It’s All In Your Head w/ Barry Wolfe

Get ready—this episode swings a sledgehammer at HR mythology. Joel and Chad sit down with Barry Wolfe, former Fortune 500 HR exec and author of It’s All In Your Head, who torches what he calls “the bullshit psychology industrial complex.” Myers-Briggs? DISC? Barry says they’re corporate astrology—and AI is about to automate even more nonsense.

Instead, he drops his Value-Centric Leadership model—no vibes, no jargon, just measurable deliverables and results. Forget performance reviews—Barry wants success maps and clarity: 3–5 value outcomes per role or kill the role.

It’s sharp, it’s funny, it’s anti-bullshit—and it might be the rehab HR desperately needs. Tap play. 🔥

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

00:07.24

Joel Cheesman

Oh yeah, it's the podcast that might still be legal in most states.

00:11.53

Chad

Doubtful.

00:11.57

Joel Cheesman

It is the Chad and Cheese podcast.

00:12.45

Chad

Doubtful.

00:13.57

Joel Cheesman

I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, Chad Soash is riding shotgun as we welcome Barry Wolf, consulting HR guy, best-selling author, speaker, guitar player, and singer, and author of the new book, It's All in Your Head, Why Psychology Doesn't Help Your Employees Deliver Value,

00:16.75

Chad

What is up?

00:21.08

Chad

Barry. Oh.

00:28.95

Chad

oh

00:31.89

Joel Cheesman

And what can Barry welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast?

00:36.25

Barry Wolfe

Thanks, Joel. It's great here to be with you and Chad today.

00:39.48

Joel Cheesman

Well, good to have you. Good to have you. A lot of our listeners won't know know you. What makes Barry tick? Give us the give us the elevator pitch.

00:47.70

Barry Wolfe

Well, after about 25 plus years as a senior HR guy in public and private corporations, I was ah bored out of my mind. And about eight years ago, I had an opportunity to take a jump. And so I've been doing consulting for about eight years.

01:03.29

Barry Wolfe

Had another book out called The Little Black Book of Human Resources Management, which was a bestseller. And along the way, dealing with some lousy managers, ah employees that are generally fine, and spending lots of money on various management trainings and techniques and not really seeing anything happen. I seriously started to think about what's going wrong and did a lot of research into, in particular, the whole world of applied psychology.

01:32.53

Barry Wolfe

um Just really to understand, like, what?

01:33.18

Chad

let's get into that. but

01:33.97

Joel Cheesman

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:34.72

Barry Wolfe

Oh, let's get into that.

01:34.82

Chad

but Let's get into that.

01:34.97

Joel Cheesman

we got I got, I got a question.

01:35.41

Barry Wolfe

Okay. Oh, was this all about me?

01:35.92

Chad

Yeah.

01:37.12

Barry Wolfe

Oh, that stuff.

01:37.17

Joel Cheesman

I got a question. and I got a question. Our listeners will, will hate this, but there's like a, a revolutionary jacket in the background.

01:41.99

Chad

yeah

01:45.87

Joel Cheesman

What, what is, what is that jacket, uh, that's on like a mannequin in the background? What is that Barry?

01:51.05

Barry Wolfe

Okay. so That is a yeah it was a costume from a ah movie called Desiree. we um What's his name? Marlon Brando played Napoleon.

02:03.44

Barry Wolfe

And it was a, my wife got that.

02:03.44

Chad

ah

02:03.68

Joel Cheesman

Oh.

02:04.27

Chad

Ah, okay.

02:05.48

Barry Wolfe

I'm a bit of a Napoleon nerd.

02:05.44

Chad

Okay.

02:06.96

Barry Wolfe

And my wife found that for me. It was a, it's a French infantryman's uniform.

02:13.67

Joel Cheesman

Like an original, not a costume.

02:16.33

Barry Wolfe

No, it's a costume. It's just costume.

02:17.57

Joel Cheesman

Okay, but did did did Marlon Brando wear it?

02:17.93

Chad

It's got you.

02:18.68

Barry Wolfe

Well, let's,

02:21.03

Barry Wolfe

He didn't wear it. Now, some some really short guy did, though.

02:22.07

Joel Cheesman

Okay, all right.

02:24.19

Barry Wolfe

It doesn't fit me, and I'm not that tall.

02:25.77

Joel Cheesman

I was trying to make you look really cool there, Barry.

02:26.11

Barry Wolfe

But I appreciate that, Joel.

02:28.09

Joel Cheesman

Like I've got Marlon Brando's movie-worn jacket.

02:28.18

Chad

i But, but,

02:31.65

Joel Cheesman

Oh, well, okay.

02:31.83

Chad

It was in the presence.

02:32.22

Barry Wolfe

Yeah, i I will so take all the help I can get, Joel.

02:33.38

Chad

It was in the presence of Brando.

02:35.69

Barry Wolfe

What's that?

02:35.66

Chad

It was in the presence.

02:36.39

Joel Cheesman

It was in the room.

02:36.54

Chad

It was in in the presence of Brando, right? So it's all good.

02:39.35

Barry Wolfe

Yeah, it was he was probably around it. He may have brushed up against it, for all we know. So, you know, that's all cool.

02:43.17

Chad

and So Barry, so Barry, let me get this straight, man. You're the guy who is calling bullshit on all this entire bullshit psychology industrial complex that's been going on.

02:54.47

Joel Cheesman

Whole industry.

02:55.01

Chad

And you believe, and you believe pretty firmly that business psychology is less about science and more about storytelling, marketing, and and wishful thinking. So what brought you to this place?

03:08.09

Barry Wolfe

when I was in the fortune 500 world, I was required to use some of those tools.

03:12.83

Chad

Yeah.

03:13.27

Barry Wolfe

And I just, um, the idea that people that barely know me and I check a few boxes and some guy who I didn't think was really all that smart.

03:15.04

Joel Cheesman

Thank you.

03:24.60

Barry Wolfe

Uh, I mean, God bless him, but just saying, you know, uh, he, he looks into my soul and tells me, you know, all these things. And I, I just kind of thought, you know, you're this and you're that. Well, I guess maybe, but I think a lot of people are more this or that than me.

03:41.07

Chad

yeah

03:41.14

Barry Wolfe

And I think I'm a lot of other things. And I don't think your little, you know, 10 page check the box thing iss is really telling me anything. And, and I, you know, that's where it started.

03:53.75

Chad

Yeah.

03:53.87

Barry Wolfe

And at the same time, it was a combination of listening to, know, I've always reported to the president and the president, you you sit there one-on-one and after a while, the boss really starts going off on everything that's wrong with the company.

03:53.87

Chad

So.

04:06.55

Barry Wolfe

And why can't we get people to this?

04:06.72

Chad

yeah

04:07.91

Barry Wolfe

And why can't we that? And I've really spent a lot of time trying to think hard about what, what really is the, are the issues here and how can we address these concerns?

04:17.32

Chad

so

04:20.32

Chad

So it's not about it's not about clicking on a button until a balloon pops is what you're telling me.

04:20.68

Barry Wolfe

And, uh,

04:25.40

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

04:25.60

Chad

That's not what it is.

04:26.05

Barry Wolfe

Well, yeah.

04:26.64

Chad

Yeah.

04:27.25

Barry Wolfe

i just, yeah. Yeah. Good. Well put.

04:30.30

Joel Cheesman

which Which is an actual test, everyone, in case you didn't know.

04:30.52

Barry Wolfe

Yeah. Yeah, I know.

04:32.79

Chad

It's an actual fucking test people.

04:33.30

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

04:36.09

Chad

I'm not kidding. So, so, okay. So, so let's back up a minute. Let you get a little bit more macro. So more than psychology, this is, I mean, this is literally how we live our lives now. Elon tells stories most, not even close to reality, but yet the Tesla stock goes up, right?

04:50.56

Chad

People use filters on Instagram.

04:50.62

Barry Wolfe

yeah

04:52.87

Chad

Bitch, that's not how you look. Marketing is calling AI ah or tech AI when it's not. So it seems like in every aspect of our lives, we're lying to ourselves and others.

05:04.83

Chad

So why would this surprise anyone and or make us want to change our behavior?

05:05.23

Barry Wolfe

Oh, yeah.

05:06.13

Joel Cheesman

Thank you.

05:09.31

Chad

This is who we fucking are, Barry.

05:11.90

Barry Wolfe

Yeah, youre and you're you're absolutely right about that, Chad. And I'll tell you that the thing that kills me about this and the research I did for this book, you know, I had started off figuring that that this all got in here by so psychologists, you know, weaseling their way past HR people who aren't necessarily maybe the most, I don't know, business savvy, shall we say.

05:27.49

Chad

Mm-hmm.

05:33.60

Barry Wolfe

I mean, we're all frustrated English majors on some level or something like that.

05:36.12

Joel Cheesman

You're way too HR polite, Barry. You're way too HR polite.

05:38.22

Barry Wolfe

You know, ah yeah I can take it.

05:40.30

Joel Cheesman

We name names on the show.

05:42.32

Barry Wolfe

Yeah, good. i yeah These are my peeps. So I can, you know, I can say this stuff. But anyway, but when I did the research, I found that, you know going back to where all this stuff really got rolling back just after World War I, it was really the business presidents that were bringing this stuff in that really believed in this stuff.

06:01.57

Barry Wolfe

even and and And it's persisted that way to this day. After the book got published, I've heard from people in my network who shared some incredible stories about, you know, the boss would make me go through test after test after test.

06:15.07

Barry Wolfe

And we're looking for that one test that, oh, that's the one that looks into somebody's soul there again and and makes all these predictions.

06:19.25

Chad

Yeah.

06:22.47

Barry Wolfe

And it just, it's not there. it doesn't it It doesn't do all that stuff. And the other scary thing,

06:28.30

Chad

So you're telling me that I'm not an INFP or ENFP or whatever the fuck Myers-Briggs.

06:28.38

Joel Cheesman

Thank you.

06:33.11

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

06:35.86

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

06:36.72

Chad

Yeah.

06:36.95

Barry Wolfe

Yes. Yes. and And honestly, you know, what when we talk about, you know, on the one it's funny how... and ah HR, you know, will talk out of both sides of its mouth in some of these things where we have to understand each person and we've got to listen to who they are and figure out what that unique person is about.

06:47.52

Chad

Mm-hmm.

06:55.88

Barry Wolfe

However, they all fit into these nice, tidy four quadrant boxes. And so we're going to just, you know, stick them into that. And it's just, you know, again, like which side of your mouth you want to talk about in talk out of today.

07:07.24

Barry Wolfe

So.

07:07.25

Joel Cheesman

This is very refreshing for me, Barry, because I've thought for a long time that assessments have a little angle of witchcraft about them. And they make people like me feel dumb, which isn't necessarily hard, but they they throw a lot of science at you and like witchcraft and magic and tell you that this is the perfect person for this opportunity.

07:25.16

Chad

Yeah.

07:25.63

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

07:26.03

Chad

Yeah.

07:26.24

Joel Cheesman

and And I love, i love, in the book title, it's all in your head. Explain that to me exactly what you meant by that. And and who is this book for?

07:34.40

Barry Wolfe

Sure.

07:35.78

Joel Cheesman

Because I'm in agreement. So who are you trying to change?

07:39.82

Barry Wolfe

I really hope above all, it's for business leaders. that are just, you know, you're on your second mortgage and you're struggling with wondering, are our parts going to ship on Friday? And, you know, are these jackasses out on the floor really going to get it together for me, please, this month?

07:56.21

Barry Wolfe

You know, those kinds of things. And so it's really for those folks, but it's for HR people. um and And quite honestly, I've had so many people who aren't in and either of those and just, you know, decided they're really interested interested in the book that have been...

08:13.20

Barry Wolfe

ah coming out and reading it and thinking about these things. So the the the title, though, to go to your point, is it's a play on words. And the one thing you could kind of say, if you think this stuff is working, it's all in your head.

08:24.92

Barry Wolfe

But the other side is, if you want to know what can, what's really the alternative?

08:29.44

Chad

yeah

08:31.65

Barry Wolfe

It's got to come back to starting with seriously, what is your business all about? you know and And the way I approach it in the business or in the book, what are the what are the key drivers of value in your business?

08:38.13

Chad

yeah

08:45.90

Barry Wolfe

What are the results you produce that tell you whether or not you're delivering that value? Now, those are two very simple questions, but they require they require a lot of very hard thinking. it's It's shut the door and think.

08:55.69

Chad

Mm-hmm.

08:59.22

Barry Wolfe

And you know look, God bless business executives, but therere they're not into that kind of thing. they They're busy. They like checking boxes. And I have my own little maxim about, you know, these people because of firsthand experience. Given the choice between thinking hard and spending money, most business executives would rather spend money.

09:19.54

Barry Wolfe

It's not that they're stupid. It's just that these questions, you know, really take a level of concentration that they just don't want to. I don't know if it's there by nature high hardwired for that, or they just don't want to.

09:30.10

Chad

Mm-hmm.

09:33.68

Barry Wolfe

They don't put that kind of time into it. And it's, so um they'd rather, you know, pay some, yeah, witch doctor to come out there and give them an answer. Yeah.

09:41.06

Joel Cheesman

Yeah, the easy button is always the easier option, right?

09:43.40

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

09:44.25

Chad

so Throw cash on it ah cash on it.

09:44.37

Barry Wolfe

yeah

09:46.10

Chad

So as we're talking about how this is, you know, great and proven science, Barry, let's run some parallels, which you do with phrenology. And if you can explain the craziness, I mean, the the science of of phrenology first for our listeners so that they can get a good laugh out of this, please please help us out because I love the parallel.

09:56.87

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

10:00.39

Barry Wolfe

Yeah. Yeah.

10:03.90

Barry Wolfe

Sure. Yeah. Oh, thanks. Cause I love that part of the book, quite honestly. um So phrenology was a pseudoscience.

10:13.69

Joel Cheesman

Thank you.

10:13.92

Barry Wolfe

It started in the late and the very early 19th century. And it was a belief that you could um understand a person's intellect and their character by measuring bumps on their foreheads, basically, or and on their skulls.

10:17.46

Chad

Hmm.

10:27.99

Barry Wolfe

And what I knew there was a ah cool way to introduce this topic when I started the research, but I had no idea. I was stunned at how and c incredibly popular this was in the United States, especially in the early part of the 19th century. Like I call it, like I say in the book, it was the early 19th century equivalent of Star Wars. It really was. I mean, this was everybody was into this stuff.

10:50.19

Barry Wolfe

And, um, and, and employers right in there, you know, they would say you'd see a job ad and it would say, bring two references and a phrenological reading, you know, um, and they really did.

10:50.16

Chad

That's crazy. Uh-huh.

11:04.42

Barry Wolfe

And, uh, And it was, you know, gradually, you know, kind of the world shifted and it was kind of, it it it lost its ah ah appeal, although it did persist, you know, really up into the 20th century.

11:18.82

Barry Wolfe

But, you know, psychology came to prominence. But I use that as kind of just a, it's a fascinating kind of touchstone. It's like a filter. You can look at psychology and recognize that, you know, so much of it is the same thing. One of the really stunning,

11:35.21

Barry Wolfe

ah in particular, things I discovered. And I dug this stuff up myself, by the way.

11:37.94

Chad

Yeah.

11:39.09

Barry Wolfe

I mean, I didn't, i you ah so anyway, but we look at like people sell ah personality tests. they Like people like me, HR consultants, they get certified in somebody's black magic and they go out and they sell this stuff and they don't have to know anything about how it works, but they just pass the certification.

11:54.64

Chad

yeah

11:56.18

Barry Wolfe

Well, the certification course idea actually originated with America's two most ah prominent phrenologists in the 1840s.

12:07.79

Barry Wolfe

And they they they were they got incredibly rich off of this stuff. So it's exactly the same. ah Psychology is not a direct descendant of phrenology, but the business model actually absolutely i came from that.

12:18.81

Chad

Mm-hmm.

12:23.58

Joel Cheesman

Does AI make this better, worse? If we're staying on the black magic and black box theme, we're trying to AI everything.

12:31.51

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

12:34.82

Joel Cheesman

and And let's be honest, people are spending a lot of money on this stuff and no one likes to spend a lot of money and be told they're wrong.

12:35.31

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

12:41.17

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

12:41.17

Joel Cheesman

Sometimes they just go spend more money on something new. So does AI make this whole thing worse or can it help solve solve the issue?

12:49.47

Barry Wolfe

Well, I would say to the extent that what we're doing today with AI as large language models that only predict statistically, what the next word is.

13:00.26

Chad

Mm-hmm.

13:00.31

Barry Wolfe

So that prediction is going to be based on what's out there in the internet and what's what it's all full of is, you know like you said, you know the Q-W-R-E-T-Y personality types and and so on. So it's just going to stuff the world with more gibberish.

13:15.52

Barry Wolfe

and the And the key thing is that all that none of that can substitute. What I come back to is just... And what it all has to be predicated upon, which is just simply the business leaders understanding what the hell is your business really all about?

13:32.95

Barry Wolfe

What do you actually, the way I like to think about it, you know, we pay people for activities, but we should want to buy results. So it's like, look, what when you pay this person, what do you want to buy from them? What do you want them to put in your hand?

13:46.79

Barry Wolfe

What do you want them to leave on the desk when they go home at night?

13:47.11

Joel Cheesman

Mm-hmm.

13:49.17

Barry Wolfe

What do you want them to leave out in the wider world? Those are the kinds of things we have to think about. and yeah Sorry, AI just isn't going to tell you that because ah a lot of that goes back to why did you you know quit your job and take a second mortgage to start a business before you told your wife? And ah

14:06.15

Chad

yeah

14:07.44

Barry Wolfe

but and sorry, AI can't answer that for you. So...

14:12.24

Chad

So it's, it feels, it feels,

14:14.79

Joel Cheesman

Don't sugarcoat it, Barry. Tell us how you really feel.

14:18.59

Chad

it feels It feels very like, you know, we've gotten into this whole elixir salesperson kind of scenario where you talked about like, you know, this is more about really narrative and, and marketing and sales and it is really science.

14:31.17

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

14:33.58

Chad

So, you know, and and you get into this, why do you smart executives and and you've said this, but, but people who grill vendors, over like five cent invoice errors, right?

14:43.67

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

14:45.97

Barry Wolfe

Yes.

14:45.99

Chad

Why do they buy into this bullshit people science thing with zero proof that it works?

14:50.35

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

14:52.45

Chad

I mean, there are PhDs and I guess I can just point and say, well, this PhD told me, so we bought it. So it just makes good sense.

14:58.20

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

14:58.24

Joel Cheesman

Mm-hmm.

14:59.69

Barry Wolfe

yeah

14:59.66

Chad

But I mean, ah why do smart executives actually, i mean, they they fall for this bullshit.

15:05.36

Barry Wolfe

Yeah. Because above all, i can only, they want it to be true. that That's, it's that above all. they they They want very easy answers to very hard questions. They got to deal with a lot of hard issues and they just want somebody to tell them, you know, here, it's it's the person in in the upper left box that you want.

15:28.17

Barry Wolfe

and And the other side of that,

15:28.42

Chad

But they care about performance. They care about performance the most. So why aren't they doing performance assessments and actual tests against the actual jobs and tasks that the the individual is going to be performing? That seems hell of a lot more practical and it would align with better performance, better revenues, et cetera. None of this fucking makes sense, dude. I don't get it.

15:51.63

Barry Wolfe

you, you, you just hit on the the key problem. You know, we, and I tried to put this in the book. I can't really figure out, I think it's like as cool as you guys could say it. I'm sure. But it's like, we think, we think if you have, no, really, I mean, yeah you guys are all, but, uh,

16:09.00

Barry Wolfe

but

16:09.15

Joel Cheesman

Oh.

16:10.68

Barry Wolfe

If you have these things, these these traits, and you've got these skill sets, we'll get these results. So it's like if A plus B, then we get C. But the problem is all we ever focus, I mean, all we ever talk about, think about, write about, pay money for is A and B. Well, what the hell is You know, I mean, really, what what do you want to buy?

16:38.83

Chad

The result.

16:38.82

Joel Cheesman

Okay.

16:40.04

Barry Wolfe

Yeah. And yeah I had a client once who asked me to help work work with her leadership team. She could go around the room to every single person, about every person, and and they were big into a particular type of personality test.

16:48.58

Chad

Mm-hmm.

16:54.68

Barry Wolfe

And they could say, she she could say, well, this person has this about them. This person you know has this person. dave This one fits in that box. She went around, I think there must've been eight people.

17:05.06

Barry Wolfe

She could describe them all. and i And then i asked her, So what are the three to five value-added deliverables you want each one of these persons to produce for you in the next 12 months? And silence.

17:18.41

Barry Wolfe

And that's the issue. That's what the hell we focus on all day.

17:20.03

Joel Cheesman

Yeah.

17:22.26

Chad

Uh huh.

17:22.66

Barry Wolfe

is and and and Well, all right, great. To what end? i mean, really? Yeah.

17:29.64

Chad

So as Joel had said earlier, this to to to me and we're always looking like because we're humans and yes, we're smart. We have PhDs, a lot of other fun stuff, but to our base level, we're really dumb.

17:42.27

Chad

We're really looking for the silver bullet so that we can point at something.

17:44.79

Joel Cheesman

and we're so And we're scared and lazy too.

17:45.12

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

17:47.27

Joel Cheesman

So if we can say them the machine told me this is what to do, then it's the machine's fault.

17:47.51

Chad

Yes.

17:47.87

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

17:48.42

Chad

Yeah.

17:50.87

Chad

Yeah.

17:51.63

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

17:52.59

Chad

so

17:53.75

Joel Cheesman

We need to go spend more money or get a new a new thing.

17:56.24

Chad

Yeah.

17:56.58

Barry Wolfe

yeah

17:57.03

Joel Cheesman

It takes culpability away from you.

17:57.06

Chad

So now... So now we've got AI being able to get pushed into this, which again, i really believe we are literally just going to lean hard into because first and foremost, we have CEOs telling us is going to be more efficient, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

17:59.21

Barry Wolfe

yes

18:09.00

Barry Wolfe

yeah

18:13.26

Chad

So we're going to lean into this even harder, Barry. This is not going away.

18:16.56

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

18:17.52

Chad

So this is going to be, we're going to lean into this even harder. How the fuck do we get out of this swamp? ah The pseudoscience bullshit.

18:23.20

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

18:25.00

Chad

How do we get out of this?

18:26.12

Joel Cheesman

Pull us out. Pull us out, Barry.

18:28.24

Barry Wolfe

I think, well, you know, especially for your audience, you know, to the extent we're talking here, you know, I guess mostly to HR people, I sincerely believe

18:32.60

Chad

Yeah.

18:37.10

Barry Wolfe

You know, ah that, I mean, look, let's face it, I say this against the backdrop of HR is still not the the business partner it's just been aspiring to since somebody or other, you know, rechristened it back in the 70s, I think, or something.

18:50.56

Joel Cheesman

Mm-hmm.

18:50.77

Barry Wolfe

I really believe that this is a vehicle where HR could be that respected partner that it's always wanted to be by leading the change in the conversation seriously.

18:58.57

Chad

yeah

19:01.43

Barry Wolfe

ah ah of you know when when the When the manager comes busting in my you know into the the the office and saying, you know i've got to get I need a new replacement engineer and I need five years experience and you know a bachelor's degree.

19:12.94

Barry Wolfe

It's like, okay, no, before we get there, again, like what are the three to five value added deliverables you want this person to put on your desk in 12 months?

19:21.41

Chad

Yeah.

19:22.14

Barry Wolfe

Let's start there. You know, and and and then and then we'll work into, you know, that's all the way down at the bottom end of this discussion. But it's it's the first thing for most people.

19:32.55

Chad

yeah

19:35.39

Barry Wolfe

So it it just has to come back to leading the way to what really do you want from these people?

19:35.87

Joel Cheesman

Barrett.

19:42.48

Barry Wolfe

Right.

19:43.32

Chad

yeah.

19:43.38

Joel Cheesman

yeah I want to i want talk about the journey. So the recruiting, interviewing, the hiring, the onboarding, the upskilling is huge now.

19:54.05

Joel Cheesman

are is Is this a problem on the and the entire lifespan of an employee? Is there anywhere that we're getting it right I mean, I feel upscaling is such a big thing right now. I feel like we're just going to put more more slop in this machine and make that worse.

20:10.81

Chad

oh yeah

20:10.80

Joel Cheesman

But talk about the journey.

20:11.71

Barry Wolfe

yeah

20:11.84

Joel Cheesman

Do we get it right anywhere? Is it bad the whole way?

20:16.64

Barry Wolfe

We take some, I think, um in my humble opinion, you know we we we take a lot of very promising steps when you think about things like, you know say KPIs, where we're trying to drill into things that we can look at. we're We're not trying to measure what's in the soul, those sorts of things.

20:35.33

Barry Wolfe

But when we try to get at, what do I see? you know what what do i What can I measure?

20:44.18

Barry Wolfe

and And use that as the point of departure. Look, that's that's what we have to do. But the problem is that it's step two, if you will, because the real point of departure is, again, what is it you want from these people? Which, you know look at job description.

20:58.77

Barry Wolfe

look at a job description you know When you go back to my idea about the A plus B equals C, you know look at what a job description is.

21:00.83

Chad

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Uh-huh.

21:04.04

Joel Cheesman

Mm-hmm.

21:05.14

Barry Wolfe

And we talk about what people do all day. But no one wants to buy do. Value is not a verb. It's a noun. So you have that. And the other side of it is you look at performance appraisals, pull out any of them, and you'll see things like commitment to quality and initiative.

21:24.75

Barry Wolfe

It's like, this isn't performance. This is a psychological profile, for God's sake. I mean, seriously.

21:30.02

Chad

ah

21:31.25

Barry Wolfe

So, you know, the idea that we're going to try to come up with, you know, real milestones and we're going to, you know, quantify or or or put better descriptions around our rating system, whatever it is.

21:36.22

Joel Cheesman

Thank you.

21:44.26

Barry Wolfe

Well, that's a real step in the right direction. But to describe what? Again, like my, I possess some quality or the, what the hell do you know? you know i mean? I can't even figure that out about my wife, you know, or the children i raise, you know,

22:00.09

Chad

Yeah.

22:00.42

Barry Wolfe

And yeah I mean, seriously, and and at what point do we just say, there's just got to be a start over here, you know, going back to really just what we're missing.

22:00.86

Chad

Yeah. Yeah.

22:08.11

Chad

yeah

22:10.62

Barry Wolfe

And I think it just comes down to what a lot of business leaders don't really want to have to sit and do the hard thinking around, which is just really what's missing is what seriously do you want from this business?

22:22.32

Barry Wolfe

What do you want to deliver for this business?

22:24.58

Chad

yeah

22:25.23

Barry Wolfe

The nouns, not the verse, not the aspirational feel good. We're all gonna, you know, i mean I mean, just look, we are drowning in that garbage.

22:31.48

Chad

Fluffy.

22:33.37

Barry Wolfe

I'm sorry.

22:33.71

Chad

Oh, I know.

22:33.89

Barry Wolfe

We are, we are flooded with that.

22:34.59

Chad

Yeah.

22:37.66

Barry Wolfe

And, and all the, all the, the, oh damn, starts with a P. the I can't think of the word. I'll think of it like this morning at midnight, but yeah, but that, that's, that was not one of them.

22:45.65

Joel Cheesman

we We have a few P words, but they're probably not applicable well to this conversation.

22:49.95

Barry Wolfe

You know, but platitude, platitude, that's the word.

22:50.60

Chad

There you go.

22:52.33

Joel Cheesman

Mm-hmm.

22:52.93

Barry Wolfe

You know, that that's the word. So yeah we we have all of those things everywhere. And that's what we talk and think about. and And it's all, leadership has become all this stuff about feel good and so forth. You know, ah like i I talk about the book, like the ice cream on Fridays thing, you know?

23:09.48

Barry Wolfe

Well, you know, the average college student's graduating at $26,000 in debt and ain't doing that for your fricking ice cream on Fridays. You know? i mean, really, how are you going to help these people afford a house? And and that's that goes back to the hard thinking things.

23:23.53

Barry Wolfe

what what and And I love to point out, um you know, when people start day one, everybody wants to know day one, how do I get a raise around here?

23:35.67

Barry Wolfe

And If you ask, and I've done this with groups of business leaders, and I've asked them, what do you think is the one question everybody has on their mind? None of them got it.

23:44.31

Chad

Yeah.

23:44.82

Barry Wolfe

There's a kid named Zach. He's the only kid that ever got it. And I point out to them, I promise you, when you hear the answer, all of you are going to agree with me. And I give them that answer. What everybody wants to know day one is, what do I got to do to get a raise around here?

23:56.26

Barry Wolfe

And everybody laughs and ha-ha.

23:56.40

Joel Cheesman

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

23:57.54

Barry Wolfe

But it's true, isn't it? Yes, you do all agree with me.

23:59.25

Chad

yeah

24:00.04

Barry Wolfe

and And I point out to them, if if you've got a yeah if you have ah a guy coming into a bargaining unit, what's the answer? Well, it's easy. Walk in and out of door enough times until the until the contract says you get you get a raise. Yep.

24:12.13

Barry Wolfe

What if it's a sales guy? Without hesitation, everybody goes, get more sales. Yep. Why is the sales guy the only person in your company who can give you who can get an answer to that question? Why?

24:23.97

Barry Wolfe

And it goes back to the question of value.

24:24.06

Chad

Well, because the company doesn't want to pay you more in the first place. I mean, that's the, that's the real answer. The company doesn't want to pay you more in the first place. They'd rather go ahead and pad profit and look at stock buybacks.

24:31.48

Barry Wolfe

Well, yeah. Yeah.

24:34.68

Chad

So now, now as, we're as you're tearing all of this down, what do we build it back up with?

24:35.04

Barry Wolfe

Yep.

24:39.12

Chad

You talk about value centric leadership. What the hell does that even mean?

24:42.21

Barry Wolfe

Yeah. Yeah.

24:43.49

Chad

What, what do you, how, how do you, how do you, how do you implode?

24:43.76

Barry Wolfe

Yeah.

24:44.62

Joel Cheesman

Walk us off the ledge, Barry.

24:46.53

Chad

How do you implode all of this bullshit and build it on something that is actually a stable foundation?

24:46.71

Barry Wolfe

Yep. Sure. yeah

24:52.23

Joel Cheesman

And there are a lot of people listening.

24:52.36

Barry Wolfe

yeah but

24:53.75

Joel Cheesman

they're They're picking up what you're dropping, but maybe they don't know what that first step is. So in the solutions, what's that first step for that person listening?

24:58.22

Barry Wolfe

yep sure

25:01.85

Barry Wolfe

Well, you will find it in my book, by the way. Have I mentioned my book? and Anyway, we've got at least 10 minutes. But ah yeah, the book's called...

25:05.67

Chad

What's your book? What's this? You have a book.

25:06.49

Joel Cheesman

Not enough. You must be in HR. More sales, Barry.

25:08.97

Barry Wolfe

Yeah, yeah.

25:12.01

Barry Wolfe

ah So the first step is is a document that is a very simple thing, as I mentioned. It's just simply listing in noun phrases. what are What are the key drivers of value in your business?

25:23.54

Joel Cheesman

you

25:26.58

Barry Wolfe

And then for each one of those, what are the key results in the business that that you produce that are going to tell you whether or not you're creating that value. And ah that's that's the that's the first step of it.

25:40.08

Barry Wolfe

um There's actually nine, so I don't know if we got time to go through all nine, but um there's that. But based off of that, we create something that I believe could replace should replace a yeah ah performance appraisal.

25:52.44

Barry Wolfe

And it's I call it a success map for lack of a better term. But basically, it's looking at

25:58.70

Joel Cheesman

Thank you.

25:59.24

Barry Wolfe

drilling down through from those key drivers of value, those key business results, what do different positions deliver that contribute to the business being able to deliver those results?

26:13.92

Barry Wolfe

And there's there are those gradations. We can talk about what's successful, what's you know really, you could say, exceed expectations. And what's the top 2%? Like you want to get the boss's attention, deliver this to this level.

26:27.67

Barry Wolfe

and And then, you know, what might get you fired if you don't deliver it, those kinds of things. So it's working through that.

26:31.70

Joel Cheesman

Mm-hmm.

26:33.00

Barry Wolfe

It's getting leaders to kind of create what I call kind of the value mind shift to stop thinking about people and jobs in terms primarily of their duties and focusing on their deliverables.

26:47.44

Barry Wolfe

There is a language change thing. i I didn't put this in the book, but um instead of the, you know, everybody's looking for the, the, the substitute word for employees, right?

26:57.95

Barry Wolfe

um Minds contributors.

26:58.47

Chad

Hmm. Hmm.

27:00.32

Barry Wolfe

and And so like like in my clients, we rewrite the handbook and we call it the contributor manual. And we take out the word employee. And because really, I mean, isn't that what you want from people? You want people to be contributors, right?

27:11.93

Barry Wolfe

And so we do those kinds of things to help, you know not least of which to help leaders think about how do I approach you know a yeah a coaching challenge with people? How do I approach thinking about what they're here to, if I want to help them develop?

27:28.12

Barry Wolfe

um You know, it's not just simply, i don't know, join Toastmasters and deliver a couple of speeches.

27:29.68

Joel Cheesman

Thank you.

27:33.46

Barry Wolfe

Look, what's what's the what's the value that this exercise is supposed to deliver? And that's what we got to focus on and and tell us whether or not we're, whether or not this is a success point.

27:43.74

Joel Cheesman

Barry, you're making my head hurt, man. This sounds like a lot of work to me. um Are you saying that there's no SaaS business I should look?

27:49.92

Chad

It is.

27:53.70

Joel Cheesman

there's no easy There is no easy button. like There's no vendor that you can recommend that does this. People have to put in the hard work. Is that what I'm hearing?

28:02.35

Barry Wolfe

Well, gosh, Joel. ah Why? Yes. Although they certainly could call me, you know, just saying, because this is, you know, kind of part of my book.

28:07.10

Chad

Oh.

28:07.71

Joel Cheesman

There it is. There's the sales guy.

28:10.43

Barry Wolfe

There's the pitch.

28:10.46

Chad

Read the book. Yeah.

28:11.64

Barry Wolfe

Yeah. Otherwise, no

28:17.17

Barry Wolfe

No, but that's just it.

28:17.44

Joel Cheesman

There it is.

28:18.05

Barry Wolfe

It's a slog. i mean, I have clients, we you know, these these developing that first document, um which I call the same page, by the way. And the reason is because every boss I ever had, when they're complaining about whatever's going wrong, they all got to say, we just got to get everybody on the same page. And I've thought like, we've got a strategic plan. We've got core values. We've got a mission statement.

28:36.77

Barry Wolfe

Aren't these supposed to do that? And so they don't. It's this document. And that's why I call it, this is the same page.

28:43.71

Joel Cheesman

Clever.

28:44.05

Barry Wolfe

Um, but, uh, thank you. Um, but, you know, but to develop, but in creating that, I mean, I've had, you know, 90 minute to two hour discussions, like six to eight of them with the president of the company.

28:58.16

Chad

Mm-hmm.

28:59.21

Barry Wolfe

And it's, it's almost honestly like kind of a psychotherapy session, you know, I mean, it's a lot of notes and then just distilling that and, know, how we doing with this? Are we getting closer with that? And, and, uh, wordsmithing this, but we get it down to a 300 word document, no MBA speak, no aspirational, you know, heart thumping cue, the music stuff.

29:16.11

Chad

Bullshit.

29:18.91

Barry Wolfe

It's stuff. You can put this on the wall and your CFO can understand this, everybody in the C-suite and your 20 year old machine operator.

29:19.23

Chad

Mm-hmm.

29:25.87

Barry Wolfe

And, and every doc, everything you think about, everything you talk about, everything you spend money on lives in this document or it's a waste of time. And,

29:34.32

Chad

And that is Barry Wolf kids in the book is it's all in your head.

29:36.37

Joel Cheesman

Barry Wolf, everybody.

29:41.04

Chad

Isn't it anti HR?

29:42.36

Barry Wolfe

it

29:42.42

Chad

Man, it's, it's, it's, it's anti, anti bullshit. That's what it is.

29:46.24

Barry Wolfe

Thank you.

29:46.82

Chad

Uh, if you're, if you're tired of buying science, baked snake oil, grab a copy, pour a drink and start delivering some damn value kids.

29:55.64

Barry Wolfe

yeah thank you. And could I put it on a little plug in?

29:58.89

Chad

Sure.

29:59.05

Joel Cheesman

It's

29:59.83

Barry Wolfe

if If anybody's curious, they can come to my website. ah If you go to argoshr.com slash book, you can get a free chapter three.

30:10.77

Barry Wolfe

ah You can get a PDF and download it.

30:10.78

Chad

Oh,

30:12.93

Barry Wolfe

And um that's got a lot of the punch in the stomach stuff. So, yeah, if you're not sure you want to buy it just start off with chapter three and then.

30:18.82

Chad

my favorite.

30:21.75

Joel Cheesman

It's like I'm watching Pulp Fiction. If you want to fix it, you got to call the wolf. Barry Wolf, everybody. Chad, that's another one in the can.

30:28.01

Barry Wolfe

love that. Oh!

30:30.23

Joel Cheesman

We out.

30:30.66

Chad

Way out.