A bad outcome doesn't mean it was a bad decision | Steve Fredlund | Episode 102

Steve Fredlund: You might have somebody in your

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: team that does something, makes a decision, has a very negative outcome, but they might have made the right decision. And somebody else made the wrong decision, but fate

Chris Lee: Yep.

Steve Fredlund: had a positive result for them. And what we tend to do as leaders is we celebrate the best outcomes. And what that does

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: is over over time, what that means is people recognize that, they see that, they realize that it's about the outcomes, it's about the luck, it's not about the decision-making process, and we start losing courage to actually make the right decisions. we're so worried, we're so worried

Chris Lee: Mm.

Steve Fredlund: about the outcome that we become risk averse.

Chris Lee: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Parks and Restoration Podcast. I am Chris Lee. I am bringing you today Steve Fredland. He is an award-winning keynote speaker and best-selling author of Do the Unright Thing: Memoir of a People Pleaser. Can't wait to dig into that. With a rich background spanning three decades as an actuary, nonprofit founder, entrepreneur, and leader of African safaris. Yeah, you heard that right. Steve is no stranger to navigating complex paths. After years of doing what was expected, he realized that pursuing the extraordinary unlocked a deeper sense of purpose, fulfillment, and impact. Now he shares his transformative insights through empowering talks that inspire audiences to expect the extraordinary, guiding them toward breakthrough after breakthrough. I've got so much I want to dig into here. And Steve, welcome to the show, man.

Steve Fredlund: man, Chris, it's so great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Chris Lee: Absolutely. All right. So, let's let's let's dig right into this do the unright thing. Let's let's just start right there 'cause I just I I it's the title of your book, but and I know you've you've given some talks, I've been around for some of those, but give us give us the big breakdown of what does that mean?

Steve Fredlund: Yeah, I mean really what it means is it's it's the unright thing's not the wrong thing. That's I I wanna be really clear about that. I'm not saying do the illegal thing, do the immoral thing. The unright thing is kinda it's like that thing that you wouldn't normally do, whether that's personal, whether it's in leadership, wherever it is, that puts you in a position where the extraordinary could happen. So it doesn't mean it's always going to happen, but it's about putting ourselves in those positions. So it's, you know, here's the right thing to do. Well, stay on time, do this, you know, do that. Maybe the the unright thing isn't, you know, doing something illegal, but it's it's taking the road less traveled. It's doing something a little bit different than you would have been. Maybe it's not paying so much attention to the clock. Maybe it's having that conversation that you've been wanting to have. Maybe it's launching that big idea. Maybe it's just sharing an idea. But it's it's those things like that that we have to have courage to do because, you know, it's not the right thing. It's not what you normally do. It's not the norm. It's not the default. And I think we get so stuck into that realm of doing what we're always supposed to do that we lose sight of the fact

Chris Lee: Mm, yeah.

Steve Fredlund: that really the extraordinary is found when we do those things, you know, kind of off the beaten path.

Chris Lee: Yeah. How did you come to that?

Steve Fredlund: You know, that was interesting. it actually became it was the book before it was actually the concept that I started delivering from stage. And it's it's one of the things that I deliver. I have a framework called the Safari Way, and one of those things is having the courage to do the unright thing. But I was actually talking to the book editor about this, and and he wanted me to write like this self-help book. originally it was gonna be called Escaping the Good Life Trap. Like, you know, we work really hard,

Chris Lee: Mm.

Steve Fredlund: we do everything right, we create this good life, and then we it's becomes a life that traps us. And so it was going to be this real like self-help. research based. I had like 70,000 words written, 70 citations. It was gonna be that and I just kept telling him I'm like, I I'm I'm not an expert in this. I don't want to be an expert in this. I don't want talk about this. I'm just a dude who just was had this good life and just been struggling. And so through the conversations with him, he just started exploring that, started asking me a bunch of questions about, you know, where the life that I had and the life that I have now and what the difference was and and really the the impetus of it was my story, my whole life I've always tried to do everything right. I've tried to get the right

Chris Lee: Mm.

Steve Fredlund: grades. I tried to, you know, have the right job, climb the right ladder, have the right house, have everything do everything right, because you think there's this magic formula, right? That says if we work hard, if we do everything right, we're

Chris Lee: yeah.

Steve Fredlund: gonna be rewarded with this life that's extraordinary. And it doesn't happen. And so anyway,

Chris Lee: Yeah. Right.

Steve Fredlund: as I as I talked to him, what I found is that it was when I started doing those things that I really shouldn't, not not shouldn't, but you the things that are outside of the norm, those are the things that were giving me life, going to Africa, these things that I'd never would have done. I'd never been outside of Minnesota. when I was forty years old and I went to Africa. Like these are not the right things to do. And it was through those kinds of things that I really started my life started changing. And so he said, you know, it's not the wrong thing. What you're talking about is doing the unright thing. So he's the one that really came up

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: with that idea and I just I just loved it right away. Yeah.

Chris Lee: Okay. Yeah. That is a a an interesting nuance of it it's not the wrong thing, but it's it's the unright thing. It's it's

Steve Fredlund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: and and I and I can see that you were an actuary for a long time.

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: So like your entire job was to figure out like like risk management and like what's the right thing. Like that's that's that's ingrained in ya.

Steve Fredlund: A hundred percent it was all about the right thing. Yeah, man. I mean, yeah, the the math kind of being in math that reinforced that whole idea that there's always a right answer to everything. And so yeah, that

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: kind of reinforced that whole notion. And so yeah, doing what I'm doing now is still my my math friends, my actuary friends are like, What are you doing? I don't get it, because this is an unright thing. Yeah.

Chris Lee: You're doing what? Mm-hmm. yeah, for sure. Like who'd who'd have thunk that an actuary would then go on to be a keynote speaker and and African safaris and

Steve Fredlund: Right. I usually hide it. I usually don't tell people that when they're making decisions about speakers. I don't tell them I'm a former actuary because

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: they assume you can't speak, you know, once they hear that.

Chris Lee: Right, yeah. Yeah, some some guy in that back office just sitting there crunching some numbers. Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: That's what I did. Yep.

Chris Lee: So how did the African Safari things come along? Like where I mean, obviously at some point you're like, I'm gonna go to Africa. W how did that happen?

Steve Fredlund: Well yeah, and it was it was never on the radar, it was never something really planned. What happened was I ended up starting a non profit in our community to financially respond to global poverty. That was the idea to try

Chris Lee: Mm.

Steve Fredlund: to how do we unite our community here in East Central Minnesota where I live to actually financially respond to the issues facing the world? And so that's all it was. So we started raising money just to send over to our partner organization in Rwanda, and they were doing like self-sustainability things in this rural area. And so never had any plan to go there ourselves. That was just that was the model. We raise money, we send it over there. But then as it started growing and started building, there became this pressure to actually go there ourselves to see firsthand the impact, to hear the opportunities, to you know, make sure. the money was going to the right places, all this stuff. And once that pressure kind of came up, it was like, Well, if we're gonna go, that means I'm gonna go. And so ended up going on a humanitarian mission to Rwanda. just to build relationships with the people over there. And that's when we added on a couple of days on Safari as a way of decompressing from the tough stuff. And and the funny part is I want

Chris Lee: Sure.

Steve Fredlund: kicking and screaming. Like when they first brought up that idea, I said no. I said,

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: I don't want our donors to think this is a boondoggle or a vacation or anything like that. I don't want that, you know, but they're

Chris Lee: Right.

Steve Fredlund: like you're you're gonna need a couple of days to decompress from the stuff that you're gonna see. And they they were right. And so that's how the Safari

Chris Lee: Hmm.

Steve Fredlund: came to be. I kinda went c kicking and screaming that first one. But just I mean just fell in love. And so we went back there a total of four times to do our work in Rwanda and then each time, you know, did a little bit longer safari on on the end

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: of it. So that's where that all started.

Chris Lee: Okay. And so from that and I mean an entire framework. You you know, before we we hit record here, you said you got a website now, the the Safari Way and and I know your

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: framework is all built on this this Safari Way concept. just real quick, what is what is this Safari Way kind of break down the the components of that as through you know what you teach and stuff.

Steve Fredlund: Yeah, mean the overarching message there is that life, work, leadership is like a safari. It's all an adventure, right? When you go on an African safari or in our life and our leadership, there's ups, downs, highs, lows, knowns, unknowns. You don't know what you're on the next corner. You know, all of these same themes are running through every type of adventure. And so part of it is just helping people realize life is an adventure. Leadership in the parks area,

Chris Lee: Okay.

Steve Fredlund: that's an adventure. You're never gonna know there's gonna be the exciting stuff right with the annoying stuff and the frustrating stuff and the scary. Scary stuff like it all runs together and it doesn't mean we're doing anything wrong. That's just the very nature of leadership. It's the very nature of life. It's the very nature of African safari. So this first part is just getting people to kind of get this mental perspective that It it doesn't mean something we're doing something wrong that there's these negative things that might happen, or that we were doing something right that the positive things happen. This is just the very nature of what it means to be human. And so I get people into that mindset.

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: Then the question is, well, how do we actually keep moving forward? How do we keep leading forward in the midst of all of the uncertainty, in the midst of the ups and downs? So we set it up that

Chris Lee: Hmm. Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: way. And then I take messages from what I learned on Safari, what I actually learned from the research as an HR actuary, and say, okay, how do we actually do this? How do we retain leadership effectiveness? How do we keep Personal fulfillment in the midst of all of that uncertainty of our adventure. And so then there's just real quick, there's the three pieces that I talk about, which is first just clarify the experience you really want. What kind of experience do you actually want to have on your adventure? Not what you're supposed to have, not what everybody else tells you you should have. What

Chris Lee: Uh-huh.

Steve Fredlund: do you really want out of your leadership or your life? The second piece of that is got to get the right peeps in the Jeep, right? Surround yourself with the right

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: people. And then the third piece is having the courage to do the unright thing. And that's taking the road less traveled and doing those things. Things that aren't the default as a way of pursuing the extraordinary. So that's the overarching

Chris Lee: Sure.

Steve Fredlund: framework of the Safari way. Yeah.

Chris Lee: Okay. I'll I I like that. A lot of a lot of different angles I want to dig into on that. So

Steve Fredlund: There you go.

Chris Lee: we're probably gonna go off on tangents and then circle back to to come with it.

Steve Fredlund: Tangent away.

Chris Lee: yeah, yeah. so the on the the the uncertainty thing. I wanna dig into that a little bit because for those of us that work in in conservation, certainly in ecology, we're we're no strangers to uncertainty. in fact I was just I I was just looking at at this driving into work today. we've got this this field that had all grown up in trees and we had we'd cut a bunch of the the trees and brush out of it. And most of the field looks absolutely fantastic. Like it's got all sorts of native species coming up. It's a restored prairie and it's all sorts of native

Steve Fredlund: Wait.

Chris Lee: species coming up. And it's it's like the stuff that should be there, right? And then around the perimeter where where we had mowed the firebreak last year, it's all grown up in like Queen Anne's lace, which, you know, I mean it's it's not a terrible species, but it, you it's kind of one of the but it's super thick. And it made me think so. Last year here at home, I've got a couple of different pollinator plots here at my own property. And last year one of the plantings came up with just solid Queen Anne's Lace is is the road ditch. And so I I had killed off all the grasses in the road ditch and planted a bunch of pollinator stuff and it just blew up in Queen An Queen Anne's Lace last year and and and I I didn't know why. And so my wife was like, we we gotta mow that down and I'm like, I don't know if that's what we should

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: do. And then she's like, Well, well, then fine, let's burn it this fall. And I'm like, Well, actually I'm not sure that a fall burn is is the right way to go and and you know, and the conditions were right and and then the spring rolled around and she's like, We've got to burn that this spring and I'm like,

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: I don't know if that's the right thing to do. We didn't end up doing anything this year I'll be damned if it doesn't just look absolutely fantastic. It's coming up. It's got

Steve Fredlund: really?

Chris Lee: cone flower all over it. It's got bergamot. It's got all these species that I had expected to have last year

Steve Fredlund: Right.

Chris Lee: and the year before. I think it's like a this is like the fourth or fifth year of it. And I'm like, okay, I I don't I don't have any idea what I'm doing. You know, I like I'm supposed to be the psychologist, you know. And I think

Steve Fredlund: Right.

Chris Lee: that's kind of where we're all at is like like we do these prescribed burns and then, you know, like okay, well the the the science tells us it's this, but it doesn't always turn out that way. So there's always Some sort of level of uncertainty in the natural

Steve Fredlund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: world. You know, like like you could do a burn at the exact same time, exact same conditions this year, do the same burn two years from now in the exact same timing, exact same conditions, and the results are going to be absolutely different.

Steve Fredlund: Mm.

Chris Lee: And and that's kind of part of it. But as that applies to human systems and this and this navigating life with uncertainty, where where are you at on that? And like like what are you what are your recommendations for folks? Because that uncertainty is a big burden to carry, certainly for leaders.

Steve Fredlund: Mm.

Chris Lee: And so what's your recommendations for for navigating that?

Steve Fredlund: Yeah, there's there's so much we could talk about there, but I think specific to talking about like what you're describing there is one of the talks that I'm just developing. I'm I'm delivering it for the first time in about six weeks, is is this idea of decision making in uncertainty and learning as a leader how do we separate the outcome from the decision? Because, you know, what you're talking about there, the decision to

Chris Lee: Hm. Yes.

Steve Fredlund: do this, you know, the certain way that you planted it or whatever, may have been the right decision. But you had a negative result. Does that mean the decision is wrong? No.

Chris Lee: Mm.

Steve Fredlund: There's there's a variance, right? There's luck. There's all these different things. And so part of when I when I talk about that, I talk about a little bit like with poker playing too. Like you can make all the right decisions and have a negative result, or you can make bad decisions and have a positive result. Because luck and variance is part

Chris Lee: Yeah, yeah.

Steve Fredlund: of this. And I think for what you're talking about as a leader, especially is being able to separate those things. So when things go, you know, you make a decision and things go well, still evaluate. Was it the right decision? We we sort of say, well, okay, if it's let's flip a coin heads or tails, you pick heads and it's heads. Wow, you made the right decision. Well, did you? I mean, you you know, there's there's always luck

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: involved. And so I think I think part of that is separating those two things. Like, okay, say say you planted this and it didn't work out the way that you wanted, and now you've got to burn it down, it never did come back or whatever. That doesn't necessarily mean you made a a bad decision. The the

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: question that I think as leaders we need to ask ourselves is, given the same information that I had at that time, would I have made the same decision? And start evaluating our decision-making

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: processes rather than judging ourselves or others as a decision maker based on the outcome. You might have somebody in your

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: team that does something, makes a decision, has a very negative outcome, but they might have made the right decision. And somebody else made the wrong decision, but fate

Chris Lee: Yep.

Steve Fredlund: had a positive result for them. And what we tend to do as leaders is we celebrate the best outcomes. And what that does

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: is over over time, what that means is people recognize that, they see that, they realize that it's about the outcomes, it's about the luck, it's not about the decision-making process, and we start losing courage to actually make the right decisions. we're so worried, we're so worried

Chris Lee: Mm.

Steve Fredlund: about the outcome that we become risk averse. We don't want to take chances, we

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: don't want to take risks, even if it's the right decision, because we know if this implodes, we're gonna be judged on it, versus having a leader that comes alongside of us and supports us and says, Yeah, it didn't work out the way we wanted, but it seems like you made the right decision, or maybe you didn't but let's learn from that. Either way, you know, the decision, you know, evaluating the decision is such a critical part of leadership versus just saying, well, whatever the results are, that means we make good or bad decisions. And I think that's that's it's lazy

Chris Lee: Mm.

Steve Fredlund: and poor leadership. And I know we don't have, you know, it takes time and effort to do that, but I think that if as a leadership

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: group, I know your listeners are a lot of leaders or interested in leadership, that's a very important piece that a lot of us miss.

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I I really like that that nuance there, that decoupling the outcome from the decision. And I I was it's funny you bring that up because I was I was just I think listening to a podcast where they're talking about this very thing of

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: of how oftentimes we we we're so focused on the outcome, but but that's only because we have the the benefit of hindsight. Like like you get to you you

Steve Fredlund: A hundred percent. Hindsight is such a cancer in our decision making. Yeah.

Chris Lee: Yeah. And you know, and I think the the the example they were using was like in football, when when a coach or an offensive coordinator decides to go for it on fourth down and

Steve Fredlund: Yeah. Yep, a hundred percent.

Chris Lee: And if they don't convert, everybody's like, that was stupid, you know. But if they do

Steve Fredlund: Terrible decision. Yep.

Chris Lee: convert, they're like, that that's an absolute genius, you know,

Steve Fredlund: I don't.

Chris Lee: and and and and so if you assess the decision, say, okay, well, what's the what's the percentage of of conversions on fourth down

Steve Fredlund: Right.

Chris Lee: and you know, and and how has our team been, you know, has they been working on this, the exact play this week, and how well have they been executing on it? And you look at the decision from the perspective of the information that you had available to you. I like that 'cause that that's that's almost another layer of after action reviews. I talk about after action

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: reviews in in in some of my podcasts. And I know that's a big thing in the in the fire world, and in the the military world and things like that. and and that's, you know, what What was planned, what went right, what went wrong. And there's almost another layer there of okay, let's look at our decision making process

Steve Fredlund: Yes.

Chris Lee: and look at that specifically versus just what was the outcomes and why didn't it go right or why did it. That's that's a nuance there. I I really like

Steve Fredlund: Yeah. And and

Chris Lee: that.

Steve Fredlund: and often we do postmortems when things go wrong. We evaluate our process.

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: And yeah, that's great. I think, but also doing post mortems when things go right. you know, where did

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: where did luck actually carry the day here? Where did we make a bad decision?

Chris Lee: yeah.

Steve Fredlund: not not to like discount our value, but to say, okay, how can we improve this next time? Because we just assume that if things went right, we we were geniuses. We might not we might not have been geniuses. And I know some companies will

Chris Lee: Yeah, right.

Steve Fredlund: actually do pre-mortems where during the decision

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: process they actually do this idea of, okay, if this is successful, why do we think it was successful? Why do we think it you know we can or if this fails why do we think it will fail and that helps in the decision making process but again that's part of yeah

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: like you said sort of decoupling the decision from the outcome and I think that's a critical piece that a lot of us are missing and I think like a like a really obvious little like here's a simple example for people to consider like if I said okay I'm gonna roll a dice it's a regular one you know six sided die if if it's one two three four or five I'm gonna pay you a hundred dollars If it's a six, you owe me twenty bucks. Do you want to do that? Well, the right

Chris Lee: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Steve Fredlund: decision, of course, is yes, as many times as you're willing, right? I mean, that's

Chris Lee: yeah.

Steve Fredlund: that's the right decision. Now I roll the dice one time, it's a six, and you owe me twenty bucks. And I think we'll we'll say, like, I made a bad decision, I shouldn't have I shouldn't have played. No, no,

Chris Lee: Yeah, I'm never playing this game again. Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: you absolutely should have played, but you just had

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: a negative, you know, you the the least likely outcome happened. And that's that can happen in our regular life.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah. And it's oftentimes unless you're intentional about that post mortem or that that after action review, you might not see that for what it is. You know, and you might just be like, you know, that was that was a terrible decision, and then you just take that at face value when if you really just take the time to sit down and analyze what happened, be like,

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: Man, that that was that was just crap luck. Like we could

Steve Fredlund: Right.

Chris Lee: do this a hundred times over and that would not happen again. And

Steve Fredlund: Mm.

Chris Lee: and now that's a very different thing for future decision making in a same or similar circumstance versus

Steve Fredlund: Right.

Chris Lee: nope, and and then then that builds that risk aversion. And

Steve Fredlund: Yep.

Chris Lee: that's yeah, that's very insightful. I like that.

Steve Fredlund: Yeah, and that's that's why I love I love and you know, and not everybody's a poke fan of poker, but that's why I love poker as sort of the petri dish. So this talk that I'm doing, it's not gonna be a poker

Chris Lee: Mm, yeah.

Steve Fredlund: talk, but you know, it's a great laboratory to just to to discover this because I play poker and like somebody will you know go all in with Jack Ten and somebody calls with pocket aces, right? I mean they're they're an 80% favorite to win win the hand, and then they lose with pocket aces because it runs out with whatever,

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: and then they're like, I should have just folded pre-flop.

Chris Lee: Mm. No. Right,

Steve Fredlund: No, you shouldn't have folded free fill you should have.

Chris Lee: yeah. Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: You know, but and but one out of five times you're going to lose. That's what's supposed to happen. But you know, that right away that's

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: when I know if they're a good or bad poker player. If they're like, I should have played my seven three, or they say I should have folded my pocket aces. No. Then

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: because it's a game of decisions. And I think ultimately life and leadership is a game of decisions. And I think then our job, whether it's for our family or whether it's for our our business or our you know, for for our parks department or whatever, our job is to make the best possible decisions. And my whole point of of

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: talking about evaluating the decision and not the other is because that makes us better decision makers. If we just make

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: a decision then we live with the outcome we we're a genius or a or a failure based on that outcome, we're not going to improve our decision making. And that's the whole goal is how do we become better at decision making.

Chris Lee: Yeah. I should note for the listener that Steve is a thirty-four-time champion poker player. all right, right. You need to you need to up update the web. Yeah,

Steve Fredlund: 35 now if I'm gonna be if I'm gonna brag a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, won a few tournaments. Yeah.

Chris Lee: so so Steve Steve knows a few things about poker. I I I had an angle I was totally gonna pull on that that poker thread.

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: that's I remember what it was. so this is whoever figured out That it would be entertaining to put poker on television. it not so much they're the person that made a really great decision. It's the person that put the percentages on that screen with them. Like it's one thing to

Steve Fredlund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: just watch poker and like if you got enough understanding, you'd be like, that's probably a good hand. That's probably not. But it's when

Steve Fredlund: Right.

Chris Lee: they s when they put the percentages on there that you're like, okay, this much percent, like this hand has this much percentage of winning. And then when it doesn't, you're like,

Steve Fredlund: Right. Yep.

Chris Lee: my God, right? And like

Steve Fredlund: Yep.

Chris Lee: that's the huge entertainment value. But the people sitting at the table don't have the luxury of that. They don't know what the other players

Steve Fredlund: No, you don't have that information. Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: are holding. Yeah. So it's it's decision making. So where where do you stand with with this decision making with incomplete information? Like at what

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: point do you just decide I'm I I I've I've got enough information, I'm I'm making this decision? Like, do you do you have any recommendations for folks on that?

Steve Fredlund: Yeah, I mean I think that that is the big question, right? I mean, I think because we we long for information, we want all of the information and you can kind of tell just by the types of games people play, what the what kind of decision maker they are. Like some people just want to play Uno where it's just completely luck. some people wanna play chess

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: where you have all the information. There is no there's no information you don't have. You and the other player

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: know everything that's happening, and you know, so you can make the best decision based on that. Ver whereas most games are kind of in between there, like poker is one of those where you have some information. But not all, you know, and you know, all

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: of all of that kind of stuff. So I think that that translates into our leadership and even you know in our personal lives, how do we make decisions? And I think there's different types of people. There's some people that will never make a decision because we don't we don't have all the information, and I think that's a mistake on that end. There's some people that will say, Well, who knows, right? I mean, who knows what's gonna happen? Let's just make make a decision. Who know, who knows who it's all up to faith anyway, and that's one end of the spectrum, but

Chris Lee: Right. Yeah, yellow.

Steve Fredlund: there's somewhere in the middle, I don't know what the magic what the magic number is, but at some point we need to be. able to make decisions with incomplete information and live with the results of that. And so that's that's that nuance. And I think it depends on what kind of decision it is. But the one of the interesting thing, and so I don't know how to answer that question other than you kind of know it when you see it, like if you're stalling or you know trust people around you. But I think there's also this we're more willing to make a decision with incomplete information when we have the security of knowing that our our boss is not going to you know breathe down our necks if this goes sideways. That kind of piece. But also You know, in the world that's changing so fast, and you know, ecology is one of those fields, with funding, all these different things are changing so fast. We don't have the luxury of sitting around, and things are going to be changed by the time we get all the information that we think we want, half of the other information has changed. You know, we just can't keep up with it. So

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: it is it is a tricky thing, for sure. But one of the one of the interesting things that came out of the poker realm is there's a there's a poker player named Jonathan Little, who I've interviewed a few times. He's written several books about it, and he says something that really kind of blew my mind. mind when he first said it. He said if it's a close decision, it doesn't matter what you choose. And I'm like, well, no, that's exactly the time it matters. Like, but

Chris Lee: Huh? Yeah, right.

Steve Fredlund: his point is saying if it's a 50-50 decision, You're gonna be right half the time, wrong half the time, regardless of which one you pick. So we can stall out on that saying, how can I get that information to turn this from a to a fifty point two percent, you know, whatever? We're trying to get that

Chris Lee: Mm.

Steve Fredlund: added information when he's like, if it's fifty-fifty, it really doesn't matter what you pick. Like if I say, hey, I'm gonna flip a coin, winner gets 10 bucks. Are you gonna sit there and spend all day thinking about which is, I don't know, which is he more likely to have his thumb go like this or which way is he gonna hold on the top? Or it's random. It's random.

Chris Lee: Right, yeah. Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: So it doesn't matter what you pick. If you pick heads, you're gonna be right half the time.

Chris Lee: Mm.

Steve Fredlund: If you pick tails, you're gonna be right half the time. And that that's kind of his point. And I thought that kind of blew my mind in terms of this idea of what you were talking about, what you kind of teed up there of waiting to make the decision until we have all the information. If it's that close, where you just there's no

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: information that's gonna sway you, you just, you're just You could either you know get paralyzed and say, well, I can't make a decision, or say, it

Chris Lee: Right.

Steve Fredlund: doesn't matter what I pick, it's 50-50. Now, yes, you you're gonna

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: be right or wrong depending on the outcome, but there we are again, stuck on the outcome, right? Like if you pick heads

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: and it's tails, are you gonna beat yourself up all day that you didn't pick tails? And that's kind

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: of what we're talking about.

Chris Lee: Yeah. the that that's I I I see it now. And when you first when you first said that, like if it's close, you know, it doesn't matter. Like, well no, actually what is. But no, you're yeah, it breaks your brain a little bit. Yeah, right.

Steve Fredlund: Right. It it's jarring, isn't it? It's like when it's no, it's close. Should I get married or not get married? I don't know, you know, where's that one piece of information, you know, that I need and you know, you know, he would in a sense say it it doesn't matter what you pick, of course it does matter, but like if it's gonna work out half

Chris Lee: Certainly, yeah.

Steve Fredlund: the time or not, then it probably doesn't matter. Yeah.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Well and and and I think that's what one, the the decoupling the outcome. But then two, I think it's worth asking yourself, what am I actually doing by seeking more information? And is the gathering of more information actually going to shift my thinking or Am I simply delaying the need to make a decision? And

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: and and I think you gotta be real honest with yourself about that, because I will find myself doing this. Like I I I like to analyze things and

Steve Fredlund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: and you know, I I I will dig and dig and dig and dig. But at some point I have to step back and be like, okay, so the last several pieces of information that have come to me, have they measurably changed the way I was thinking about this?

Steve Fredlund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: And and if it's not, then you're you're getting to the point where it's okay, it's just it's time to to make the decision, you know, or or

Steve Fredlund: That's a really good point. That's really good, yeah.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Or surrounding yourself with with like I've heard it called the tribe of mentors or your your personal board

Steve Fredlund: Sure. Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: of bringing them into loop. Like, okay, here's here's what I know, here's what I've researched and kind of here's where I'm at on this. What do you see? And then asking them, I had a I had

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: a board member that was that was really good at this and that and I I I wrote about it in a article I wrote for the paper, but he was always one of those that would like, have you thought about it this way? Have you thought about

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: that way? And when when when I first started working with him, I'm like, God, this guy's like he drives me nuts, you know? But

Steve Fredlund: Right.

Chris Lee: I realized where that was coming from. You know, he was pushing me to be better and making sure that I was looking things. But then once it came time to make the decision, even if it wasn't his decision, like even if he was on the contrary side of that decision, he would support it. And

Steve Fredlund: Yeah. Love it.

Chris Lee: and I'm like, That's that's real leadership right there.

Steve Fredlund: Well and that that was his that was his job, probably how he saw his role is my role is to ask the tough questions, to get make sure Chris is thinking about all the angles and ultimately support what he does. And that's that's when I talk about getting the right peeps in your Jeep, like that's the kind of person you need in that kind of a capacity. You don't need a you know, somebody who's just always right and always angry if they don't get their way and all that kind of stuff, right? That's what

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: I'm talking about. So that's and and he just he's asking questions. That's what you need. But yeah, I guess that then kind

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yep. And

Steve Fredlund: of to couple that with your other piece that you said too, but if if you're kinda going into that conversation saying Is there anything that he could say that actually is going to change my mind? Then, I mean you could still do it and see what happens, but like if you're if if you find yourself saying that all the time, it doesn't really matter what they say, then yeah, it might be time to make the decision. If you're kind of at that point where you're gonna do it anyway, might as well get it done.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yep. And I I'll try to make this quick, but when I got into real estate investing, so I you know, I bought and fixed up a few houses and I own a few rentals and stuff. And when I first looked into doing that, I I just I reached out to people I knew in the community that were in that world. And after I don't know, six or eight or ten or fifteen different people that that I sat down, you know, had lunch with or whatever, the what I was hearing from started kind of feeling a little bit redundant.

Steve Fredlund: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chris Lee: And I'm like, okay, I have enough information now that, you know, yes, I I could probably I could probably get more, I could probably get deeper, but I've got enough now to probably go ahead and jump into this. And so I did. And and yeah, I mean y you know, you always learn along the way, but at some point you hit that point where you just gotta you gotta go.

Steve Fredlund: That's yeah, I think those are good indicators. What I would I change based on what they said. Am I hearing the same thing over and over again? And I think, you know, one more piece of why people continue continue to get more information depending on you know what their situation is with the organization, it might just be a CYA situation, right? Like like I know this is the

Chris Lee: Yes. yes.

Steve Fredlund: right decision to make, but I need to do more research just so that I can validate my decision later. You know, even though I know this is what I'm

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: gonna do, I need to validate it later so that when you know the the stuff hits the fan, I can say, well here's

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: here's who I talked to and here's what I did. Did and which might be valid, or it might be a symptom of leadership that is result-oriented versus decision-oriented.

Chris Lee: Right. Yeah. And and risk averse. Again. Yeah. That that CYA thing. Yep. And

Steve Fredlund: And risk averse. Yep. Yep.

Chris Lee: and you see that a lot and yeah, a lot of us are are agency people and you know, it's document, document, document and and

Steve Fredlund: Right.

Chris Lee: gather information and all that kind of stuff. And which so that's a good segue into the next thing I really wanted to dig into was getting the right peeps on the Jeep.

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: so you know, this is surrounding yourself with the right people. give me some more about that.

Steve Fredlund: Yeah, and and this is again based on my my work as an HR actuary and just you know what I've seen is when you're on when no no matter what adventure you're on, right, whether that's the African safari, whether it's life, work, leadership, whatever it is, there's very few things as important as surrounding yourself with the right people. And what I what we've learned is that the right people, quote unquote right people, are not necessarily the ones that you'd always expect it to be. It's not always the the best resume. It's not always the the people with the greatest wealth or the greatest influence, the most articulate, right? It's what it is. It's the people that are most aligned with them with the experience you're trying to have. So when you think about that on a personal level, okay, the experience I want to have is, you know, for you, Chris, you I want I want to have these experiences where I'm growing this and I'm doing this and I'm running real estate and I'm doing all these things. Who are the people that need to be in your Jeep that are going to support you and encourage you according to that experience? Right? They're not the ones that maybe are the you know, have the most money down the block, have the nicest boat. Those might be good people, but they might not be the right people for you. And as a leader as a leader, one of the things that we've really learned, part of this is the research we've done, part of it's through Adam Grant. Who's an organizational psychologist? This idea

Chris Lee: yeah. Yep.

Steve Fredlund: of, you know, we work so hard as leaders, we hit we have butts, you know, we need in seats, we have empty seats, we just need people to do the job. And so we just hire the first person available. And what happens is they don't

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: work out, and then we have to replace them again. And the what he continues to find in his research is that we do more harm to an organization by hiring the wrong person than by leaving the seat empty. And I know the tension there because we just need somebody

Chris Lee: Hm. Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: to do the work. But what happens is when we don't hire the right person, you know, they don't work out, they're stressed, it takes more of our time, more of our mental energy, but also our other team members start to not trust us as much. What are they doing? What a bunch of idiots

Chris Lee: Yes.

Steve Fredlund: hiring the wrong people, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it starts to erode that trust that we build. And so it's so critical when whether it's a volunteer role or it's a staff role to hire the right person. And I would argue the right person are the people that are aligned and connected, meaning they are aligned with our mission, they're aligned with our vision, they're aligned with our values, they feel connected to the mission, they feel connected to each other. Like those things the research has shown us and all the research that we've done is that that is a much better indicator. Of somebody's contribution to the organization, then their pay, their benefits, bonuses, recognition, flexibility, their their resonant their their skills, knowledge, and abilities coming into the organization, all of that stuff, which Is the standard way that we hire somebody, right? We put together a job

Chris Lee: Hm. Right.

Steve Fredlund: description. Here's the skills that we need, here's the responsibility. Somebody comes in, we align their experience with our needs, and whoever matches the best on a rubric, we hire them and we bring them in.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yep.

Steve Fredlund: And sometimes it works out, but what we found is that that match of skills is no indicator of whether they're going to be great or not. What is an indicator if they're going be great or not is how aligned they are with our mission. How passionate are they about the parks department?

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: How passionate are they? about the mission that you have for ecology or whatever it is whatever area you're in, if you if you

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: have the passion, you have the alignment with that, you have that connection to that mission where they feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves, they're gonna

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: learn the skills. They're gonna show up on Saturdays. They're gonna do the extra effort. That's not the issue. But when you have somebody who just has the skill set but they don't have the passion, they're gonna fizzle out, they're gonna become a negative person, they're gonna eventually leave and it's gonna erode the trust in your leadership.

Chris Lee: I was I was going to try to pick your brain on HR stuff and and hiring process because I I literally

Steve Fredlund: Sure.

Chris Lee: just had this conversation this morning of man, if somebody could could could solve the hiring dilemma, you you could just you could be a bajillionaire. Because

Steve Fredlund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: you're right. We we we we hire people, I mean I and and I'm speaking from experience here, based on some rubric. Right. And like I I I have written the matrix that that we we scored people on, you know, and like,

Steve Fredlund: Yep. Yep. Sure, I have too, you know. Sure.

Chris Lee: this is the highest score. So I mean the math does not lie. And then you get nine months down the road and you're like, the math freaking lied to me. Like it was the wrong math is is what it was, right?

Steve Fredlund: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Chris Lee: And so I I I so many questions I w I wanna dig into this.

Steve Fredlund: Well I can give you an example of what I'm talking about if you want.

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: You want an example. So so one of the one of the 'cause businesses that's been studied by Harvard Business Review. We've done our own analysis on it too, is Patagonia, a company that obviously you're you're probably familiar with. because they

Chris Lee: yes. Okay. Yep.

Steve Fredlund: went through a period of like 15 years where their sales increased fivefold, which is unprecedented. Like they sell jackets, right? I mean, in in that market,

Chris Lee: Insane. Right. Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: how do you increase market share that much? And so they

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: they study, they study, they study, and what they found was it all comes down to their people, but specifically how they hire people. Their specific, like the root driver of their success was how they hire people. Now they had 4%

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: total turnover, like 96% engagement, like these unbelievable stats. And they they they drove it

Chris Lee: come on.

Steve Fredlund: all no, they drove it all back down to their hiring process. And what they found is that they are so in tune and so in your face for lack of a better term about their mission that people will self-select out, even for executive positions during the hiring process, because they realize that they are not aligned enough with the mission. Like one of Patagonia's core mission statements is save our home planet. A lot of environmental concerns. Now, some people are like, that's terrible, that's a hoax, that's that's awful. Some

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: people are like, my gosh, I would love to work for an organization like that. And that's the point. They are so crystal clear on it that if you're not aligned with that that mission, you're gonna be like, I can't work for this company. Perfect. That's good for you,

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: it's good for them, short-term, long-term, all of that stuff. But if you're fired up about that,

Chris Lee: Mm.

Steve Fredlund: you're gonna come on board and you're gonna be so passionate, you're gonna give everything. to helping accomplish that mission. And so that's what they found is that that key driver of this ultimately this business result was the alignment with the vision and the values. And it came down to them being super clear about it and asking the right questions, not asking leading questions. Like, you know, we typically leaders, and sorry if this offends anybody in the room, I've done this and I've seen it done before, but you know, we're we we

Chris Lee: I'm sure I have too.

Steve Fredlund: you know yeah we we need somebody who's who's organized. Right. And so we we in the interview process we have our set of questions. One of the questions we ask them is, are you organized? Yes. I mean, what they're they're trying to get a job. Or we say, here's our, you know, here's our

Chris Lee: Course I am. Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: values. You know, do you align with those? Yes.

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: I mean we we're not we're we ask these leading questions and we get the answers that we want to hear. We go, ooh, they said yes, we checked the box, rubric five,

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: versus getting better at asking those questions about to find out if people are organized, to find out if they're aligned with our vision, to ask questions in a different way, to let them say in their own words, and then make the determination, is that actually lined up with who we are? so I think we need to get better at

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: moving from kind of the the standard questions and the rubric based on them saying yes because they're most articulate. to actually digging in and finding out who's most aligned with what we're trying to do.

Chris Lee: So what do better questions look like? 'Cause I I've struggled with this and and honestly this is

Steve Fredlund: Sure.

Chris Lee: kind of one of the the many reasons I like doing this podcast is that it helps me practice asking more and better questions. so I what would what would better interview questions look like or sound like, I guess.

Steve Fredlund: Yeah, I mean like an organ organized thing. Like I've I worked with one leader who was like they were doing that question, Are you organized? Yes. but so we switched that around. It's like

Chris Lee: Hm. Check.

Steve Fredlund: this one woman was being interviewed and she she had volunteered that she's you know like four kids. And so he would just ask her, So, so tell me a little bit about how you how you stay organized with all of those with all the activities. And she was like, I don't know, it's a disaster. Like we we s we miss Billy at T

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: ball, we miss Sally over here, and and like, you

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: know, wonderful woman, but she's not and some positions maybe she'd be okay for but for this administrative assistant job she wasn't organized whereas she he'd ask that question

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm. Probably not, yeah.

Steve Fredlund: of other people they'd be like okay we've got this whiteboard and and Billy is blue and Sally is red and we have little magnets that say who's yes that's it or

Chris Lee: Yeah, right.

Steve Fredlund: you know the the values question okay so you know you read up a little bit about us tell us what's really resonating with you or tell

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: me the last time you went to bed at night put your head on the pillow and just thought that was a great day Tell me about that day. And people are like, I can't answer that.

Chris Lee: I like that, yes. Right.

Steve Fredlund: I've never thought about that. Because, okay, well, we need people who are self-aware. Or they might say, you know, they might say the perfect answer, or they might say something totally different. We can probe and dig into that. But I think we need the fluidity and the flexibility in that, in that, to actually have a conversation with people, to probe, to

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: ask the next question that's not necessarily on the list. But I think just get people talking

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: about those things that we're concerned about. And I think that's where it depends on really being crystal clear on what kind of person do we need for this role. Yeah, and then saying okay, how can we

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: how can we ask the right question to get that answer without like yes or no?

Chris Lee: Yeah. So what about the person 'cause I can I can hear it already, to the listeners out there. well, that the HR people tell us we have to ask the exact same questions to every candidate. What okay

Steve Fredlund: Yep. You don't. I mean, I'll just I'll I mean I've been on both sides of it and I know I know what they'll say, but you are the hiring manager, you are the leader, and I I have so much respect for HR, I love HR, but they're they're process oriented. And and perfectly

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: because they have to justify some things or whatever. But maybe it's a maybe it's a mutual

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: agreement that you know, I'll ask these are the questions. Give the list. Okay, these questions are valuable. And these are consistent. We can get those things and you can do your rubrics and you can decide who's the most qualified. But ultimately, you're the hiring manager. You're the leader. You're the one that has to live with this person on your team. You're the one that knows your team

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: better than anybody else. You're the one that runs your department in the way that you need to see it run. And so ultimately, yeah, maybe you have that conversation with HR, but I would I would ascribe to it, and and maybe that's blasphemy, but to say, you're the leader. HR is is amazing, and they're a support team for you. But they don't have to live necessarily with the day-to-day qu consequences of who you hire. And the rest of your team does. And I think you know

Chris Lee: Yep.

Steve Fredlund: I'm not saying that as a as a brush off of HR, but they have a role, but they don't have the same role as you have. And so I would

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: say take more ownership in that and maybe even fight them a little bit on it and say, Yeah, maybe this is what the numbers say, but this is who I want. yeah.

Chris Lee: Yeah. So th the that's doing the unright thing, I guess, right?

Steve Fredlund: It is doing the unright thing, but but I think I think it's, you know, you have the conversation with HR and say, here we both want the same thing. We want the person that's going to make

Chris Lee: Yeah, yeah.

Steve Fredlund: the greatest contribution to the organization over the longest period of time, have the best impact on the chemistry, on the all of those things. And I believe that the rubric, as helpful as that might be, or this list of prepared questions, can be helpful, but I don't think it's actually getting us the the person that we need for this job. Our number one

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: priority is having somebody who is passionate about this. And I need to be able to freedom have the freedom to ask the questions. Maybe yeah, those are maybe part one, series one, maybe those are even or at the end to make sure that there's no big red flags on their part or whatever. But I

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: think I think as leaders, we have more agency than we realize in finding the candidates

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: that we truly need. And ultimately we're the ones that are going to be judged by who's on our team, not HR.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah. And and that brings up a perfect point is that like that ripple effect is you're you're going to feel that. And you had mentioned earlier that, you know, you make the wrong hire and your you know, your team is like, you know, the why they

Steve Fredlund: Right.

Chris Lee: surrounded me with these people. When really that's coming from the place of like if I if I don't get this position filled, the rest of the team is having to pick up that slack. And so it's coming from the place of supporting the team, but the

Steve Fredlund: Great.

Chris Lee: effect ends up being Degrading the team in in the long run. And so, you know, the the the risk reward measure there is is pretty significant. what

Steve Fredlund: Yeah. It is.

Chris Lee: about getting the right peeps in the Jeep as far as your your personal life?

Steve Fredlund: Yeah, I I think it's I would argue it's even more important in our personal life. And I would say, you know, I'm a people pleaser. That's the whole premise of my book is trying to be recover from being a people pleaser. And so it it's very it's been very difficult for me to do that, to be intentional about adding the right people and kicking the wrong people out and moving people around. But I I think there's nothing more empowering than doing that in our personal life. Of really surrounding

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: ourselves with the people that are gonna support us, encourage us, according to that experience that we want to have. And so you know, one of the things that I went through and and I think. I think we have more agency than we realize there too. I think you know this is this is our safari, it's our time in the park, it's our jeep, right? We have more control than we realize. I think it's

Chris Lee: Right, right.

Steve Fredlund: sort of like, well, I'm stuck with these people, like these are my neighbors, these are my friends from high school, these are my family members. Maybe to some degree you can't kick them all the way out of your Jeep, but you don't need to have them sitting right next to you with their voice in your ear.

Chris Lee: Mm. That's yeah, that's right.

Steve Fredlund: You can put on the luggage rack, put them on the back tire, spare tire, whatever whatever. And I think it's been it's been hard, but it's been incredibly empowering. And so I think it works it works several ways. One is w Understanding what you want out of your life experience and finding the people and inviting them into the Jeep or inviting them to sit closer to give you what you want. I use the example of when I was really in the depths of this trying to figure out like who am I, what do I want out of life, what kind of experience do I want? Who do I need around me? I realized I hadn't laughed for a long time. And I loved to laugh. I was a kid who was a prankster, like I loved all of that. But then I became an actuary. So you know, you know, you know, all kinds of really nice people and really

Chris Lee: Yes.

Steve Fredlund: smart people, but nobody's funny. and so I I made a

Chris Lee: Uh-huh.

Steve Fredlund: list of the people I knew that I thought were funny like I made this list and there was like two people on the list and

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: and and one of them was my wife's cousin's husband his name was also Chris and you know I'd be I'd be like at at family gatherings like birthday parties and I'd be sitting you know in the in the living room with all the serious people having conversations and Chris would be like over in the kitchen with like five people around him and they're just dying laugh and they're just busting up having all this great time and I'd be like how do I get at the cool kids table like I want to I want to be over there. I want to

Chris Lee: You're right, yeah. I wanna go sit over there. Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: Laugh. And so, you know, I didn't really know him very well, but I ended up got getting his number. I gave him a call, invited him to lunch, and we just laughed. And I think that's part of this intentionality of just like bringing what we need into our life by inviting those kind of people in. If we need more laughter, need more seriousness, need more whatever it is, ask those people in, and then we can kick people out too. And I've done that, and that's harder. But it

Chris Lee: Mm, yeah. Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: it's so empowering. And so I I know I'm going a little soapbox there, but I think one of the I think with both of these situations, it's it's recognizing we have more agency than we realize to to do this. We don't have to settle,

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: especially in the person. personal life for the people that drag us down, they're divisive or whatever it is that we don't like about them, we don't have to put up with it. We just

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: don't.

Chris Lee: Right. I mm that that concept of agency is is great. And I I was just exploring that here a while back, think about kind of building a a talk around that because oftentimes it does feel like you know you're just you're just kind of stuck. And

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: you know, there's this concept of learned hopelessness, right? And how disempowering

Steve Fredlund: Mm, yes.

Chris Lee: that is. And if you can just take one step backwards and look at your situation, like I I really love in the Stockdale paradox, this this

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: the story of Admiral Stockdale as a prisoner of war for a long, long time. And you know, after he got out, they asked him, you know, like like The people that survived versus the ones that didn't, like like what was the difference? And and they said this paradox of you had to never lose hope that you would prevail, but you had to face the harsh reality that you don't know when that's going to happen. And it's

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: going to be hell between now and then. He said, and the people that didn't make it were the optimists that said, By Christmas, we're out of here, and then they weren't. And well,

Steve Fredlund: Mm. Right. Yeah.

Chris Lee: by by Easter, we're out of here, and then they weren't. And they they learned a hopelessness there of like it wasn't happening. And there's

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: that that paradox there. And it's this this concept of agency of I can choose to hold on to this optimism, but I

Steve Fredlund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: also have to couch that a little bit with knowing that the the the process. And the

Steve Fredlund: Yes.

Chris Lee: the what you're saying between your your your personal peeps and and the that whole conversation we had around bringing people on, the common theme there I'm noticing is is that end state. Like this

Steve Fredlund: Mm.

Chris Lee: this concept of you have to be very, very clear of what the overall mission is.

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: And that that jives perfectly with us in in conservation of like

Steve Fredlund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: we're not gonna go out and manage landscapes without understanding like well what what are we accomplishing? Like like you don't you don't just light something on fire for the sake of lighting something on fire, like like to what end, you know? And

Steve Fredlund: Yes. To to what end? Right. Right. Right.

Chris Lee: like what's the objective here? What are we trying to accomplish? And and setting that very, very clearly and then working backwards from that and to do it in life and leadership. seems to to make a lot of sense. And so I guess, you know, getting back to the hiring process, how many of us have actually been very, very clear of what is this organization? Like like

Steve Fredlund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: what exactly do we do? And I've had these these conversations on the podcast in the past of what is your why? You know, like like like why

Steve Fredlund: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chris Lee: do you exist? What do you actually do? Well we provide parks and you know natural resource areas. Well okay, that's great. But like

Steve Fredlund: Right.

Chris Lee: what do you actually doing

Steve Fredlund: But why? Right.

Chris Lee: and and yeah, we're we're connecting people to the out outside world and and we want, you know, kids and their families to be able to come to this park and and just lose themselves for a weekend. That's

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: a very, very different thing, you know, and and if you can can

Steve Fredlund: Mm-hmm.

Chris Lee: ar can articulate that and work backwards from that, that's that's good.

Steve Fredlund: Yeah, and I think that's where the whole model of like the Safari Way, that's why I start with choose your experience, right? Before getting the right peeps in your Jeep, before doing the unright thing, it's getting super crystal clear in the experience you want to have. And part of that is, yeah, whether it's leadership, what you're talking about there or family, it's it's it's it's moving away from all the defaults, all the expectations everybody else has of us, all the shoulds, right? We're getting should on all the time. You know what you should do, you know what you should do, you know what you should do. And it's all these things that we're supposed

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yep.

Steve Fredlund: to do. And it's yeah, it's ultimately asking exactly that question you said, to what end? Like why? Why are we doing this in conservation? Why? And I think there's

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: another exercise sort the seven whys. Keep asking why until you you can't answer that anymore. Well, why? Well, we want people to connect with nature. Well, why? Because da da da. Well, why? What da da da? So you get to there like that's

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: the why. And now you have now you have a base to say, okay, this is upon which we're gonna hire people. And it's that it's also what

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: kind of you know, what kind of culture do you wanna set in your in your group? I mean, there's different cultures that you can set as

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: a leader, and I think that's gonna determine how you hire.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah. that's so much of this is so good. But I want to be respectful of your time. I'll I'll wrap this up with one last question. So if you could give a message to all the parks and conservation leaders out there, it could be maybe a a giant billboard that they would all see or just like one one key takeaway for them to all takeaway. What what would it be? It could be a phrase, a quote, anything, one kind of parting thought. What would that be?

Steve Fredlund: Well and hopefully yeah that's it's not, you know, you're as a marketing person you're supposed to have clarity over cleverness. So this might be defying

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Steve Fredlund: that whole thing, but I would say there's uncertainty is always gonna be there. Embrace the adventure.

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: And I think that's really what this is, is that the in in conservation and the work that you guys do, there's always going to be the ups and downs or to it's just the very nature of

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Steve Fredlund: it. And so how do we move from trying to curate and control everything so nothing bad ever happens to learning how to embrace the adventure head on with the right people in your Jeep, the wind blowing through your hair, all of that stuff. So imbrace the adventure. Embrace it.

Chris Lee: Yeah. That that's good. It it isn't so much the destination, it's that it's that journey along the way, right? And

Steve Fredlund: Yeah, it it kinda I that sounds cliche, but it's I've learned it to be true. True myself. Yeah.

Chris Lee: There's a reason that it is, yeah. Right. That that's that's good. I like that. if someone wanted to find out more about you, your s your speaking stuff, your frameworks, that kind of stuff, where would they go?

Steve Fredlund: Yeah, I mean Stevefredlin.com is specific to the speaking that I do. The Safariway dot com is kind of all encompassing of all of the work that we do, which includes everything from leadership development, workshops, all of that through to retreats and African safari. So we're kind of combining all of those adventure type of things. And link LinkedIn is where I'm I'm

Chris Lee: Very cool. Very cool. Excellent. All right.

Steve Fredlund: I'm on social media everywhere, but LinkedIn is really where I do most of my work. Yeah.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yep. That's that's where I've been seeing most of your stuff and kind of following

Steve Fredlund: Yeah.

Chris Lee: along with you and and I've just I'm so impressed by by what you do and and the messages you're taking out there. and I will put those links in the show notes, and once this episode is published. So with that, I'll go ahead and wind this down. Folks, I want to thank you for listening. If you are in the parks, the conservation sphere, natural resources, or something adjacent, I hope this brought some insight to you. Steve had some really great ideas. And if you want to find more about him, those links are in the show notes. Thank you for what you do and we'll talk to you again soon. Take care. Wait, wait, wait. Don't go yet. Don't start that next episode. I've got something for you. The Parks and Restoration Better Meetings Field Guide. See, most meetings just suck. And I'm going to wage war on crappy meetings. Go to parksandrestoration.com, enter your email into the next level leadership community mailing list, and you'll get access to the free PDF download, which is the Better Meetings field guide. It will walk you through what meetings to get rid of, how to make the standing meetings better, and just all around get things done and not just sit there twiddling your thumbs and wondering why. Did I get myself into this? The Better Meetings Field Guide from Parks and Restoration. Go to parksandrestoration.com, join the next level leadership community, get the download. See you at the next episode. Take care.