how to deal with conflict, then you've got political silos in the organization that emerge and little political battles and fiefdoms that emerge in little kingdoms that emerge in the organization. And because we don't know how to deal with conflict. And then because we don't know how to deal with conflict, then people really don't commit.
[00:15:55] Mark Gaydos: They don't commit to the big ideas, to the initiatives, the imperatives that are coming down [00:16:00] from the board, coming down from the executive team. There's just a lack of commitment and people trying to avoid accountability. And so one of the things I'm sure you've heard this before, when you're doing your leadership and your coaching systems that you're building, one of the problems that we tend to solve and initially we come in, Hey, what problem are we trying to solve with a new sales leadership system or a new coaching system?
[00:16:19] Mark Gaydos: And I would imagine you would hear this. That it's commonly, we just don't have a culture of accountability. People get away with team lives. They're not responding to the number. And if they don't respond, you know, they get to hang on. And so when you don't have trust and you don't know how to deal with conflict and you lack the commitment and don't have a culture of accountability, then.
[00:16:38] Mark Gaydos: You don't get the results you're looking for, you know? And so that's just like those little things are the
[00:16:42] Richard Ellis: microorganisms toxins and the diseases and the stuff hidden underneath that you can't let them germinate, right? Or it's going to poison the organization.
[00:16:52] Mark Gaydos: That's right. And so there's ways to deal with that, right?
[00:16:54] Mark Gaydos: You mentioned it before, just an operating system. A lot of organizations don't have [00:17:00] an operating system. They kind of just go full bore in. And they operate as they were managed, maybe when they were in a lesser role and they get promoted and they start operating in the way that they were managed and the way they were led, the way they were coached and our operating systems, as you know, and the organizations you work with are very frenetic, very noisy, very reactive, which leads to the absence of trust, the fear of conflict, the lack of commitment.
[00:17:25] Mark Gaydos: Avoidance accountability, but there's ways that you can bring that operating system, that cadence, and there's things that you can do that are healthy to start regrowing that living soil, if you will, in your organization.
[00:17:38] Richard Ellis: That's really good. I don't want to go too much further in that because I don't want to spoil the episode, but everybody out there, check it out.
[00:17:45] Richard Ellis: You're going to love it. Let's kind of break out of the two episodes and just talk generalities a little bit. You know, that Accenture Life Trends report talks a lot about the tension between tech and AI and digital versus kind of human elements, [00:18:00] human dignity at work, authenticity. You know, there is this dichotomy between analog world and the digital world.
[00:18:06] Richard Ellis: And I think that's going to be permeating throughout the episodes going forward, right? Just contrasting the digital online world. With the real world, the analog world, as you just kind of think about leadership and organizations, anything come to mind about balancing the tools or the use of digital tech with the human connection and the human elements of working together, collaborating or serving others.
[00:18:31] Mark Gaydos: Yeah, so as a leader, I just recognize that you're in a leadership position, and so you have a role to play to shepherd and steward the people that you're caring for. And you're caring for humans. Number one, you're a human, and you're caring for humans. And we are on this planet having a shared experience together as humans, and no digital artificial technology can really replace that.
[00:18:55] Mark Gaydos: No matter what the fear, uncertainty, doubt are around us relative to [00:19:00] AI, is that the, the inspiration, the curiosity, the passion, that's all human, the creativity, that's all human driven and AI is just a tool, right? And so I just think as a leader. Just what does it look like to model human leadership? Well, first of all, you just got to model it.
[00:19:17] Mark Gaydos: You got to be human. You got to, uh, set the example. In fact, I'm reminded of a story. So recently I just had an experience where I helped lead a new sales messaging program for a software company and we did their sales kickoff. And obviously to get ready for that sales kickoff with the new messaging, like any program, you want to make sure your leaders are bought in.
[00:19:36] Mark Gaydos: They had like six months ago, nine months ago, had. Previously done some sales training stuff with your typical sales methodology that didn't really landed, you know, it was good stuff, but like a lot of methodology companies or sales skills, methodology things, a lot of times they're so tactical and in the weeds that, that your high level executives, they don't get the bought in, they don't get to become a champion.
[00:19:57] Mark Gaydos: And so in this particular case, because we're building a new message, it [00:20:00] was super important. To make sure that we had a foundation of leadership that was modeling the way. And I have to tell you, it takes time to get leadership bought into so that they're a champion of what you're building, what you're going to roll out.
[00:20:11] Mark Gaydos: But this particular head of sales, and hopefully I'll have them on a podcast one of these days, cause I just appreciated the way that, Hey, I need somebody to model the new message on stage in front of 150 of your sales reps, your peers to show what good looks like. And he was the first one to raise his hand.
[00:20:28] Mark Gaydos: I'll do it. You know, Everything else going on around SKO sales leaders, you recognize there's a ton of stuff going on to learn a new message and deliver that on a whiteboard as if it was a real conversation happening with a prospect to nail all the words, to nail all the nuances of it, to nail the hard skills and the soft skills and just crush it.
[00:20:49] Mark Gaydos: That's what leadership looks like. And that's what being human is, is you just got to model the way and then take that. To inspire people. Cause that's being human is you want to be inspired by something [00:21:00] bigger than yourself, a vision that's grander than yourself and that being human. So just those things.
[00:21:04] Mark Gaydos: And then lastly, just encouragement, right? Being human means we're emotional creatures and we based a lot of our decisions and actions based a lot of times on our emotions. So just being able to touch the heart as a leader is super important when it comes to. Breaking away from everything that's the artificial and the digital and connecting with humans that you are as a leader caring for as a shepherd.
[00:21:28] Richard Ellis: That's really good. You know, I'm reminded of, there's a lot of anxiety these days around AI, you know, is this going to replace my job, right? Is my job going to look a lot different next year than it does right now, et cetera. And just remember that we're all humans using the tools. And there's two factors.
[00:21:43] Richard Ellis: One is we need to shepherd our people and make sure that they have confidence and clarity around how it can be a value add to them, but ultimately it is about human serving other humans and helping others and kind of maintaining that human element in what we do. I mean, we could [00:22:00] talk for another 30 minutes and unfortunately we're out of time.
[00:22:03] Richard Ellis: So we do need to wrap up. I know, you know, by now at the end of our podcast. So we like to say, what is some goodness that you've experienced recently that you might want to share? It could be a hobby, a book, an experience, anything outside of what our discussion was today. Anything come to mind?
[00:22:20] Mark Gaydos: Yeah, it does.
[00:22:22] Mark Gaydos: You know, as part of the SKO that I was involved with, I happened to be over in Paris, conducting that with the team. And I decided to bring my family over with me to enjoy Paris. And so after the SKO was over, I had been to Paris many times, but I have not been to Normandy. And so we planned a trip to Normandy and we had an experience in Normandy.
[00:22:40] Mark Gaydos: And if you've never been to Normandy and experienced the D Day beaches and everything that goes on there, it was just a phenomenal, overwhelming experience. I was just reminded of a couple of things. One, just the ultimate sacrifice that the greatest generation made. In, you know, at least 17, 18 year old boys getting on these boats and [00:23:00] storming a beach and getting a beachhead on D Day, June 6th, 1944.
[00:23:04] Mark Gaydos: It's just amazing to hear that story and see those beaches, see the cemeteries and all that. But the other thing is, I actually hired a guide for this experience, because Me and my boys, we've seen the show band of brothers. And of course, band of brothers is about easy company who flew in a hundred first airborne, they flew in the night before D Day and they landed behind enemy lines to secure some roads and some intersection points and whatnot, so that the troops coming up a shore had a causeway to get through.
[00:23:29] Mark Gaydos: And so. Of course, nothing goes to plan is, you know, if you've seen Band of Brothers, they parachuted in under heavy fire and they got blown off course and they missed their landing zone. If you've seen the show Band of Brothers, you know what happened with Dick Winters, the Lieutenant of one of the platoons of Easy Company during that day, how he got thrust into a leadership role in the last minute.
[00:23:50] Mark Gaydos: Because the head of Easy Company actually crashed in a plane crash, but nobody knew it at the time. He just didn't show up at the rendezvous point. And, uh, hey, where's our captain for Easy [00:24:00] Company? Well, he's not here, okay? Well, I guess, Dick, you're the leader now. So, just like that, this Dick Winters became the leader, and then he led an assault on four guns that You know, become a textbook example that they teach now West Point of how to do it, you know, uh, an assault on four guns and all of this, it was just amazing.
[00:24:17] Mark Gaydos: It was a great experience, not only for the high level aspect of what the greatest generation did at a macro level, but the micro level of just me and my boys and my wife kind of hearing what leadership looks like when you get thrust into a role. And what you need to do in the midst of chaos, in the midst of the battle plan, not going to plan what you can do to have success and have impact in a micro moment.
[00:24:40] Mark Gaydos: It was just, it was
[00:24:41] Richard Ellis: a great experience. Phenomenal. I have not been to Normandy, but that sounds amazing. Well, to wrap up, we don't often end with a challenge, but I am going to challenge our listeners, our viewers out there on this podcast to get out in the real world, right? Shut down your device, find something new.
[00:24:58] Richard Ellis: Get out in the real world and see [00:25:00] what that might inspire you in terms of how it might apply to your day to day business. So with that, thanks for being our guest today, Mark, and hope to chat with you again soon.
[00:25:09] Mark Gaydos: Yeah, we will take care.
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