Welcome to Milestone Moments, the show where we explore the journeys that lead to success.
I'm Sheila Slick, your host and founder of Five Milestones. In every episode, we will bring you
insights from the minds of entrepreneurs, leaders, and experts who will share not just their expertise
but the milestone moments that have reshaped their journeys and led to significant achievements.
So if you're looking for motivation, you're in the right place. Subscribe now and discover the
milestones that mark the path to success.
Welcome to another episode of Milestone Moments in Business and Leadership. I'm Sheila Slick,
your host, and today my special guest is Dr. John Dentico. He's a groundbreaking leadership
consultant and founder of Lead Slim LLC, where he challenges conventional leadership models
by focusing on action-oriented practices rather than individual traits. His pioneering approach
spans 30 years of research, training, and consulting, offering innovative solutions
in an era demanding foresight and agility. He is also the author of the award-winning book,
Throttle Up, How to Accelerate the Impact of 21st-Century Leadership. Welcome to the show, John.
John Dentico Thank you. Nice to be here.
Sheila Slick What are the most significant leadership challenges organizations face today?
John Dentico Well, in my perspective, one of the biggest challenges is understanding that there are
new models of leadership at work. A lot of my focus of my work right now centers on attracting,
hiring, engaging, and retaining top talent. In a talent pool, in a skilled talent pool,
it has three major demands. Number one is they want to have values alignment with the organization
they're working with. They want to know the organization cares about the same things they care about.
Number two, and this is incredibly big, they want to be involved in the decision-making
processes of that organization. They want to matter and they want their work to matter.
You know, everyone seeks a level of control and autonomy over their own destinies. I have a habit
of saying people want to be masters of their own fate. And the third one is they want training and
learning that develops them professionally and flows over to their personal lives as well.
So unless you're looking at a leadership perspective, a leadership model, if you will,
that engages them, creates an environment for them where these things can be achieved, then
all you're doing is trying to stand down by the seashore with a shovel trying to turn back the
tide because the tide's coming in. The tsunami has arrived. And in this world, the talent is now
dictating the terms under which they will hire onto an organization and stay. So unless there's
this realization and movement towards a different kind of collaborative leadership model, I think
that's one of the biggest challenges organizations face.
What is the LEAD-SIM leadership simulation method and how do you apply it to help these
organizations and individuals to thrive in this world?
Great. That's a great question. I developed LEAD-SIM. I started developing it 30 years ago, 1993
is actually when I was working on my beginning, my doctorate in leadership studies at the University
of San Diego. And I wanted to try to take all the theories, all the ideas of 21st century leadership
and the new leadership ideas off the drawing board and create a way in which people,
could actually experience leadership in a realistic environment. And it has proven itself
to be very successful, albeit mostly in the world of first responders, law enforcement,
because they really love things like simulations. They love to get their hands dirty, roll up their
sleeves, and it gives them an opportunity to actually do something. And I think that's
an opportunity to do. I believe we become what we do. Margaret Wheatley, who is a prolific
writer, a leadership writer, wrote a book called Leadership and the New Science some years ago.
And there was a great one line in that book where it says, we only know ourselves in relation to
other people. So what I try to do in the simulation, and by the way, we're not talking
an online simulation or computer driven simulation. We're talking about 40 people in a room
playing at five to seven different tables, playing stakeholders around a specific kind of problem or
issue. And by introducing several episodic events in a compounded manner, so something happens,
and then a few minutes later, something else happens. And then a few minutes later, something
else happens, and it continues to build, giving them an opportunity to actually practice leadership
in a very realistic environment. One of the things that I try to do is write the simulation,
the scenario, if you will, about the real issues and problems that they face. And it's amazing to
watch them begin to understand why things like collaboration are so important,
why working together in a mutual direction is so important. And again, I try to teach leadership
by learn by doing methodology. And the original idea behind it was simple.
Back 30 years ago, we were trying to figure out how to break down the silos in organizations,
how to make an impact on people that collaboration was really important,
and to tear those barriers down, if you will, to collaboration. And the simulation has been very,
very successful in its ability to do that. I'll just add one other thing. The simulation runs on
two fuels, in addition to the people in the room. One is ambiguity. I like things to be somewhat
ambiguous because now people have to grapple with how they're going to get through it. And the other
one is empathy. Once you play a role in a different stakeholder table, so for example, you may be in
marketing and we'll put you at the table for where the CEOs are. We'll give you that perspective.
We'll let you walk in the shoes of a different person. And that has been called the best empathy
builder anyone's ever seen. So that's the simulation work.
So I'd like to backtrack a little and learn a little bit more about how you got to where
you are today. You have over 30 years of experience. You have a PhD.
And you're an author. Can you tell me what that milestone moment, what that catalyst that led you
to take this direction in life was? Wow. Well, 30 years ago, maybe a little over 30 years ago,
I was working in an industry that I felt I could no longer stay. And that was in a professional
and that was in professional services in government programs. I just felt like the odd person
had. And I was looking for something else. I knew something else was coming. And I was torn
between going to law school and a program and this leadership program at the University of San Diego.
And I really, I know you talk about self-awareness. I really had one of those meetings with yourself
where you try to say, well, what is it that I want to do? What is it that really puts fizz in my soda,
as I like to say, or turns me on. And I look back over my career and every time I had the opportunity
to teach or present, I felt like I was alive. And that was the initial impetus. And I just
followed that path. And then I took a non-matriculated master's degree course at the
University of San Diego with a brilliant guy named Joe Ross, who wrote leadership for the 21st century.
And being part of that class, and it was non-matriculated, I wasn't in the doctoral
program yet, just convinced me that I should continue on with that. And I did. And it was
during that time that I started working on the simulation work because I looked, I was waiting,
it's a funny story. I was waiting for a friend of mine, we're going to have lunch together.
And while I was waiting, I had a yellow pad and I sat down and I was scribbling on the yellow pad,
what do I know? What is it that I know? Well, I had a long background, I had a rather deep background
in simulation work, having been a military gaming person. I did a lot of military gaming. I had a
lot of those influences. And then on one side of the paper, I put down simulations and gaming,
and on the other side of the paper, I put down leadership. I'm getting to know that stuff. Maybe
I could put these two things together. And that's kind of how it happened. It's just one of those,
this kind of leads me to this idea. And then the rest of it is just the school of hard knocks,
taking one road, going here and there, being involved with family things.
One of them very, very tragically, the loss of my brother, my younger brother,
which forced me to take different directions, move from the West Coast to the East Coast to care for
my mom and different things like that. And all those things led me to other things like being a
special consultant for the division of public safety leadership at Johns Hopkins. I wound up
on the East Coast and got introduced and I started doing some work for them. So sometimes it's not
planned. I mean, a lot of it wasn't planned. It's just the school of hard knocks, opportunities
coming my way and looking for other things. That's kind of how I got here.
So what is your next milestone?
So what is your next milestone? That is a really good question.
I don't know. My goal is to do what's in front of me today and in so doing,
to try to make a difference. And what kind of difference? I hope that my work in the end
will be looked at as trying to help people live a more productive, prosperous, and meaningful life.
That people can take what they've learned from me and say, wow, I'm able to do something today,
I wasn't able to do tomorrow. Again, I'm very oriented on the practice side of the equation.
Again, we become what we do. So I'm onto that side of the equation. Let me teach you how to do a
couple of things and you go out and try it, see if it works for you. And I think that's kind of where
I'm at. As you well know, I have my own podcast channel and I get people who want to be on the
podcast. I'm just going along, doing podcasts, trying to make a difference. What's the name of
the podcast so my listeners can tune into yours? It's called a Throttle Up Leadership Podcast.
And I took the name from the book Throttle Up. And I was explaining to someone the other day,
the idea of Throttle Up simply came from the idea that that's what a simulation does.
It doesn't solve a problem, but it can accelerate your learning. It can accelerate your ability
to deal with difficult ideas and difficult things. That's what I've tried to get people to learn is,
look, we're in a simulated environment. We're going to deal with the difficult complex issue.
But remember, it's a simulation. Nobody's getting hurt here. It's a learning experience
so that eventually you can walk outside, you can go to work the next day and say,
you know, learn something. I'm going to give it a try today. I'm going to try something different.
And I've had many people tell me that's exactly what's happened for them is they've gone out now
and they've learned something in the simulation. They got a chance to try it, see that it worked,
or try something else that didn't work. And they go out and in fact, do something different.
So Throttle Up has been called the most cerebral, thought provoking, and masterful exploration of
leadership theory and practice offering a radically different leadership paradigm.
What one piece of advice can you leave our listeners today to practice leadership?
Well, the best piece of advice at this moment is leadership to me is a come as you are party.
You don't have to reach some nirvanic level of understanding about the world or yourself
in order to become involved in leadership. And that's what we're going to do today.
In order to become involved in leadership. And oddly enough, I think that's what's happening with
the generations today is that they want to be involved in the decision making processes.
They want to be involved in what makes an organization go from the get go. So they're
showing up. And the question is, can we create an environment where people come to do their best work
and accept that even if they may be new, you never know where a good idea is going to come from.
And if you can, in a sense, channel that energy and industry, you can do some amazing things
in the future. So my advice is get involved. Do what you want. Do what you need to do. Learn.
Learn from your mistakes. Chances are you're going to bend your pick as they say,
as they say someplace. And that's okay. It's okay. Learn by doing. Get involved and
do what you can, but learn. Understand that maybe something you did didn't work.
Reflect on that. And then move out. Push it behind you and say, move on. And I think
you'll be a better leader in the long run. Well, for those that want to learn more about you
or acquire the book, where can they find you? Well, they can find me on my website at
www.throttleupleadership.com. And also my book is on Amazon and other sites, other book sites as well.
And I would highly recommend that they look there for it. It comes in three varieties, a hard copy,
a soft copy, and a Kindle download. So yeah, thanks very much for mentioning that. I appreciate it.
And thank you for joining me today. I really appreciate you taking the time.
Thank you, Sheila. I appreciate being here. Thank you for having me.
And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in to another episode of Milestone
Moments in Business and Leadership.