Minter Dialogue with Marc Pitman

To connect with Marc Pitman:

• Check out Marc Pitman’s eponymous site here
• Find/buy Marc Pitman’s book, “The Surprising Gift of Doubt,” here on Amazon
• Find/follow Marc Pitman on LinkedIn
• Find/follow Marc Pitman on X (formerly Twitter)

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Music credit: The jingle at the beginning of the show is courtesy of my friend, Pierre Journel, author of the Guitar Channel. And, the new sign-off music is “A Convinced Man,” a song I co-wrote and recorded with Stephanie Singer back in the late 1980s (please excuse the quality of the sound!).

Transcription courtesy of Castmagic.io, an AI full-service for podcasters

Minter Dial: Marc A. Pitman, you are living in South Carolina, a state I know a little bit about, much more than I thought I would ever know. Based in London. It’s part of my family lineage. But let’s say, as I like to always start. Marc, who are you?

Marc Pitman: I am a son of two very loving parents who grew me up in a. To be a nerd, in an entrepreneur. So, I like to do deep research and I like to take action. And I am. And something else that’s coming up right now is I’m a steward. I feel like I’ve been entrusted with gifts and abilities and limitations and I need to honor the limits so that other people can flourish in their gifts. But in that I love helping leaders and training coaches, leader leaders as coaches, so that they have coaching skills and coaches to coach more leaders. Because leadership is one of the greatest gifts that we can be given and it’s one of the hardest, most blindsiding tasks in human existence. So, I’ve been able to be working with them for about 30 years, 23 years as a, as a Franklin Duppy certified coach, but decades before that as well.

Minter Dial: Well, I like the way you started about being. Having two wonderful parents. I think oftentimes I think parents get a bad rap. It’s a fairly messy job and most parents don’t come with a prescription much like you talk about with leaders, you know, shouldn’t go into just some sort of list of categories and such. And, and where my mind wobbled to was coaches. And, and if you think about coaches in the sporting area, there are many coaches and most of them aren’t successful. I mean, at the end of the day, just like Roger Federer had to lose a lot of points and most teams lose and win, but a lot of losses too, so.

Marc Pitman: Well, I’m from New England, so I know Red Sox and other teams that lose a lot.

Minter Dial: Yeah, well, I mean, I, I’m worse. I mean, I come from Philadelphia. What is. My mom does.

Marc Pitman: Okay.

Minter Dial: And, and the Philadelphia Flyers are on something like a 50-year losing streak as far as the Stanley Cup’s concerned. So, the, the idea of being a coach, as you and I probably are aware, isn’t always positive. People think, oh, if you need a coach, you’re missing something. How. Where do you think America is on the idea of coaching?

Marc Pitman: Great question. So, in 1995, my parents got us Zig Ziglar success coaching. I met this wonderful woman who’s still my own wife 31 years later. And we were in premarital counseling with our Church. But they said you need coaching because Shad Helmstetter and other coaches were around in the mid-90s. And so, we did Zig Ziglar success coaching. And I thought we were on the cusp of coaching, being seen as athletes get this and have multiple coaches. This is what we do. This is what high performers do. And so, then I got my Coach certification and 202003 with Franklin Covey. And then I thought, no, now we’re really at that inflection point where people are going to get it. And I don’t think we’ve really moved far.

Minter Dial: Isn’t that funny?

Marc Pitman: I think within corporations there’s more of an understanding of levels of coaching. So, with the International Coaching Federation, the acc, pcc, mcc, it has become a form of filtering because anybody can call themselves a coach. That’s part of the problem. And so, I think there’s some people have a appreciation for filtering, but a lot of people we were just talking with our. We run two different coaching. We have coach graduates, but we also run a company for another author that we trained coaches and deliver the coaching services. And those coaches were saying the same thing that they are getting in their markets are, you’re not a life coach, are you? As though that were this, like, real pejorative. Yeah, yeah. And you can almost see their face of, no, I’m a communication coach, I’m a leadership coach, I’m a this coach, I’m a that coach. But the beauty of coaching is it’s about life. So. Yeah. How is it. How are you seeing it where you are? Is it. Are people seeing it as not remedial?

Minter Dial: Yeah, I, I mean, in France, which is where I had the most experience as an executive, the idea of coaching was absolutely, you know, the antithesis of what you wanted at l’. Oreal, I, I can recall my boss saying, well, the only people who need coaches are people who are in trouble, you know, and basically the coaching is all about exiting from the company. I’m sure that there’s been marginal improvements. I’m no longer in the corporate world. But on balance, the idea being a coach, I mean, the challenge is actually, even when you’re a coach, let’s say typically the word comes from sporting. I think, anyway, you think of coaches on the sporting field and, and how they do it, because they are not on the pitch, they are off the pitch and they have a certain pool of talent and have to deal with that. And I’ve had several coaches on my, on my show, one of whom was Paul Asante. Who coached the Trinity squash team, which, by the way, funnily enough, I’m wearing a Trinity T shirt to. To have 13 straight seasons, which. Without a single defeat. And. And that’s pretty remarkable in that at a university, every four years, you have an entirely new crop of students. So, to keep it going, as opposed to maybe having some sort of New York Yankees, kind of. As opposed to the boss ox. Sorry.

Marc Pitman: I was going to say boo.

Minter Dial: Exactly.

Marc Pitman: One of the hardest parts of living in South Carolina is being called a Yankee, because I’m not. I’m a Red Sox.

Minter Dial: There you go. Right? And go explain. That’s the West, The Europeans, white socks, Red Sox. Boy, I’m. I’m. I’m. Frankly, I’m surprised that red and white haven’t been ruled out from terminology these days. I mean, there’s so many things that have the red skins.

Marc Pitman: Yeah, it’s not. Not entirely right. But what you’re. The. The coaching as an athlete is an interesting analogy because you’re not on the pitch, like you said. Um, and so that’s where I say I’m similar to that. But coach, um. I’ve had some clients recently push back and say, mike, my athletic coach tells me what to do. You’re not telling me what to do. You’re asking good questions. You’re asking questions I hadn’t thought of before. And it’s helping me have clarity. But could you tell me what to do as well? Um, and since I am a trainer as well, I will say. I’ll just physically just say, can I take off my coach hat and tell you something? Because one of my key areas is nonprofit fundraising. I love nonprofit fundraising and help. Have helped a lot of people raise money myself, but also have helped others. And so, there are things that I know from research you don’t do in nonprofit fundraising. So, I’ll say, can I take off my coach hat for a moment? Because there is a right or wrong here. It’s not just, how do you want to do this yourself? This will hurt your fundraising efforts. And I’ve had some clients say, I want to do it anyway. It’s like, as long as you know. But it was because they knew their own inner compass. They already knew, this is my voice. This is where I’m coming from. And so, I’m going to take a risk doing something that won’t raise as much money. And so, I said, you have high points of integrity. I appreciate that. But I just want you to know.

Minter Dial: Well, I mean, to the extent that they actually do know themselves, I Mean, at the end of the day, there are a lot of people who think they know themselves and that’s where you perhaps have that element of humility or self-doubt that must accompany because the minute I think you think you know yourself well, you might stop growth.

Marc Pitman: Interesting. That’s, I, I would agree. Yeah. I was just, what hit me is that my, my son asked me, dad, why are you. We’ve had some changes in our family and we’re rolling with them. And he said, how are you doing that? I see a lot of my friend’s parents shut down and I think that’s it. It’s the wanting to continue growing and learning. I don’t know if you see this in Europe as much, but the humility key. One of the mistakes people make with humility in the United States, especially New England where I grew up, is that you’re not supposed to say nice things about yourself. And so, part of what I’ve had to learn is that it’s okay to be good at things and it’s okay for people to say I’m good at things. It doesn’t fully define me. But it’s also good to know like if I’m a toolbox, it’s good to know that I’ve got a hammer and a screwdriver and somebody else has the pliers. So, that it’s, it’s part of true humility is knowing your strengths and being able to celebrate them and weaknesses.

Minter Dial: And of course, at the end of the day it’s probably better for someone else to say you’re good than to.

Marc Pitman: Say I’m good 100% of the time. Yes. The self-proclaimed gurus. The self. Yeah. People just know when you’re being inauthentic. And even if you’re authentically good, it’s better to have, I call it third partying. When you have a third-party person saying things, they can say things that you can’t, shouldn’t say culturally anyway.

Minter Dial: Yeah. That’s the power of the word of mouth. And I mean, when you say New England, one of the characteristics of the English as, as in the traditional English anyway, is self-deprecation.

Marc Pitman: Yes.

Minter Dial: And I, I’ve long felt I enjoy that in somebody. Yeah. I, I, I try, I aspire to have self-deprecation, but you always have to have this sort of wobble between, you know, oh, I’m not good. For example, I, I, the other, this morning I had a meeting and it was in front of six people myself. Fundraising, by the way. And, and so they describe yourself And I said, well, I’ve done a lot of things. I’m really great at nothing, but I have done a lot of things and that’s a reality. I’ve never, I didn’t. If I spent my entire career doing one thing, then I, I hope I would have the, the ability to say I’m, I’m good at this thing. But when I’ve touched a lot of things, I’m good at touching things, you know, or doing a little bit of a lot. Like the comb which we talk about, as opposed to the tea or the pie. I am, I am the legitimate comb. I think I have pretty good teeth, but I, I, I’m, I’m no expert in everything. So, just to manage that ability to what are you good at? How do yourself, yourself, sell yourself and also understand your weaknesses and your humility.

Marc Pitman: Well, and I love that generalists, and especially in the age where the technology we have coming forward now, generalists are having a renaissance because so much of our 20th century life was specialists. Where you get more specialized is, is it was how you approach progressed. But now generalists are able to open up to new technologies. They’re able to open up to new approaches to things. I think that’s where leaders come in and that could be some of your, you touched on doubt a little bit can be destabilizing at first because leaders tend to know the way that they came up in a position and it can be threatening to have other approaches suggested to them because they may see it as somehow at fault because they don’t see it. As opposed to the coach’s perspective of curio, you know, fueled by curiosity of, oh my goodness, I haven’t seen that perspective. Can you tell me more? How would you, how would that work? What would the outcome be? What, how would those people feel if you do it that way? Those kind of questions allow you to be able to continue to keep authority without having to be rigid.

Minter Dial: So, I want to get back to rigid story a little bit later.

Marc Pitman: Okay?

Minter Dial: Okay. But I’m going just back to the coaching. One thing, one of the things that irritated me endlessly was the coach or consultant who came to tell me how to do business when I was running business, having never done anything close to what I was doing. Well, I have a pack of 14 people who, doing data research and they’re at consultancy and they’re going to come back and they’re telling me, well, you need to do this, you just got to do that. And, and, and, and the, the challenging part when you’re in the business is that it. Leadership is messy. To make a data spreadsheet with an Excel that tells you what you need to be doing is. Is so far from the truth. So, how do you be a good coach when you haven’t necessarily been in their shoes? Is that something that you face?

Marc Pitman: Well, that’s part of. Actually, part of the reason that I write is because of those experiences where. Yes. Coaching itself. I firmly believe a coach doesn’t have to have been where you are. And that can sound like selling snake oil. So, I. I understand why. I tend to work in leadership and nonprofit fundraising and leadership because of those. There’s verified. You can look at my LinkedIn. Okay, he’s done it. What was interesting was when I had a tech CEO going through a mergers and acquisition process, talking about valuations and still finding value in my coaching. I have not walked that path before, but there was something about the questions about himself and his culture that he was creating within his team and how this was going to affect the culture and messaging and communication. Those are all a tremendous value. And so, that helped me to reaffirm. I don’t sell myself as an acquisitions coach. I won’t yet. I can coach even. I can be an effective coach for a leader that’s going through that process. So, yeah, I think there’s. It’s an interesting road to walk, though, because I. On the. The reason I’m a coach is I had a lot of consultants that really didn’t know how to do the thing. And for me, it was in nonprofit leadership. They didn’t know how to. They’d never run a nonprofit. They never had to live on donations, on philanthropy. So, you could tell right away that they were just making it up and not a healthy way. We’re all making it up as we go, but they were. They were not making it up with anything, Any research behind them or any experience. And that was incredibly frustrating, especially when we cut the check every month for what they’re getting paid.

Minter Dial: Yeah, I mean, I think if. If I had to. Now listen to you, Marc. I’m thinking that a consultant tends to come in and tell you what to do.

Marc Pitman: Yes.

Minter Dial: A coach does two things. It asks questions and figures out how you can decide what you need to do.

Marc Pitman: Exactly. And I think that’s a really good way to. When I’m training coaches, I talk about trainers come with the answers. And you want that consultants have a set of answers. In fact, for the video people, I don’t know if you’ve ever had this toy of pins okay. So, for me, holding up a thing with a whole bunch of pins and consultants would put the hand. The pressure on the top. The pins aren’t affected, but there’s pressure while they’re there. So, there’s something getting done. There’s some outcome that’s happening, but often when they go away, everything reverts to normal. As a coach, what I get to do is come from the inside, and it’s like my hand pushing certain pins up and helping them bring out themselves. And when my hand moves away, the impression of themselves is still there.

Minter Dial: That is a beautiful analogy. Fruits. Marc, that is just gorgeous.

Marc Pitman: Thank you.

Minter Dial: I’m going to invite. This will be on YouTube afterwards. So, those of you who are listening to audio and you want to see that one live. Live, go check out the YouTube. That is gorgeous. All right, so I wanted to go back to. In your description of yourself, you are, of course, also an author of the book called A the Surprising Gift of Doubt. And I thought I’d just because you also said this, I’m a man of action. Doubt and action.

Marc Pitman: That is a really good point. That’s interesting. Yeah. I don’t know if you’ve heard this, but I’ve. In my circles, the authors I talk to say we write the books we need to read ourselves.

Minter Dial: Amen, by the way.

Marc Pitman: Okay. Okay. So, this was birthed out of being a coach and wanting to be the consultant. This was. There was one client in particular who just couldn’t get out of his own way to do his own fundraising. And I wanted to get on the phone and make the calls. So, there was that action. But I could see the doubt in himself. And for me, I think the leaders I’ve been privileged to work with, both on in school and other in parallel organizations, professional associations, it’s the leaders that take action through the doubt. And it’s amazing when you.

Minter Dial: You.

Marc Pitman: I know you write about this, too. The action you take, clarity, comes. It’s kind of like Indiana Jones when you know Chris Holy Grail, where he throws out the sand and all of a sudden there’s a bridge there. And that’s the scary part, is taking that first step. And I think with the humility is knowing that I’m taking a step. And it may be the wrong step, but here’s the values that I have or here’s what’s informing this. This choice. I think that can help a team figure out. All right. Yeah, we think he’s an idiot for taking that step. And I can see how it’s in alignment with our values. Okay. And then you can move forward with that.

Minter Dial: The thing that struck me, Marc, in reading your book is this notion of doubt and rigidity for me, because it feels like with doubts comes flexibility. Okay, well, I can accept that this is may, I, may be wrong. Maybe I should listen to more people, I should get more inputs. And at the same time I feel like there’s a total lack of a firmness in values, especially in commercial enterprise where, oh my gosh, my, my, the end of the month isn’t coming. I need to do something and maybe my ethics needs to wait behind. Maybe I need to do the thing that everyone pleases them because that’s what’s expected of me. So, doubt and firmness, how do you square that peg for me?

Marc Pitman: I think they’re the, the what immediately comes to mind is that they’re the same side, two side, two sides of the same coin. So, as you read in the book, the, the people like the four quadrants of leadership. I call it the leader’s journey. The first quadrant is where you’re at the highest level of confidence because somebody else sees you or you have seen it in you, and you get a position, you, you get some sort of title of authority or title anyway, and you feel great about yourself.

Minter Dial: And a business card.

Marc Pitman: Yeah, and a business. Oh, absolutely. A business card in a new title. I earn learned early in my career to ask, is this promotion also coming with a raise? Because often they would.

Minter Dial: Usually it’s a lot more work.

Marc Pitman: Yeah, exactly. So, you have that, but then you start copying the person that was that you’ve seen or trying to avoid doing the things that you’ve seen negative. And the doubt starts coming in because you realize it doesn’t work for you. People don’t respond to you the way they responded to the previous person. And so, that doubt can lead to rigidity because you’re just trying to double down. I’m the boss, we’re going to do it my way. And all the while in quadrant two, you’re trying to figure out, fix what’s broken and you’re trying to do it in a way that doesn’t show anybody that you’re broken. So, you learn time management, you read books, you take degrees, certifications, and you’re like the man in the wizard of Oz. You know, don’t look at, don’t pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. You don’t want anybody to find out that the emperor has no clothes. You don’t know what you’re doing. So, that kind of rigidity in that aspect can become really a trap. And many people just kind of live in quadrant two, most of their professional career, I think. And I love hearing, as you’ve talked about this in the past, there’s a point where doubt. People just get fed up with the dud and say, look, I may be broken, but what if I’m the voice that this sector needs? I see things differently. And maybe that’s not a bug, maybe that’s a feature. And that’s when they get into quadrant three, where they start analyzing and trying to find more objective words for their unique individuality or their team’s individuality or their company’s individuality. So, it’s not just, I don’t feel that way, but you can say, these are the choices we’re making, and you can be that more proactive. And I think that allows you to be more adjustable and flexible and less rigid. Although, as I’m saying it, I think it also. Maybe it’s like a skeletal rigidity of. There’s more structure and there’s more. There’s more. I was just talking to a client today, and I thought, it’s not an inner compass, it’s an inner gyroscope. It keeps spinning, and it keeps you balanced even when everything is shifting around you. But maybe. So, maybe the rigidity shifts into an internal one where you can stand tall in the midst of change.

Minter Dial: Yeah, I like that. I mean, I. I talk a lot about the compass. The north and the. The ship may be rolling, the winds may be blowing, but do you still feel grounded and. And that. It feels like that’s where so many people get knocked off.

Marc Pitman: Yes.

Minter Dial: Force. Yeah, they. There’s things like popular opinion, there are trends out there. What the press is saying. Maybe what the last person said to you. The recency bias.

Marc Pitman: Yep.

Minter Dial: And. And it feels like the issue is. Is. Is having humility, doubt, and yet standing tall on what you stand for and not having doubt at. At the core level. But that. That requires, as we were talking the very beginning about getting a firm understanding of who we are.

Marc Pitman: And that’s where I think the gift of doubt is. It’s not that you center your life on doubt, but that you don’t get sidetracked by it or. Or waylaid when you. When it feels. I. I think many of us outwardly looking at leadership leaders think they have it all figured out and so that someday I will arrive. I remember getting my college degree and thinking, okay, I don’t feel different. This is weird. And then a week Later I walked down the aisle and got married. Still feel like me. This is really disturbing. I thought that. I thought I would arrive. Then I got my master’s and same thing it was. I still know all my faults and I still know all my shortcomings. And I thought, where’s the, you know, where’s the matrix sort of software upgrade where all of a sudden I know martial arts now? I don’t feel that different. And so, I wouldn’t center it on there. But I think it can be a good nudge or a good voice of. Okay, this could be an invitation for growth or this could be an invitation for differentiating my brand in the marketplace. Because, yeah, all the other ones do this and it’s the end of the month, but we’re not going to because this is why and this is how we’ll still hit our numbers.

Minter Dial: It felt for me that the move from Quadrant two to Quadrant three is really the vortex place. Yeah. I mean, Quadrant four is the ideal, I suppose, but the. I loved your analogy of the COVID song leader. The idea that, you know, I can sing cover songs, but I don’t know how to make genuine original songs somehow related back in.

Marc Pitman: I think that’s your analogy, isn’t it?

Minter Dial: Well, that’s what I liked about. That’s how I. Yeah, okay.

Marc Pitman: Yeah. And that. I read that. And you lead. I was reading your. The stages of the very similar journey of. I love the COVID songs. Yeah. I talk about putting on somebody else’s suit rather than having one tailored for yourself.

Minter Dial: Right, Exactly.

Marc Pitman: You kind of. Kind of sometimes have to. It’s twisted to a pretzel.

Minter Dial: Exactly.

Marc Pitman: Which could work, but it’s not comfortable.

Minter Dial: So, for someone who. Who feels they’re in that they’re doing well or. What kind of wake up can you give to somebody who’s listening to this saying, I’m leading, but I really feel I am sort of copying. I’m not. I’m not the original article at this point of me. How do you stimulate them to sneak into pop into quadrant three.

Marc Pitman: First? I. I do not do the stimulating. I am. I am help. I am there as a midwife to help in those that have been stimulated, but I think to stimulate. The. The. One of the best moments that I consistently get in my. In my leadership coaching is when the leader says, oh, I’m not alone in this. And so, I think that’s one of the things I love when I speak from stage, being able to share with people. You’re not the only one wrestling with this. Nobody else is talking about it. Everybody else seems to have the hand, the manual, because nobody else is sharing either. There’s a mask up because it’s. Vulnerability is good, but it’s not just all things vulnerable about everything. It’s about vulnerable about not necessarily knowing everything. But I had a leader tell me, I have a hundred people that rely on me for their payroll. I have to be selectively vulnerable. I can’t just be wearing my heart on the sleeve and just saying, I don’t know what’s going on at all. I’ve never figured this out. I need to figure out how much I share with people. So, maybe that that’s the. You may be broken, but you may not be. You may be on the verge of greatness. And for some people, they won’t. They’re so beaten up, they won’t necessarily believe it. But there are some others that are like, what if I got to lose? I’m fed up feeling like I’m not making it. Can you.

Minter Dial: Would you argue that it’s legitimately impossible to succeed if you’re stuck in one and two? No.

Marc Pitman: Well, it depends on your definition of success. First question.

Minter Dial: Good.

Marc Pitman: Everybody has a different game plan. Some people, we were shocked. My wife and I lead the company together and she was coaching somebody who as we took them through the assessment they were in Quadrant one, we thought they were in Quadrant two, but they saw themselves as still copying everybody. So, I think you can have a full and productive, a level of productivity and completeness in Quadrant two. I think a lot of people don’t. Many of our systems in the west haven’t shown people, especially in the kind of 20th century, early 21st century, hadn’t shown people that to even consider quadrant three. Quadrant three was usually the realm of mystics, of inner seeking inner peace, seeking inner, inner something that was something other than work. That’s. You don’t get that at work. You get that in your hobby. You get that your faith community. So, I think there could be a level of success. What I think is an amazing much just an amazing richness and texture. And when you move into Quadrant three and you start really doing the work that you talk about too, of who am I? How am I different? How am I the same? Does it matter what parts matter? How does this impact the way I live my life? I loved your example. I learned it as your funeral. What are people going to say about you? You said at your birthday party, decades out, but that aspect of the true habit too, from Franklin Covey, of beginning with the end in mind, what do I want to be known for? So, that directed me with my kids. I realized work. I really believe work is part of what we do as humans, part of what we get to do. Whether I like it or not, it’s part of. Part of the deal.

Minter Dial: Money.

Marc Pitman: Well, and in my faith tradition, the humans were given a given work. Here’s some work to do. So, there’s even a divine something about that. And I wanted my kids to not hear me say, I got to go to work now, because that was how I provided for them. But I also wanted them to know that I love them. And I didn’t want them to say, dad says he loves us, but he’s always going away. He’s always speaking on stages and trouble. So. So, it helped me to choose some of my words doing that exercise of how do I. What do I want them saying about me? I want them to say, dad always loved me. So, I get. I would say I get to go to work now so that they would look up to what they’re going to do for many, many decades of their career, mostly, most likely, but also that they would know that this is a form of. Of my love for them. So, I think there’s an intentionality that can be had by looking forward in a level of success that can be had that is more on your own terms. I don’t know that everybody that has success in other people’s terms has the same level of fulfillment. Some people aren’t inquisitive, though. Some people are just don’t mind playing by other people’s playbook. And I don’t want to be. I don’t understand that, but I don’t want to knock that necessarily.

Minter Dial: Well, I mean, that’s how you get into cover song leadership and. And probably you can make success, but it’s not a success you’re proud of. Or at least they. They. When they look themselves in the mirror, they have the big four houses, three cars, several wives, unhappily. And. And kids that don’t know them. And. And what. What is it all about? And maybe that element of doubt. What is it all about is actually the Valhalla. The thing we need to be seeking to get the success.

Marc Pitman: Yeah. Yeah. And I’m. That’s. I guess that’s part of where I am. So, part of my growing up was I had homework as schoolwork, but I also had homework being a pitman. My mom was always learning, so she got her BS through as I was growing up. And then her master’s in Communication and then her postgrad work at Harvard. And she’d always assign us homework, so we’d always get photocopies of her textbooks or sit in on her classes with her. So, learning more, seeking for more, was an environment I was growing up. I grew up in. But I was talking to a colleague of mine here in South Carolina, and she said, my culture, I can’t fail. She had never heard the term failing forward or failing quickly, which is something I grew up with, was like, okay, failing is data. I don’t like failing. But it’s not a moral, you know, judgment on my character necessarily. It’s something else. So, she said I couldn’t because I’m upholding my entire community. And the levels of oppression her community had felt, I understood that. And so, it was interesting to figure out, how can we make this work for you? How can we make it so that you can be successful as an entrepreneur and not have it all figured out at first and make it up as you go in a. More. My son’s a jazz trumpet player, so it’s that kind of knowing the basics, knowing music so well that when somebody else is playing, you can write the notes down. I saw him do that in high school. I never knew that. And that allows you to have the freeform playing. It’s not because you just. You don’t have any basis in it. It’s not the consultants that don’t know what they’re doing, so they create a spreadsheet. It’s deep expertise that evolves into this beautiful art form.

Minter Dial: Yeah, I like that very much. Marc. I’ve had Stanley Jordan on my podcast, who’s a jazz musician, amongst others. I’ve had and this idea of experimenting, therefore, not knowing where the future is, allowing for experimentation in your life. So, the way I interpret quadrant three is. Is you. You’re able to turn inside and you are authoring your own curriculum.

Marc Pitman: Absolutely.

Minter Dial: Yeah.

Marc Pitman: Very good.

Minter Dial: All right, now, moving to the fourth quadrant. So, let’s just. Let’s imagine someone is listening and saying, I feel like I’m pretty good about me. I know myself. I’m writing my own thing. What does it take to move into the fourth quadrant, which you characterize as focused leadership with quiet confidence? How do you make that transition?

Marc Pitman: I think it’s a. I don’t know that anybody is static in this. I just was speaking to a leader yesterday. I love that. Who said I was in quadrant three moving to quadrant four? And then my leadership changed. The software system we use changed, and I got some new employees. And all of a sudden I feel like I’m back in quadrant one. I hope I didn’t do that wrong. No, that’s life. I think it’s what we were talking about. There’s always things changing. So, I think a tell that you’re moving into quadrant four is where your vision is not just about you or your team or the people that you lead, but it’s also you have a bigger vision of I see the map, there are four quadrants and they’re all fine to go through and I can help people in each one. So, I’m not going to try to shortcut someone from one quadrant to another. I don’t know what you, I’d love your thoughts on this. I have not seen in the people I’ve coached that you can jump from copying someone to being self-actualized and realizing who you are. There needs to, it seems like there needs to be a learning process which teaches you. Are you an auditory learner? Are you a written word learner? Are you extrovert, introvert? It teaches you a lot of things about yourself just because of what doesn’t work often and what does it. So, I think it’s more maybe your vision goes from just being focused on me and mine and my, the people I lead to being able to see where do other people need to be and how can I be a best service to them in their stage.

Minter Dial: Yeah. So, the thought that was going initially through my mind as you were speaking, Marc, is the idea of parenting. You’re parenting your five-year-old, six-year-old, one thing and then all of a sudden they become teenagers where you might have thought you were in your zone, your zeitgeist. All of a sudden you’re thrown back to quadrant one, parenting like oh my God, I’ve lost touch. Yeah, I don’t, I don’t know how this tech is working. Where, where are the influences? Am I not being pushed by society and media which is also happening somehow in business where there’s so many changing tectonic plates happening and it feels like, and I mean I’ve written about how humility is an absolutely essential piece. Not just because it actually makes people relate into you, but it allows you to say I don’t know what the is going on and because who on earth knows what all is going on. And as soon as you think you do, you are screwed, sir.

Marc Pitman: Absolutely. Well, that’s where in the midst of the lockdowns of the pandemic, it was one of the only times I’ve been able to say, and have nobody feel shame about it. Of. We have not been this way before. Maybe in 1918, but many of us weren’t alive then. So, this is new to all of us. And there was an interesting ability for people, for leaders to express that discomfort. It didn’t necessarily last because leaders, it’s easier to fall back into some sort of assurance, you know, some sort of strategic plan that maps out the next five years with every step. You know, like a map quest, you know, to map. But that’s not, that’s not how it can work. So, you’re right, I love that about the humility allows you to, to respond. And parenting is, that’s so good because you’ve had years with them and you figured, you figured out how to speak their dialect and then all of a sudden things shift again.

Minter Dial: Yeah. I think the term that comes to mind as you were talking about the pandemic is the flattening of the playing field somehow. None of us has been there. So, we’ve talked a little bit about sort of bulking up on the person who has doubt.

Marc Pitman: Okay.

Minter Dial: And giving, getting them to a position of feeling better about themselves and yet allowing doubt. What about the narcissist? How do you fill up their bubble?

Marc Pitman: Oh, great question. And I say this from having lived next door. My grandmother was a diagnosed narcissist. Yeah. And so, family therapy was what my mom was studying. So, we would come back. All right, who’s grandma train triangulating with now? I think I’m on the end. Who’s on the ads? Um, there, there is. I just don’t, I, I don’t know. So, I don’t try to help people that don’t want help. I learned that early on. Like the people that come to me are the people that want to grow. Um, couple of them are because HR has said this is the last thing before you’re fired. So, it’s more of a paper trail. And we even one of them, out of the two that I’ve had that way in my 23-year career, one of them became the, the, the vice president of the organization and the other one was fired. And so, I get to coach the supervisor, which was great, but I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t, I don’t have a lot of grace or capacity for narcissists. How about, like, how did you interact with that when you saw that in the places you’ve been?

Minter Dial: Well, so I, I, I, I have a little story which goes to say that we’re, you Know, there’s all sorts of terminology around how narcissists are. There’s a pandemic of narcissism. It’s all about me. And. Oh, okay, right. And, and I, I, I refer to a book written by Christopher Lash, which is called the Age of Narcissism, which was published in 1978. And, and so I tend to think that I, or at least my parents anyway, and I have actually created this world, so to take ownership of it myself, not say, you know, you are a child. You’re a child, you’re born of narcissists. So, as a child, I feel that they are. We have developed them into narcissists. That’s sort of my first piece. And the second one is to allow for people to feel that they can be inadequate.

Marc Pitman: Yes.

Minter Dial: The, the opportunity or the. I mean, there’s a brilliant play. I refer to it. My wife and I have been Married for over 30 years as well, and it’s a play she and I have talked about. It’s a French play, and I’ll tell you the title in French, and I’ll translate. It’s called. Means the one who knows Everything. And Grubetta is the big stupid person, the bat, the, the, the beast. And, and as it turns out in the play, Grubetta asks questions, and ki situ doesn’t always know the answers, it turns out, yet wants to think that they know the answers. And the permission granted is to say you need other people. Which has two benefits. One is it recognizes that you’re not all powerful, and two, it makes the others feel needed. Because in today’s world, if. My diagnosis of today, Marc, is that we are in a crisis of meaningfulness, there is no sense to what’s going on, and people then grapple or jump onto whatever it is that seems meaningful, yet it’s not connected into who I am. So, they jump on a trend. They jump on a hashtag. They, they think this is cool. Oh, I really. I mean, who doesn’t want to save the world? Who doesn’t want to save or improve poverty? I mean, all those things sound great. However, the problem is it’s because the, the, the anxiousness to jump into that is. Is related to an emptiness within. And so, just like narcissists or actually empaths, which is a topic I know a lot about, both of these come from a past. And in the case of an empath, maybe they don’t. They, they, they’ve lost the ability to have emotion because it was drilled out of them and therefore they, an empath will then absorb the emotions of the other person and then gain vivacity because I feel your emotion. A narcissist, because they had no attention on them when they were a child, says well I need to gain attention. And that oftentimes became because they, the parents didn’t give them attention in the past at our generation now we as parents have overdone it. So, that’s, that’s sort of like part.

Marc Pitman: Yeah. So, what you’re, what’s coming to mind in part is the, I would never, this isn’t navel gazing, this isn’t studying of self for self-sake. And I, I, I’m Gen X, so I don’t like beating up on other generations because we were beaten up on growing up and we’re the parents like you said, of the newer, newer, younger generations. That’s just how it works. So, but what I’ve noticed from people that are leading have younger employees on their team, there is a desire to level up quickly because I’m important, I’m this, you know, I’ve gotten the participation I deserve. I just, I’ve been here six months, I deserve, yeah. So, that’s where I love doing this in work. Because there is a job description that needs to get done. We’re not just here for everybody’s self-actualization, we’re here for a mission. I, I’m a, I, I tend towards transformational leadership. There are four styles of leadership that have been studied extensively in universities and transformational is the one that, here’s the vision, here’s the mission. This is what we’re shooting for, this is what we’re here for. And so, part of leading, which is hard and great is being able to say you’re an adult and you accepted this job and there’s a job description here and there’s lots of conversation. We can figure out how to get this done. There’s a lot of different ways probably to get some of this stuff done, but some of this has to get done. For my sales stuff. It’s, you got to pick up the phone. You just have to pick up the phone. I mean and you have to mix up your ways of communicating. It’s taking up to 12 attempts to reach people. So, just because you call them and email them doesn’t mean anything. It just means you’re 2 out of 12 steps there. So, you don’t have to like it. You just got to, you know, be an adult and do it. And so, I think there’s, there’s, I’m glad you mentioned Narcissism being. I don’t know if I’m hearing it the same way, but it’s, it’s not just about the everybody’s here to serve me. It’s about we’re all here to do something together. And I would love it if more people came with the we’re here to serve. And I’m not sure where my place in service is. And part of that is knowing that I need to also have like, I have to be filling my cup so I have something to pour out, which is a lot to ask for work. That’s why there’s other, other places that people can get that. And, you know, I’m glad there are readers still.

Minter Dial: Indeed. And. And yeah, so, I mean, I’m trying to finish my new. My latest book and I talk about the idea of rehabilitating national service. And the, the concept is twofold. One is what is my nation? And can we be of service? And I feel like you can still find in business those two concepts, which is where do I belong? And how can I be of service to something bigger, like a purpose or something like that? And, and you talk. You’re a fair amount talk about disc and enneagrams.

Marc Pitman: Sure.

Minter Dial: And finding the why. And I was the CEO of Redken for a few years, and the idea of finding your why, it was. That was my most profound experience professionally was understanding the why of Redken and understanding how adapted I was into that why. Not a hundred percent, of course, but I. I discovered I intentionally created the narrative that made me feel good. And. And I feel like there’s an intentionality that sometimes needs to be like booby trapped into happening. And for me, there was a specific moment where I really lent into that. At the age of 37, 2001, September 11, overlooking Twin Towers, I’m like, oh my gosh, selling shampoos just isn’t enough. Not that I ever thought of myself as being described or defined by selling shampoos, but having the CEO of my title, not enough. What is it all about? What’s it for? And finding that way to understand enough about myself and carve the meaning out of what I’m doing. Even if it’s selling or, you know, creating bolts for a cruise ship, even that can be useful as long as I find meaning out of it. And so, it’s like this intentionality. There’s the self-doubt, but you also need to be like, I think booby trapped sometimes.

Marc Pitman: So, this is where for. For leaders. I really want leaders to. One of the things I don’t. Have you read Phil Jones’s exactly what to say.

Minter Dial: Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. I mean, I, I understand this story.

Marc Pitman: Okay. He’s a. So, he’s a friend of mine and we, we work together. And one of the four cornerstones that he talks about in conversational excellence is the person who. People do things for their own reasons, not for yours, which I read it and I thought, this is totally simple. I share it on stages and CEOs have forgotten that. So, I think finding out the reason. So, that part of the way to get over the narcissism in a way is what is the story that your direct report is on, sees themselves on. And then you can start trying to figure out, okay, if you do that, like there was one CEO who I was working with who had a direct report who wanted to be a consultant and was really sabotaging their work in the organization. And so, she started saying, well, if you’re going to be a good consultant, it’ll be good to have some of these kind of these things on your resume. And so, doing this with your team. Well, or if you want to be a consultant like this, these are some of the things that will help you be able to have credibility with future clients. And trying to frame the work that she, as an adult had grown up, had agreed to do in terms of their greater purpose did help them maybe. See, selling bolts for the cruise ship is helping provide the better experience of a vacation for people. So, I think that’s part of where we can get back to, hey, we do have a performance review. We are held to certain norms. This isn’t. I loved. I’m not remembering John’s last name, but he worked with Disney for a long time and he used to say, we’re not a. No, not that it was a different John, but a guy I met, he said, I don’t allow our teams to be called a family. We have a lot of good relationships, but families, you don’t choose who leaves and we choose who leaves. Like we, we are coming and going and there have to be decisions. So, I don’t call ourselves a family as, as well intentioned as that is because it sets up unfair expectations.

Minter Dial: Well, I totally reject the idea we are a family.

Marc Pitman: I could see that on you.

Minter Dial: Yeah. My CEO once came over to New York and he said that the l’ Oreal CEO at the time said, we are a family. And I was like, oh my gosh, we’re a family. You know, first of all, your family and my family are different. And it turns out that I knew that this man married four children, had two mistresses, one of whom had attempted to. And this is, you know, watch out for the trigger. Knock herself off because of the way he treated her. That’s family. Wow. Okay. Well, that’s not the family that I want to be part of.

Marc Pitman: Wow. Yeah.

Minter Dial: All right. I wanted to talk. There’s another topic that you talk about, which is succession. We’re going to finish on this because succession is such a crazy big topic in so many areas, especially for entrepreneurs, but also in business in general.

Marc Pitman: Absolutely.

Minter Dial: And. And it seems to be tied into legacy. I mean, if. I mean, there’s the film with the whatever the series about succession. Right. How do you.

Marc Pitman: When.

Minter Dial: I mean, have you. Have you come across tricky topics within succession? How do you master the idea of succession? When it’s not about me, it’s about legacy. I mean, how. That’s a. It’s maybe a large, fast topic, but go for it.

Marc Pitman: It’s like the code we joke about the last five minutes or the doorknob conversation and coaching where people are leaving the office and they have the open. The way.

Minter Dial: The doorknob conversation. I love the name for it. That’s.

Marc Pitman: Thank you.

Minter Dial: Beautiful term.

Marc Pitman: You just draw a doorknob. The. What’s coming to mind right now is my work with nonprofit founders and tech startup founders that succession isn’t just about mechanics of who’s going to run the company after them. It is about the legacy and how am I going to be remembered. And it’s often done after they’ve like, there’s non intentionality in this. Many people that create things don’t create organizations. They create things that solve problems or do a thing, and they don’t. And people come around them. So, there’s a lot of dysfunction in the organization. So, hopefully they’ll get. If. If you’re listening to this and this sounds like you find a coach or an advisor or mentor, there’s different roles that could help that can help you start thinking about what are the ways things you want to have in place. I’m getting to work with one CEO now that realized it would take three people to replace them. And that’s not something that’s in the budget. Um, and it’s because they didn’t.

Minter Dial: They.

Marc Pitman: They just. I can do that too. I can do that too. So, part of the challenge this week was become intentionally bad at a couple of intent to intentionally drop some balls. What are some balls you want to drop so that other people can rise up, but I really do think the legacy. I think their biggest. Another big question in this doorknob conversation I would like to see is, is work where it’s going to be found? You know, there’s that whole thing when people die, they don’t say, I wish I spent more time at the office. So, what are what measures? I was talking to a wonderful, dear person who’s retiring and has worked since teenager than 40 years in business and is going to be not working and wondering, how do I know that I’m productive or. Or meaningful? And all outward appearances would have been they had meaningful life. So, we were talking about different things, of what’s important to you. And for this particular person, it was creating a foundation and being able to invest in things. And your earlier conversation about what is the meaning of all this. Maybe I didn’t realize what the gift was of me being in nonprofit fundraising in my 20s because much of my career has been speaking to people that are financially successful but feeling empty and their kids don’t get them. And the nonprofit investment or gift is a way of helping them start reclaiming a bit of themselves. The values that have never left but have been caked on by a bunch of other obligations.

Minter Dial: It’s not submerged.

Marc Pitman: Totally submerged. Yeah. Not sure if that’s the answer you wanted, but how do you. Yeah. What are you thinking about succession and I’ll doorknob you now.

Minter Dial: Well, they’re beautiful. So, I. I want to be known, Marc, as someone who elegantly elevates debate and really. And fill people’s lives with meaningfulness and. And then if I can inspire others, that’s my succession. Others want to, you know, drop into that same place because up Until I was 37, I was living a full life, active but not being the person I needed to be. And that was the switch that happened. And that’s sort of what I’ve dedicated ever since I was 37, under 61. Now this whole idea of, Of. Of taking people and saying, it’s okay, life is messy, never perfect, but try to find more meaningfulness in what we do. All right, Marc. A. Pitman with a C. Marc, how can people track you down? Read your book, find out more what you’re writing about, what you do. This is what I want people to do right now.

Marc Pitman: Get out your computer or whatever form you use and Google Marc with the C. Pitman. P as in Peter Itmn. Hopefully, I’ve made myself ridiculously easy to find. If you find someone that was a B movie actor in a Charles Manson murder that was not me. That’s the other Marc Pitman with a C. Yeah, crazy. But I have the domain name, so the LinkedIn is a great place. I love responding there. And my books are on Kobo, Amazon, bookshop.org they’re all over, too. The best one, the one we talked about, a surprising gift of doubt. We did talk about nonprofit fundraising. So, my first book was Ask Without Fear, which was for accidental fundraisers and board members.

Minter Dial: I did want to talk to you about fundraising because I need to do the same. But Marc with a C, A. Pitman. Been great. I really enjoyed your energy. Thank you for coming on.

Marc Pitman: Thank you for having me. This has been a blast.