The Influential Leader - Podcast Trailer

[00:00:00] Victor: If you're not comfortable with who you are, you don't deserve to be a leader So get your S star, star, star together first before you start casting a net over other people's lives.

[00:00:11] Michael: Welcome to another episode of the Influential Leader Podcast. My name's Michael Dietrich Chastain, your host, and today I have with me Victor Cho, who is the CEO and co-founder of Emoovid, the first business communication platform built to deliver trust in the world of AI.

[00:00:26] Michael: He previously served as CEO of Evite, CEO and president of Kodak Gallery, and vice president at Intuit, where he scaled the company's web channel from 300 million to more than 1.3 billion, and spent seven years at Microsoft. He's been recognized as Internet Person of the Year by Internet Marketing Association and created the Fourth Stakeholder Framework, which we'll talk a bit about today, advancing stakeholder capitalism.

[00:00:52] Michael: He serves on the boards of Emoovid, Modo Payments, and on advisory boards for the Internet Marketing Association, Wharton AI, and analytics, and several startups. Victor shares an amazing amount of both tactical and philosophical insights with us today, including but not limited to what the Fourth Stakeholder Framework is and how it could be the answer to many of the societal changes we're facing, how to determine your three most important circles as a leader and what a circle is as a leader, why the essence of a company is actually changing because of AI, according to Victor.

[00:01:30] Michael: We take a little bit of a dive into AI. Victor will likely come back because his AI expertise is very deep, so he'll likely come back and do more on AI. He also reveals why going after and resolving our insecurities as leaders is actually the most important action we can take. And then lastly, Victor has over a few decades a number of free leadership courses and frameworks, and we link to those in the show notes as free resources.

[00:01:57] Michael: So lots of value in this episode.

[00:02:00] Michael: I would suggest grabbing a pen or something to write notes down with 'cause you'll likely need it. All right, let's get into it. Victor, welcome.

[00:02:09] Victor: Ah, such a pleasure, Michael. Can't wait to have a conversation.

[00:02:12] Michael: Yeah, it's a pleasure. I'm so glad you're here. That bio is fantastic, I think is the word.

[00:02:19] Michael: Fantastic. It's quite, it's quite the background you have and, um, you know, we're gonna dive into your background and your expertise, but I thought maybe as a starting point we could just ask a couple human questions, which would be maybe the first one. If you were to say three things about who you are that we're not gonna found, find on your bio that would help us understand who Victor is, what three things come to mind?

[00:02:46] Victor: Ooh, that's a great question. I'd say one would be... This is more than one word, but my, some of my past teams, everyone always likes to, like, pick a character of who you are, and I've been, I've been called various things. But, like, to give you a feel, like Spock, the robot- So one thing about me, my emotional cadence is incredibly flat.

[00:03:06] Victor: I am, like, perpetually calm. Like, I'm a believer in the stoic philosophy, but even, even just at a young age, I think my, my biological programming is not a lot riles me. So that's one. Curious, I think would be a second one. I definitely, uh... My kids, I have two, uh, beautiful not-so-young daughters anymore, but, uh, I think they appreciate I still have a, a childhood, a childish curiosity and sense of wonder, um, which I d- I'm never gonna lo- I'm never gonna lose that.

[00:03:32] Victor: So that'd be two. And then, uh, maybe kind. I have been told that, you know, my, my teams have always-- would go to the grave with me in battle. Um, and many people I've worked with have worked with me again. Many teams have been like, "Yeah, that's, you know, that was the best time we've ever had at a company." Like, we didn't know companies could be run like that and could have such, like, a bonding moment.

[00:03:53] Victor: And so a, a lot of that comes from, I think, uh, an underlying kindness and empathy, uh, that I bring to everything.

[00:03:59] Michael: Awesome, man. Yeah, what wonderful qualities. And, you know, as someone that also has two daughters who are little, it's inspire- it's inspiring to hear you say that about the curiosity. Like, that, that's a big wish of mine, is that they, they would see that in me and that they would hold that as a core characteristic.

[00:04:18] Michael: I think that as a competency is so valuable no matter what direction we go in life. So that's, that's

[00:04:25] Victor: a- People get just way too serious as they get older. I'm like, I don't know why. I don't know who decided, like, s- seriousness and lack of fun should be correlated with aging, but I just see so many people...

[00:04:38] Victor: I see s- And, and they've g- And these people have, like, means. Like, they should be the happiest people in the world, and then, like, the joy, the joy and the life in them has been sucked out over time, and I'm just so sad for them.

[00:04:47] Michael: So second question on the, on the personal front. I, I know we're gonna talk about impact and the fourth stakeholder framework, which I'm excited to hear about from you.

[00:04:56] Michael: And when you think about impact, it's... Hopefully it's, it's okay that I say it sounds like that's a core value of yours. Is that fair? Yeah. And so the curiosity I have is where does that trait come from, and why is impact important to you?

[00:05:14] Victor: Yeah, it's, there's a f- there was a funny... Uh, you get inspiration from the funniest places, and I, there w- I don't know, maybe 15 years ago or something, I can't remember now, it's been a long time, there was a surfer who came onto TED, I forget his name, but he gave this TED Talk, and he was this long-haired surfer dude.

[00:05:31] Victor: He had a van on either the Big Island or Maui where he was doing physics. It was so funny. And he's like, he's like, "Yo, dude, this is..." He's like, "This is what's important to me." He's like, "Surfing," and, uh, and he's like, "Physics." And then there was this beautiful girl. He's like, and he's like, "And this girl." And he didn't even name her.

[00:05:47] Victor: He was just like, "This beautiful girl." He's like, "That's it." And he had optimized his life for those three circles, literally doing phys- He was, you know, working on, like, the theory of all forces together out of a van, dating this girl. And you could tell he was just the happiest guy on the planet. And I was inspired by that because, uh, what struck me was, like, can, could I define my three circles as clearly?

[00:06:11] Victor: Uh, and I went through my own exercise of kind of defining what three circles I had, and the third circle that I came up with for me, after some deep reflection, was impact. It was take, take the skills, take the benefits that society has given. You know, I've been lucky enough to be successful and, and, you know, be a CEO.

[00:06:26] Victor: Like, like, let's take that and bring it back to the world in some kind of positive impact. So it's, it is one of literally the three core pillars that drives everything that I do. Now, where that came from, which is a deeper question, is I mean, I would just have to say that's a combination of, you know, I had a Christian upbringing.

[00:06:43] Victor: I was raised by loving parents. I studied lots of different religious philosophies, but it's just, some ways it's, it's my ar- arbitrary point of view of why not? Like, why, why not do that? Because it... I guess in a selfish way, it also gives me the most joy, right? Acquiring and accumulating things does not give me joy.

[00:07:03] Victor: Like, I can't be a cons- uh, c- consumerism doesn't give me joy. But doing something that actually makes other people, you know, uplifts them somehow, that, that gives me joy. So I, I guess combination, upbringing, selfishness, religion.

[00:07:17] Michael: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's wonderful. Wonderful. I ali- I align with you on that, that, uh, you know, I th- I, I believe we're here to be of some kind of service to others in some way, right?

[00:07:27] Michael: And to make an impact, and so I, I align with you on that. I have to ask, if you're open to sharing, what are your other two circles?

[00:07:35] Victor: Oh. Oh. No, for sure. So circle number one is love for my closest friends and family, which is very specifically defined, 'cause everything is a time trade-off. And, and so for me, like there are some people that have these, like, huge extended families and they know all of their cousins and their cousins' kids, and they're just everywhere and kind of spread out with love across the family, which is beautiful.

[00:07:54] Victor: I'm not saying anything. But just for me personally, I realized, "No, I'm gonna over-index on a smaller subset of my cl- you know, my ch- my kids, my wife, my parents." Right? So I, I over-index that, on that circle. And then my second circle is kind of a cheat 'cause I crammed three circles into one circle. It's, it's, the language around it is the freedom to experience the beauty in the world.

[00:08:17] Victor: Uh, because I do think we live... You know, life is incredibly precious. We live in this amazing universe, and so not just, you know, exploring that, right? Um, and that's a combination of like, do I have the physical ability to do that? Do I have the financial ability to do that? And do I keep, going back to this curiosity, like, do I keep a mental flexibility open to do, do that and explore?

[00:08:38] Victor: 'Cause, you know, pushing into new things is, makes some people uncomfortable. But I, I'm drawn towards those things.

[00:08:44] Michael: Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Take- I'm taking notes. I love those, those three circles. Shifting gears a little bit, one of the things we do on this podcast is we invite our guests to identify people that know, like, and trust them, that they, that these others would be willing to give some feedback about our guests, in this case you.

[00:09:05] Michael: So you identified a number of people, and we send them out a- I'm sure. Okay. Yeah, right. I'll pray that Victor. Well, you did a good job. They said, like, quite glowing things about you. So they, they sent us back a bunch of information. We ask them five questions. And, um, one of the things that was said, I, I wanna...

[00:09:24] Michael: There's a, there's a number of questions that I wanna ask you about, but one of the things that, that was said I thought was so sweet is one person said, "If I had a sibling, I would want it to be Victor."

[00:09:36] Michael: Yeah. That's such a nice, such a nice thing to say. And so amongst many other things that were said, all of them glowing, my question is, why do you think people respect and admire you so much? 'Cause it's, you seem to have built quite the following of people that respect and admire you very much

[00:09:54] Victor: I mean, just the, you know, the top things that come to mind.

[00:09:57] Victor: Luck-- Uh, maybe I'll take it to a dark place first, but luckily I grew up in a loving household surrounded by love, and so I, I give a lot of love. I'm very secure in who I am. Um, and if I, if I see some of the behaviors of other executives that do not treat p- treat people so well, they're not, uh, not as respected.

[00:10:17] Victor: I, I think the most common thing that I see driving it all is a deep insecurity manifesting in diff- in different ways. In, you know, intellectual insecurity, financial insecurity, whatev- whatever it is. But it's an underlying insecurity, and I will say I'm incredibly comfortable with who I am, so I don't have any of that...

[00:10:36] Victor: There's none of that stress or tension that comes out of that. So that, I think that would be one. Second one is I have a, it's just a specific leadership philosophy, which is to be empathetic. I think I was born that way. Um, part of that also kind of, you know, I've traversed an interesting career. I was, you know, I was homeless at some point, which we can go into, all the way to becoming a CEO.

[00:10:55] Victor: So I, I know what it's like. Like, life is hard. Uh, that's another gap I see in many leaders is like they f- they either they didn't come from a place of no means, or maybe they've... Worse when, when they forget. That one bugs me the most. I'm like... And then they, they treat their employees like expendable resources.

[00:11:14] Victor: Um, and I'm like, "Oh, yeah, well, they, they got three months of, of severance. You're fine." I'm like, "No, they're not gonna be fine." Like, do you understand if you're a sole breadwinner in a house with kids going to school and you lose a job and there's... Like, the stress is just insane. So empathy is another one, and then the third, kind of the, the second and third of these I use as core leadership frames is transparency.

[00:11:36] Victor: I, I believe at a deep level that everyone is basically, except for that rare bad seed, and we of course hire, uh, we screen those out in our hiring processes. Ev- any- anyone in every company that I've, um, kind of built and scaled has been a good, a good-hearted person, and so we treat them with trust and respect and, and crazy transparency on things that other companies wouldn't.

[00:11:58] Victor: And I think they really appreciate that too, 'cause it's like, "Oh, you're telling me the true financial state of the business. You're treating me like an adult, and you're not sugarcoating things, and, and like I, I, I don't have to worry that you're gonna lie to me and then like, you know, rip something out from under me."

[00:12:10] Victor: So I, I think all of those things build a deep trust, I'd say.

[00:12:14] Michael: Yeah. It's wonderful. And you, you made a, made a great bridge. You know, part of the reason I want to ask you that question is just 'cause it's such a lovely compliment. And, you know, you also have a, a great leadership career and know a lot about leadership and that quality of, you know, people liking and respecting and wanting you to be in their, in their circle and ecosystem.

[00:12:35] Michael: That's, you know, as far as I can tell, a lot of the clients we serve, that's what they're after. Like, that's their... That's the direction they're trying to go and build as far as leadership aspiration goes. And so- I wanna ask you more questions about leadership, but you, you dropped something in there that I, I feel like we have to touch on a little bit.

[00:12:51] Michael: You know, you, you mentioned, um, being homeless for a little while, and you've had this amazing career of success. So I guess if I, if I zoom out a little bit, go into whatever level of detail you want. But if we zoom out a little bit, just the, the notion of going from having so little to building something so big, what thoughts do you have about that trajectory?

[00:13:13] Michael: How does one go from being, ha- having so little to, to, you know, building, building what you've built?

[00:13:19] Victor: Yeah. So yeah, no, I, I... Super simple kind of the root cause of it. My parents split when I was pretty young. Uh, my sister and I lived with my mom, who d- she came over from South Korea. She was an immigrant. She didn't speak English.

[00:13:30] Victor: My father didn't have a t- you know, he didn't have a job that could send a ton of child support our way. There was no alimony for some reason, which I still don't quite understand. But yeah, long story short, when, well, after that divorce, we, we lost, you know, the... They lost their house, and so we were literally in a car.

[00:13:45] Victor: Like, we had to stay with relatives. If it weren't for the support of relatives, yeah, we would've had no place to stay for quite a while. Um, so that was kind of the beginning. I think I was in fourth grade when that happened. Um, so that was kind of w-where that, and then that where it started, and then of course, over time, you know, everything incremented forward on a positive note, which was good.

[00:14:06] Victor: Um, but sorry, oh, the second part of your question was what?

[00:14:10] Michael: Just kinda how, like, how to make that tr- transition and, you know, c- you know, coming, coming from very little, building something, you know, so big. What are, what are lessons you learned along the way?

[00:14:20] Victor: So the funny thing... Yeah, yeah. The funny thing I, things I can share about that are when you're, when you don't have anything and you don't know any better, you don't know what you don't know.

[00:14:31] Victor: So you just live within that sphere, and this, it's, it's funny, I was thinking about... I don't know why I was thinking this the other day, but the The size of the world is tiny when you're poor, just because you're poor. Like, you can't... Like, I didn't get on my first flight until I went to college. It was the first time I was on an airplane, and there were no vac- you know, there were no vacations when you're, you know, when you're basically living off of food stamps and government aid, right?

[00:14:54] Victor: And so your circle, I mean, literally is like your, your neighborhood, like your block. Like, that's your circle, right? And that circle, of course, gets bigger and bigger over time. But, but you don't know better, uh, at least back then when I, when I grew up. You know, today I would argue maybe it's harder because, like, there was no way for me to be exposed to all of the other circles and what those larger concentric circles looked like.

[00:15:16] Victor: But today with social media, I think it's one of the huge problems. It's like, it's actually pretty easy to see, wow, this is where I am, and that's where all those people are. I, I think that is one of the huge issues I have with social media. It's one of the big down- uh, big negative second impacts of it.

[00:15:30] Victor: But no, I, I, I would say I've always just been of the mindset of be excellent at what you do, right? Move forward and just the circles kept growing and growing over time.

[00:15:40] Michael: Yeah, love that. Love that. Well, digging, digging further into kinda, you know, leader- leadership lessons and what you've learned, what you've built, one of the, one of the things that came through in our, in our research, uh, you know, asking folks these five questions that we do, is someone had mentioned that you're always asking this question of are you approaching things from a point of advocacy or inquiry?

[00:16:06] Michael: And tell us, tell us a little bit more about that question and why you feel that's important.

[00:16:13] Victor: Yeah, that is one of the... I have, I have 10 foundational lessons that I've actually, um, put online in a free course actually that, uh, a free leadership course. Oh, yeah, yeah, that, that'd be a great, uh, link, a great link to add.

[00:16:23] Victor: I published that.

[00:16:24] Michael: I'm gonna make a note of that. We'd love to, we'd love to link to it, yeah.

[00:16:27] Victor: Yeah. It's, uh... I describe it as over the 30 years or 40, 30 years, I think at, at the time when I put the course together, I had been given the amazing benefit of having been trained at some of the best companies on the planet, like Microsoft, Intuit, and being exposed to some of the, the best coaches.

[00:16:45] Victor: And so I have, you know, the, the 10 things that I took away from that of like, oh my God, if I had just learned that earlier in my career, I, I could have been somebody. It would've been very beneficial, number one. And then number two, what strikes me is, you know, I always assumed, you know, when I had my first CEO role and I was managing, you know, CFOs and, you know, folks older than me, a lot more experienced, 'cause I, I was pretty young as my first time CEO.

[00:17:10] Victor: Um, I always assumed these people all knew these things, but what struck me is like, no, no senior people at very big companies are still lacking some of these foundational skills. So I, I put this course together for two reasons. One is just to share that broadly so that people earlier in their careers, uh, can get benefit.

[00:17:24] Victor: But the second one was, uh, this is, um, more, the more Machiavellian side. It was for the pure efficiency. So when I'm, you know, running a, a large business, I have a bunch of CEOs and I give them that course and say like, "You guys better have mastered these 10 things because these are like table stakes for me, and if you don't know these things I'm gonna wrap up very quickly and, and I don't have to go through it."

[00:17:44] Victor: I'm all about repeatable, scalable process, which is my efficiency op- optimization zone. But, uh, the, the question in, uh, in, inquiry advocacy, super simple. There's a spectrum of you're trying to advocate for your position and you're just trying to ask questions to understand the situation before you go into that mode, and different situations you have, you have to be a master of both, both ends of the spectrum and understand where you go, and too many people can only operate in one.

[00:18:11] Victor: They'll bring the advocacy hammer. You know the, you know what these people feel like. Like they come into a room and they're like, "This. We've gotta do this, this, this," and you're, and you're... In many situations that may be the right thing to do, but in many situations it's like, well, you don't have any of the context of what we're even talking about, and so now you look kinda dumb saying those things.

[00:18:28] Victor: So a much better position for you would've been to ask some questions and understand context and understand position. So it's the highest level, it's as simple as that, is where, where are you inquiring, where are you building context versus where are you advocating? And then there's a really cool thing in the course which is a, I call it like the, the mastery level of inquiry advocacy is you can use inquiry to advocate.

[00:18:51] Victor: It's one of the best ways to advocate and, and, and it's, um, it's like a Mr. Miyagi move. But you c- you can get to the end result without ever saying what you want. Uh, and that is a higher level skill that over time-

[00:19:05] Michael: Yeah. Well, I so, I so love this. I wanna ask you a follow-up question, but, uh, just for some, some context, I don't know if I shared this with you in our previous conversations, but one of the reasons I was passionate about launching this podcast is to answer a question that I think is one of the meta questions certainly that we hear from our clients that are leaders wrestling with the people issues of their organizations, and I think the meta question is what do I as a leader do to influence and change the behavior of those that I'm leading?

[00:19:32] Michael: I think that that's the meta question, whether in the, the, the flavors in which we see that are around how do we delegate more effectively or hold each other accountable or create more emotional intelligence, fill in the blank. So, so that's the question that I'm hoping this podcast will answer. My theory though behind the answer is that the best way to influence is actually first asking ourselves and others better questions.

[00:20:00] Michael: And that's the hypothesis that I wanna test. And so I've... I, I'm curious, you know, given y- you, you sounds like you have some alignment around that as well. Um, when you think about curiosity to self and others as a path to influence, what comes up for you?

[00:20:17] Victor: No, no, I, I, I completely agree, and the reason I nodded my head so quickly was everyone's in a different position.

[00:20:23] Victor: So if I think about how I influence an organization, like I'll- May- maybe I don't end up with five, but I feel like there's gonna be five things that are big levers in that, right? So number one would be just my own behavior as a leader, right? That sets a tone. So kind of observation of how I behave.

[00:20:37] Victor: Another one would be, um, what explicit frameworks and leadership expectations do I articulate, um, which is something that I do in every company. I'll, I'll basically say like, "These are, these are my, my leadership expe- expectations. This is how I expect you to behave," right? So that gets codified in a structured way.

[00:20:53] Victor: A third one is the broad cultural environment in the company that gets created, which I think has to be architected. Like, culture is something you have to sculpt and mold. It doesn't ju- It can just happen on its own, but it will end up in a place that you don't necessarily want it to be, right? So there's kind of the action of molding the corporate culture, which will change that.

[00:21:13] Victor: There's overcoming, um, whatever deep ga... So you could do all of those three things and still not get your leaders to do the right thing 'cause they have some deep psychological, historical, whatever it is, gaps. So there's, like, potentially a need for, for coaching or just deep- deeper psychological work, right, to get them over.

[00:21:30] Victor: Just the, the operating mechanisms that you put... The operating mechanisms seem very lame, very technical. But just putting in the right operating mechanisms will change behavior, right? So I, so all of these things are at play in my mind to drive the right behaviors in your leadership team and the company.

[00:21:46] Victor: And the reason I think you need to have inquiry is you... every person is different, right? So the, the person, the person where maybe just observing you and the op max are gonna get them to the right place is different from the person where you're like, "You're, you just, you got burned so many times in your past company.

[00:22:04] Victor: Like, I, I... We need to go work on this area first before you can even make any progress." And you're not... You can't do the diagnostic of the person and what their path needs to be until you do inquiry.

[00:22:15] Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Well said. You're dropping a lot of, uh, a lot of value here, ju- those five alone.

[00:22:22] Victor: Oh, yeah.

[00:22:23] Victor: So I throw out, I throw out a lot of frameworks. I'm a big framework guy, so I, I think e- everything is in terms of a framework. So that's-

[00:22:28] Michael: I love that. I, I resonate with that. You, you know, we, um... I, I... Combined with that, I really love how frameworks, you know, visual frameworks that can be turned into visual models.

[00:22:40] Michael: And I say that because that's often how, how we'll teach. We'll, we'll take an idea and turn it into some kind of visual model. And what I find is that when teaching, whether it's a one-to-one coaching or a group of executives, just the simplest con- the simplest shift, moving an idea into a visual, it's like people really, really...

[00:22:57] Michael: They're able to consume it so much easier. And so it's, it's a curiosity I have. You, you share with us a number of frameworks already, like your leadership course, for instance. That's, like, repeatable framework. I love that. Yeah. Are there other examples of frameworks that come to mind specifically for leadership development that you've used over the years that have been particularly impactful?

[00:23:18] Michael: Any, any one or two that come to mind?

[00:23:21] Victor: There's a... There's probably, uh, So there's, there's a bunch of... Uh, on victorcho.com there is a course tab, there's a framework tab, which is literally all of the CEO level frameworks that are used to operate a business. And there-- I don't know how many there are in there now, but they're the...

[00:23:40] Victor: It's the foundational playbook that I have found. Like, if you run this playbook in a company, y- you'll be in pretty good shape. And it goes, it sp- it's a s- it spans from strategy to prioritization to hiring to... There's like multiple sections in there. So short answer is, yeah, absolutely. Um, and I've actually put those all up for just public consumption and kind of team consumption.

[00:24:01] Victor: Yeah. Oh, no, no. No, I was just trying to think if there was anything in there in particular that as an example.

[00:24:07] Michael: Well, and we can a- you know what we could do, if you're open to it, we'll just link those individual links in the, in the show notes, and people can go to them directly. That... Are you-- Would that be okay?

[00:24:16] Victor: Oh, no, no, of course. Of course. I will say to any, like, higher order leader, if you don't have So I can sit down with any board, I can sit down with... I can go head-to-head in any discussion with anybody about any topic as a, as the CEO of a company because I have those frameworks to fall back on, right? It's a very-- It's very easy to have a discussion around whatever the...

[00:24:39] Victor: Like, I'll just make up something. It's like, "Oh," like, "Oh, we think your strategy's off." And it's like, "Well, let me describe how we define strategy, like the process by which we generate strategy. Like this is... And let me describe the process we just went through." Now, okay, now let's have a discussion over like what do you think is flawed in the process?

[00:24:54] Victor: What do you think? Right. So it goes out of a, "Well, I think this," and you think that, to something that is very specific and codified and pretty tight. So usually when I sh- describe those things, it's like, oh crap, that's pretty tight. Like, okay, that's, that's a problem. And I, I don't think I wanna go head-to-head against your framework and your rigor.

[00:25:13] Michael: Sure. It's, yeah, I, I resonate with that. I, I often find that the, the... And this is kind of vague, but I, I think it is a truth that the pain points that, that exist, whether they be about a team, a, uh, a, an organization, an individual, often lack a structural element, and I think that's partly, partially what you're saying.

[00:25:34] Michael: It's like we have to have a structure or a methodology that we can use to make inf- i- you know, make, make assumptions from, you know, other- otherwise, right, we're just coming from chaos. And yeah, and so I, I appreciate, I appreciate that. We have to have structure. Wonderful. Well, maybe since, since we can, since listeners can access so much of that, maybe I'll shift gears question-wise, and I'll share, I'll share with you this.

[00:26:00] Michael: One of the other themes that emerged in our conversations or in our inter- or, uh, surveying of these other folks is that emotional intelligence was a big theme that people came back and said, "Victor is an emotional intelligence master more or less." And so the curiosity is, you know, say whatever you'd like, of course, about how you've built that in yourself, but what I'm, what I'm particularly curious about, 'cause I get this question so much, is how do we help others be more emotionally intelligent as leaders and particularly maybe those that really are challenged with that competency?

[00:26:36] Victor: My very first thought is can I, I'm gonna, I'm g- can I slice this conversation and show it to my wife, Cecilia? Because we

[00:26:43] Michael: Of course.

[00:26:44] Victor: We have this great debate where she's like, "Victor, you're clueless. Like, you have no idea what's going on with people." And, and I smile and I'm like, I was like, "Actually, yeah, like, you know, I don't think that's true."

[00:26:54] Victor: It's like, I think I have quite good emotional intelligence. I'm just not choosing to act on it at this moment in time.

[00:26:59] Michael: Right. Right. Yeah. We'll send you a soundbite. You can give it to her.

[00:27:02] Victor: And then she's like, "No, it's not. You don't, you just don't know, like, you're clueless." I'm like, "No, I, I saw that." It's like I just chose not to act.

[00:27:10] Victor: No, where does, where does that come from? That is a great... I don't have a great answer for that. I, I don't love the answer of it might be innate, right? There, I, but I f- I think that's part of the answer. I do, I do think there is a natural, and I, and, and I'm sure it is impacted and improved over time and, you know, uh, by nurture of course.

[00:27:31] Victor: But I ju- I just think there, like the, there are... Well, actually, we know this psychologically. There are just some people, like you can show them, there's a famous psychological test, you show them spectrum, spectrums of emotion, and they'll look at two faces that are, that I might look at and say like, "Oh yeah, this person's like a little bit tweaked out."

[00:27:45] Victor: And they're like, "I see no difference in those faces," right? So like just the, the visual acuity of some people to be able to tease out micro expression differences, vocal tone, tonal differences. It is different. It is different. So that's, that's kind of one base foundation for sure. That being said, I think you can absolutely train it for certain, right?

[00:28:04] Victor: And improve it. And it's just a question of are you spending focused energy doing that? Um, I'll, I, very few companies I think spend any energy on EQ, uh, in terms of leadership development. Like very few.

[00:28:20] Michael: Have you, have you found tactics or strategies in your own leading of teams or individuals that have been helpful in them improving that competency?

[00:28:29] Victor: Oh, yeah. For sure. Uh, Intuit was one of the best places. They would allocate around, at least when I was there, around 10% of the leadership time as, as a VP was spent in literally building up skills across the spectrum of leadership, whether it's foundational leadership skills. Many of those lessons weren't, were on things that would impact EQ.

[00:28:48] Victor: They weren't framed as EQ specifically, but absolutely that, that would be impacted by some of the lessons. So no, I, I do believe it can be improved for certain.

[00:28:57] Michael: Okay. Okay, great. Great. Well, tell us, tell us a bit, and I know that this literature is available 'cause I've read it online myself, uh, that, that you've shared around the fourth stakeholder framework.

[00:29:07] Michael: But, you know, I think it's, it's such a great framework, it's probably worth spending a couple minutes on 'cause there are those that will listen to this and maybe not take the additional step to go read it. So tell us a bit about it at a, at a high level or in any level of granularity you wanna go into.

[00:29:23] Victor: No, no, no. I appreciate, I appreciate that you read the article. At the highest level, I think I would describe it as the following. I'd say the, the world, not to make it overarching, but the world figured out over time that, um, companies existed to do more than just create shareholder return. Um, back in the '50s and the '40s maybe even, like literally I remember the textbooks that I read coming out of business school that were written probably back then.

[00:29:47] Victor: It's like, oh yeah, your job- as a CEO is to maximize shareholder return, period. So we ha- we have a, we had a group of CEOs and executives who thought that was the end-all be-all for business, and I, I say luckily the world figured out that wasn't the only thing that businesses were meant to do. Uh, and we got religion on what, what many people refer to as stakeholder capitalism, right?

[00:30:08] Victor: It's like no, you also have employees that you need to care about. If you think of how employees were treated, you know, in the, in the coal mines versus today, radical difference 'cause we all understand, no, the corporation has a responsibility to shareholders of course, but also employees, also customers, right?

[00:30:24] Victor: If you think about the, the focus on delivering great experiences for customers, that wasn't in the, you know, in the '50s nobody was talking that way, but now it's just a, it's a given, right? You're gonna... You're delivering something, it has to deliver great value. And the fourth... So, so, uh, many companies, not all, but many companies operate with those three stake- stakeholders today.

[00:30:42] Victor: Uh, the fourth stakeholder is, is what I've coined just the broad societal stakeholder at large, meaning your business is, is sitting in the society as I call it a citizen, right? The business is a citizen. It's an entity, and it can serve those first three stakeholders but still be not doing right as a citizen, and so it, it does need to consider society the fourth stakeholder.

[00:31:04] Victor: And so the set of papers that are published there are how do you do that? Because that's a weird amorphous stakeholder, right? It's not like your sh- your investors who are there and pretty, pretty simple, right, to talk to. It's, it's lots of different concerns. It's lots of different issues. And so what was missing from my perspective for, uh, business leaders was a simple operational playbook of assuming I can get you to, "Oh yeah, I really should be a citizen and think about my soci- my downstream societal impacts," how would I do that?

[00:31:34] Victor: And that's what's in those articles.

[00:31:36] Michael: Yeah, love it. I... Related to that, I, and I, maybe this is just another way to say what you're saying is for the fourth stakeholder, the idea that, you know, businesses can be catalysts for change in a positive direction. And, and that maybe, you know, some, some hold the perception that maybe they're the greatest catalyst for change beyond governments or other, you know, other organ- organized entities that we may de- depend on, quote unquote.

[00:32:07] Michael: And so what, you know, th- a- asking you kind of a big global cl- question, like what's your, what's your sense of organizations small and large being positive catalysts for, for change in the world compared to other ways in which we may create impact and change in our world in a positive direction?

[00:32:25] Victor: Yeah, no, at, at a, at a, at a categorical level or at a, at a category level, I absolutely agree.

[00:32:30] Victor: Like the free enterprise system, like capitalism- Good capitalism. Capitalism run by leaders who are business citizens and who build companies that are going to be citizens is probably the dominant, I would argue it's the dominant way the society has progressed, right? If you look at the technological change, the improvements in health and longevity and educa- AI, all of these things, right, are a function of that economic engine working.

[00:33:00] Victor: Um, the, the issue is it's so easy to get into the realm of just, "Oh, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be selfish and just drive this towards economic value creation for myself and maybe a small subset of shareholders." Um, and that's a problem when you start getting very large companies that have large footprints on the society because Maybe, maybe the, maybe their actual business is fine, not having...

[00:33:25] Victor: Doesn't create issues, but the second order impacts of those businesses can be very harmful, and it's, you know, it's, it is the responsibility of those companies to reign those in, which is a, a huge gap today in, in the system.

[00:33:36] Michael: Yeah. Yeah. What, what would you say to this? So I'm thinking about a, a small business owner.

[00:33:40] Michael: I'll put on a, a make-believe hat. You know, I'm an owner, founder of an organization of 50 people. So I've got small business, and the pushback to this thing that you and I are agreeing on right now is, well, what kind of impact can I make? I've got 50 employees, I've got this small business. You know, I'm so, I'm so busy to worry about impact.

[00:34:03] Michael: Uh, what would you say to that owner?

[00:34:05] Victor: Yeah. Uh, I mean, my first thought would be if you, if they have a sh- a multi-stakeholder focused view, then, I mean, first order of business is are they treating their employees well? Are they delivering a product the customers want, and is the combination of that creating a viable business?

[00:34:22] Victor: 'Cause that's almost like the baseline. Like, if you don't have those three things working, um, I, I would argue those are probably the highest priority, right? Otherwise your business just fails or your employees all leave, right? Or you just don't create any customer value. But the, the thought immediately after that is, like, you, you don't actually have to...

[00:34:37] Victor: It's not that you have to become a, a benefits corporation or suddenly, right, turn all of your infrastructure green or, or any of these things. It's really more, look, if you have a 50-person employee group, you're probably touching, I don't know, hundreds, maybe thousands, maybe millions, depending on what the business is, right, of customers, right?

[00:34:57] Victor: You have an ecosystem footprint in the world, and one of the first things in my, uh, in my, in my principles is have you just thought about, like, all those touch points and whether you could do more positive things with those touch points? Uh, I'll just make up something. Like, maybe you're working with a supplier and you're spending a bunch of money and it's like, "Oh, wow, I could switch suppliers and to this one, which is gonna be less pollutive, at no impact to me," right?

[00:35:22] Victor: It's like that's a simple decision that you could make, right? To... And no impact to your business, but the downstream ripple effect of that could be sub- substantial, right? If your business is large.

[00:35:31] Michael: I love that as a, as a question. Oh, sorry, was there more you wanted to say?

[00:35:34] Victor: No, no. Uh, there's, there's, can you...

[00:35:37] Victor: How do you do more good? How do you... At, at the simplest level, how does your business ecosystem do more good and how does it reduce harm that it's creating? Uh, I mean, that's the very simplest frame. That is what the societal process looks like.

[00:35:51] Michael: I love it. And, and the other, the other kind of invitation I, I heard there is to maybe sit down and look at what is the actual ripple effect of this business, because it's likely much larger than we assume it to be.

[00:36:06] Michael: And I think, I think that's a beautiful invitation. I... And I very much agree with it, you know, working with organizations small and large, seeing, seeing that ripple effect and s- and simply applying that question I th- again, we're back to, you know, questions as influence. Simply applying that question may lead us down dec- to decisions that are gonna create great greater impact, and so I appreciate that invitation.

[00:36:28] Victor: Yeah. That's exactly right. Spot on. Spot on.

[00:36:31] Michael: Wonderful. Well, couple, couple other questions that came forward from our, from our little survey process that I wanted to ask you about. One, one person that gave us some feedback mentioned that you use a strategy where everyone in the company has a, a quote unquote big red button.

[00:36:50] Michael: And so I wanted to ask you, what, what does that mean and, and how did you come up with that?

[00:36:54] Victor: Oh, that, uh, that I just stole from the Toyota production system, right? If you guys, uh, if you study like any of the kinda Deming's work, uh, I think they were one of the first big process companies to basically say like, if you're a frontline employee...

[00:37:07] Victor: And it was kind of radical when they brought it in. It was like, if you see like s- some de- you don't just let it go through because like you're a, a lowly frontline employee. Like, you, you can stop the assembly line and say like, "Hey, we have a quality issue here. Let's go address it." So it's just the extrapolation of that to beyond manufacturing, right?

[00:37:23] Victor: It's, it's like an- anything in the company, the best eyes on the health are, are not the CEO, it's not the VPs, right? It's the people actually doing the work. Like they understand when things are working and when breaking. So I just, it's always I want them to be empowered to say like, "Nope. Stop. We need to stop."

[00:37:40] Michael: Yeah. And, and in, in your experience, have you applied that cross altitudes of the organizations you've run?

[00:37:47] Victor: Yeah. To me the button, everyone has the button. Anyone at every-

[00:37:50] Michael: Everyone has the

[00:37:50] Michael: button ...

[00:37:51] Victor: everyone has the button, right? Ev- anyone can elevate and say like-

[00:37:54] Michael: Yeah, this is such an important '

[00:37:56] Victor: Cause, uh, what's the, the worst case is that it's an overreaction, and it's fine.

[00:38:01] Victor: N- uh, the best case is you stop something like fairly foundational, right? From going out. Now I, to, to be fair, I, I haven't run any... Actually, no, that's not true. I have run manufacturing businesses, so they also had the red button, so I don't know. I was gonna say, at some point that red button maybe has serious ramifications of...

[00:38:18] Victor: But, uh-

[00:38:20] Michael: Yeah. Yeah. It made, it made me won- wonder that are there, are there, like, guardrails or boundaries around how and when and if you might push the red button? Have, have you, have you put those in place too?

[00:38:31] Victor: No, I haven't had to. No. No, it's-

[00:38:33] Michael: Okay. Okay, interesting.

[00:38:34] Victor: But you're right, I, I, I could see if, uh, if pressing the button, you know, had, you know, $5 million of cost instantly just because things were stopping, then yeah, I'd, I'd probably put some, some guardrails around it.

[00:38:45] Michael: Yeah. But, but overall, what I hear you saying is that this invitation has served you more than it has caused harm or caused issue.

[00:38:54] Victor: Oh, yeah, it's never cau- actually, it's never caused harm in my, in my background.

[00:38:58] Michael: This is such, I think, a, an important insight for, for leaders to hear, even though, you, you know, I understand, you know, you mentioned Deming, like old school philosophy, which is great, and I think this is such, like, a simple tool that can pu- be put into place that maybe there'd be some resistance around.

[00:39:16] Michael: But I just, I consistently see the value of engaging all altitudes of an organization. At, at, at the highest level, that's what I would describe what we're talking about, and I think this is a way to do that. It's a way to enga- create an engagement mechanism where voices are heard, and it's, it's wonderful to hear that you've, you've been able to leverage this and see so much value from it over the years.

[00:39:37] Victor: Oh, no, thanks. And then, and I'll give you an example b- because the button itself doesn't do anyth- doesn't do anything per se if the leadership doesn't have the right citizen mindsh- set. So I'll give you an example, right? If, if I had been running Facebook over the last, whatever, seven or eight years, um, the fact that people are killing themselves over potentially their exposure to social media...

[00:39:59] Victor: And maybe it's not all attributed to Facebook, right? Maybe it, they are part of a broader cause, but that would've been a red button- That I would've wanted to have pressed at some point, which is like, "Hey, we, we see a signal that we think there may be second order impacts of what we have built on mental health and depression."

[00:40:13] Victor: I'll just pick that, mental health and depression. To me, that would've been a big red button, and as CEO, I would've said, "Okay, that's a... Maybe it's a problem. We need to go study that instantly," right? And see if that is smoke or just a one-off, or is there a real signal. And there's a whole slew of things I would've done to set up data analysis, right?

[00:40:32] Victor: To really figure out, are we contributing to that issue? And if so, the social responsibility as a fourth stakeholder. Now, it would've been a customer trade-off maybe. Maybe you have to reduce features that customers don't want. It would probably absolutely be a shareholder trade-off as a result. But would it be the right thing to do?

[00:40:50] Victor: Yes, given the footprint, absolutely, right? As opposed to what I have seen is, "Eh, we're part of a... That's a problem with every, every... There's multiple social networks, there's phones. Like, it's not just us." And now with the latest re- you know, with the latest lawsuits that are, right, kind of flowing through and, and, and many found against the social networks, it's like, well, no, you actually were culpable, right, for this.

[00:41:12] Victor: That's just way too late. Like the, for a company to get sued for its second order impacts for it, in order for it to take action is way too late from my perspective, right? A, a true business citizen, a true business leader would've addressed, addressed those things proactively.

[00:41:26] Michael: Absolutely. Yeah. To- totally agree.

[00:41:27] Michael: And one of the nuances that you said that I, that I want to just underline, which I appreciate, is you didn't say you would intervene with an answer. You'd say you'd study the problem Right? That's such a, that's a... And, and I say that again just for those that are listening and, and want to consider applying this red button strategy.

[00:41:45] Michael: That's a wonderful nuance with it as well, is that someone raises the flag or hits the red button, and, and what that triggers is not an immediate answer, but more questions.

[00:41:54] Victor: Yeah. A lot of inquiry. Exactly, yeah. You gotta understand what the nature of the beast is that you're dealing with. I see, yeah, I see that way too often.

[00:42:02] Victor: People jump way too fast into action, or into advocacy action when they don't understand what, what is even the game that's being played. Like, what, what board are we on? Yeah.

[00:42:11] Michael: Yeah. Tot- yeah.

[00:42:13] Victor: What pieces are we playing with? Like, it's ki- it's kinda crazy. I don't know why people don't, don't have that DNA, but...

[00:42:19] Michael: Yeah. It is, it is interesting. I, I also find that the leaning is advocacy. Yeah. But by, by far. And, you know, maybe this is, this is a good segue. I think part of my passion around this, this idea of, of inquiry as a path to influence is, you know, the time that we're in, right? We're in this wave of, of AI revolution, which I know you have a lot to say about.

[00:42:43] Michael: And, and perhaps as time goes on, more and more we're gonna be left with that as what we have. That meaning questions. That's what we're gonna have left, 'cause the answers are gonna be more and more plentiful at our fingertips. And so, you know, shifting, shifting gears to AI, I know this is... We could spend a lot of time on this.

[00:43:04] Michael: And actually, as I say this, maybe you could come back and we could spend a whole show on AI.

[00:43:08] Victor: Oh, yeah. No, no, dude. Would always... More than happy to share, yeah.

[00:43:12] Michael: Yeah. 'Cause we get, we get questions all the time, Victor, from, you know, leaders. I was on a call yesterday and we were talking about... I'll, I'll share, I'll share what I shared with them.

[00:43:23] Michael: They were asking me, what are we seeing? What is our team seeing with various organizations and leaders? And, and what we're seeing is this giant spectrum of, you know, big advocacy for AI total ignorance to AI, like even what it is, and then combined with a, a, like excitement and enthusiasm and positivity about it.

[00:43:44] Michael: And on the other end of that spectrum, there's a fear and, and, you know, apocalyptic nature about it, right? So there's, there's really a lot of diversity. And then application and organization. Some are using it heavily, some are barely using it, right? And so my, my question for you is, when you think about the next five to 10 years, what, what should leaders be thinking about as it relates to AI?

[00:44:06] Michael: And I know that's, that's a long landscape, five to 10 years from now, but however you wanna take that question would be great.

[00:44:13] Victor: Yeah, no, no, I've, I've thought a lot about this. I have actually a lot of published frameworks that we could go into maybe in a future session around AI. In particular, because I've got young kids that are going into college.

[00:44:22] Victor: I actually did one around like, what, what should kids be doing at that college age or first graduating age? But it's also relevant for like that 70% of the working population as well. It's like the same, it's the same advice I would give to like any knowledge worker on the planet. But no, g- but going back to your question, I always work, uh, I always work backwards from kind of end state, and it is completely obvious and clear to me that we are entering a point in time where the essence of what a company is, is going to change more than it has ever changed, like over the next 20 or 30 years.

[00:44:59] Victor: And the reason it's going to change that much is we are clearly going to introduce... We haven't-- We have cracked the nut on what higher level reasoning is. I'm not gonna say we've cracked the nut on artificial general intelligence or any of these th- In, in some ways it doesn't matter. We understand now what it is to create reasoning independent agentic systems, and we're on day one of like 1,000 days.

[00:45:18] Victor: So where that takes me mentally in the future state is, okay, well the company that exists 10 years from now as the, as the intelligences get higher and higher and higher, and the capabilities continue to go up, is gonna look It's not that it looks nothing like what it looks like today, but it looks very different in terms of what a human being does in that system versus what an agent does, versus what a human being does accessing AI tools, versus what the software vendors are doing, right?

[00:45:44] Victor: So every, almost every business, it's at scale. Even small companies, if you look at the tools they use, it's gonna go through this transformation. Um, and so if I were running a m- uh, I don't need to do this 'cause we're building a startup, basically a kind of AI, AI native, and so I get to kind of ride the wave forward.

[00:46:02] Victor: But if I had a much larger company today and I were managing it, I would create a systemic sequence plan of how do we evolve our organization into that future state, and that would take me, I think, naturally to a bunch of swim lanes of exploration and work. And I think it would encompass pretty much everything that is being considered or thought of today in all the different sub-swim lanes that people think about.

[00:46:27] Victor: Um, examples of those sub-swim lanes are like, "Oh, what tool should I use?" Or, "Oh, how does AI change our product development process?" Like tho- those, those to me are just tactical sub-lines of the broader evolution of your company over that, over the time horizon, right? And it would literally, I mean, it would, it would be a massive change effort over time, but I'd, I'd wanna see the...

[00:46:47] Victor: I'd want to at least know that I had a thought-through plan and I knew what step one, step two, step three was.

[00:46:52] Michael: Yeah. I, I wanna ask you a, an kind of a nuts and bolts question follow-up, 'cause I'm thinking of our clients and what they might ask, and it's, it's something to the effect of So ma- makes sense we should be creating a roadmap around, you know, how we're gonna evolve in the world of AI.

[00:47:10] Michael: How much time should we be spending on this if from a-- think of it, think of it like as, you know, embedded into our strategic plan. Should it be a part of it? Should it be an en- entirely different part? Should we be doing this quarterly? What are the-- Do you have any tactical advice around, like, how much time we should actually be spending on this?

[00:47:28] Michael: 'Cause I could, I could see the argument for this is the number one priority, and I could also see it the other way. What, what thoughts do you have?

[00:47:36] Victor: Yeah. Uh, if I had to think that, 'cause there's so many different industries and segments, but at a macro level, I agree. I think it would be the most important thing for any CEO to be thinking about because it's the biggest systemic change to the business that's gonna be coming.

[00:47:49] Victor: Different functions, what, what's nice about that kind of a planning approach is different functions would flow out naturally with different weights, right? Like today, if you're a development, a software development organization and you aren't following the curve of agentic coding and you're behind, you're way behind, right?

[00:48:06] Victor: Your competitors are gonna... Right? But if you're in the, uh, I don't know, marketing department, that's, it's like marketing's like, I don't know, three or four down when you look at the distribution of like which functions are being impacted, right? You, you-- Some of the tools are still being evolved, right, so it's not quite as aggressive.

[00:48:23] Victor: But the, the plan would be a meta plan, right? Like e- every, every CEO should have that perspective of like the, these are the functions that are moving, this is, this is how they're moving forward. It's a complex b- I, I would argue it's probably the most complex change plan that a company will ever have to go through, 'cause not only is it by functional area, but the entire functional makeup will change over time, right?

[00:48:46] Victor: Some of those functions might, might even go away, right? And so that's where I could see almost every exec on the planet getting very tripped up 'cause that kind of a sequenced plan of attack against a, that level of organizational change is fairly, it's very complex.

[00:48:59] Michael: Absolutely. Well, and again, combined with the so much uncertainty and unknown about speed of evolution, what direction that will take, capability rollout, like all these things just it's terribly complicated.

[00:49:13] Michael: Um, I wanna a- I wanna ask you more questions about this, but we're, I know we're, I know we're tight on time. Maybe just to wrap up the AI, AI before we go into a couple rapid fire questions. Is there anything in the AI space that you're feeling particularly passionate or interested in right now that you might wanna share with us?

[00:49:31] Victor: Oh, no, ab- absolutely. So right now I'm, I'm actually doing a startup. I'm not running kind of a large team, um, and we're out to solve, to me, o- one of the most important issues with AI. So, uh, in a world of AI, it's very clear if you talk to any executive, like communi- digital communication, the, the trust of it is going to hell basically.

[00:49:52] Victor: Synthetic, whether something's written by an AI, partially written by an AI, a deep fake audio, a deep fake video, like we are- We are going to degrade the foundation of how businesses operate, which is the trust level of digital communications. And so, um, it was clear to me somebody had to build a solution to that, which we have built, the company that I'm now running called Imovid.

[00:50:12] Victor: So I'm happy, and we just launched that about three or four months ago, kind of the final pieces of that. So we have the solution, and my, my short-term message is if you're a CEO and exec team and you do not have a way to s- to send and receive trusted digital communication, like you need to go get it. And whether you use us or someone else, or try to h- hobble it together somewhere else, um, there are critical communications and high-impact communications that you, you just can't have your employees or your partners thinking like, "Oh, did Victor write that?

[00:50:39] Victor: Did..." It's like a, was that sentiment real? It's like, no, there, there's a, uh, there's a chunk of kind of high-impact communications that just has to be trusted. And so that'd be my, my, my key message is if you're not thinking about that, then come talk to me, come talk to our team.

[00:50:54] Michael: Absolutely. I, you know, I think, I think the majority of people, at least in the circles that I'm in, I think they radically underestimate the amount of sophistication that's in the deep, deep space, uh, deepfake space right now.

[00:51:08] Michael: You know, even, even video, you know, video and audio. It's undiscernible that, you know, it could... A message coming in that looks just like me and sounds just like me and, and isn't me.

[00:51:19] Victor: Yeah. And it's, and it's degrading now. So like I, I'm the recipient, of course, as a CEO of continual marketing communications, right?

[00:51:27] Victor: And I will say my, just my per- and this dovetails with industry, the open rates on just email have started to plummet because everyone now assumes they're AI written, and so no one's o- and I'm the same, right? I used to actually open... When these things were handwritten by people I would, I, every once in a while I would, but like at this point in time, like almost 100% of the inbounds, I just scan it and I'm like, "Yeah, that's, that was an AI.

[00:51:48] Victor: I'm not gonna give you the time of day if, if that's, if your reach out to try to get my attention is just an automated system." Like,

[00:51:55] Michael: yeah. Well, I, I can certainly say, you know, using your software, 'cause I've used it for, I don't know, a couple years now in Movviid, use it every day almost, sending video messages.

[00:52:07] Michael: Every, almost every day it, or at least multiple times a week, I get a thank you from people saying, "Oh, it was so nice to see a video from, from you." And instead of, you know, like to your point, instead of an automated message or an AI thing, like this level of personalization, even though it takes maybe a couple extra seconds, I think it goes such a long way, such a long way.

[00:52:29] Michael: And, you know, and, and again, combined with this new service you're rolling out where you can authenticate the fact that it's actually a human.

[00:52:37] Victor: That's right. Yeah. What we released in, uh, just in April was this idea of verified human communication. So yeah, when you're recording a message, we will make sure that's a real person behind a camera, not a deep fake, not a recording of a screen, and then you pair that with your email.

[00:52:51] Victor: It's like, you know, Michael, if you get a, if you get a message from me that you know is a person and it looks like me, it sounds like me, comes over Victor at a Movviid, you're like, "That's probably Victor. That's probably Victor, not a, an actor dressed up in prosthetics looking like Victor."

[00:53:05] Michael: Right. I, I'm really excited for you, for you all.

[00:53:07] Michael: I think that this certification is gonna be enormous and necessary, you know, in, in the years ahead and months ahead, so. Oh, thank you. Um, before we wrap, can I give you a couple rapid fire questions?

[00:53:19] Victor: Sure. Oh, I'd love

[00:53:19] Michael: those. Yeah. So- 27.

[00:53:21] Victor: No, I'm just

[00:53:21] Michael: kidding. Yeah. So when, when you think about, um, you know, again, we've been talking a lot about influence.

[00:53:27] Michael: If you were to do like a, like a rally ca- call for, for leaders, what would be your best tip for leaders that are wanting to improve their ability to influence the behavior of those that they're leading?

[00:53:37] Victor: I think I was gonna say this in a way that had some profanity.

[00:53:42] Michael: Say whatever you want.

[00:53:43] Victor: But it would be to go after that insecurity piece, actually, right?

[00:53:47] Victor: I think it would be like, don't... If you're not comfortable with who you are, you don't deserve to be a leader. So get your S star, star, star together first before you start casting a net over other people's lives.

[00:54:02] Michael: Hmm. So good. So good. Amazing. So we ask this, uh, as well to all the guests. We're, we'll have other guests after you, of course, and you, when you think about the topics we've talked about today around influence, behavior change, leadership, what's a question that we should ask the next guest?

[00:54:20] Victor: Maybe, uh, what's their biggest leadership gap and how have they overcome it?

[00:54:25] Michael: Hmm. Okay, that's good. I'm taking notes.

[00:54:29] Victor: My first thought was like, "Are you comfortable with who you are?"

[00:54:32] Michael: Ooh, that's, yeah, that's good. Put 'em in the hot seat.

[00:54:37] Victor: And how would you know? And how do you know? A- that's a great... Actually, the second question is the more interesting one.

[00:54:41] Victor: Like, how do you know you're really comfortable in who you are? 'Cause mo- most people are gonna say they are, even though they're clearly not, right?

[00:54:47] Michael: Right. Right, right. Yeah. That's great. That's great. Wonderful. Well, I'd love to have you back on to talk more about AI. I'm sure there's a lot more we could talk about with leadership and frameworks, and we will put all the, all the links to the various places you talked about in the notes as well, so people can tackle those.

[00:55:06] Michael: Is there anything you wanna tell the listeners about how to find you, additional resources that, you know, you haven't yet mentioned, or anything else?

[00:55:14] Victor: No. No, I think we covered 'em both. If you, uh... All those frameworks are available for free, www.victorcho.com. And for those companies or individuals interested in this Verified Human kind of must-have technology and, and capability, just go to, uh, emovid.com, E-M-O-V-I-D.com.

[00:55:32] Michael: Hmm. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Victor, thank you so much. It's good to see you. Thanks for spending the time today. Oh,

[00:55:38] Victor: no. It's a great chat.

[00:55:40] Michael: Yeah. It was so fun. It's

[00:55:41] Victor: been

[00:55:41] Michael: fun. Yeah. Well, for those that are, are listening, thank you for joining us today on the Influential Leader Podcast. That's it for today. I invite you to take at least one action.

[00:55:50] Michael: Victor gave us a number of potential actions. I invite you to choose just one. And if something resonated today that you think a leader should hear, my invitation to share this episode with them. There's a lot of valuable insights here. Uh, until next week, we'll see you then. Take good care. Thanks for listening.

[00:56:08] Michael: Bye-bye.