Speaker 1: This is the Startup Still Safe podcast. Thank you for
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Speaker 1: Hope you enjoy this episode. Hello everyone, thanks for joining
Speaker 1: us on another brand new episode of Startups. They'll say,
Speaker 1: we're joining you here after a few weeks break, And
Speaker 1: I'm delighted to bring to you this episode because this
Speaker 1: is a pretty special and unique episode because we've not
Speaker 1: had someone who's coming from this particular background as our
Speaker 1: guest on this call. So I'm excited for all of
Speaker 1: you to know our guest here. Jason Zimmerman is joining us.
Speaker 1: And I got to know Jason a few weeks ago
Speaker 1: through a mutual friend, and I've been super impressed at
Speaker 1: what Jason's been up to. Don't worry about it, Jason.
Speaker 1: Dogs are welcome. So Jason and his doggies on our
Speaker 1: podcast today. And Jason, why didn't you kick us off
Speaker 1: by telling us A oh, I should say?
Speaker 2: I mean I know Jason as a few things.
Speaker 1: I mean in my two or three weeks of knowing him.
Speaker 1: Jason is an economist. That's what he studied when he
Speaker 1: did his bachelor's program. He's a strategist. You know, he's
Speaker 1: focused on a lot of strategy and I mean, and
Speaker 1: I must also say, given his new adventure, Jason will
Speaker 1: also call himself a founder, right, so he is going
Speaker 1: to tell us about Threefold Collective. I know three things
Speaker 1: about Jason already, So how about that for a start, Jason,
Speaker 1: So give us a little bit about a background and
Speaker 1: we'll go from there. Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, I appreciate you having me on first off, So
Speaker 3: thank you. Yeah, the time that I got to know you,
Speaker 3: I told you this before. I love your style. It's organic,
Speaker 3: use your quick wit intelligence to sort of prompt up
Speaker 3: the right questions. And so this is a real treat
Speaker 3: for me, and so I genuinely appreciate you having me
Speaker 3: as a guest, as well as my dog, who will
Speaker 3: make an appearance at some point. So yeah, So, as
Speaker 3: you said, I founded Threefold Collective, which is a brand
Speaker 3: new consulting organization that leverages my background in three specific areas.
Speaker 3: As you mentioned economics, where I actually studied behavioral economics
Speaker 3: and applied that to certain areas. And so there's the
Speaker 3: research component in the research element that a lot of
Speaker 3: my work is grounded. But at the same time I
Speaker 3: used that, and I pushed it into sort of an
Speaker 3: applied understanding of strategy. And so I moved into consulting
Speaker 3: and from there what we were looking at leveraging a
Speaker 3: lot of the sort of psychological elements of the economics
Speaker 3: background and applied it into organizational sociology and from there
Speaker 3: and we'll get into this, I'm sure, but I applied
Speaker 3: that directly inside of an organization of Fortune five hundred firm,
Speaker 3: where I got to experiment with those ideas and really
Speaker 3: inform all the way back into how strategy, how recent
Speaker 3: can approach a problem in a new way, in a
Speaker 3: very holistic way. So I used that to found Threefold Collective.
Speaker 3: And yeah, so far I've had some early successes and
Speaker 3: I'm excited to share the journey with you.
Speaker 2: Perfect.
Speaker 1: So let's I think rolled back a few years, right,
Speaker 1: I mean I've always maybe it's just me, economics was
Speaker 1: always a boring subject, right, I mean, you know, not
Speaker 1: a lot of people will say, you know what I
Speaker 1: want to do economics, you know, and in your case,
Speaker 1: behavioral economics.
Speaker 2: I'm like, my goodness, I would never pick that.
Speaker 1: So what what what made you even pick that as
Speaker 1: something that you wanted to start your you know, college
Speaker 1: journey with and of course, I mean, you know, based off.
Speaker 2: Of that, Yeah, you're going to build your career as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, was there a pull of any sort that
Speaker 1: kind of drew you to the adjacent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great question. There is a pool behind there.
Speaker 3: So if we go back to me as a child, right,
Speaker 3: I was growing up with my mother and she was
Speaker 3: a very creative type, and she, for whatever reason, could
Speaker 3: not figure out how to balance a checkbook. That always
Speaker 3: became finance has always became a little bit of a
Speaker 3: struggle for her and for me. I looked at that
Speaker 3: as a young child, and it only took me years
Speaker 3: later to actually articulate what that was. But it was
Speaker 3: simple math. It was simple addition and subtraction, and for
Speaker 3: whatever reason she couldn't put those two things together. It
Speaker 3: took me some time to realize that after injecting the
Speaker 3: sort of psychological component of that. When you start to
Speaker 3: think about how money plays a role in society and
Speaker 3: you start to think about sort of the representation that
Speaker 3: money can have in terms of status and even the
Speaker 3: reflection of who you are, this very simple math injected
Speaker 3: with psychology became this almost non Euclidean geometry. For her,
Speaker 3: it became so complex that she couldn't necessarily interact and
Speaker 3: engage with it. And so for me, money, I think
Speaker 3: became a really fascinating topic very early on, which is economics,
Speaker 3: or at least it can be market traits, and those
Speaker 3: sort of things can really be part of what economics
Speaker 3: is founded on. It's trade, it's bartering back and forth.
Speaker 3: Right when I got out of school, you know, twenty
Speaker 3: years ago now, behavioral economics coming out of University of
Speaker 3: Chicago and Richard Taylor's work was just coming to the forefront.
Speaker 3: And so when I came across that, it became sort
Speaker 3: of the voice, the articulation that I was always looking
Speaker 3: for to sort of understand at a very micro level
Speaker 3: at this point what it was that was blocking my
Speaker 3: mother and at this point a lot of people that
Speaker 3: I saw around me when it came to money and
Speaker 3: sort of its role not just in society, but in
Speaker 3: terms of who we are as individuals.
Speaker 1: Fearful, I mean, I always love the backstory to these things.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, yeah, more often than not, it
Speaker 1: starts somewhere in our childhood, right right, And I mean
Speaker 1: I've had twenty episodes so far. I mean, then you're
Speaker 1: not the first person who said it started with my mother.
Speaker 1: But I always love those stories where you know what,
Speaker 1: I saw my mother doing this and it was so
Speaker 1: great that she did it, or you know that triggered
Speaker 1: me to do something like that. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we all thank our mothers for what we are right now,
Speaker 1: and I guess in your case it's no different.
Speaker 3: It's exactly yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so so very cool. So, so you did your economics.
Speaker 1: I mean I believe that's in the Indiana University.
Speaker 3: Yeah, university to study economics. Yeah. I walked through degrees
Speaker 3: in finance and accounting as well, so you can see
Speaker 3: the quantitative underpinions of sort of where I began.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, and then I'm trying to build up to
Speaker 2: what you're trying to do.
Speaker 3: Row.
Speaker 1: So you went on to do your MBA as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm assuming Kellogg's was a great experience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Northwestern calog it was a great experience. So there
Speaker 3: is a little bit of of story between there. So,
Speaker 3: coming out of undergrad I had intentions of going to
Speaker 3: get my PhD in economics and really pursue the theoretical
Speaker 3: component I always you know, even as a kid, I
Speaker 3: just really loved thinking about a problem and that was
Speaker 3: my intention. But at some point when I was applying
Speaker 3: to PhD program, someone told me, They're like, you know,
Speaker 3: you might have a better experience if you get a
Speaker 3: little bit of real world experience underneath your belt.
Speaker 2: That would help you.
Speaker 3: Understand not just economics and the theory, but it would
Speaker 3: help you understand the economics in the applied sense. And
Speaker 3: so that's where I found myself. At a small research
Speaker 3: consulting firm where we were I got very fortunate to
Speaker 3: get connected in with a researcher at the time who
Speaker 3: was looking into the shift of our government clients from
Speaker 3: defined benefit plans to define contribution plans. And what his
Speaker 3: major thesis was is that benefit plans being driven by
Speaker 3: professional money managers, and you know that shipped into defined
Speaker 3: contribution plans run by individuals like my mother for instance,
Speaker 3: had significantly lower outcomes. And what we were trying to
Speaker 3: use or think about was how to apply economic incentives
Speaker 3: mixed in with psychology to drive better outcomes. And so yeah,
Speaker 3: that intervening period between getting my master's where I really
Speaker 3: focus on organizational sociology in my MBA started out by
Speaker 3: looking at the individual and its role, and that sort
Speaker 3: of propelled me into consulting, where I worked at Mercer
Speaker 3: on the mergers and acquisitions team, looking at both pre
Speaker 3: and post acquisitions. And if you think about that thread
Speaker 3: that kind of weaves through there, that thread relies on
Speaker 3: the individual. If you take two organizations is coming together,
Speaker 3: the success of that organization is going to be based
Speaker 3: off of whether those people can connect. Right, people are
Speaker 3: a very sasset of any firm, and tapping into that
Speaker 3: is what we were trying. Compatibility basically, precisely, precisely, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: And so that's that thread of sort of how behavioral
Speaker 3: economics can be extended not from the individual but more
Speaker 3: to a macro view like an organization and a sociologist.
Speaker 2: So fascinating, Jason.
Speaker 1: I mean, I will admit I have absolutely no idea
Speaker 1: into this field, but every time I speak to you,
Speaker 1: I learn a lot, you know. I mean, of course
Speaker 1: I understand the whole change management aspect of it, which
Speaker 1: comes along with it, but I mean that's just a
Speaker 1: miniscule aspect of what goes into this. Right to even
Speaker 1: see to your point, is there a good fit if
Speaker 1: it's an M and A. You know, if it's just
Speaker 1: an a part of the M and A, is that
Speaker 1: even a good fit for them to come in Because
Speaker 1: the end of the day, it's not.
Speaker 2: About what you acquire or merge with. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: about whether those people can work together.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, no, is this is what I said at
Speaker 3: the start of this, Like your raw intelligence and curiosity
Speaker 3: allow you to pick up on an idea and articulate
Speaker 3: it in a beautiful way, and that's what you just did.
Speaker 3: It really is. I like to think of it sort
Speaker 3: of like any organization coming together or any change event
Speaker 3: coming together, is how do you make it greater than
Speaker 3: some of its parts. One of the things you hear
Speaker 3: me say over and over again is I care about
Speaker 3: one equation, and that's making one plus one equal three.
Speaker 3: And that is you know, any change of any evolution,
Speaker 3: whether it's us as individuals or an organization, that change
Speaker 3: allows us to get to a better place. But there
Speaker 3: is I believe a fundamental underlying conceit within that that
Speaker 3: change is hard. Right, we don't know necessarily what we're
Speaker 3: getting into, or maybe there's certain hurdles or barriers or
Speaker 3: certain friction points that we have to get it through
Speaker 3: and that is a purely psychological problem. And I do believe,
Speaker 3: especially in the arena that I work in, you think
Speaker 3: about it from an organizational standpoint, and now you're starting
Speaker 3: to talk about how individuals interact with each other, and
Speaker 3: so the sociological component of how that operates gets in
Speaker 3: obviously economics. You're working within a capitalistic society and at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, we are trying to make
Speaker 3: money for our organization, and so it's it really is
Speaker 3: this interdisciplinary approach to what I like to say is
Speaker 3: just to accelerate that change, to make that change less frustrating,
Speaker 3: to make that change, you know, less full of friction,
Speaker 3: to allow people to sort of regain clarity and control
Speaker 3: as they move into that new change. And by doing that,
Speaker 3: I think you can benefit both the employees of an organization.
Speaker 3: You can benefit yourself as an individual, but you can
Speaker 3: also benefit the goals of the organization.
Speaker 1: Well, let's move on in a little bit in your journey, right,
Speaker 1: So you did your MBA. You obviously you told me
Speaker 1: about the real world experience. I think whoever gave you
Speaker 1: that advice was very wise. I mean, I wish everybody
Speaker 1: does that right, because I mean, especially before doing an MBA,
Speaker 1: I think the real world experience really helps you connect
Speaker 1: to a lot of the things that they teach you
Speaker 1: in the NBA.
Speaker 2: I found that out myself. That's why I can speak
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 1: And then you mentioned earlier Jason, you you were in
Speaker 1: a fortune one hundred, fortune five hundred company for a while.
Speaker 1: You did a bunch of roles. There a lot of
Speaker 1: that to do with economics. You also did a lot
Speaker 1: of strategy right in terms of you know what the
Speaker 1: company should be doing or the different departments.
Speaker 2: How did that experience?
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about that experience and how
Speaker 1: that has helped you to get to where.
Speaker 2: You are right now. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The one thing that maybe think about sort of the
Speaker 3: shape this part of the story is there's research out
Speaker 3: there by John Cotter coming out of Harvard, and a
Speaker 3: lot of people listening to this may know this work,
Speaker 3: but it's John Cotter's similar work that says seventy percent
Speaker 3: of strategies fail and when you look at the eight
Speaker 3: reasons that he came up with, they fail at implementation,
Speaker 3: summarized by me as employee resistance, by certain psychological factors
Speaker 3: that individuals that companies struggle with when it comes to execution,
Speaker 3: and so for me, because theory was always my end game,
Speaker 3: because I just wanted to develop sort of the next
Speaker 3: horizon of thinking, especially within behavioral economics, I shifted into
Speaker 3: strategy thinking that was the next level down. And while
Speaker 3: I was there, I brought this quote this research to
Speaker 3: one of my global directors and I said, how do
Speaker 3: we know that our strategy isn't part of that seventy percent?
Speaker 3: And paraphrasing a very long conversation, I was basically told,
Speaker 3: why do we care? We've already been paid, And that
Speaker 3: propelled me to understand and think about that at a
Speaker 3: deeper level. If I could understand how execution works, then
Speaker 3: I could make better strategy, which that better strategy would
Speaker 3: then go into a better theory. And so, having spent
Speaker 3: six seven years in this research in theoretical and strategic place,
Speaker 3: I had an opportunity to move in with this financial
Speaker 3: services firm and they allowed me to really begin to
Speaker 3: think about how to execute these things. I worked inside
Speaker 3: the executive office for most of my time there, and
Speaker 3: what I was doing is taking the strategy that that
Speaker 3: executive office was coming up with and connecting it back
Speaker 3: into the organization, and so I was directly close using
Speaker 3: that gap that John Cotter identified, that seventy percent gap.
Speaker 3: And so I spent thirteen years inside the organization doing this,
Speaker 3: and I think had a lot of success doing it.
Speaker 3: You know, I there are some failures there, which of
Speaker 3: course we all learn from our failures, but by continuing
Speaker 3: to learn and evolve from that, I ended up getting
Speaker 3: to a place, given my research background, where I would
Speaker 3: actually be much closer to a not a seventy percent
Speaker 3: failure rate, but much closer to a thirty or forty
Speaker 3: percent failure rate. So I would really be successful maybe
Speaker 3: sixty to seventy percent of the time. And that is
Speaker 3: not exactly reassuring, But when you think about the complexity
Speaker 3: of a fifteen thousand percent organization and moving a firm
Speaker 3: through that change, you know, the thirty to forty percent
Speaker 3: failure rate is astronomical. It's it's really a very pusial number.
Speaker 3: That yeah, I think I attribute a lot to sort
Speaker 3: of my experimentation and learning back in theory and research,
Speaker 3: but also just obviously the people surrounded with me, and
Speaker 3: you know, the organization itself to really allow that experimentation
Speaker 3: to take shape.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad you said successes and failures because that
Speaker 1: is going to be my next question, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to make it a two part question. Right, So obviously,
Speaker 1: I mean, like anything else, you have some wins and losses.
Speaker 1: You know, you might come up with a certain strategy.
Speaker 1: You said, you know that's seventy percent, I mean the
Speaker 1: thirty percent all that good stuffs.
Speaker 2: And to your point, you.
Speaker 1: Know, if you can't make that one plus one equal
Speaker 1: to three, I mean, you know, at least in your words,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a failure, you know. So you
Speaker 1: also mentioned research, I mean, and I believe that's a
Speaker 1: big part of you know, the success as well, if
Speaker 1: you I mean, I've known cases where people just go
Speaker 1: by gutfield versus research, which is such a bad.
Speaker 2: Thing to do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I mean, have you done any sort of correlation Jason,
Speaker 1: to see, oh my research was wrong or I studied
Speaker 1: the wrong inputs in this case are the wrong parameters?
Speaker 1: Have you seen any sort of correlation between research and
Speaker 1: actual success of whatever program you went through or initiative
Speaker 1: you went through.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's always a complex answer, right, the
Speaker 3: answer is yes and no. So as a a researcher,
Speaker 3: I want to have this in a lab where I
Speaker 3: can control all the variables and say this is exactly
Speaker 3: what's pointing to it. And unfortunately that research, not only
Speaker 3: through myself or even in the industry right now, is
Speaker 3: still very nascent. It's still growing, and it's just not there.
Speaker 3: I am engaged with a few consulting firms that I
Speaker 3: hope to announce pretty soon where we are actually going
Speaker 3: to try to run those controlled experiments in a much
Speaker 3: greater way and hopefully produce some white paper so that
Speaker 3: we can identify those So from the traditional research background,
Speaker 3: it's just that's not there yet. But from a practiced
Speaker 3: researcher who understands correlation, causation and the scientific method, I've
Speaker 3: done my best to really try to isolate a single
Speaker 3: variable and make that change. And by understanding that one
Speaker 3: variable within a larger system, I can start to get
Speaker 3: a more intuitive or experienced or even anecdotal evidence that says, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is what is driving that. And so I do
Speaker 3: have a bunch of that that I was able to
Speaker 3: explore with and sort of understand at a deeper level.
Speaker 3: And a lot of those cases, including the early success
Speaker 3: of threefold collective is on our website for people to explore,
Speaker 3: and so a lot of that comes down to just
Speaker 3: looking at sort of communication patterns and how individuals communicate
Speaker 3: and how silos may be for and what interjections you
Speaker 3: can play in order to drive that communication forward in
Speaker 3: order to close that communication silo. Right At the same time,
Speaker 3: some of the greater success that we've had is thinking
Speaker 3: about and learning about the adoption curve and what it
Speaker 3: is that allows people to embrace change as opposed to
Speaker 3: reject change or to resist change. A lot of those
Speaker 3: things come down to more of the psychological factors that
Speaker 3: are heavily researched and we can point back to in
Speaker 3: terms of just loss of clarity, loss of control, and
Speaker 3: just the general nature of influence that we can tap into.
Speaker 3: And so there are some interesting tools and techniques that
Speaker 3: allow us to measure and quantify how an organization might look,
Speaker 3: and by doing that, we're able to retest those measures
Speaker 3: and see how these interventions can sort of drive a
Speaker 3: certain outcome that we're looking to have. So yeah, we
Speaker 3: we we've definitely approached this as scientifically as we can.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, I mean again, you know, frameworks, I
Speaker 1: love frameworks because at least they put some discipline in
Speaker 1: your thought process, you know, I mean, some of them work,
Speaker 1: some of them don't work, but at least there's some
Speaker 1: sort of organization to it.
Speaker 2: And to your point, I mean, you know, based on
Speaker 2: what you said, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, that is the way to go, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: and even even with Threefold, maybe that's a good segue
Speaker 1: for us to get in the research strategize and execution
Speaker 1: of that is super important. So why did we jump
Speaker 1: into your pet project then?
Speaker 2: Jason? What? What?
Speaker 1: What made you move on from what seems to be
Speaker 1: like a pretty exciting role at the Fortune five hundred
Speaker 1: company to do your own thing? I mean, what what
Speaker 1: was the trigger?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So Threefold Collective exactly as you said, it's a whole
Speaker 3: stick strategy consulting firm in which we focus on organizational transformation.
Speaker 3: We focus on bringing a company from point A to
Speaker 3: point B. And our skill set, I think our trait
Speaker 3: is really focused on some of the tools within sociological research,
Speaker 3: things like social network analysis that will allow us to
Speaker 3: quantify an organization and sort of their fingerprint, if you will,
Speaker 3: the informal network behind the formal network, in order to
Speaker 3: accelerate change, and as I mentioned earlier, by accelerating change,
Speaker 3: there a certain benefits that both the employee and the
Speaker 3: organization will reap from accelerating through that change. So in
Speaker 3: my time at this Fortune five hundred firm, I was
Speaker 3: fortunate enough to stand up three different organizations to guide
Speaker 3: this organization to set up these divisions and drive that
Speaker 3: change from the ground up. So there was one failure,
Speaker 3: as I mentioned that we stood it up been it
Speaker 3: survived for about twelve to eighteen months, but it actually
Speaker 3: came out just before the COVID nineteen pandemic, and so
Speaker 3: it didn't have enough time to really take route. But
Speaker 3: we did learn from those things, and so the next
Speaker 3: two iterations of this we were able to get better, smarter,
Speaker 3: be more thoughtful about how we went through that, and
Speaker 3: by applying those lessons on this third launch, we were
Speaker 3: actually working with one of the big bulge bracket consulting firms,
Speaker 3: and they told us that by going through this change,
Speaker 3: which affected fifteen thousand people across the organization, it would
Speaker 3: take anywhere from five to ten years, which anybody who's
Speaker 3: worked with the consulting firm knows they're going to be
Speaker 3: more on the optimistic side of those timelines, But having
Speaker 3: worked in those firms myself, I said, hey, listen, we
Speaker 3: need your expertise. That knowledge sharing of what other organizations
Speaker 3: have done and sort of the friction points that they've
Speaker 3: come up with is important. We also sort of need
Speaker 3: the traditional change management techniques that these firms are are
Speaker 3: really known for. But let's interject this social network analysis.
Speaker 3: Let's interject the psychology of the organization, the sociology of
Speaker 3: the organization to identify where those friction points are and
Speaker 3: really who are the influencers in that organization to accelerate it.
Speaker 3: And so if you take even just the more optimistic
Speaker 3: timeline five years, we were able to drive this change
Speaker 3: in two and a half years, and so that is
Speaker 3: doubling of the adoption rate by using the traditional change
Speaker 3: management methods, but just complementing it with these concepts from
Speaker 3: sociology social network analysis to identify influencers, to leverage those influencers,
Speaker 3: and to really propel the organization not from the top down,
Speaker 3: but from the bottom up, to use the people, to
Speaker 3: use the core asset of any organization to propel it forward.
Speaker 3: And so by having this success, do you answer your
Speaker 3: question directly. I thought, well, what's my next move? And
Speaker 3: I've always gone back to, you know, the organization. They've
Speaker 3: always been been very favorable and saying, cool, here's sort
Speaker 3: of the next thing that we want you to do.
Speaker 3: But I thought, why not do this on my own,
Speaker 3: you know, why not go out with Yeah, exactly. I
Speaker 3: enjoy the theory, I enjoy the strategy, I enjoy the
Speaker 3: application of it. But you know, there's a selfish component
Speaker 3: of it of you know, why not benefits myself. But
Speaker 3: at the same time, why not be able to really
Speaker 3: focus on what I love and what I think is
Speaker 3: that real driver of success. So, as we said, what
Speaker 3: are sort of the techniques that I've learned over the
Speaker 3: past twenty years, and that really is social network analysis,
Speaker 3: and our approach to that data collection and to processing
Speaker 3: and interpreting that information is something that we get threefold
Speaker 3: find to be our value, our skill, our proprietary sort
Speaker 3: of you know, proper position to the world. And so yeah,
Speaker 3: I wanted to take that out and see if we
Speaker 3: could apply that in a much greater scale. And so
Speaker 3: that's that's the journey run.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Mishily all the best first of all, and
Speaker 1: I've heard this from many a founder, right, I mean
Speaker 1: early days they say, Man, it's very lonely out here.
Speaker 2: It's a it's a it's a scary world. So how
Speaker 2: has the early days of Threefold been?
Speaker 1: I mean, and do you feel validated that, Hey, Jason,
Speaker 1: this is the right move for me to do. And
Speaker 1: I mean, in other words, I mean, where are you
Speaker 1: in your journey as a founder as threefold and what's
Speaker 1: what's coming up with Threefold?
Speaker 2: I think both can be true.
Speaker 3: I do feel validated in the early days, not just
Speaker 3: with the results that we have been able to accomplish
Speaker 3: for our clients, but just the feedback that I am
Speaker 3: capturing from from different folks, including yourself when you and
Speaker 3: I first met. And there is some white space in
Speaker 3: the market for this. John Cotter's research, for instance, came
Speaker 3: out forty five years ago, and if you look at
Speaker 3: some of the research coming out by McKenzie and PwC,
Speaker 3: we are still at seventy percent failure rates. And so
Speaker 3: nearly half a century later, we're not getting any better
Speaker 3: at implementation. And obviously that has to do with a
Speaker 3: lot of complexity in our current environment and our current
Speaker 3: ecosystem and all those other factors. That for a drive
Speaker 3: that but the idea is there is a way to
Speaker 3: get better at that and by having some of these
Speaker 3: early results that I've been able to replicate at least
Speaker 3: you know, four times now and be able to share
Speaker 3: that with clients and say here is something that is
Speaker 3: developing and I think brand new that can that can
Speaker 3: really accelerate your ROI yeah, we've had a lot of
Speaker 3: really good success, but at the same time, it is
Speaker 3: a lonely space and I wish I knew more about
Speaker 3: that feeling coming into it, because it can be frustrated
Speaker 3: at times, which I know a lot of your guests
Speaker 3: have shared as well, and you know, and a lot
Speaker 3: of our cases. We're developing a new market and we're
Speaker 3: developing something that people haven't necessarily seen or heard about.
Speaker 3: And again we can apply the same notion that I
Speaker 3: work in is change is hard, and so adoption of
Speaker 3: something new is.
Speaker 2: Going to be hard.
Speaker 3: And so there is a lot of work that I
Speaker 3: think any founder has to do in order to establish
Speaker 3: that market and to really build the following. And that is,
Speaker 3: as you know better than any of us. That is
Speaker 3: partly you know the results, the quantitative, the things that
Speaker 3: you can point to, but it's also partly the qualitative.
Speaker 3: You know, who you are as that founder and the
Speaker 3: people you surround yourself with, but also the people that
Speaker 3: you connect with the clients and what their challenges are
Speaker 3: and how you can connect with them. And it really
Speaker 3: is a You've got to form that deep, interconnected relationship
Speaker 3: for all of those elements, and at least for me,
Speaker 3: never having done that, I'll say this, I'm I'm glad
Speaker 3: I have an experimental, scientific mind, and you know, there
Speaker 3: have definitely been some failures along the way, but I
Speaker 3: am learning from those failures and getting more successful. And
Speaker 3: like I said, I think we're getting a lot of
Speaker 3: success with our clients as well, and you know, really
Speaker 3: developing this and moving in the right direction.
Speaker 2: Beautiful, beautiful.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously there's no reward without risk, right, and
Speaker 1: a lot of us regret saying, oh, man, if only
Speaker 1: I had done that. Yeah, that's always the thing with
Speaker 1: the founders, right, people who never became founders, including I
Speaker 1: mean myself, even this podcast. I mean, I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about it for a long time and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I mean if I don't start, I would not ever
Speaker 1: do it. So I just start, you know, so I'm
Speaker 1: so glad I did so. I mean I can echo
Speaker 1: that feeling.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of one of the things that I picked on
Speaker 1: what you said is you said social.
Speaker 2: Network analysis Jason, right.
Speaker 1: And in the world we live in today, I mean,
Speaker 1: especially in the US, I mean, it is so complex.
Speaker 1: You know, you have you have people from so many
Speaker 1: different cultures.
Speaker 2: I mean so many.
Speaker 1: I mean that's who we are as a country as well,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean and in today's world, I mean
Speaker 1: at the well even more complex factor of you know,
Speaker 1: people of all ages and different dynamics coming together. I
Speaker 1: mean have you have you seen in it from through
Speaker 1: your lens? I mean, that's a big part of what
Speaker 1: you need to analyze. I mean, what are the things
Speaker 1: that have struck you as like an aha moment? I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, just in terms of you know, how that
Speaker 1: impacts a yes or no decision as part of the
Speaker 1: strategy or you know, to say, you know what, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is great because of that. I mean, I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to understand how that factor has evolved over the
Speaker 1: last two decades that you've been doing this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, it's a great question because social network analysis
Speaker 3: is one of the tools that I will say, is
Speaker 3: the game changer in the industry right now. And social
Speaker 3: network analysis has been a lot around for a long time.
Speaker 3: It's an easy concept to understand. Right We're all on
Speaker 3: social networks. For instance, we're all on Twitter, I guess X.
Speaker 3: Now we're all on LinkedIn, and that is our social network.
Speaker 3: And there is a term out there that we also
Speaker 3: use as sociologist called influencers. And what influencers are, if
Speaker 3: you get into the nerdiness of the math that I
Speaker 3: really enjoy, is called eigenvector centrality, and eigenvector centrality is status,
Speaker 3: is influence. And so if you can identify who has
Speaker 3: status or who has influence based on that social network,
Speaker 3: because influence will change and evolve based on the environment
Speaker 3: that you're in, and so it's it's it's it's critical
Speaker 3: to understand the psychology of how influence begins. But once
Speaker 3: you can look at and quantify mathematically that igenvector centrality,
Speaker 3: that status, you can start to identify who holds that
Speaker 3: power in an organization. And when you start to translate
Speaker 3: it in that way, that's what I think really connects
Speaker 3: in with people qualitatively. If we all assess our own networks,
Speaker 3: we know the people that are well connected within there.
Speaker 3: And so if we want to get something done, if
Speaker 3: we want to connect in with somebody at a different
Speaker 3: organization that we may not know, Say we're looking for
Speaker 3: a new job and we know somebody works to that organization,
Speaker 3: we will qualitatively ask our friends if they know somebody there.
Speaker 3: What a quantitative approach allows is it really allows for
Speaker 3: not just the scale of that at a much larger
Speaker 3: sort of footprint, but it also allows us to be
Speaker 3: really precise. And so social network analysis in this way
Speaker 3: eigenvector centrality and all the mathic sort of goes behind
Speaker 3: it is a descriptive sorry, a descriptive statistic and that
Speaker 3: just allows us to describe how the world looks today.
Speaker 3: But by understanding that, it allows us to intervene. And
Speaker 3: so if we get back to sort of the original question,
Speaker 3: and what that context leads up to is if you
Speaker 3: know who holds the power in your organization, then you
Speaker 3: can leverage their skill set for several different things. If
Speaker 3: you're going through a change, you can invite that person
Speaker 3: into the conference room and say, hey, here's the approach
Speaker 3: that we want to go with.
Speaker 2: How would you.
Speaker 3: Think this might look or operate within your environment? Is
Speaker 3: there anything we need to do to change that. Assuming
Speaker 3: that they might buy into that, then maybe they want
Speaker 3: to become a person that becomes a champion of that.
Speaker 3: Then they can go back and they can help to
Speaker 3: spread that word to say, you know, hey, I've experimentmented
Speaker 3: with this and this is a great tool for instance
Speaker 3: that we're using. I think we should all adopt it.
Speaker 3: And if you're a person hearing that from somebody that
Speaker 3: you consider influential, right, because influence is always dependent on
Speaker 3: you the person receiving that. So beauty is in the
Speaker 3: eye of the beholder, and if you can tap into
Speaker 3: that and you can influence people, you can scale that
Speaker 3: learning curve much more quickly. And so if you think
Speaker 3: about it from a perspective, we've all been involved in
Speaker 3: change in some way, shape or form, and maybe it's
Speaker 3: the CEO of your company and you've never sat down
Speaker 3: with that CEO.
Speaker 2: You know they.
Speaker 3: Certainly have authority, and that's a certain type of influence.
Speaker 3: But if you can hear that same message from the
Speaker 3: colleague that you've worked with for the past fifteen years
Speaker 3: and they have embraced that change, and that's somebody that
Speaker 3: you trust and you know has your best interests at heart,
Speaker 3: then you're going to be a little bit more open
Speaker 3: to accepting what that might look like. And it's that
Speaker 3: nature of the psychology mixed in with the mathematics of
Speaker 3: sociology applied to change that allows us to really begin
Speaker 3: to accelerate that. And yeah, so it's influence is sort
Speaker 3: of the name of the game, and that's exactly where
Speaker 3: social networking house this allows us to identify, or at
Speaker 3: least that is the primary application that we're experimenting with
Speaker 3: at this point.
Speaker 1: Fascinating again, Jason, And there's so many layers to this, right,
Speaker 1: and as humans, we take we understand all this, but
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I mean not to the level
Speaker 1: that you just explained. So I'm glad somebody like you
Speaker 1: is looking into all these things, you know, checking all
Speaker 1: those books is and making sure the math adds up
Speaker 1: before those big decisions where a lot of lives are impacted.
Speaker 1: I mean literally, yeah, right, so so so cool that
Speaker 1: you're doing that.
Speaker 2: So I want to pivot to something on the research side.
Speaker 1: And I mean, this is something that everybody talks about
Speaker 1: these days, so I might want to get your perspective
Speaker 1: on that too. So obviously a lot of research is
Speaker 1: data driven, right yep. And in today's world, I mean,
Speaker 1: everybody wants to use AI for a lot of these things,
Speaker 1: right yeah. So what what's your I mean in the
Speaker 1: in the three fold approach to what you do with threefold?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Where where do you see AI kind of helping you?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm assuming there as a play, especially on
Speaker 1: the research and data analysis aspect of it.
Speaker 2: Have you given it any thought, Jason?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, especially from running the calculations, and I think
Speaker 3: when you take any large data set, they're in order
Speaker 3: to just run those calculations much more quickly and look
Speaker 3: at that from various different perspectives and different angles to us,
Speaker 3: that just gives us more opportunity to see something that
Speaker 3: maybe we haven't seen. And so there we have worked
Speaker 3: with AI in order to apply that, and there are
Speaker 3: some applications that will allow us to accelerate that math.
Speaker 3: And I think that's great because that gives us more perspective,
Speaker 3: but it also cuts down the time in order to
Speaker 3: start interpreting it. There are some challenges I think right
Speaker 3: now with the data collection side of it. And so
Speaker 3: right now, intuitively, as I mentioned, influence is you know
Speaker 3: within the holder, right beauty is in the eye of
Speaker 3: the beholder, and so influence is defined by the person
Speaker 3: that you're talking to. And so right now, collecting that
Speaker 3: data is still a very human based effort. But there
Speaker 3: are like Microsoft Copilot is out there and they will
Speaker 3: do a certain level of social organalysis that a lot
Speaker 3: of us maybe are familiar with. Right and so in
Speaker 3: Microsoft Copilot, within teams, they have this clout calculation, and
Speaker 3: that clout calculation is driven by AI, and what it
Speaker 3: does is it looks across the ecosystem and it says,
Speaker 3: who is this person emailing with, who is this person
Speaker 3: sitting in the conference room with? Who is this person calling?
Speaker 3: And there are limitations within that that we should be
Speaker 3: aware of. Is, even though you and I may sit
Speaker 3: in a conference room together, it may not identify the
Speaker 3: nature of the relationship that you and I have. We
Speaker 3: have all been in a conference room where somebody has
Speaker 3: derailed a conversation, for instance, and so Microsoft Copilot or
Speaker 3: AI as it looks today, may look at that and
Speaker 3: sort of say, oh, they're in the same room, so
Speaker 3: they have influence, they have connection to each other. But
Speaker 3: if you actually try to tap into that influence of
Speaker 3: that person, who's derailed it. They may not get you
Speaker 3: to where you want to be. So it's still i
Speaker 3: think comparative at this point in terms of AI to
Speaker 3: do the data collection in the traditional sense, but we
Speaker 3: can process it through AI and run those calculations much
Speaker 3: more efficiently than we've been able to in the past.
Speaker 1: That makes sense, Yeah, because I mean, you know, whatever
Speaker 1: AI model you might have, I mean, your output is
Speaker 1: as good as the data input and then your I
Speaker 1: mean to your answer, I mean, if you don't have
Speaker 1: that initial good data for the model to take in,
Speaker 1: I mean, what you're going to get is I mean
Speaker 1: as good as not using it.
Speaker 2: So that's right, that makes total sense.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm assuming you know, much like everything else,
Speaker 1: I mean, this ill the wall as well, and you
Speaker 1: can get a lot more out of it. But I
Speaker 1: mean I would say we're still in such an early
Speaker 1: stages of what is possible and not. I'll be fascinated
Speaker 1: to see how you apply to befold as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll be interested to see how it unfold.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Perfect, So thanks so much, Jason.
Speaker 1: I mean, I as always, I mean, with any conversation
Speaker 1: with you, I learned a ton. Uh. It looks like
Speaker 1: threefold is something that a lot of companies not just
Speaker 1: trying to do M and A, but I mean even
Speaker 1: with strategy and especially in the ever changing world that
Speaker 1: we live in, UH could use. So I wish you
Speaker 1: and the team the very best and I would love
Speaker 1: to have you on sometime in the future to tell
Speaker 1: us how you're doing both as a founder as well
Speaker 1: as you know everything that you love to do, so
Speaker 1: on behalf of our podcast. All the best of you, Jason.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it, and like I said, every conversation with you,
Speaker 3: I think I learned something as well. So I appreciate
Speaker 3: everything you're doing and just the platform you're creating, not
Speaker 3: just for myself like for other founders. So in the
Speaker 3: same way, you know, keep up the good work that
Speaker 3: you're doing and just know we appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Take care all right. Thank you,