Rick Koster founded Leaderscope in 2013, a network of leadership trainers, coaches, and facilitators who develop courageous leadership to transform teams, organizations, and systems.
Rick has a background in ecology, neurobiology, leadership, and communication skills development. He specializes in developing and guiding transformative leadership programs, leadership team guidances, and designing processes for strategy development. He works in The Netherlands, where he lives, in Europe and Africa.
Leaderscope has a broad range of diverse clients, from large corporate organizations, many of them in food, to schools and universities, to health organizations and local and national governments. This is what Rick loves: diving into an organization, understanding how the ‘system’ works, and seeing what is needed for positive change.
Some of the leadership programmes Rick and his team have developed and delivered are the Nudge Global Impact Challenge and the European Nutrition Leadership Programme. Rick is also an established contributor to the programmes of the Academy of Leadership, Avicenna, in The Netherlands.
Quotes From This Episode
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
About The International Leadership Association (ILA)
About The Boler College of Business at John Carroll University
About Scott J. Allen
My Approach to Hosting
Rick Koster founded Leaderscope in 2013, a network of leadership trainers, coaches, and facilitators who develop courageous leadership to transform teams, organizations, and systems.
Rick has a background in ecology, neurobiology, leadership, and communication skills development. He specializes in developing and guiding transformative leadership programs, leadership team guidances, and designing processes for strategy development. He works in The Netherlands, where he lives, in Europe and Africa.
Leaderscope has a broad range of diverse clients, from large corporate organizations, many of them in food, to schools and universities, to health organizations and local and national governments. This is what Rick loves: diving into an organization, understanding how the ‘system’ works, and seeing what is needed for positive change.
Some of the leadership programmes Rick and his team have developed and delivered are the Nudge Global Impact Challenge and the European Nutrition Leadership Programme. Rick is also an established contributor to the programmes of the Academy of Leadership, Avicenna, in The Netherlands.
Quotes From This Episode
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
About The International Leadership Association (ILA)
About The Boler College of Business at John Carroll University
About Scott J. Allen
My Approach to Hosting
Note: Voice-to-text transcriptions are about 90% accurate, and conversations-to-text do not always translate perfectly. I include it to provide you with the spirit of the conversation.
Scott Allen 0:00
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Phronesis podcast. Thank you so much for checking in wherever you are in the world. Today, I have a longtime friend, and that is Rick Koster. He is in the Netherlands. He founded LeaderScope in 2013, and network of leadership trainers, coaches, and facilitators who develop courageous leadership to transform teams, organizations, and systems. Rick has a background in ecology, neurobiology, leadership, and communication skills development. He specializes in developing and guiding transformative leadership programs, leadership team guidances, and designing processes for strategy development. He works in the Netherlands, where he lives in Europe and Africa. LeaderScope has a broad range of diverse clients from large corporate organizations, many of them in food, schools, and universities, health organizations, and local and national governments. This is what Rick loves - diving into an organization, understanding how the system works, and seeing what is needed for positive change. Some of the leadership programs Rick and his team have developed and delivered are the Nudge Global Impact Challenge and the European Nutrition Leadership Program. Rick is also an established contributor to the programs of the Academy of Leadership of Avicenna in the Netherlands Rick, did I say that correctly, of Avichena?
Rick Koster 1:22
Oh, yeah, definitely. Scott, your Greek is improving. Scott, it's so good to see you again and talk to you.
Scott Allen 1:31
Oh, Rick, I am so excited about this conversation. I really am. I said this to Anne Marie when she was on the podcast. And when I think of you, I think of laughter, I think of the many, many fun wonderful dinners and meals that we had together at ILA conferences, just laughing for hours, if I recall correctly. And it's so good to connect with you again. What else, really quickly before we jump in, do the listeners need to know about you, sir?
Rick Koster 2:01
Well, thank you, Scott. And just let me remember one moment that we had, indeed, full of laughter, because it was one dinner that we have, and I can really see you again sitting there at a table, and I loved how you try to pronounce Cabernet Sauvignon, and you tried so hard to pronounce it, and everybody in the whole restaurant should know about that. I love that. And I think it was also why I remember it, it’s because I saw someone, in this case, you, who really felt liberated, felt free to express whatever was needed, was in the moment. And I think that was so beautiful about that moment.
Scott Allen 2:39
Kind of like when I'm trying to pronounce Avichena.
Rick Koster 2:42
Exactly.
Scott Allen 2:44
(Laughs)
Rick Koster 2:46
That's what I remembered. Yeah. So indeed, I think that much of my work and our work at LeaderScope is about liberating potential. At least, we try to do that. And it is within leaders, within teams, and organizations. And also we try to liberate systems, which is quite difficult , of course, but that's what we do. And I love doing that. I love it when you go into a team, a team of leaders, and you see something happening in this team, and then certain interventions really make them become freer and more open, and able to work together again. Because sometimes you come into teams, you think, “Wow, how could such intelligent, bright people make such dumb mistakes?” And that's really crazy, with all these bright people, and they have the best intentions, and then they come together, and this happens. And I think that there's so much potential that we can tap into.
Scott Allen 3:39
Well, I love that phrasing, Rick, ‘liberating potential.’ So, the organization's about 10 years old now, I think, as you think about that decade of work, really interfacing with people all over the world, and you think about this kind of mission of liberating potential, what are some ways you think about doing that work? How do you go about liberating potential? I think it's kind of fascinating.
Rick Koster 4:06
So, the first thing is really to observe, to observe what's going on in a team or in an organization. So, indeed, I love to go into an organization, and also in these different kinds of organizations, to see, “So how does it work here? How do you become popular? When do you get compliments? When do you get punished?” And I mean, not punished, but punished in the sense of, okay, so you make a joke, nobody's laughing. That's also a kind of punishment, isn't it? That's it. Thank you for laughing. So, I think that we all sense that. We come into an organization, I think this is also why we are so tired the first time we get into a new place, we get into a new job, and we really want to figure out how does it work here. Do I bring you a coffee or do you drink a coffee by yourself at your desk? So, I think that that's the first thing that I always… I go into an organization, and I sense this, and then you see, okay, so where does it really flow? Where's the freedom? And where is it stuck? And, for instance, I had a team of senior leaders, it was in a health organization, and we were five minutes into this conversation, quite a large team of 17 people. So, the director said something, and I said, “Okay, is there anybody who wants to add something?” And then, this dead silence started; nobody said anything. And then, okay, well, then I give the word to Rick to start off this session, and you think, “Wow, there's already so much said without anything being said in that moment.”
Rick Koster 5:36
Beautiful.
Scott Allen 5:39
Yeah. At that moment, we couldn't really grasp it, but later on, we could really work with that.
Scott Allen 5:44
Well, it really is fascinating, to your point, if you slow down and just pay really close attention to the dynamics, even the smallest of dynamics within the culture. But, to your point, when the leader or the authority figure asks a question, or there's a conversation that's happening, and no one has any feedback, that just, in some ways, tells you everything, right?
Rick Koster 6:09
Exactly. Yeah, that's true.
Scott Allen 6:12
When you walk into the organization, you're paying really, really close attention to kind of the culture, the dynamics, some of the, really, the nonverbal behavior that really, really sinks. And what else kind of liberating potential part of the process of kind of that work?
Rick Koster 6:33
Yeah. So, the three, more or less, steps or phases in the process that I use are connect, cause, and create. So, we start with that connection, which is so important. So, there are all kinds of ways to connect deeply, more deeply, with each other. And it could be one-on-ones, it could be in the whole team. And I did many trainings in deep democracy. Have you known about deep democracy here, Scott?
Scott Allen 6:58
No, I don't.
Rick Koster 6:59
So, deep democracy is a way of thinking philosophy, a way of looking at organizations and teams, in which you look at the texture of an organization, the fabric of an organization. So, not what is happening in people, but between people. And yeah, it's really beautiful. It's actually derived from Ubuntu, which is an African way of philosophy. And this philosophy says, “I am because we are,” I think that's such a strong wording. “I am because we are.” So, I can only be somebody with you. So, without you, I am nobody. And, of course, for us in the Western world, it's a little bit difficult because we say, “I have my talents, and I have my potential, and I can grow, and I have competencies.” So, really, looking at our authentic selves. And I think there's value to that. But, from the Ubuntu perspective, it's only between us that something is really happening that I am also there. And, yeah, from that perspective, you have all kinds of ways of working. So one is, and I really love doing that, is what we call the Soft Shoe Shuffle. And the Soft Shoe Shuffle is a way of working in which you stand into a circle. And then, you say, “Okay, so if everybody wants to say something about this subject or this question, please step forward.” And then, when they are finished with what they have said, everybody is forming around this person based on if they agree they are going to stand behind them, or if they recognize what has been said, or they're going to stand somewhere else in the room. And in that sense, if you do this, you get a really good feeling of the system of this community, or this organization, or team. And that is so powerful to do that.
Scott Allen 8:47
Oh, that's wonderful. So connect, that's kind of step one, right?
Rick Koster 8:53
Exactly. Yeah. And then you go to the cause. So, what is the cause? What is the purpose, either of this team or the purpose of the organization? Depending. So, how can we really connect to something that is bigger than us? So, we really search for that purpose, and we look for the passion in the team to really connect to that cause. And, if you do that, really, you get far more chances to create. And in create, you start co-creating, creating. So, a lot of design thinking principles then come into play. And, of course, when you do that, you understand better what is our cause, because you're acting on it. So, you better understand the cause, but you also connect more. The sign for LeaderScope is also the infinity sign. From connect, cause, create, and then back to cause, and then to connect again. And this goes on and on.
Scott Allen 9:42
Well, first of all, I love the visual that on your website is just there because I think it's a beautiful visual for what you're doing. So, this connect, cause, create, what's the most challenging of those three phases? Is it connect, Rick? I think, oftentimes, in organizational life, we don't pause. It's so focused on creating and just going and doing that, at times, I think we can lose that connection. And we can lose touch, at times, with the cause, with why we're doing what we're doing. But, in your experience, what are you seeing? What are the most difficult kinds of components to really get to, or does it just depend on the context?
Rick Koster 10:27
Yeah, it probably will. And yet, what you're saying, that was my first thought as well, to connect is the most difficult - really, truly connect with each other, and, of course, the work of Amy Edmondson ‘Psychological Safety’ is at play there. So, how do you create this feeling of, really, “I belong here, I have a place here, I am respected. I'm seen, and I also can see the other persons.” And if that happens, if you can liberate that potential, well, it's also easier to look at your cause and also much easier to create. So, I agree with you that that's the most important phase. And it's always the balance between, okay, so how much time does an organization or a team allow on spending on the connect? Because, of course, they will say, “Well, we also have our deadlines, and we need to…” And all these changes come. But we also really need to connect first and slow down to really understand.
Scott Allen 11:20
Well, Rick, I really enjoy how you're phrasing this. I had a conversation a few months back with Jennifer Garvey Berger, and she's just an incredible thinker. I would ask listeners to go ahead and check out that episode. But she had a phrase in our conversation said, “Good leaders design for connection.” Good leaders design for connection. And you had mentioned kind of design thinking principles. And that's one thing I just love about you is that your background is so varied that you're bringing whether it's concepts from communication, or biology, or design thinking. All of that is kind of coming to the work that you're doing. But yeah, that just stood out for me, good leaders design for connection. And I was with a group not too long ago, and it was just beautiful. I know you've experienced this, Rick, when, probably two hours in, one individual said, “Well, I think what we really need to be discussing…” And then it started, and we got into the real breakthrough conversation that needed to occur. But that connecting, there's a shell that you have to break through, to your point, that psychological safety. It's just we're so focused on creating, create, create, create, as you mentioned, deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. I think, sometimes, I can only bring so much of myself if I'm kind of guarded, and that connection doesn't exist, right?
Rick Koster 12:55
I fully agree, Scott. And great how you mentioned it, breakthrough moments, because this is also in the work of deep democracy that I learned from this way of thinking and looking is going to that place where this can happen. And I love the phrase from this work saying what you're doing as a facilitator is you keep them over the edge. I think that's so well put because that's the feeling also that I have. So, I go into this group, and you feel it, and then you see, “Okay, can we give them small notches?” And then, suddenly, somebody says something so beautiful, like you said, “Well, we all know, we should be talking about that.” And when that happens, you feel this way, you feel also relief in the team. Somebody's finally saying it, and it takes a lot of courage to do so. And I think that that's also what we at LeaderScope are looking for: courageous leaders who also facilitate these kinds of processes within their own organization.
Scott Allen 13:52
It's so fascinating to, at times, Rick, look at the divide between the literature and what's actually happening in organizations. In the textbook, or in the popular press kind of publication about leadership, or whatever the topic is, it's so easy. Just have the difficult conversation, and here are the five steps. And add humans, and real people, and salaries, and livelihoods, and status, and power, and authority, and add all of that to the mix, and it's really just so interesting, isn't it?
Rick Koster 14:32
Yeah. It also comes to when you go into a group or organization, and this is all at play in this system, it asks a real lot of you. So, I have a new team that I'm going to meet for the first time tomorrow, and I'll be spending the whole morning preparing myself to be there with the right energy to really be present and with the right courage. And, of course, I have my own systems that I bring with me, and sometimes, I'm a little bit shy, so I don't say exactly what I need to say. So, I need to bring in the courage by myself as well. And sometimes I can be over-optimistic, so I also need to… It’s that right balance to really be present, and that costs a lot of energy. But when it happens, that's so beautiful. It feels so alive if you can liberate such a group.
Scott Allen 15:22
Would you talk a little bit about that, Rick? Because I think you said something really beautiful there, about how you prepare yourself to be present to help with the work. I think, at times, even I can be running from thing to thing, to thing, and I don't often give it the attention it requires, whether that be working with a client, whether that be walking into a classroom, and truly slowing down and being present. To your point, you're going to spend some time tomorrow preparing yourself to be at your best to work with the group. What's part of your system there?
Rick Koster 16:04
Yeah. So, working on your pitfalls, I think is one of the most important things. So, I tend to over-prepare. So, I'm going to look at my slides tomorrow. What am I going to say to make the slides even more beautiful? And I know that this is a pitfall because that's not really helping. In the end, it's not helping me be at my best. So, I need to, tomorrow, remind myself, “Okay, you don't need to do this, this is good enough. Slides are good enough, your story is good enough, and really be present.” But that's one of the pitfalls. And then, “Okay, so what do I need to do?” One of the things that I do is meditate. I really like the app Calm. I really like the voice of the one who's doing that. And the daily Calm - it's 10 minutes. And she just starts bringing you into this mode, and then there's silence for about four or five minutes, and then she has kind of a roundup on the theme that is about. It really helps me to slow down and to feel centered again. So meditate, be aware of your own pitfalls, and see how you can be with the right energy and be present. So, this is also a connection already started long ago before I entered the room, the connection with the group because I also imagine myself, “Okay, it's this kind of group, this amount of people, men, women, what kind of background, who they are.” So, I really go through them to really connect with them before they enter the room. So, that connection has already started in that sense.
Scott Allen 17:31
That's just wonderful. That's absolutely wonderful. I love the framing there. I have not used Calm. For listeners, I will place a link in the show notes. I do like a 20-minute transcendental meditation a day. You're supposed to do it twice a day, but I know I can do it once a day most days. And so, I just try and do that 20 minutes. So I 100% kind of appreciate what that is for you. I think, for me, also getting out in nature and getting on a walk can help kind of center ground me. But I don't do a good enough job of, again, I might just be kind of going from one thing to another, to another. I have one of those days today where we're talking at my time, about 7:30 A.M., and I have class until 9:30 P.M., tonight at 9:15. It's meetings much of that day. And so, to even have two or three minutes to just pause in between slowdown, recenter and ensure that I'm in my best, otherwise, I don't necessarily walk in with that intentionality. But I love how you phrase that, “The connection has begun long before I arrive.” (Laughs)
Rick Koster 18:45
Right. Exactly. Yes.
Scott Allen 18:49
And you know yourself, right? Know what some of your pitfalls might be that you're going to over-prepare. Because you want it to go well, but look, I need to slow down. Be prepared, but not over-prepare, center myself, and ensure that I'm in the right headspace with the right energy before even moving in. I think that's wonderful. So, we have the connect and then cause, let's go there for a moment. I had a wonderful conversation with Henry Mintzberg, and he talks about societies being out of balance. And I think, sometimes, this conversation helps me get to the point where, of course, individuals can be out of balance, but I think teams can be out of balance as well. If we're not connecting, and we're not tapped into the cause, well, we're creating a lot, but we're out of balance. So, what are some ways that you kind of tap people back into the cause?
Rick Koster 19:45
One of the things that I do often is I ask people… They go out in pairs; they go for a dialogue walk. And I let each other interview each other. And they ask each other about talents. What is your strength? What are your talents that you bring? And about passion. So, what is your passion for doing what you do? And they have this beautiful conversation because, in that beautiful spot where your passion and your strengths come together, that's where you're going to make an impact. So, they go out, they talk to each other for about 45 minutes to 20 minutes, interviewing one, and then they change, and they come back. And then they have to present the other person. So, I ask them, “So I have the honor to present to you, Scott Allen.” And then, I'm going to tell them about your strength and your passion, so I'm really honoring you in that sense. But if I do that in front of the whole group, then everybody gets a sense, again, “This is what Scott is about. I can see that.” And what I'm doing is I have a flipchart at the side, and I'm drawing. So, I'm working really hard to capture all that they’re saying. And, in the end, if you really look at it, there are so many patterns in there that say a lot about their cause. There's passion and strength in there, and if you combine that, then, most of the times, I ended up with two or three paragraphs of saying, “This is what you are, this is what your cause is.” I did it just before summer, and I just started reading it out at the end of the day because there was a break in between, so I had time to write it down. And they started cheering, they started applauding. And I was like, “Huh,” I felt a little bit overwhelmed by that. But then I thought, “Oh, they recognize themselves in that.”
Scott Allen 21:34
You’re thinking, “Wow, they loved me. They really loved me.” (Laughs)
Rick Koster 21:37
Yeah, no, no. They finally love me, but no, it's their own passion and strength that they love.
Scott Allen 21:43
Yes. But it's a beautiful example of you helping to kind of help that, again, back to liberating potential. That's a beautiful example of tapping into their own energy, their own passions, their own strengths, and just holding up a mirror in a way that they are then celebrating themselves and… Because, again, what's beautiful about that activity also is you have two birds with one stone, you're also helping them connect, right?
Rick Koster 22:16
Right. Exactly. Yeah. And it comes to also, I’m thinking, I've been a high school teacher for five years teaching biology, my former work that I studied. The head of the school came up to me. I was just three weeks a teacher, and then he came up to me and said, “So, Rick, how's it going?” I was like, “Yeah, it's really going really well.” And he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Rick, make sure that the sweat is on the right back.”
Scott Allen 22:47
(Laughs) That's a great phrase.
Rick Koster 22:48
I think that that's so powerful. So, I've been working really hard in a session; that's not a good sign. They have to be working really hard and doing the most of the work because something has to happen within their organization or their team. And I'm the facilitator of that transformation.
Scott Allen 23:05
Well, I think that's a really important insight as well. I think, at times, I can feel super drained at the end of the day. And, oftentimes, I've never had words for that but I think you just named it in a really, really nice way of making sure that the sweat is on the right back. I love the phrasing of ‘liberating potential’ because, again, you are the facilitator. You're creating the conditions for those three elements: connect, cause, and create. You are the facilitator to help those emerge. They already exist in the system; you're like a magician trying to help those things emerge and become more present in the minds of the participants. But, just like the conversation I mentioned earlier, they need to do that work; you can't do that for them. And no number of PowerPoint slides or theoretical concepts are going to help that happen.
Rick Koster 24:00
Right, exactly. Yeah. And this is, I think, also the work that we have to do as facilitators is we also run into our own ego. Our own ego wants to say, “This is what I know; this is how beautiful. You should also watch the world like this.” Well, in the end, we need to be careful with that. And I think that that's one of the tasks that we have.
Scott Allen 24:21
Well, I do want to make sure that we get to a conversation about Nudge because I think it's the Nudge Global Impact Challenge. Would you talk a little bit about that, Rick? Because I went to the website, and I was intrigued. I thought, “Wow, I hope my children can participate in something like this.” It just seemed, at first glance, wonderful.
Rick Koster 24:43
Wow. It would be great to have your children in; Scott, please send them over. That would be great. Well, the Nudge Global Impact Challenge, I think it's a wonderful program. And many of my passions and backgrounds, I really feel that it all merges into this program. So Nudge is being founded by Jan van Betten. He was the former CEO of one of the largest European publishers. He had his high-end job; he had it all. He had a second house in Switzerland, and then he was walking around and he met his neighbor who was a farmer in Switzerland. And the farmer said, “Well, I'm quitting.” “You love your job as a farmer?” He said, “Yeah, but I can't compete anymore with the big farm, big organizations.” And Jan was shocked by that. And he talked on, and then he dives into it. And they really understand how the system works with all the subsidiaries in Europe. I don't know how it is in America, but, at least in Europe, we have a lot of subsidiaries for farmers. And he understood the system of how it works, and he said, “Well, this is not right, we should do something about it, we should change the world to make it a more sustainable place.” Well, this was around 2005, 2008, when nobody really talked about sustainability. It was really a fluffy thing that they talked about at the foreign universities. We have one in Holland called [Foreign Language 26:12] at the university. And it was really fluffy, and nobody really understood what sustainability was, which is totally different now, of course. But then he started Nudge. And Nudge, of course, means a little push in the right direction. And it was really the idea of bringing sustainability into organizations, into society, by bottom-up approaches that are really from the grassroots. And that's when they started. And they had beautiful initiatives, which really had great impact, great results. And then, also people asked them, “Well, can you teach us how to do this? Because in our big corporate organizations, we also want people who have this urge and this drive for sustainability.” Then, we started the Nudge Global Impact Challenge. And I think it's such a wonderful program because we have 70 to 120 young professionals between 25 and 35 years old. They all have a passion for sustainability and a passion to make an impact. They have high potential, so they have a history. They come from all over the world, different places, and different organizations. And it's amazing what happens when you bring them together and if you connect them together.
Scott Allen 27:24
Would you tell me one story of something that stands out for you as where you even kind of just thought, “Wow, this is pretty incredible”? Did something stand out for you?
Rick Koster 27:35
Well, what stands out for me are the participants. Nudge really has a good sense of who to select. So, some of the participants are corporate participants. So corporate sponsors this program, but we also have wildcard candidates. So, this could be your kids saying, “I'm going to apply,” and if you got selected, you just can go in without paying anything. And this is also because we see that, of course, a lot of people, especially in Africa, they can't afford to go to these kinds of programs. And one of them is James Thuch Madhier. I hope I've pronounced it well. He's from South Sudan, and he actually fled during the war there. He was 14 years old, and he was living in a refugee camp for a while. Then, he went to the University of Toronto, and he got a grant for that. And he started Rainmaker Enterprise. And it's such a beautiful organization because he has solar-powered water systems that he brings back to South Sudan. And he builds them from city to city, from village to village. And he helps them with their food production. And if you would meet him, he's just his cool guy from Sudan. And he has such a liveliness. Some people have a presence, you know that?
Scott Allen 28:53
Oh, yes.
Rick Koster 28:54
You can meet them at the ILA, and you meet a lot of people with a presence. Well, James is also one of them. It's amazing to meet him and learn about his story and also to see how he connects people to his initiative to make even more impact with it.
Scott Allen 29:08
Well, it sounds like he even… And again, one reason that I really enjoy your 3Cs: Connect, cause, co-create. Or is it create? Is it create or co-create?
Rick Koster 29:21
Well, I say create first because then co-create is in there. There are all kinds of ways. Backward planning is also such a good way of getting to creation. To really project yourself four, five years from now, and then really walking backward to the now, so what do we have to do three months from there, or six months from there, and then walk back? I think that's also a very powerful way to create together.
Scott Allen 29:46
Well, Rick, as we begin to wind down our time today, first of all, thank you. I've really really enjoyed some of the insights that I've had even in the process of our conversation today. But I always wind down the dialogue by asking guests, “What have you been consuming lately?” What have you been reading or streaming? What's caught your attention? Now, it could have to do with what we've just discussed; it could have nothing to do with what we've just discussed. But what's something that's on your radar that kind of caught your attention?
Rick Koster 30:17
Right. So, one thing that I've been looking at and being amazed about is ‘How To with John Wilson.’ I think it's on HBO. So, it's a documentary maker; he lives in New York. And it's wonderful because he has a very bad memory, so he memorizes his life by recording his life, and really making notes into booklets about what he has been doing. So, I get up at 7:30, eat my vegetables, etc. So, he's taking notes of that. So, he has a whole library from, I think, 30 years; then he starts making these documentaries. But then, he's going back saying, “Oh, this is a nice fragment or something that happens in New York,” because he takes his camera wherever he goes. And I think it's so beautiful because it says a lot about real people coming together and what happens then, and the beautiful things that people can give to each other, or the horrible things that people can do to each other.
Scott Allen 31:14
Wow. Okay, so, ‘How To with…
Rick Koster 31:18
John Wilson.
Scott Allen 31:20
Okay. Oh, interesting. I have not heard of this. And so, for listeners, that would be on HBO, or maybe now it's called Max in the United States. So, you could check it out on Max. I have not heard of that, it’s a documentary, is that accurate? Or it’s a series?
Rick Koster 31:34
It's a series of documentaries. So, he takes a how-to. So, how do you split the bill in a restaurant? That's one of the things he talks about. And the funny thing is that though he starts with this question, but he ends up in totally different places in the world. So, with this, ‘how to split the bill,’ he ends up at a meeting of referees because he thinks, “Well, these referees know how to do it.” And you should really see this because these referees mess up this whole meeting. They're not listening to each other at all. It's so funny.
(Laughter)
Scott Allen 32:06
Well, I will look forward to checking that out. That is wonderful. That is absolutely wonderful. I've been listening to Elon Musk's biography, Walter Isaacson. And oof, wow, listening to that or reading that through the lens of leadership, it's just very, very interesting. It's a very complicated, very complex individual. And it's such a fascinating read, Rick, because on the one hand, I'm just in awe and inspired, and then on the other hand, kind of disgusted. It's hard to reconcile this individual. And the humanity of it, it's messy, and it's complex. It's just a very, very interesting read. A very interesting read about an individual with very large aspirations, with a very complex childhood and background, but, in some ways, repeating some of the terrible things that were done to him. Yeah, he's not concerned with connecting. He's all about cause and all about creation, and there's very little actual human connection that he's interested in. And so, that's interesting. Wow.
Rick Koster 33:21
Yeah. Or he is incapable of.
Scott Allen 33:24
Yes, because, again, the complexity, a piece of that is that I don't know that he's formally been diagnosed, but he says that he has Asperger's. So then, do you have to give him leeway in this instance because of that disability or that difference? I don't know. But he went into Twitter, and the last part of the book is really just about that whole kind of transition where I think they fired three-quarters of the staff at Twitter in a very brutal way the day before Thanksgiving in the United States, just very brutal. So, it's a really interesting read from a leadership lens. Very interesting.
Rick Koster 34:10
Yeah. I remember because I read a review about this book, and also the way he bought X, Twitter. He also went in and said, “We have to find a new place for the servers.” And they said, “Well, this takes about a couple of months.” He said, “No, we can do it in a couple of weeks or a couple of days,” he actually said. And then he just went in, he just pulled out all the wires and shipped them into some vans, and then took them. Then, Twitter was unstable for three months.
Scott Allen 34:41
Yep. Advancing us in so many ways, but then also, in some cases, a little cavalier with the law and a little cavalier with ethics. And it's a very, very interesting case study. Rick, it is so good to reconnect with you, speaking of connection. And I just really appreciate the work that you're doing, helping organizations, helping teams, liberating potential. I think that's what we're going to call the episode: Liberating potential. And you are out there doing that work to try and help organizations and individuals do their best work. And you know what? That's awesome. That's absolutely wonderful.
Rick Koster 35:27
Thank you so much, Scott. Thank you for having me for this wonderful conversation. I have so many other questions for you and want to know more. Luckily, we will meet each other in Copenhagen in a couple of months.
Scott Allen 35:39
I can't wait. I can't wait. I will give you a big hug, sir.
Rick Koster 35:44
Looking forward to that. Thanks so much, Scott, for this.
Scott Allen 35:47
Okay, be well.
Rick Koster 35:49
You too.
[End of Audio]