Nobody is having this conversation about leadership

Well it's my pleasure to be here. Mikolus, I'm honored, for sure.

So by this do you mean bridge gap or this in terms of governance and enterprise governance as advancement? Which one would you like to hear?

Excellent. So it is the case that I was afforded a view of enterprises across many industries as a result of starting my consulting firm back in 2005. Subsequently also engaging with other organizations, whether in a full-time position or partnering with other consulting firms, all the way up to and including working with McKinsey and company out in Iraq to help state-owned enterprises transf transform into private industry. And what this allowed me to see then was the impact that leadership, that management And that the constituents and then even the external stakeholders had on the enterprise's ability to pursue its purpose. There's a lot said there, and I understand that. That sounds kind of lofty. You need to understand, though, that this comes from a person who was positioned to look at process improvement as an example. I am a classically trained. Six Sigma black belt. Grew up in the TQM era, worked in a Japanese company, went to Japan. I actually initiated a quality circle program. At a very young age and ran it, took a team to Japan to participate in their annual quality circle competition. My point in all of this is not to say, look what I've done. Obviously, it's to say I've had the vantage point from many perspectives of what good governance looks like, absent governance, and default governance looks like, and honestly, even bad governance. And the impact of that is more substantial and more profound than I think we realize. There's lots of conversations about leadership. There's lots of conversations about leaning out the process or going agile and things of that nature. All of those are very important. The conversation that's really missing that we see parts of now is about governance, but I'm talking about. The entire enterprise. I and of course, my goal is also to establish a common definition of the idea of the enterprise, which is the organization and its external stakeholders, right? So the full domain of all stakeholders for a given organization. That truly is the enterprise that we need to be concerned about governing.

That is such a good question. I just can't say it any other way. I may be insightful, the question you're asking, because why wouldn't I, right? I've spent literally hundreds of hours developing the idea standard. Idea, of course, stands for iterative development for enterprise advancement. And the idea of is that how do we create good practice around governance of What we are now defining as a cybernetic system, the enterprise, a system of purpose that needs to be regulated, right? That has independent agency, adding to its complexity, if you will. So complex adaptive system doesn't quite cover everything. That's why we use the idea of the cybernetic system. And so, you know, there's a lot going on there that's quite frankly, in my humble opinion, beyond what any one person should be entitled or is entitled to discuss and make decisions about. This conversation is much broader and it needs to bring in a large group of cross-industry cross platform, cross-discipline. participation, right? And and that conversation needs to be formatted, in other words, forums and it needs to create standards going forward. Much like the movement towards, for example, ISO 9001 and subsequently other more specific industry variants of that like sixteen nine forty nine for automotive, thirteen four eighty five for medical device, so on and so forth. Those have standards and we can grade and certify to those standards. Well governance is above that. Why wouldn't you do that for governance, right? So what I guess the quick answer to the question then I rarely can give a quick answer. I apologize for that. But the quick answer honestly is it's above me. And I know that. And it would be irresponsible to treat it otherwise. And so, therefore, what I have done, I've created an organization called the Council for Enterprise Advancement. The CEA then will be the home of the standard as well as COMPASS, the implementation guide, and a few other things. But it's going to be that forum that I talked about, wherein that definition of enterprise, the definition of governance and enterprise governance. And a lot of the normative practice that ought to be true of any enterprise will be established and grown. And I think that that's an important move. And so again, I decided it doesn't belong to Jason Farley, it doesn't belong to Bridge Gap Consulting. I'd love to be a part of it. So I'm going to start it, but very soon I want to involve everyone, you know. So there you go.

A lot. So it's one thing to be a trusted business advisor. and it's not that I haven't had positions previously where I was the owner. So I was a program manager at a BPO where I had significant projects and project managers reporting to me, Fortune 500 level, you know, projects. And you know, learned plenty in that role. But when you add PL and when you add sort of this accountability to people to perform, because they may not have a job next week if the operation isn't truly adding value and growing. It sort of brings a different level of urgency and responsibility. But more than that, the holistic idea and ability to impact all of the elements, having your hands on that and honestly having again the accountability to do it, therein you learn, okay, maybe I shouldn't have been so critical of leaders in past, you know, jobs, relationships wherein I judged harshly because, well, this is obvious. Why aren't you doing that? And any good leader doesn't necessarily always have to answer the question immediately. Sometimes the response is deeper. Sometimes the reasons are more complex. And everything isn't that simple, is it? That's the biggest thing that I learned as COO is that the complexity and the social skills to navigate that in response to very engaged folks has its skill. And then what would enable that, right? A governance system that truly engages those skilled individuals, those participants, but also gives me or someone in that role direction and illumination along critical aspects of the conditions that we operate in. Do they enable, do they empower this collective view that gives us the most informed decision going forward, right? That's where governance became just so crystal clear to me.

So the it's it's kind of, you know, simple. I I the wife and I we enjoy going to have a nice dinner, she enjoys wine, we have a a nice place that we go to every Friday. We're at that age now we've kind of created patterns. So we we actually eat with the same couple. we enjoy their company on a Friday and so we we definitely enjoy that.

But then we, you know, we reach out sometimes and do some crazy things. I don't know if you know who Carol G is, but Latina singer, you know, entertainer. And she had a concert here at the Sun Bowl in El Paso. And we decided just, you know, on the spur of the moment, to go to her concert. So we enjoyed that. but definitely You know, just a variety of things. Clearly, travel is always great. The wife and I picked up watching the Red Sox, the Boston Red Sox. I was born in Boston, so you know, we went and visited and saw a game at Fenway, so we enjoy watching them and they're doing well this year. So, you know, just a standard variety of things, those kinds of things I enjoy outside of work. but unfortunately, as I had mentioned to you in another conversation This whole movement, and I call it a movement because it's really taken on a sort of life of its own. It's led me down a path. It is pretty consuming, if I'm being honest. And so I will find myself very often working into the late hours, developing the standard, finishing the book, A Box of Chaos, and working on the GS spec, the proprietary GS spec that Bridge Gap will own. but also the general idea of a governance system specification and and having, you know, developing materials so the CEA can promote that idea. and so it is kind of consuming.

So a box of chaos came along around the same time the standard did. They were sort of competing for my attention and I had to decide. And you know, you and I talked about the use of AI and the and I say for so long as it's genuine and authentic and responsible, I have no problem whatsoever people augmenting their work with AI ever. you know, that's that's just the way it ought to be. An example of that is when I was battling with the idea of a box of chaos, which is the name of the book, and the idea standard, these were very, very all consuming type of activities that required a lot of energy and focus. And so being divided was really hampering and hindering my progress. And I had to decide, you know. Which one should I prioritize? And I would use, you know, AI. Claude and I had some nice conversations about what the right path was. Of course, I shared with you also that had mentors and I sh, you know, I talked to two of them about the path and whatnot. So, long story short, a box of chaos, of course, won and why. Because the logical thing is to make sure that the voice that I have relative to this topic, governance, enterprise governance specifically, It needs to be respected if I'm to have any influence. so in order for that to happen, people have to know what I'm saying. And a book is a great place to do that because you codify your thoughts and there they are on permanent record going forward. And I don't have a problem with that. You know, the idea of eventually will be to follow up and it's going to be a series of books. and so elaborating. And also updating, which is important as well, as we live in a very dynamic world now and things are changing at speeds we've just never even conceived of before because of AI. So anyway, that's what's going on. You know, a box of chaos is due to come out. At some point in 2027, I'm going to say now it's a little. I was hoping for late 2026, but things have stalled a little bit, mostly because of my perfectionism. Fortunately, you know, I won't let it go. But I've got it out to a couple of publishers and we'll see where that goes. I'm looking forward to to its publication. Ultimately, if I have to do it independently, I will, but we'll see where it goes.

You know, if we think most fundamentally about why we govern something, right? What are we regulating? What is it we are trying to achieve? We're trying to ensure that whatever it is we're governing gets to where it's supposed to go, right? So governance is advancement means. The conditions that we create through empowering and enabling, which is another way of saying leading and managing, because we know leadership is about empowering. Of course, you have to be powerful to empower. But a real leader understands we don't become powerful for ourselves, we become powerful for others. Think Maslow, hierarchy, self-actualization. When all of your needs are met, in other words, you're powerful, you're not needy. What do you do? You look out for others, you don't look out for yourself. So if we are powerful, like a real leader, then we can empower. Also, if we are able, we can enable. As a manager, if we know the direction and we know where to get things and we know what is supposed to be done, then we can truly enable others. And that powerful combination of empowering and enabling, that is the combination that creates the conditions under which an organization can participate collectively in in governance, in real governance for the what I said earlier, cybernetic system, right? And that's why governance is advancement.

Love to that.

It's akin to we're drowning, you know, we're drowning in data and starving for information, if you remember that expression, or have ever heard that. You know, that's when we're there's a lot of content, but how useful is it, right? The problem is we don't know nowadays if we're talking to a machine or a person. And in that conversation that you're alluding to that you and I had earlier, I loved it when you said, you know, it's social media, right? And yet so many now are bringing in AI responses, right? The machine. You know, so a machine is not a person. And therefore, we're starting to take the social out of social media, aren't we? and so again, and that's why I said earlier, I don't mind augmenting. Don't get me wrong. I don't mind if I see a really good comment and I want to respond, but I think there's something I'd like to incorporate. And I might bring in a part of my GS spec, the standard, or the you know, what I call the idea thoughtware register. And I might ask AI, hey, pull some content from my ITW register on this particular topic. That's research, that's augmentation. Excuse me, that's augmentation. I don't mind that. But it was kind of funny, right? When when we came to the point where I said, okay, but if the Response goes up within minutes and it's got M-dashes and the words like quietly and load bearing and all of that. In other words, if you haven't taken time to at least look at it and and think about it and put it in your own words, maybe, you know, I'm still not gonna completely judge you, but it's exactly what you said. Now everybody's just going, okay, AI, respond. AI respond. And it absolutely is taking the human out of the social, and that's not right. there again, nothing wrong with your content being supported, you know, you using AI to develop research, even wording some things. no problem with that at all. I think there's a fine line. We'll continue, I think, to define that as we get more comfortable with using the technology. I think that'll self correct over time. and it'll also become obvious. And that will be part of the self-correction, right?

Absolutely. I love that. Yes. That exactly. So that's the, you know, the what they call the mechanics or the mechanism that it'll use to set up a point, right? And that particular formatting is very popular. so you know, it's the case now that even AI, based on standards, has put within their own product. A way of detecting whether it was written by AI or not, right? And it's an algorithm or a, you know, s I forget the term already. I probably should be better about that. But if you just cut and paste AI, if somebody has that reader, they'll know whether that's just AI or not. So just, you know, be aware of that, right?

Yes. That's correct.

I apologize for that. Can you hear me okay?

So I think you were asking me what would I say if and then I didn't quite hear the rest, unfortunately.

Yeah. Like as in to direct my course of action now. Is that really what you're s okay? Yeah.

You know, I think what I have learned because of my own conditions, if you will, the I have sort of, you know, had and continue to at some level struggle with the inability to focus, right? I mean you can call it ADHD, you can call it whatever you want. but the ability though To get on a path and become good at something, right? Exercise the self-discipline and have the constitution and wherewithal to stick with something over time and become good at it. That concentration and that craft development, if you want to say it that way, leads to other paths. And don't worry about I don't know if it's the same as FOMO, fear of missing out, or whatever. Don't worry about what you're not doing. Focus on the thing that's in front of you. If you can do that, it leads, it's, you know, and you find your way to other opportunities. I think that's one of the biggest messages that I would, I would send or talk, you know, tell myself. And it's what I try and tell my two sons.

I love it. You nailed it. That's exactly right. It's so tempting, right?

Mm-hmm. I'll give you another name for that. The Tuckman model is that application to a team. That's the whole form, storm, norm, and perform. And that's exactly what it is. It's when you form, there's anticipation. This is exciting. This is great, but we're a little cautious. Then you start storming. All the tough things start coming out. People start getting on your nerves. You know that. That sort of storming is created. And if you haven't, if you don't do anything proactively and during that, then that can be prolonged and that can last and be profound. but if you do the right things or anyway, you do normalize. Normalizing around bad behaviors, of course, is problematic, right? But normalizing and then moving on to performance. So it's kind of the same idea, isn't it?

So a couple of places, right? Bridgegapconsulting.com. And then, of course, my contact information is on there. And then the CEA, Council for Enterprise Advancement. So CEA.org. by all means, check that out. and I believe it's actually CEA. Because I couldn't get C A. Give me one second. Yeah, dash idea.org. So, yeah, those are the two places I'd love for people to go and check it out and see what's going on. You know, and again, and thank you for this platform. I would encourage anybody that sees this, if you want to participate at a high level and a meaningful level in the development of this idea of enterprise and then enterprise governance.

the CEA is definitely starting to take on membership and would love to see you there and be in you know, involved in the conversation and be involved in the development.

Mikolas, it was awesome. You're a gentleman and a scholar for sure, and thank you for inviting me on. I hope some of what I shared was useful in some way, or at least at some level, interesting.