Michael Gale on the Fast Leader Show

Michael Gale Show Notes Page

Michael Gale owned a number of trademarks on journey mapping when they built the methodology 14 years ago. But now he has to admit it’s no longer relevant because you can’t fit a journey map into a world of moments. With organizations now needing to digitally transform and customers being in complete control, Michael explains you must think and do things differently.

Michael was born in Exeter, England. His father was an academic, so the family moved around as his father gained seniority. Michael has lived in Swansea, Cardiff, Southampton, and moved to the U.S. in 1993.

His parents were happily married for 44 years until his father’s death 11 years ago. Michael has one sister who is currently a professor at the University of Manchester.

His parents were married extremely young and did nothing but love their children, stretch them, and rejoice in their journeys. Michael feels incredibly lucky. His sister is a certified genius and though Michael struggled, his parents never treated their children differently. From a very early age, Michael’s family would have deep debates at supper at 6.00pm every night. Michael’s mother is a brilliant ceramicist and his sister is an extensively published world expert on women in theater.

Michael immigrated to the U.S. in 1993 and was privileged to be part of an incredible company led by Peter Zandan, one of Austin’s founding 1990’s entrepreneurs. Michael then went to a company called Micron to lead their web. 1.0 revolution. From there he went off on his own to build two companies, which were both sold to Monitor Group, Forrester. Michael’s last company was sold to a $1bn+ consulting firm.

He is currently partner at inc.digital, which coaches and trains organizations to thrive in their digital transformations. And the co-author of “The Digital Helix” which shows what drives performance for digitally transforming organizations as well as the key components and mindset skills needed to lead in this digital-first world.

Michael wants people to be so well attuned to the power of digital transformation that they can drive changes and results they could never have imagined before.

Michael lives in Seattle with his life partner and best friend Lara. They’ve been married for 22 years and have three dogs they adore.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @MichaelGale to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow Click to Tweet

“Digital transformation is going to touch everything we do as consumers, citizens and business for the foreseeable future.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“Everything we touch, feel, experience and don’t even understand that’s there is going to be digitally transformed.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“You’ve got to dream what you want, because now the technology can give you those possibilities.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“Creativity should generally overcome any problem.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“There is an intent to buy an answer when you need to breed your own system for doing it.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“Only 16% of organizations are getting digital DNA right.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“If you can’t digitally transform in 2, 3 or 5 years, you might not be around in 10 years.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“Really think big. Don’t think small. Don’t think incremental. Genuinely think how you can radically disrupt your own norms.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“Tradition is just the illusion of permanence.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“You should not limit your imagination to history.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“All the most successful organizations planned marketing and communications as one flow.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“All this journey mapping, I don’t believe it’s valuable anymore.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“Everybody is responsible to each other.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“Strategy is about being in the moment and one step ahead; never go past the horizon.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“Your strategy should be, how can we be successful and nimble.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“The ship we were part of building is no longer relevant.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“You can’t fit a journey map into a world of moments.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“Customers are in complete control of what they want, when they want and how they want it.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“The world you’re trying to service is very different from the world you used to service.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

“Journey mapping is like putting a steam ship engine into a sailing boat.” -Michael Gale Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Advice for others

Be infinitely more aggressive and accept that really good things will happen.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

The inability to let go.

Best Leadership Advice

Make people the best version of themselves and organizations will thrive.

Secret to Success

I tend to work harder and faster and deeper than most people.

Best tools that helps in Business or Life

Innate sense of curiosity.

Contacting Michael Gale

Email: Michael [at] inc.digital

website: https://www.inc.digital/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MichaelGale

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/migale/

Resources and Show Mentions

Call Center Coach

Empathy Mapping

54 Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Competencies List: Emotional Intelligence has proven to be the right kind of intelligence to have if you want to move onward and upward faster. Get your free list today.

Show Transcript:

[expand title=”Click to access edited transcript”]

171: Michael Gale: The ship we were part of building is no longer relevant

Intro: Welcome to the Fast Leader podcast where we explore convenient yet effective shortcuts that will help you get ahead and move forward faster by becoming a better leader. And now here’s your host customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

Need a powerful and entertaining way to ignite your next conference retreat or team-building session? My keynotes don’t include magic but they do have the power to help your attendees take a leap forward by putting emotional intelligence into their employee engagement, customer engagement and customer centric leadership practices. So, bring the infotainment creativity the Fast Leader show to your next event and I’ll help your attendees get over the hump now. Go to beyondmorale.com/speaking to learn more.

Jim Rembach: Okay, Fast Leader legion today I’m excited because I have somebody on the show today who besides being very quick-witted and funny has some great deep knowledge in regards to something that is so vitally important to a lot of organizations today, and that is digital transformation. Michael Gale was born in Exeter, England. His father was an academic so the family moved around as his father gained seniority. Michael has lived in Swansea, Cardiff, Southampton, and moved to the US in 1993. His parents were happily married for 44 years until his father’s death 11 years ago. Michael has one sister who is currently a professor at the University of Manchester. His parents were married extremely young and did nothing but love their children, stretch them and rejoice in their journeys. Michael feels incredibly lucky, his sister is a certified genius and though Michael struggled his parents never treated their children differently.

Michael Gale: From a very early age, Michael’s family would have deep debates at supper at 6 p.m. every night. Michael’s mother is a brilliant ceramicist and his sister is an extensively published world expert on women in theatre. Michael emigrated to the U.S. in 1993 and was pledged to be a part of an incredible company led by Peters and Ann, one of Austin’s founding 1990s entrepreneurs. Michael then went to a company called Micron to lead their web 1.0 revolution. From there he went off on his own to build two companies which were sold to monitor group and Forrester. Michael’s last company was sold to a billion dollar consulting firm. He is currently partner at Digital Ink which coaches and trains organizations to thrive in their digital transformations and he’s co-author of the Digital Helix which shows what drives performance for digitally transforming organizations as well as key components and mindset skills needed to lead this digital first world. Michael is in Seattle with his life partner and best friend Laura. They’ve been married 22 years and have three dogs they adore. Michael Gale, are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Michael Gale: Absolutely.

Jim Rembach: I’m glad you’re here. Now I’ve given my legion a little bit about you, but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better?

It’s still digital transformation. It’s 1.7 trillion initiative it’s the size of the Italian economy, size of the10th biggest economy in the world. It’s going to touch everything we do is consumers, citizens and as businesses for the foreseeable future it allows us to whiteboard what’s possible and really see no limitations other than the size of the whiteboard you’re writing on. So I think if you can’t be enthused by that I think life itself probably isn’t very interesting.

Jim Rembach: That’s an interesting point. Okay, so when you start talking about that magnitude from an economic perspective are we really talking about touching every single vertical in industry both public and in private sector?

Michael Gale: Yeah. I think every moment of our lives is going to be radically touched by—I’ll give you sort of a slightly bizarre 24 by 7 example. Imagine it’s midnight you’re in bed it’s very likely you’re going to be tracking your heart rate potentially even your sleep patterns and sending that to a company that will then either electronically adjust your bed or will load those theoretically into medical files that are used to them handle sleep issues or type II diabetes issue. At the same time many of us have nest devices in our house they’ll be tracking where your heats being delivered where it’s leaking and how much is costing you and even potentially going onto the grid and finding a lower economic cost for that electricity at 12 o’clock at night. Well, emails will be passing around and that marketing program you set it up four o’clock in the evening will be fully tested and be delivering results by nine o’clock in the morning that could affecting your supply chain could be affecting your media and marketing partners could be effective in what you set your opening address to your team at 9:00 in the morning and more importantly the way you interact with a government and you move town maybe that day to get a new driving license could all be done online. So, I think absolutely everything we touch, feel, experienced, don’t even understand it’s there is going to be digital transform if not it’s currently being transformed in their real-time.

Jim Rembach: In addition, in the book you had talked about a digital transformation perspective and you had mentioned something about in the next 12 months leaders estimate that they will spend an average 19.9 hours per person per week in digital transformation issues. But then over the next three years you say that number’s going to climb to 22 hours per person.

Michael Gale: That’s two bits day a week that’s literally—it’s a Monday or Friday or Tuesday, Wednesday or whatever it is, you’re going to spend that much time thinking about this issue. That’s not just I say nest these were executives we actually interview for the research, thousands of them we talked and said, look what you’re spending your time on and how you categorize it and I think this is the most transformative process because for this are the first time ever we’ve built technology in this field of dreams concept if you build it they will come well now we reverse engineered it you’ve got a dream what you want and the technology can give you access to those possibilities. And that’s not a very difficult pitch for a company to make to a CEO or the VP or department manager but they have to actually teach them how to do it and that’s where the failure rate occurs that’s why so many companies get this wrong.

Jim Rembach: When you start talking—for me in listening to you I started thinking of so many things that are associated with this whole digital transformation, of course all the culture components, I started thinking about the issues with creative thinking and the problems that we have with creative thinking and creative thinking is a foundational component necessary for innovation to happen, I start thinking about how organizations typically go about their business and often squash the creative thinker. So, when I start thinking that—you name in here seven challenges to doing digital right I sort of goodness I probably added five more just right there.

That’s okay. What we know from the research, when we talk to sort of 30 digital transformation masters in commercial and when we do the primary research of huge engine event with the Economist Intelligence Unit originally, is that creativity generally should overcome any problem I think that’s true in life, politics, everything. The challenge really is that lots of other things that organizations squash before they can even squash creativity. I think one of the issues is over-promising, I think that that chasm can be a terrible disaster.

Michael Gale: I think secondly there is an intent to try and buy an answer when you need to really fertilize and breed your own system for doing it. So, creativity is a good place to go to if you can solve those major seven challenges if you can solve those seven challenges you could have the best creative thinking in the world but it will never get out of the whiteboard it’ll never get out of the plan it will never get out of the PowerPoint. We found that really only 16 % of organizations we’re really getting this sort of digital DNA right and the other 84% that don’t, don’t not want to do it they just don’t know how to do it correctly. They don’t put the elements the genetic components in place that give them a high chance of success.

Jim Rembach: Needless to say the genetic components is where you start getting into the helix aspect of it. In the book don’t even introduce the helix until chapter 7, you’re already halfway or more through the book before you start revealing it because there is all this ground and foundational work that you’re talking about. One of the things when you start talking about the seven challenges component, initially when I looked at it I was like, ugh, I lost my breath for a second, but then I got what you were coming from and part of it like a number seven of your challenges you say that digital is not just customer focused, so I think it’s important to elaborate on that a little bit.

Michael Gale: I’ll give you a fantastic example. If you look at customer service in an organization there are thousands, millions maybe hundreds of millions of interactions organizations have with customers—what went right, what went wrong, what they could do better to have a reaction—well, the real value of that information is not actually just in the customer element but how your employees function, how they interact, how they can sense and feel changes how it affects economics of the organization, how it affects supply chain, how it affects employees skills management. If you really look at it closely digital has always been on the edge, it’s always been customer focused we all did web on their websites but the intrinsic value of digital is how it makes the systems work internally better, to be responsive to employees, to partners, stockholders, and customers it shouldn’t just be limited to just customer interaction on a website the power of that information to change different and to make different decisions is remarkable. Surpass, is a great example of that in terms of the shoe industry but GE should be doing a much better job of the way they’re doing it now with employees and partners than they do. So, just looking at the edge customers ignores the truth of the corm where it could be valuable.

Jim Rembach: When I start thinking about the enormity of this issue and the rapid pace and the economic requirement, the competitive requirement, so many different elements a talent requirement top talent they don’t want to work for the 84% they want to work for the 16% right?

Michael Gale: You are so true. I think particularly in the current job market where we’re lower on that Phillips curve unemployment mark than maybe the last three decades I think we’ve seen a shift where employees want to start to become a workers want to become their own CEO, manage their own careers that pressure of the light side and the dark side are more transparent than ever before. Organizations look at Indeed they look at Glassdoor, maybe the Forbes or Fortune list of top companies and that’s an increasing variable in selection of organization. I go there and become a better version of myself because there is going to be another job I want to be able to leave somewhere having accumulated skills, equity for the organization and knowledge I can use to advance my own career my own income level. So, I think it is very concerning if you’re not being part of that 16% it will continue to drag yourself down with millennials which in a few years’ time will be 50% plus of the workforce.

Jim Rembach: Yeah, that’s a very short timeline. And even going past that ten years beyond they become like 90% of the workforce it’s like a huge drop-off.

Michael Gale: Yeah, and frankly if you can’t succeed and digitally transform within two three five years you may not be around in ten years. We asked the CEOs two three years ago basically what they thought the biggest threats to them? Fifty five percent said we are more concerned about startups in our segment as really critical threats than ever before. Tiny little fireflies making elephants jump up and down. So, if they don’t solve those challenges in the next two three or four years they may not be employing anybody in five to ten years’ time.

Jim Rembach: That’s a good point. Typically speaking, when you start talking about large organizations that have been around for a long time that whole transformation process takes significantly longer than it would otherwise you have just so much legacy baggage and weight that prevents you from doing the pivots that are necessary. If I’m in that position what are one or two things that an organization can do in order to start a spark?

Michael Gale: I think there’s two actually. One is, yes we didn’t get to the digital helix of chapter seven because I think people try and digitally wrap themselves and assume that’s transformative. Having a website or even having an ability to communicate with customers online that’s not digitally transforming yourself. So, the first thing is be aware of what your challenges and drivers are invest at least an hour, read the first eighty pages of the book it might surprise you.

The second issue is really think big. Don’t think small don’t think incremental don’t think wrapping generally think how you can radically disrupt your own norms your own traditions because tradition is just the illusion of permanence that’s not a truth it’s just a reality of the world it’s a great piece—an English newspaper today talked about the volume of purchasing that they predict will be done with cash currency by 2026. They argue that less than one in four transactions, one in five rather, will be done in cash. In fact, theoretically by 2036 maybe less than 1% of transactions are done in cash. So in a history of two and a half thousand years of cash we’re arguing in less than 1.5 percent at that time the idea of cash could disappear. So, I think you should not limit your imagination to history you should genuinely think very big about what you could disrupt internally that has a natural upside to it of great magnitude don’t think small think big but take small steps on how to get there.

Jim Rembach: I think that’s great a point. So many of the things that we project are taking much longer in fact are not. Like what you just referred to for a time I work for deluxe financial services and a lot of people here in the states known them as the cheque printing company, deluxe of cheques. They were talking about their projections how paper payments via cheque we’re going to go away within a period of time. And I was like, no, that’s going to take a generational shift, it’s not going to happen that fast. I’ll be darned if it didn’t. The shift was just so rapid it was amazing. Okay, I’ve got to create and bolster up my DNA and so talking about the helix, if you could step us through the digital helix real quickly, I think that’d be great.

Michael Gale: It’s really based on primary research huge amount of it about a thousand case studies we work through and really 30-35 interviews that probably took about 300 hours to do we just follow people and when we looked to the research when we look to their interviews we found sort of seven common interconnected components. The 16 % got it right so far empirically and the 30+ people we interviewed pretty much got it right the seven components dominate everywhere. So, component number one, executives in these organizations were digital explorers. They didn’t just support digital initiatives they physically roll their sleeves up and became active sort of advocates for the change process not just strategically but on a day-to-day basis. They said, hey I’m going to own project A, B and C I’m going to make it happen. They roll their sleeves up the only mandate after they’ve done and they live these principles in however they interact how they measure how they work really big deal. If you look at Larry Scott, Pat or even executives in some government departments they don’t just believe in this they really live it they live it. They live it daily and they function that way.

The second component—remember all these are three dimensionally connected like a helix it was this idea of information being about listening in new ways. Traditionally we have this sort of predefined ways, we listen socially, we interact socially, what we found with information is it’s almost like having a set of bridges floating across a range of rivers. Some information becomes really valuable and then it loses its value. Some streams of information places you could get it become valuable and then lose that value then come back again. So, you’re looking at this constant ebb and flow of information. These organizations don’t just create a dashboard and live by it for the next two years they may create and change dashboards every few weeks.

USAA was a great example of insurance company in San Antonio of this more fluid view about what relevant information you need and what streams or sources you got it from. It is why these companies are very good at paying attention to trends and reacting fast enough.

The third thing that was completely common was that all these organizations either saw their citizens or customers as having sort of experiential portfolios it’s not just one moment that matters. For example, imagine you’re buying a holiday with your partner and you go online and see some beautiful pictures of a beach in Greece. You just want to check those out so you then go on to Facebook and type in the name of that beach and you see an awful picture of a hotel that’s half built. You’re picking up experiences from a range of environments because that’s the way customers can do things now and you’ve got a respect as a brand thus the experiential portfolios are really vital. It’s not just a stuff you can control it’s a stuff way outside your control because you can really find it for the first time ever.

The third thing we found is that all the most successful organizations planned marketing and communications as one flow. They sat in the room and they plotted all the actions and words in one plan not a marketing plan and a coms plan it was the marketing and communications plan so it was a constant connected process around one idea one message one set of words one set of actions these are really empirically common. By the time we actually measured about 170 variables these types of activities were economically most connected with success to anything else. And the last three are pretty straightforward, we don’t believe in sales journeys anymore because nobody goes on a journey it is so fast how could you measure it it’s like a sprint we see things disconnected moments not as journeys. All this journey mapping we don’t believe is valuable anymore because it tries to simplify too complicated a process. Pick the moments where your brand can win tiny moments they may be and lock in on it.

The last two were much more esoteric to some but were easily explained. Firstly, everybody is responsible to each other. So if you have information I need or I have information you need or somebody else has insights we both need everybody has to share this stuff it’s fundamentally more collaborative culture in a rugby team scrums getting together quickly what’s really driving success in places the silos got broken down very quickly. Finally—and I come from a strategy background so this probably hurt my soul more than anything else—is that strategy is about be in the moment and one step ahead. Never go past the horizon because you don’t know what the horizon looks like. Your strategy should be how do we be successful and be nimble? And it’s the combination of agility and success this constant preparedness to break down where we’ve been historically as part of how these organizations are really successful. And these seven common components were present in all these organizations that were in the 16. There were 32% of organizations that had some of these but because they didn’t have all of them they couldn’t get economic return.

Jim Rembach: Gosh! There’s so many things that you were going through that I started thinking about I know that for a lot of folks who’ve actually been on the show and who I’m actually engaged with the whole journey mapping thing and the statement that you had said I know will actually drop some people to the floor—

Michael Gale: Yeah.

Jim Rembach: It’s just one of those things that is just so hot and common so many people are doing it and chasing it and want to do it but you’re saying, whoa, kind of like the whole strategy thing, you’re already a little bit too late.

Michael Gale: We owned a number of trademarks on journey mapping 10, 14 years ago when we built the methodology so I’m having to admit the ship we were part of building is no longer relevant. You can’t fit a journey map into a world of moments and customers a moment orientated you’ve got to connect moments together. There is no linear pathway it’s not like you’ve put a little ball in a tube and it drops to the bottom it’s more like a pachinko machine where there are thousands of balls running around you’ve got to decide which ones you pick up on. And it infers a level of control that brands no longer have in the communication or selling process. Customers are in complete control of what they want when they want and how they want it you have to work out at which phase of those pieces you can maybe intersect yourself.

Jim Rembach: Okay, so another thing that I was thinking about as you said that is that if I’m talking about all these moments coming together then I start thinking that it’s going to be more important for organizations to understand their analytics the insight capturing the data and being able to do the interpretation so that they can spot those particular moments.

Michael Gale: Well, yeah, you can collect as much as you want and I think whereas before we were in a shortage phase of data so capturing was critical the act of filtering, interpreting, and actually inducing action now becomes really much more critical for analysts than ever before. You’ve got to have a framework, you’ve got to be flexible in the way you think about you’ve got to recognize the world you’re trying to service is very different than the world you used to service. Yes, capture is important but probably frame working and then socializing are probably two of the more important skills that generally data analysts struggle with.

Jim Rembach: Well exactly. Even when I’ve seen people who’ve been in charge of data analytics groups and bi groups that is not forte it is to collect data and report on data not do the insight and interpretation and therefore the nuance and the finesse aspects of data.

Michael Gale: Oh, I think that’s where the big consulting firms had. The reality is the most data can be now reported automatically and frankly self-serve better. That’s why we go to Amazon because we can self-serve of an infrastructure anything we want whenever we want it how we want it. Yeah, I find my data analyst right now and I spent my whole life training skills for accumulation I’ve really got to spend my life training myself on three skills which is interpretation, frame working, and actually socializing those changes to my colleagues because if I can’t do that it will be very difficult for me to have a successful career two, three, five, maybe ten years from now. Machines will do the analysis far better than humans will.

Jim Rembach: I also trying to interpret and read through and can make connections and draw conclusions to what you’re saying is that for the longest time I have been saying how from—okay, if you’re going to do your journey mapping and that’s something that you need to do, you need to overlay the empathy components and do some empathy mapping and understand your customer at a much deeper human level because of all the things that you’re talking about that they’re having moments that they’re having different interactions than you used to in the past and humans are not textbook once I put it in ink guess what? They’ve changed, right? So I have to constantly go through and editing and iteration process. Journey maps are meant to be a little bit more static as well as looking in the past it’s more of a nostalgic component.

Michael Gale: And I can see that’s helpful and I think the reality was when we live in a synthesized world of mostly binary and some digital and then maybe you could get away with but I think journey mapping was like putting a steamship engine into a sailing boat. At some point the basic architecture of the vehicle isn’t robust enough to carry the load you want it to carry and moments are the best thing to do emotional moments, technical moments, acquisition, aspirational moments, you really should map those moments and think of this like a pachinko machine. How many balls can you capture roughly together at roughly the right time? Because that’s a logical aspiration versus this desperate need to control things with a journey when that control is no longer even possibly in your hands.

Jim Rembach: That’s a great point. Another one I would like to add to that is the fear abatement moments. The fear reduction in avoidance moments because it’s like—I was having this discussion with some of the other day where they kept talking about the aspirational side of dealing with customers and I’m like, okay, we all have been on a swing and so if you think about a swing in order for us to have momentum we have to have the back, the back part of the swing, and what do we do in the back? We kick in order to move forward. And so you have to think about when you’re dealing with customers is that their motivations come like a swing and it’s the times when they kick where we have opportunity.

Michael Gale: Absolutely correct energy statement.

Jim Rembach: Okay, so…man, gosh, with all this—and I had mentioned before when I got the book and I started reading through it, I just got excited and got a lot of energy reading about this empirical evidence, because I also love empirical evidence, and how you’ve basically built this framework for people to actually execute this digital transformation but it’s loaded with emotion. One of the things that we look for on the show are quotes to help us focus and point ourselves in the right direction and maybe get rid of some of that fear component. Is there a quote or two that you like that you can share?

Michael Gale: Yes. I think we were very careful to think about quotes at the beginning of each chapter and I think there are two in particular to me, one is tradition is the illusion of permanence—which is absolutely the best compass you should always use. Fundamentally, I think the world changes so radically that it’s impossible to assume it’s the same. I think the second one that I really like is Albert Einstein’s quote we use in Chapter six, small steps equal giant leaps. And the quotes basically this, “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking it cannot be changed without changing our thinking”—and that to me illustrates the perceptual or mindset barrier that prevents many well-intentioned organizations from really transforming themselves and they end up just transitioning to a partly digital framework. This world is so different you have to change the way you think about it was nice journeys or moments whether we think about actually illustrate the skills and attitudes you want to have not mandating it this is about a new way of thinking. The organizations we spoke with USAA, Hallmark, very traditional US company/organizations recognize this need to transplant mandate with thinking an action that was fundamentally different by nature. That is a tough thing to deal with because we’re ground down every day by the need to just do a little bit better. This is about being radically different taking giant leaps through these small steps.

Jim Rembach: I appreciate the work that you’re doing with this and look forward to your next edition as you continue this study work and see if you can help that next 16% get to their transformation faster.

Michael Gale: Well I hope. I think the US economy and others will really be open to threat from startups everywhere and at the end of the day big companies employ a lot of people globally and some of those jobs are going to I think be automated out or AI in a way that may not necessarily be the logical way to do it.

Jim Rembach: That’s very true. So, when you look at all of the things that you have going down and I can imagine because of the book and all the work that you’ve done before and the need for all of this that you have, a lot of things that are sitting in front of you as far as goals are concerned but you can’t do everything so if you had one goal, what would it be?

Michael Gale: I think one goal to me was if you look at that Fortune 100 or 500 in three five years’ time every single CEO they said, we’re as digitally transformed as we genuinely can be at this point. We’ve made mistakes we’ve had failures but we feel that we are 500% better equipped to handle the future. I believe that would be really successful if you’ve helped a number of those organizations get to that level. Because it is as much about the psychology of preparedness for a future yet to be defined as it is about the process for how to get to that point.

Jim Rembach: And the Fast Leader legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor.

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Jim Rembach: Alright, here we go Fast Leader legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Michael, the Hump day hoedown is the part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust yet rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Michael Gale, are you ready to hoedown?

Michael Gale: Yes, now I’m nervous but go ahead.

Jim Rembach: What do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

Michael Gale: Inability to let go.

Jim Rembach: What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?

Michael Gale: Make people the best versions of themselves and organizations will thrive

Jim Rembach: What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

Michael Gale: I tend to work harder and faster and deeper than most people.

Jim Rembach: What do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life?

Michael Gale: Innate sense of curiosity.

Jim Rembach: What would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners and it can be from any genre and of course we’ll put a link to, Digital Helix, on your show notes page as well.

Michael Gale: Pete Carroll’s book, Win Forever, because it really does talk about what it takes to make cultures work and it was written nearly ten years ago.

Jim Rembach: Okay, Fast Leader legion you could find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to www.fastleader.net/michaelgale. Okay, Michael, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity go back to the age of 25. And you’ve been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you but you can’t take everything back you can only choose one. So what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Michael Gale: Be infinitely more aggressive and accept that really good things will happen. I think the world is much bigger now than I realized it was then and I should have been more infinitely optimistic then as I am now.

Jim Rembach: Michael, it was an honor to spend time with you today, can you please share with the Fast Leader Legion how they can connect with you?

Michael Gale: Yeah, drop me an email, michael@inc.digital and we’ll be able to give out some digital copies of the book for free more than happy to do that to help people. Connect with us on LinkedIn and other than that this is incredible fun today, thank you.

Jim Rembach: Thank you, Michael Gale for sharing your knowledge and wisdom and the Fast Leader legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot!

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps, links from every show, special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the www.fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

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171: Michael Gale: The ship we were part of building is no longer relevant