New School IT
We get candid and laugh about how we discovered the predictable unpredictability of corporate dynamics.
Collaborating with diverse co-hosts and guests, we replace the "people, process, technology" cliché by exploring organizations as Complex Adaptive Systems to help you navigate the gap between ambition and operational reality in the era of AI, data-driven transformation, and digital operations.
New School IT® is affiliated with SODA™, the Systemic Of Disciplined Adaptability. SODA is the operations framework for companies to cultivate and strengthen the needed discipline and adaptability to thrive in the age of AI, data-driven operations, and digital markets.
New School IT
MOMENTS OF TRUTH - reality connects, truth disrupts, value wins
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We explore why teams fail when their confidence peaks and how an intention to align on shared Moments of Truth can keep internal reality in sync with customer value.
This episode features Tristan and Brit, two AI 'guests' discussing the Moments of Truth white paper article published here:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/moments-truth-roland-u-hoffmann-54ape
Setting The Stakes: Value Over Truth
SPEAKER_03If it don't create value, the truth is useless. But reality is ruthless. If it don't create value, the truth is useless.
Meet SODA And The AI Guests
SPEAKER_05Hello, this is New School IT. How can I help you?
SPEAKER_00Most teams don't fail when they're looking for answers. They fail when they feel confident. Your mind avoids surprises, not errors. If a story feels right, it feels true. At work, that's fine right up until your inside story no longer matches the customer story. Hi, I'm Roland, your new school IT host and creator of the system of disciplined adaptability, or Soda. I've invited two special guests for this episode, Tristan and Britt. But in truth, they're not real. I fed an entire paper about Soda's Moments of Truth into an AI system that produced a podcast debate from it. So let's hear what AI Tristan and AI Britt have to say about moments of truth.
SPEAKER_03Please hold.
SPEAKER_06Right, exactly. The spreadsheets are green, you've got these glowing status reports, people are giving each other high fives in the Slack channels or you know the hallway.
SPEAKER_01It feels like you can't lose.
SPEAKER_06It feels completely flawless.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Just right according to plan. And then uh you launch. And the entire thing just fails spectacularly right at the very end.
SPEAKER_01It is such a gut-wrenching feeling.
SPEAKER_06It really is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_06But I mean, if you've been in the professional world long enough, you know it happens all the time. All the time. So today, our mission in this deep dive is to figure out exactly why that happens to you and your teams. We're going to explore why teams usually fail, not when they are overwhelmed by uncertainty, but ironically, when they are the absolute most confident.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that overconfidence is the real killer.
SPEAKER_06Aaron Powell And to do this, we are pulling from a really fascinating source today. It's called Roland's Soda Framework.
SPEAKER_01It's a great one.
SPEAKER_06It really is an incredible model that explains how to align your internal reality with external results so you don't end up just, you know, blindsided when the buzzer sounds. But before we get into the psychological weeds of all this, we should probably clarify what we're actually talking about.
SPEAKER_01It is about how organizations really struggle to keep their internal strategies and daily operations aligned with the actual delivery of value to the outside world.
SPEAKER_06Which is so much harder than it sounds.
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely. The core story arc we're going to trace today starts with that exact feeling of confidence you just described. We will look at how that confidence is often rooted in cognitive bias, which is literally a biological trick our brains play on us just to save energy. And from there, we'll track how that bias creates massive performance blind spots, which change entirely depending on where you sit in an organization. And finally, we will explore the remedy. We'll look at how to use purpose-aligned intentions and what the framework calls shared moments of truth to snap us back to reality before it's too late.
Certainty As A Feeling
SPEAKER_06Okay, let's unpack this because understanding this mechanism is going to completely change how you view your own team's metrics and those supposedly flawless executions you see at work. So let's start right at the beginning of Roland's model. There is this huge illusion of certainty.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this is where it gets really psychological.
SPEAKER_06It is. When I was going through the material, this one point really stopped me in my tracks. Certainty is just a feeling. We assume that because we feel certain, we must possess the correct facts. But the source argues that certainty is not proof of anything at all, just a biological sensation. Can you walk us through why our brains do this?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so it basically comes down to basic human biology and how we manage cognitive load. The feeling of certainty is simply the resolution of uncertainty.
SPEAKER_06Meaning what? Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Well, from the moment you wake up, your brain is bombarded with an endless, overwhelming stream of information. To survive without just completely burning out, your mind operates in a sort of uh battery save mode.
SPEAKER_06Like a phone on low power.
SPEAKER_01Precisely. It is fundamentally wired to minimize surprise, not to minimize error.
SPEAKER_06Wait, not minimize error. That feels backwards.
SPEAKER_01I know, right. But it's true. It is constantly filtering incoming data based on what feels real and what fits the mental model of the world you have already built. It takes significantly more caloric energy to accept disruptive information, to basically admit that your model is wrong, tear it down, and adapt to a new one.
SPEAKER_06So the brain takes the path of least resistance.
SPEAKER_01Always.
SPEAKER_06If a piece of information neatly fits into the story I'm already telling myself, my brain just accepts it as valid, even if it's total misinformation.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And the clearer it fits, the more confident you feel.
SPEAKER_06I can see how that becomes incredibly dangerous in a group setting. When an entire team shares a mental model, that repetition must just put the battery save mode into overdrive.
Reality Connects, Truth Separates
SPEAKER_01What's fascinating here is how that group dynamic leads directly to a critical distinction made in the Soda framework. It's the absolute difference between reality and truth.
SPEAKER_06Which is wild because we use those words interchangeably in everyday conversation. We assume reality is the truth.
SPEAKER_01Right. But in this model, they are entirely different forces. Reality connects. Reality is made up of shared mental models. It is the agreed-upon narrative that allows people to coordinate, build things, and act together.
SPEAKER_06Okay, wait, I really want to challenge that because I've always viewed reality and truth as synonyms. How can reality not be true? Are you saying a company can operate effectively on a shared delusion?
SPEAKER_01That is precisely what happens. It doesn't matter if the shared plans are based on objective truth. If everyone agrees on the reality, they can move forward. Wow. Information networks inside companies are deliberately built for this. They prioritize stability, predictability, and coordination over absolute accuracy. Leadership will often elevate certain facts over others or smooth over glaring issues just to keep everyone moving in the exact same direction.
SPEAKER_06Because reality is a unifying force.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Truth, on the other hand, separates.
SPEAKER_00A point of clarification here, because the way AI Britt put that could be misinterpreted. Leadership elevates certain facts because of where they direct attention. In practice, a company relies on its leadership, its org chart, and its politics to elevate and empower certain facts selectively, not to deny the truth, but to keep things stable. A fact becomes real when it aligns with intention, authority, and timing. In those moments, the question is not, is it true or false, but rather what will happen if we share this?
SPEAKER_04Please hold.
SPEAKER_03If it don't create value, the truth is useless. Recipients chose the truth with their catch. That's the real verdict, no spin, no flash. Set a clear rule, you understand. When the buzzer goes off, that's how it lands. Intention turns noise into signal and sign. Cuts through the spin, redraws the line. Short in the loop, let feedback flow in. Moments of truth, that's how you win. New school antique, call it legit, align to the rules and commit.
Drift And Broken Feedback Loops
SPEAKER_01Truth is selective and depends entirely on intention and observation. When you point out a truth, you are drawing a hard line. You are pointing at a specific aspect of the environment and saying, this is what is actually happening. And unlike reality, truth disrupts coordination.
SPEAKER_06We have all been in that meeting. The project is launching on Friday. Everyone is exhausted but happy. And then someone raises their hand and points at a massive flaw in the timeline or the code.
SPEAKER_01And everyone groans.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Everyone hates that person in the moment. You rarely feel deeply connected to the person who delivers an uncomfortable truth at the worst possible time. They just shattered the comfortable shared reality.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell And that tension introduces what Roland's argument calls the drift. When a group's shared reality, that comfortable, highly coordinated story everyone is telling each other, becomes too detached from the disruptive truth, it creates massive fragility within the organization.
SPEAKER_06Aaron Powell You start living in an echo chamber.
SPEAKER_01You really do. Your internal metrics look amazing, your spreadsheets are green, but you are completely disconnected from the actual world. Here is the sobering part. Reality keeps score whether you acknowledge the truth or not.
SPEAKER_06Oh, that's a great way to put it.
SPEAKER_01If you have an environment where the feedback loop breaks down and truth is constantly suppressed in favor of keeping the peace, you end up with a team arguing about the truth while external reality quietly enforces the consequences. When the results eventually disappoint, the internal reality breaks down and you are violently forced back to the truth.
SPEAKER_06So if reality and truth are clashing that hard inside a company, who actually decides which one wins out? Like who decides what a good outcome actually is?
SPEAKER_01That is the million-dollar question.
Creators, Referees, Recipients
SPEAKER_06And this perfectly bridges into how Roland's model categorizes the people judging business outputs. It breaks them down into three distinct roles creators, referees, and recipients.
SPEAKER_01These three roles make up the ecosystem of an organization, and they all have entirely different perspectives, which means they all have entirely different blind spots. Let's look at the creator first.
SPEAKER_06The people actually doing the work.
SPEAKER_01Right. The experts, the ones writing the cloud, building the product, they judge the output based on internal integrity and craftsmanship. To put it simply, the creator is looking for beauty.
SPEAKER_06The source gives some great grounded examples of this. Think of a master welder who spots a microscopic pinhole in a joint. On the surface, it looks completely fine to anyone else, but the welder knows it could leak under high pressure down the line.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_06Or an accountant who catches a tiny balancing error that wouldn't affect today's operations but would fail a rigorous audit next year. They are obsessed with the hidden flaws. If I'm that welder, I want my will to be perfect, even if the client never sees it and frankly doesn't care.
SPEAKER_01Which is a noble pursuit, but it creates a massive blind spot if perfection delays the project indefinitely. Right. Then you have the referee. This is the person in charge of compliance, the rules, and the industry standards. If the creator sees beauty, the referee sees safety.
SPEAKER_06They are the ones who ensure you aren't breaking the law or violating internal policies.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Think of a health inspector shutting down a restaurant, or a legal team refusing to let a marketing campaign go live. They aren't looking at the beauty of the meal or the creativity of the ad. They are looking purely at the rule book.
SPEAKER_06And then there's the third role, which seems to be the one that actually matters the most in the end. The recipient.
SPEAKER_01The ultimate judge.
SPEAKER_06Usually the recipient is the market customer, the person who actually pulls out their wallet to buy what you are selling. But it can also be an internal recipient, like the sales team, waiting for a feature from the engineering team.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And the recipient does not care about the craftsmanship of the creator. And they certainly don't care about the compliance rule book of the referee.
SPEAKER_06Not even a little bit. They only care if the output solves their specific problem. The recipient sees value.
SPEAKER_01Here's where it gets really interesting. Because when you leave these three roles to their own devices, their intentions inevitably clash.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. The creators and the referees can get so caught up in their own definitions of success that they completely lose sight of the recipient.
SPEAKER_01They do. Let's look at two vivid examples from the source material that highlight what happens when internal reality completely ignores external truth.
SPEAKER_06Imagine an IT data team that works all year and they successfully launch 30 brand new data dashboards for the company. By their internal metrics, they are crushing it. The creators, the developers built beautiful, bug-free code. The referees, like the data privacy officers, ensured all compliance was met.
SPEAKER_01But there's a massive catch.
SPEAKER_06Absolutely no one in the company is actually using those dashboards.
SPEAKER_01None of them.
SPEAKER_06The sales team, who are the recipients in this scenario, find them too complicated or just totally irrelevant to their daily calls. Because the IT team didn't consult a recipient, their flawless execution just created blind noise. They won a game that only they were playing.
SPEAKER_01The second example is even more dangerous.
SPEAKER_06This is the operations team.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Imagine a massive operations team running a complex logistics process. For an entire quarter, they execute with zero deviation from the plan. Internally, the creators and referees view this as a monumental success. The internal score is perfect.
SPEAKER_06Perfect score.
SPEAKER_01But meanwhile, out in the real world, a competitor has quietly adopted a new automation solution, lowered their prices by 20%, and just stole a tenth of your customer base. Ouch. The internal reality was a perfect score, but external reality just changed the rules of the game entirely.
SPEAKER_06It's terrifying because it proves you could do everything right according to your own internal rule book and still lose completely. Which brings us to the most important part of this deep dive. How do we fix this? How do we stop this drift before reality hits us like a throat train?
SPEAKER_04Please hold.
SPEAKER_06Let's start with intention.
SPEAKER_01Intention is what activates your focus. We talked earlier about how the brain filters out useless noise to save energy. Data, on its own, is just noise until you have a specific intent. Right. The moment you apply intention, the brain starts actively filtering data to support that specific goal.
SPEAKER_06Think about walking through a massive grocery store, thousands of products, bright colors, signs. It is all just background noise to you. You don't process most of it.
SPEAKER_01You just walk right past it.
SPEAKER_06But the moment you set the intention to eat healthier, suddenly your brain makes you stop and pay attention to the nutrition labels on the back of the boxes. Or if your attention shifts to saving money, you suddenly start hyperfocusing on comparing the price per ounce tags on the shelves. Yeah. Your mind filters the raw data to support the goal.
SPEAKER_01And if you don't actively set that purpose-aligned intention at work, creators and referees will just default to their natural biases. They will build what passes compliance or what looks internally beautiful rather than what actually provides value for the recipient. If your weekly status report says everything's on track, you have to stop and ask yourself, is it really true? Or is it just because we weren't looking for the right external signals?
SPEAKER_06To force that alignment, you need the ultimate solution in Roland's model. Shared moments of truth.
SPEAKER_01Think about the end of a quarter in a professional basketball game.
SPEAKER_06The clock ticks down, the buzzer sounds, and the players look up at the scoreboard. That score is locked in. It is an undeniable moment of truth.
SPEAKER_01It might hurt to look at, but it works because of two things. First, the rules were crystal clear before the game even started. Everyone knows how much a three-pointer is worth, what a foul is, and where the out-of-bounds line is.
SPEAKER_06And second, the outcome is indisputable. You cannot argue with the buzzer.
SPEAKER_01That undeniably binary nature is what makes it effective. It is a yes or a no. Did the ball go in the hoop before the clock hit zero? In the corporate world, establishing these undeniable rules before the clock starts is the only way to cut through internal bias and prevent the creators and referees from moving the goalposts to protect their shared reality.
SPEAKER_06The source lists some incredible real-world examples of top companies doing exactly this to bypass internal debate. Take Toyota's famous and on poured.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's a classic.
SPEAKER_06The rule is simple. If any worker on the manufacturing line sees a defect that they cannot fix immediately, they pull a cord and stop the entire production line. Defect equals stop. There is no debate, there is no emergency committee meeting, there is no negotiating with reality to keep the quota up.
SPEAKER_01Pulling that cord has to be terrifying for a frontline worker, but the moment of truth is baked into the system. Or look at the Ritz-Carlton. They empower their frontline employees to spend up to$2,000 to immediately fix a guest's problem.
SPEAKER_06$2,000.
SPEAKER_01They don't need to ask a manager, they don't need to fill out a requisition form in triplicate. The rule is established beforehand. Solve the customer's problem right now.
SPEAKER_06Or Zappos, the shoe company. Their moment of truth is answering calls within 20 seconds. And then the representative is empowered to stay on the line as long as it takes to help that customer. Their scoreboard is built entirely on speed and loyalty, not on how fast they can get someone off the phone.
SPEAKER_01What all these examples share is a roofless clarity about what actually counts. They have taken the subjective internal debate out of the equation.
Shared Moments Of Truth
SPEAKER_06They really have.
SPEAKER_01But to do that effectively, especially to avoid those blind spots we talked about earlier with the IT team or the operations team, you have to drastically shorten the feedback loop between the people doing the work and the people receiving it.
SPEAKER_06The creators and the referees need direct feedback from the recipients. The absolute simplest version of this is literally just direct messaging a customer. Imagine a developer finishing a new software feature, directly messaging the user, and asking, did this actually work for you? Did it save you time? Would you recommend it to a coworker?
SPEAKER_01That direct unfiltered feedback instantly destroys any internal illusions you might have about how brilliant your code is. It forces the truth to override the reality.
SPEAKER_06But as the source points out, that kind of direct messaging doesn't scale when you are dealing with thousands or millions of customers.
SPEAKER_01So teams must use customer data as a proxy for that direct conversation. You have to track external behavior.
SPEAKER_06You look at timing, what channels they use, how they react to pricing changes, and what alternatives they seek out when your product fails them.
SPEAKER_01You use that external behavioral data to track the truth rather than relying on internal vanity metrics like how fast did we build this or how many dashboards did we launch this quarter.
SPEAKER_06It's all about ensuring that your internal intention is aggressively aligned with the moments of truth that actually matter to the recipient.
SPEAKER_00Another point of clarification here. How fast, how many, how often, and other transactional metrics are critical to improve efficiency and productivity. But what is also true is that building something super efficiently that no one wants to buy is still a failure. So the takeaway is that tracking efficiency is very important, but tracking effectiveness deserves a higher priority.
SPEAKER_04Please hold.
SPEAKER_01But reality out in the real world does not care about our comfort. High performance requires the incredible, often uncomfortable discipline to let undeniable external feedback, those shared moments of truth, override our cozy internal narratives.
SPEAKER_06You can't just keep your eyes closed, high-five your team, and hope for the best. Because your internal metrics do not keep score. Your customer does. That is the hard truth right there. The customer's reality is the only one that actually pays the bills.
SPEAKER_01This raises an important question, one that I think you should really take a hard look at when you go back to work. Look at the KPIs or the goals you are tracking right now with your team. Yeah. Are they actually measuring the truth of your external impact? Or are they just a carefully constructed reality designed to make you and your team feel confident that you're winning a game no one else is playing?
SPEAKER_06Oof. Win the game the customer is actually playing, not the one you made up in your head.
SPEAKER_04Please hold.
SPEAKER_02That's a moment of truth. Reports are hungry, but the market is proof. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Confidence value, but reality is ruthless. If it don't create value, the truth is useless.
Efficiency vs Effectiveness
SPEAKER_00All right. Thank you, Tristan, and thank you, Britt. Here's my suggested takeaway. We like to believe that more information leads to better decisions. It doesn't. Intention leads to better decisions. Information without intentional awareness reinforces whatever you already believe. Like-minded people amplify it, and connection chains carry it. Without the discipline to constantly adapt to uncomfortable truths, confidence compounds even if it is the Lulu. How do you adapt that discipline? By aligning the intentions of those with the most skin in the game to external factors. By constantly using binary results to keep everyone honest, and by making the rules of the game simple and clear. Moments of truth are the smallest executable unit of disciplined adaptability. Even AI, Britt and Tristan can see why moments of truth are game changers. Maybe disciplined adaptability isn't that complicated after all. If you care to check the source material to see what AI did with it, it's in the podcast description. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. Thanks for listening to New School ID.
SPEAKER_02Reports are hugging, but the market is proof. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Confidence loud, but reality's ruthless. If they don't create value, the truth is useless.
