You Can’t Out-Decide A Misaligned Orientation | Sarah Kernion

What if the most powerful strategy lessons aren’t found in boardrooms but in everyday life at the edge of uncertainty? We sit down with Sarah Kernion, founder of Inch Stones and mother of two non-speaking autistic children, to explore how frontline parenting becomes a masterclass in orientation, sense making, and adaptive leadership. The conversation is candid, challenging, and grounded: you can’t outdecide a misaligned orientation, and quick decisions that endure are the by-product of clarity, not adrenaline.

We dig into why “inch stones” beat grand milestones when growth isn’t linear and why accommodations, far from signalling weakness, often expose the exact places a system can get stronger. Sarah shares practical examples, like visual scheduling that helped her children and unexpectedly improved routine for a neurotypical sibling—proof that inclusive design scales value. Together we dissect John Boyd’s OODA, clearing up the myth that it’s about speed. Orientation is not what you see; it’s how you make sense of what you see. Leaders who build cultures of sense making ask better questions, retire dead KPIs, and trade control for clarity—because comfort is optional, but learning is non-negotiable.

There’s also a provocative look at neurodiversity as an operational edge. Different brains notice different signals, and in dynamic environments that diversity of noticing can become decisive advantage. We talk echo chambers, identity, and how tactical humility keeps orientation tethered to reality. Expect crisp takeaways: replace fear with strategy, define outcomes before metrics, and anchor decisions in environment, intent, and constraints. When you do, speed emerges naturally, teams act with confidence, and progress compounds—one inch stone at a time.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a colleague who protects green dashboards, and leave a review with the one assumption you’ll destroy and replace next.

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Mike Jones 0:00

Most people can think of strategy that way.

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Developing a new strategy.

Mike Jones 0:04

Strategic blind spots. When strategy meets reality. Strategy and innovation.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

In the strategy world. Drive their strategic goals.

Mike Jones 0:10

And welcome back to Strategy Meets Reality Podcast. Welcome back to Strategy Meets Reality Podcast. I'm absolutely delighted today to be joined by Sarah Kernian. That's I pronounced that right.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

That is, yes, correct. Yes. French roots. You can do the Kernion if you'd really like to, but Kernian works. I do think I'm that posh, but we'll try.

Mike Jones 0:31

It's great to have you on. Just to give our viewers uh an insight to you and um how come you're on this podcast, please give a bit of background and um context about what you've been up to lately.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Sure. I'm Sarah Kernion. I'm I'm a mother, first and foremost, and two of my three children have profound non-speaking autism. I began my advocacy journey simply as a mommy blogger influencer in that space of social media where the connectivity around shared journey in a role that none of us as humans even think will be on our bingo card. Right. And having two children, not just one, but two children, a boy and a girl with a profound disability radically changes that that life trajectory. And I founded Inch Stones because I felt too many mothers and caregivers are so unconsciously trained to think, to accept less, to explain less, ask for less, and expect less from their own lives. Inch Stones and how I lived and live and continue to do so within the constraints of my children's behaviors is always to shatter that assumption and to shatter that conditioning and to challenge the assumptions that people make about my children, intelligence, potential, worth, humanity as a way to reveal and to be a mirror, to challenge our own capacity to lead, to advocate, to adapt, and to build systems within companies. And my system is life, my system is my family. But that translates so deeply into the corporate world and corporate America with the ability to sort of, when we replace fear with clarity and strategy and possibility, there's there's insane amounts of growth that can happen to one's orientation.

Mike Jones 2:25

Yeah. And that's what I'd really like to pick up on because reading your stuff on Substack, um, you wouldn't naturally link, you know, a mother's journey and you know, involvement of her identity through two profound autistic kids and strategy. But you're the and I know you you haven't been, I say classically trained, I suppose as most of us in the military have been trained and you know brought up on John Boyd's work. Right. You you have an um an intuition for it, and an intuition that's gained not necessarily reading the text first, but from experiencing it first, and then I suppose finding it afterwards.

Discovering Boyd And Orientation

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Is that sort of Yeah, it's um yeah, absolutely. Like I was unaware of of the work of John Boyd um up until a number like maybe three or three years ago at this point. And what when it was revealed to me that that the that the Oodaloop sketch, the actual, the actual dynamic sketch of of John Boyd's work, was how I was living and challenging the assumptions of what a special needs mother is to be and to do once her children get a lifelong diagnosis. It reminded me that I am my own dynamic model for learning and adaptation. And it reminds me constantly that my orientation is the most powerful tool as a mother. Mothers are the primary attachment of any child, right? It's I mean, you can't divorce that. And so in understanding that I had the ability to not only by default be the driver of reorienting to this life, I also knew that I was a mirror to show what deep of a mismatch my choices are in reorienting versus what society sort of clandestinely serves women and mothers about a journey into motherhood that will that is not typical. And most specifically about the work of John Boyd is that is his paper on destruction and creation and the sort of outdated misconceptions and assumptions and these metrics about what life is supposed to look like, how we're supposed to look, what kind of role we're supposed to play as the, you know, leader who is just one meltdown away from their own meltdown, the the mother who is unkept, depressed, you know, riled up because at every turn it's a struggle. And when you when you choose to not let those adjectives define you and become integrated in your system, you actually end up becoming a meaningful innovator in a space that's sometimes unprepared for it. Right. You know, I I just wrote a piece that launched this morning about I get a lot of confused looks when I'm at events for, you know, small business entrepreneurs or out and out, you know, just just at any networking events. Because when you hear a person say that, tell me, tell me who you are. What's your what's your mission? And I say, I'm Sarah, I have two children with profound non-speaking autism. A lot of the glance is, how are you here? Like how are you living? How are you even here? Because we've been trained to think that the isolation is part of what the diagnosis carries, and it isn't.

unknown 5:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Now don't give me strong and that's the whole point.

Mike Jones 5:51

Yeah. But that's that's what you were saying earlier. What you said uh that sentence really strikes the heart of it, which is that um you're in control of your own orientation.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Yes.

Mike Jones 6:02

And and I think this is the problem that orientation um and your identity limit what you can see. Yes. So when you're when you're being told that just because of this, you know, these norms or these perceived constraints that are put in place, they start to define you as a person and they limit your identity. Where actually, if you can say, no, let's reorientate, let's, let's, let's, let's destroy that that narrative, these assumptions and those perceived constraints, and rebuild my own orientation to what is possible. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Well, they well, there's this, yes, and the and the orientation of recognizing that so much of our orientation is sold or handed or embedded and baked into our cells of our body so unconsciously that the acceptance of the discomfort that it takes to reorient in a way is going to be so freeing. It's also going to be very, very hard. It's not going to be comfortable. And I always say that that's the trade-off in all of this. It's not that this is going to be easy and that you're going to have this aha moment of, well, I'm just, I can fly to Hong Kong tomorrow with my children with profound autism. Now, I can. Like, I if some if you said to me, Mike, Sarah, I've got two basic economy tickets and you and Millie have to get to, I don't know, the holiday inn in Hong Kong for a week long trip, that doesn't scare me. Right. That doesn't, that there's no fear that I have in doing that. In fact, that sounds wonderful. Like I love the idea, the impulsivity of that. I also know that what a sentence like that holds for many women and mothers and caregivers in my similar situation is that's impossible. I can't do that.

unknown 7:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Well, you can. There's going to be a ton of trade-offs and a ton of constraints based on what your orientation is to your life and your children. Why is it so difficult? The brick walls that have been put up by other women and mothers in my situation are are false narratives.

unknown 8:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

And it's basically what society has always just chosen to do.

Mike Jones 8:13

Yeah. And like you said, because you know, even my I I've got a very naive um view of this because, you know, I don't really know anyone other than yourself, and we've had a few conversations now, you know, in your situation. But the you talk about the social narratives and stuff, but I I just assume, and this is my assumption, uh my orientation of it, is that you know, most people say, Oh yeah, you're gonna fly to Hong Kong tomorrow. The the thing is that their life must be about order, structure, routine, and it's like almost a sacred cowl that you cannot you cannot break those those routines, otherwise hell ensues. But you're you're looking a different way and saying, actually, we we can adapt, we just need to reorientate and understand what the trade-offs by these decisions are.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Because the powerful edge in in not isolating, you know, I use I use the trip to Hong Kong as a as a very obviously ridiculously massive example.

unknown 9:13

Yeah.

Shattering Stereotypes Of Motherhood

SPEAKER_01 9:13

For some, let's even say it's going to a new grocery store, right? What I know for sure is this my son needs to have certain fidgor or a certain sense of sensory connectivity to me. So he at eight years old is still going to hold onto the handles and put his feet on the bottom part of the cart. And I sort of lean into him and cage him in there as we go through the store, right? He's likely going to be loud if something funny comes on his device that he loves. He might be laughing. What I'm doing by interacting is allowing the world to see him, be visible to him, allowing them to learn, adjust, and build and develop a powerful edge that I already have, which is this is the reality of my child and my role as their mother. The adaptive nature of what society will take from me being involved in society is on society to do. And I know that that's a deep cost to mothers in my own similar situation. And that's the work that I'm trying to do is to say, I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying that it will continue to grow your own confidence in interacting with the world that sees you as only being a martyr, unkempt, exhausted, one small behavior away from your own seven to two-hour psych ward hold, right? And that's just not the case. But there's so much, there's so many narratives around that that you don't even realize are happening. I wrote an article recently about a major global organization that, if you remember from, I guess about six, seven months ago, there was a whole movement online that you could turn your life and body into like an action figure doll. Did you see? So you get Mike Jones and you input all these things about you and they they seal you in plastic with your little accoutrements. And this publication in the autism world, you know, published the autism mom doll. And she's, you know, unkempt, bags under her eyes, smeared mascara, hair all over the place, you know, bags spilling over, coffee on her shirt. And yes, that is us on that's any human on any given day. Yeah, yeah. But what what I keep trying to reveal is like the ground underneath that is that if you are not a per an autism parent, you are being sold that that is what every autism parent is. You are being sold that any mismatch to that is, wow, I don't know how you do it.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Well, I think I just the re- I the reorientation to what is possible is not withheld from any of us.

Mike Jones 11:48

Yeah. That's like um today really it came out today about are you being shaped or are you shaping? And it's it's the realization about first we need to understand what's shaping us. That's right. You know, what's happening because we are structurally coupled with the environment, and what changes the environment will change us, and and vice versa. But a lot of people don't realize that they are being shaped by these things, be expectations, but you know, norms, all this stuff is really important to and that's why the Oodaloop sketch and the dynamicism of it and it always being updated and evolving struck a chord so deeply because I was like, yes, I I actually, again, before even knowing about that, I was doing that.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

I was constantly updating my own orientation, realizing where my nuances and expectations lied within my orientation and simply was shattering them because I would not expect I did not accept anything less than what I knew and didn't align my, I think that we're we live in a time right now where identity politics is so ripe and full of fervor that I was not going to let the identity of being a mother of children with profound autism become the cross that I bear. Right. I'm simply Sarah, a woman, full stop.

Mike Jones 13:10

And yeah, yeah. And that's the really crucial thing because, you know, you you've you've you've done a lot and you've come a long way in, you know, from we've had a previous conversation about, you know, Sarah's previous life to, you know, this life, and there's there's a there's a whole sh paradigm shift in that alone. Someone could naively sit on this, listen to this conversation and think there's a nice linear path for you, you had it. But it's really about that the orientation and you're seeing possibilities. You took those possibilities, you learnt you got learnt new capabilities, new skills, new ways, and then you you practice those, which then created more options.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

That's right.

Mike Jones 13:52

And it's not a linear path, it's a it's a that learning and adaption that I think is I think people won't necessarily see at surface level.

Reorientation And Trade Offs

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Yes, because it's so small and it's so nuanced and it's so minuscule in comparison to what strides look like as an as a an adult living in this world. And I think, you know, the reason why Inch Stones became my brand and my title and my, you know, almost my hashtag Inch Stones was that the moment, and I'm talking a father and a mother, the moment that you have a child birthed into this world and you go to the pediatrician day one after getting home from the hospital, the word milestone is immediately placed in your vocabulary.

unknown 14:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Now you're unaware of it because of course you want your child to grow and develop. That's, I mean, you that's like baked into being a parent because the desire for your child is to become a full functioning, independent human being with their own choices and decisions that they can make for themselves. I realized quickly after, and I have a typical 13-year-old. So I had the typically developing and have the typically developing child. When that milestone was not being reached by my second and then third child, yet I was finding joy in their development that was so much smaller and worthy of recognizing. That's where inch stones became the mindset of my kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's there's there was still joy to be found. There was still growth within their development. It just simply did not look like what anyone was going to recognize and project onto me what they thought that I needed to have. And I think that that's where the questioning and the reorientation and destroying this mental model became so obvious to me. And I know that this is why it's my life's mission, because I realized that I'm in a unique position to speak this from a position of I didn't, I didn't know any other way to do it but the way I am doing it. And then when I realized that others weren't, I went, whoa, whoa. This is not about me. This is not about me sharing anything about getting a massage one day or getting my nails done or you know, blow-drying my hair. This is actually about holding up a mirror to have others go, Wait, I could have the fullness and breadth and expansive nature of any life as a mother, as she is, even with the constraints. That's what that's what Inchones is here to do.

Mike Jones 16:20

Yeah, I like that uh analogy as well with just thinking about business. A lot, a lot of a lot that business can learn from that in a sense of the growth and development of a business isn't the same. It's all contextual. Uh it's not always about the grand milestones that you've done. There's a lot of the the small nudges that we can do that help. Because I know you you recently done a keynote for the Association of Manufacturing Excellence. That's the one. Yeah. Thanks for helping me out.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Which is wild when you think about it. A special needs mom as a surprise and delight speaker. Yes, that's what's exactly the mismatch that we need to be talking about.

Mike Jones 16:55

Yeah. So how how did how did that go? And you know, what was the response?

Visibility, Society, And Agency

SPEAKER_01 17:00

It was phenomenal. It was it the the the feedback was great. And I the title of my keynote when I go into more of like an operational leadership setting is Inch Stone's Intelligence and the Advantage of Adaptive Thinking. And that that alone holds such weight, right? Because most organizational and operational leaders think, well, I do I do all of that. I'm sitting in the C-suite because I do that. And I challenge through my through the default assumptions around intelligence, who has intelligence, what intelligence looks like, how we recognize it in the workforce. And when it doesn't come in a linear way, and you accept that as a leader, you actually are creating a really powerful edge for yourself and your team. And the word accommodation is unf I think is unfortunately weighted with a weakness. Like when you say something, it's dominating, it's negative, it's it's seen as a weakness. And what example I I share a lot is when I began implementing a visual schedule in my home for my two younger children, where it's simple. It's like, you know, one long strip with some Velcro on it for my children. And this is when they were younger, but you know, wake up, take off your pajamas, take off your pull-up, get dressed, go into the bathroom, brush and brush your teeth, use the restroom, and then and then we get downstairs for breakfast. Those five different uh Velcro pictures on a board really did wonders to help my children with a severe disability understand the process of what it takes to get ready, right? Full stop.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

What that accommodation did was have my typical developing older child want one for herself. Well, that really helps Millie and Mac. Can I have one? And can mine be this color? And can I, you know, all these different things that had to be made, you know, aesthetic for her. What that revealed to me is that the accommodation I made for children that have a uh uh developmental detriment per se, ended up becoming that helped a typically developing child. So I I challenged that when in my keynote with these operational leaders saying, when you have someone that's asking for what looks like an accommodation, maybe reframe it in a way that it can actually be a competitive advantage for the entire team. Even though you think that we're doing something to accommodate a weakness, that weakness illuminates where the system has the ability to become stronger. And if you can shatter your assumption about what that accommodation does, it might end up becoming a way for faster, clearer, and more resiliency in the typical expectations you have for typical members of your team. Does that make sense?

Mike Jones 19:54

Yeah. Yeah, it does make sense. And it's right, isn't it? You you, as an organization, as a leader, you you want to set the conditions so that your people can act. Right. And I think this whole linear thing and this sort of sheet dip thing we take in organizations all the time doesn't work actually, where we can think about are there different ways, alternative ways that we could use to help people to support them to act because that's what we want, then why not?

SPEAKER_01 20:20

I think again, that comes down to one's orientation around some uncondition or uh unconscious conditioning to adaptation and adaptive strategy. You know, what if you are so tightly wound to an orientation and you are unable to evolve or broaden that, you will stay in a contained system of a vacuum. And those systems tend to die over time. It doesn't mean it's wrong in the moment. It might win in the moment. It will die over time. And that's why the the the vacuum of staying stagnant and not embracing a a adaptive and reorientation to what you, you know, what's the what's the Mark Twain quote? It's not what it's not what you don't know that gets you in trouble. It's what you know for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't even. What is that? We have to look that up before we post this specific. That's but that's what it but that's truly it. You know, it's what you're so sure of that that you're you're so sure of your model for leadership that you are unable to even contemplate that there is a better way to do something, even if that's a 1% change.

Inch Stones Mindset For Growth

Mike Jones 21:37

And that's the thing. It's just uh, you know, organizations have that tension between status quo and change. You know, and like you said, there is needs to be an element of stability, but we can't get stagnant. We need to adapt. Um, and the whole thing with reorientating is if we get ourselves locked in so deeply into this ingrain ingrained way, like I said earlier. Limits what we can see, but it's even worse than that. We then start to only look for things to confirm our belief that what we already held to be true is true.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

And to go off of that, you know, the most powerful thing you said is that you will get yourself an a silo where you will only be seeing and intaking things that validate that very specific orientation. And something that I that I said in my keynote over and over and was mentioned afterwards to me, it is not unsafe to be uncomfortable. And that's something that that is so powerful in the special needs parent world. And it translates into the business world in corporate, well, corporate America, as I say. It is not unsafe to be uncomfortable. But somehow in the modern world, we have aligned emotional, neurological, nervous system discomfort with being unsafe. And that's the point that I continue to challenge across any industry is that when you realize as a mother that your motherhood is not less worthy because of your children's diagnoses, it's just uncomfortable at first. It doesn't make it, doesn't make it less worthy. It's just uncomfortable. Yet that orientation that it for, I mean, listen, it forced me to reorient. I'll be honest. If I did not have the children that I do, I likely would just be in the upper west side of Manhattan, Lottie dying and ladying ladying who lunch with, you know, my friends that are there. And no knock on them because they're the best. They just haven't had the the need or the functional life moment to force them to to to reorient. And then it is a choice.

Mike Jones 23:43

Yeah, and that's that is the thing with with humans, with organizations. Um there is that level of status quo that's just sort of given, you know, business is this, you know, life is this, this is how things are structured. It's it's not until people start to reorientate and see opportunities.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Yes.

Mike Jones 24:01

New ways do they get to stretch people? But I think this you're you're right about this idea of comfort uh or discomfort and also this echo chamber. So I can imagine there's probably loads of you know, mum groups with you know, particular mum groups or you know, or husband for dad groups and all this stuff that you know specialise. But sometimes they could become an echo chamber as well. Which they sort of feed off each other, going, you know, it's it's it's right that we're doing this, rather than you know, out of those and getting leaders to move out of that to say, right, what else is happening? What else what what don't I know? Um what what could I know? Who else could I speak to? What other different perspectives could I look at to try and you know destroy your current orientation and build something new?

SPEAKER_01 24:48

You know, um the Oodaloop sketch is often misportrayed as a theoretical way to speed up progress or to speed things up. And I know I I I know now through obviously my in-depth learning of that and understanding why orientation is not speed, but that it does drive effective decision making in really dynamic work environments and motherhood environments, that over time it does do what looks like speed. It looks speedy. You know, when I I have my children, my my my um, you know, disabled children are 11 and or almost 11 and eight. So this is not, I don't want to ever share with leaders that this is something that they are going to take on a Friday and implement on a Monday. This is a this is an integrative approach from your own orientation system that will permeate through your team, beginning with you as the leader. And innovation and leadership does come down to letting go of those outdated models and metrics. You have to make space for that breakthrough. Because if you don't, you are in a vacuum and I was in a vacuum in motherhood, thinking that I determined, you know, Sarah determined what motherhood was going to look like. And, you know, the universe said, Hold my beer. At least it's like the universe is like, oh wait, you thought you were a great mother to that first and didn't touch the stove, hold my beer. Hold actually hold it twice for me, and then I'll get it.

Adaptive Thinking For Leaders

Mike Jones 26:18

Yeah, wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. But that's the thing, you can come as a a leader, and I keep like definitely as a strategic leader, and you'll you look out, you can get locked in um and thinking that you know what you're doing is fine and you're you're winning the game, you're shaping the game. But you know, you need to step back and to to really look broader and think about you know what what what is the information I'm getting fed? You know, what is actually happening beyond what I believe to be true and get out there and discover because otherwise, before you know it, the world has shifted and changed and you haven't. And that's where you get that mismatch. Yeah. And you're not going to adapt then quick enough to survive.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

I know that you are um a military veteran and one of the conferences I went on was for the United States Department of War. And it was, and I, as a neurodiversity advocate, autism advocate, I was really interested as to why the United States enlistment process did not include neurodiverse individuals. And I found through my research that, which I believe is like the number one army or you know, military in the world, the Israeli army actively recruits for humans, men with ADHD. Why is that? Well, there, I believe that they've recognized that the that the orientation around people with a quote unquote ADHD, which is basically just a way that your brain is operating, your brain's operating system, allows for a specific skill, specific skill set to emerge through the through your military training. The innate impulsivity and desire for like a high level of dopamine, right? Like like the shock and awe of people with an ADHD brain, when in the right environment, does exactly what John Boyd's Oodaloop asks of you and begs of you to do is to reorient quicker and faster than your opponent.

Mike Jones 28:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

So that's what I find so interesting in how this is so applicable beyond special needs mothers, why I get references to it from the military, why I get reference to it in business. It's so obvious when you realize that the adaptability comes from so many different angles, but specifically your internal operating system, your mind. It has to begin with you.

unknown 28:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

And I keep saying to each, I always have so many mothers, and I say this because that's my obviously my platform and mission around mothers and caregivers, but even in organizational leadership, saying, Well, how do I do that? Tell me how to do that. Well, I can't tell you how to do that. All I can do is model doing it and model what that evolution of my life looks like in order for you to go, that's where it implements for me. Because if I want my child to go spend a full day in Disney World, that's that's a desire that I hold. You, Mike, in your family might not have that desire. I desire that because I have my genetic heritage of going once a year to Disney with my parents growing up. And going to Florida was a very big deal on a you know continental road trip from Pennsylvania to Florida was a highlight of childhood. That's because of my orientation.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

It might only be going to grandma's house down the street and having that adaptive place work for your family. That might be as big and broad as you want it to be. But that can't, I can't give that. I can only model it.

Mike Jones 29:45

No. And it that's what people have like we talk about identity, and that's a lot of John Boyd's work about orientation. It comes out genetic heritage. So identity, it's the it's the you. But when when we're looking at that, many many leaders, many organizations look at other organizations and go, oh, well, they're doing that, so we should be doing that. But it it doesn't work that way. It's all about your dispositional state. So what you know, where are you right now? And also what what is your identity? And then from the understanding that you can go, well, what's our next step? Not next step to do what Sarah's doing or what everybody else is doing. It's what is it that we need to do to maintain viability so that we are coupled with our external environment and we are viable. So we are changing, we're adapting, yeah, and we're working well.

Orientation, Ego, And Metrics

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Right. And how leaders form orientation comes down to how do they make sense of reality? Like, how does a leader make sense of reality, decide who they are as the leader within that reality, and then act accordingly? Because I think that, again, my children gave this to me. I believe it happened for me. They only know how to be a hundred percent who they are. Can I lead them to grow in ways that are going to be smaller and much more minuscule than what you might see as growth, or anyone else might see as growth? But deciding and showing me truth and reality over and over and over again is one of the greatest gifts of why I can make sense of reality now. Does that make does that? I know it's very convoluted, but it it's like this is real. Like my hands right now are opening and shutting, opening and shutting. That's real, right? Reality and orientation is in non-matter. And that's where that, that's where there's constant friction of, well, show me how. Tell me what to what decision should I make? You know, what's the next thing I should do? What's the next right thing? I don't know. I can't tell you that. And it sounds so Eastern philosophical when you boil it down because it's like, you know, this, this like, well, it's always within you and it's already it actually is.

Mike Jones 31:57

It is, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

But the more in which you take in modeling of it from multiple different industries or competitors, you can then treat adaptation as a skill, like a technical skill. And then it you're allowed to then reframe that that in a way that it it does challenge your identity practice, like the ongoing nature of letting go, letting go of outdated assumptions about what your team and an operational system needs to do, reshaping mental models, challenging others in a way that allows them to trust and follow you, not just a line based on an identity, right?

Mike Jones 32:34

And that's it's normally a false identity as well, because what you were saying is exactly about reality.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

Yes.

Mike Jones 32:40

There's there's always that perceptual complexity. What I view as reality will be different to what you see as reality and and so on. So the job is that we're trying to overcome that perceptual complexity, not to see exactly the same, but have some sort of coherence between the views. But we have to we we've got to move this away from this point that there is only one one way of seeing things. We all must have to be aligned around the same things. It's not that simple, and we need to understand the difference between reality and what we think. Because often, how how do leaders get to this point? Because often when I speak to leaders and about organizations or themselves, they have this identity that they've created that is false.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

Right. Well So it's false.

Mike Jones 33:28

How do you work? Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

I think that boid and orientation, boyd and the oodaloop, and you know, for leaders, orientation is expressed through, you know, what do you notice first? What do you just what do you dismiss as noise? How does a leader explain failure in a team? What do you tolerate versus what do you correct? And that orientation, leaders cling to outdated mental models about, you know, productivity and compliance and how things have always been done. That stops adaptation. They don't think it does because if if they are getting monetary product success, they begin protecting themselves and protecting their orientation. And that's where innovation always slows down. Trust erodes. The second that you are a leader that does not seek to grow, evolve, learn, crash, crash your own mental models, you will erode trust.

Mike Jones 34:24

Period. And that's the same with all the performance metrics because people Yeah, like KPIs and all that stuff, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they then they focus on it.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

I said I said what I said.

Mike Jones 34:37

Yeah. And that's the thing, because they start to then look at that measure, but they're not realizing what's changing around them. So it's not, they're not working towards now that's a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

It's a real problem. It hides real problems. That model, that metric, that metric, how do I say this? That metric depends on control instead of clarity.

Mike Jones 34:57

Yes. Yeah. I want people to understand what what is it that, you know, you can you can still have metrics on, but we really need to be clear about what is the outcome that we're trying to to go. How how do we know that um we've been successful? We say in the military, when the smoke clears, what are we hoping to see meaningfully different? And if they don't understand that, they get blinded by a metric and they may be wildly off what they're trying to do, but they don't have that clarity. They're just told, make that green, and I could make that green any time.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

And make that green now, right?

Mike Jones 35:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

You know, instead of asking, why didn't we, why didn't we make that green? Maybe ask what in our system made it harder to hit green?

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Yeah.

Discomfort Is Not Unsafe

SPEAKER_01 35:47

What what are we not seeing based on what we're measuring that did not let us hit green? Instead of why didn't we hit green, what what in our system didn't allow for us to hit green? Because it's it's not just the metric, it's what it's how the metric is formed. It shows up as leaders start asking those questions, like what is it about our system? What are we not seeing? First of all, that shows a deep understanding and emotional intelligence around vulnerability. And vulnerability is, I know can can be seen in very two different camps. But in leadership, specifically around asking questions about systems, it is such a strength. It is, it is such a strength because teams are then given so explicitly from their leaders the ability to challenge an outdated metric, um, an outdated narrative, a workflow. I mean, again, workflows and I I always use KPI because it just makes me laugh so hard. But but like there is there are so many dead KPIs that if your leader, or if you're, if your manager, if your you know, CEO can retire a KPI without getting defensive, you're in the right, you're in the right, right uh working world.

unknown 36:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Defensiveness always shows where orientation is rigid.

Mike Jones 37:04

Yeah. And I see it all the time with I ask leaders, show me your strategy or what you're doing. And you know, most of the time they'll bring out a balanced score card of all these related things. I'm okay. Well, but and I and I see it with um uh sort of the the monthly um business reviews or something. They'll have all their leaders there and they'll go, Well, what's your metric? Oh, I'm I'm green. Funny enough, there's a lot of greens on there. I was like, well, that doesn't reflect your overall performance, but yeah, okay, we'll go with the fact that the greens. But they don't they don't ask those questions, they don't have that you you call it vulnerability, uh I I'll say like tactical humility to sit there and be challenged, but also to have those questions about I I love that, the you know, what what are we not seeing?

SPEAKER_01 37:51

What are we not seeing? What model no longer reflects reality and what can we do to replace that? You know, I again to use my my life, my mission as an example, if I had a chokehold on milestones and just went hellbent on like having my child hold a spoon and eat yogurt, I would become so obsolete because that is not going to happen based on how typical education goes for a t a toddler who just learns through play. Right. Most children just learn through play. If I did that, I would be missing out on the fullness and whole developmental system of growth. That if anyone was actually watching me as a mother do that, they would shake their head thinking she doesn't see it, right? She's not accepting her child for who they are. Yet when it becomes trans, like when you transform that into the organizational sense, there's less of this emotional attachment to uh the journey. And so people don't want to be as open about it and say, like, you can never say to a leader, gosh, you really, you're not seeing this, are you? You're really you're buckling down on things that like, you know, you're you're doing such a disservice to your team. Most leaders would take massive hit to that and say, Who are you to say? Right? But that because they're not asking what I can replace that metric with in order to destroy and create a new in practice.

Mike Jones 39:31

And yeah, I can't imagine um it'd be a comfortable place for someone to challenge the the senior exec team that have just been away for the weekend on an off site and they've come back with this new vision and purpose of who they are. And all all the people in the organisation are looking going, we're not that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're not that. That's just that's ridiculous. Right. Where we need to have that space to challenge our own or otherwise become it's that mismatch between reality and what we believe. And if if you get into that place where your orientation is becomes so mismatched with reality, you are going to be in a um um dangerous place where you do you do not have free independent action.

Echo Chambers And Sense Making

SPEAKER_01 40:18

I love I don't know start using tactical humility. That's a I think brilliant combination of words because vulnerability is operational. I do I really do believe it is. And the willingness to admit what you don't know yet and to acknowledge that a model no longer fits, to stay present when an answer might not be clear, and to be seen as a leader learning in real time along your alongside. I think that that that vulnerability is what allows leaders to to stay oriented to reality instead of simply protecting their ego to their to their role. Because I mean, ego is just control, ego is doubling down, ego is defensiveness, and ego will become, as a a group of of leaders that I that I work closely with say, the self-looking ice cream cone, right? Yeah, yeah. Like it's dripping you lucky, dripping you like it, and you're not doing anything. What are you destroying? You're not even letting the ice cream even model anything or even being worth having any sustenance. You're just you're just protecting the drip. And that's what becomes of of leaders in those in those roles that don't it's so simple. It's almost Socratic. Ask better questions.

Mike Jones 41:27

Yeah, and I love that question. And I and I urge leaders to do it in the next sort of review meeting that they have. Ask people what what is it do you think I'm not seeing?

SPEAKER_01 41:37

Mm-hmm.

Mike Jones 41:38

I think that would just open up such a fascinating conversation.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

Or or what assumption did I make that was wrong? Instead of like they failed or I failed, you know, what assumption did I make? What did I presume to be true that it was not over time?

Mike Jones 42:03

And and you've been great with this as well, I can't, you know, I can't overstate how important orientation is.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

Yeah.

Mike Jones 42:13

To anyone, really, you know, yeah. I I mainly focus on business, but you know, for a strategic thinker, orientation is vital. To understand your orientation is crucial because as I said before, it limits what you can see. So if you can understand that, then you know you can have that humility to speak to other people. What do they see? What what's their orientation? And what's the difference between my orientation, my belief of the world, and yours?

SPEAKER_01 42:38

I would challenge and push back on that just a smidge, because I don't actually I don't believe. I know orientation is not what you see, it's how you make sense of what you see.

Mike Jones 42:48

Oh, yeah, cool. Yeah, with that.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

Because what's on about the in the action is two leaders can two leaders can observe like the same set of data and act very, very differently based on their own mental models, right? So it's always about making sense of what you're seeing, right? Because if I, again, the motherhood that I have, typical child going about, I was I was being affirmed by what I saw because society never challenged me to make sense of that. I just, I was given the plan that worked for my child. So it was like, great, this is I'm being affirmed along the entire process. But if that didn't make sense to my other two children, so I had to broaden and expand my orientation and it determined what felt obvious, what felt urgent, what and what also also becomes invisible to most, right? It's like what leaders often ignore is more telling than what they actually respond to.

SPEAKER_02 43:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:51

I mean, and again, we all do it. I I never want to come across as like you or I being these holy grails of of orientation. It's not. It's just saying that we I have to do that too. I have to see well, what am I ignoring here?

SPEAKER_02 44:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Right. And and and if it's shaped, if orientation is how I make sense of what I see in the reality, then it's also shaped by my experiences, the incentives that I'm given to see things one way, the culture and the identity. And it's not neutral. It's never neutral.

unknown 44:26

No.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

You know, and even saying that is very freeing, I think, as a leader to your organization. So if it's misaligned, your your um, if if if your orientation is misaligned, you're not going to be able to model what it means to make sense of reality. So if people come to you, if you're, you know, if you're if you're a leader and you've got a team of 10 below you, if they are not comfortable in sharing with you what they see and how they interpret what they see, you are going to be missing out on expansive nature of what is possible because of the limitation that you put in to what is allowed to be seen. See. Right?

Neurodiversity As Strategic Advantage

Mike Jones 45:06

Yeah. And yeah, that I guess my my point, and I think that's the real the perceptual complexity of everything, is that a lot of people just assume that because it's what they make sense of, it's because what they see, that's what everybody else sees. And that just because I've communicated it in this way, that the way that I've communicated it make is how that it's being perceived, and then realize that we all see things differently, we all make sense of things in a in a slightly different way. And we'll see different elements of the darkness that you can't see. So actually stopping and acknowledging that and realizing that you know, yeah, I've I've got my orientation, but there's always going to be limits to that.

SPEAKER_01 45:55

Yes, and and I think that to use your brilliant phrase, tactical humility is how orientation stays connected to reality.

Mike Jones 46:05

Yes, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Because you are tactically humble, you are saying that I, as a leader, am willing to update my system and my orientation to expand that reality for the greater organization, which is another system that we're in, right? There's our own system, but then there's the role, and then there's the whole organization. Everyone has its own orientation. But when you're a leader, you do get to command the reorientation process. And that that is it, it's so expansive when you, when it when you lock into that, it's so it's such a beautiful aha moment when I see leaders realize this. They're like, oh my gosh. And you think once you see it, you can't unsee it, right?

Mike Jones 46:49

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Once you see it, you can understand it. Well, that's the misconception that you mentioned earlier with Boyd's work. People look at it as a very one-dimensional, it's about speed. But once once you you understand it, you know, it is that aha moment and you can't unsee it. And it just opens up a whole world that is just absolutely fascinating and really important. And once you understand it, it makes sense to how we we view the world, how we make sense of the world, and how easily it is to get detached from that reality.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

A line that I've said a few times that might land is um you can't outdecide a misaligned orientation. You can't like I can't, I can't say to my, I can't say to my kids, I have three typical children and we are going to do this, we are going to get all get in the car without any support, and we're gonna walk out. It's icy outside, it's really icy outside, and it's really cold, and you're gonna walk in the car and you're gonna buckle yourself, and we're gonna get in there, and we're gonna go to the movies tonight. I can't out like I that decision cannot out decide the that misaligned orientation to reality. That will not be won't fall apart the first step out the front door. And I listen, I I have a dark human, like I can laugh at that because I'm what I'm picturing this in my I just came up with that, like I'm picturing that in my mind. Like, I mean, it would be we'd be rolling in the street, someone would get hit by a car within 30 seconds. That's the truth. But the that doesn't that points to like you can't decide, you can't out decide a misaligned orientation to reality. You just can't.

SPEAKER_02 48:28

Yeah, that's perfect.

SPEAKER_01 48:30

You know, that's chasing speed over sense making is so such a mismatch. You know, it's the anti-Bodean theory.

Mike Jones 48:38

Yeah, and that that's so so true because I, you know, many of my clients that you know listen to this will will know me and probably have horrid visions in their heads with me saying, like, stop trying to solutionize I stop trying to decide, understand first. You must understand the situation first, sense making.

SPEAKER_01 48:58

Sense making, you know, urgency is not clarity. You know, whatever internal reward you get from a reaction or a praise that does not align with learning is actually a false, like that's a fake, that's a fake positive. That's not real. That's not a real, that's that's fleeting and it will not land. And it's just your body's way of giving, like, again, it's it's fast dopamine. It's it's a quick dopamine hit. It's it's almost like a drug. I mean, not to not to go into some really heavy topics, but that me and my partner talk about all the time is that leadership that acts without or without re constantly reorienting is like working for a addict who only knows that this hit is going to get them X feelings.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Modelling Adaptation Over Copying

SPEAKER_01 49:50

And it's that's dark. It's very dark, but it's really like there's certain leaders that that can resemble if you get very if you peel back all the layers, it can resemble an addict because they are so convinced that the only way in which to get a result is to get this to hit, that to hit, that to hit in that order always.

Mike Jones 50:10

Yeah. And you see all the time because as soon as things aren't going wrong, they just want quick decisions and you're thinking, you've not even understood the problem yet.

unknown 50:18

Yeah.

Mike Jones 50:18

So all you're doing is becoming more and more mismatched. Just before we leave, is there anything that you would like to leave the listeners to go away and think about from this episode?

SPEAKER_01 50:29

Well, I love what you were saying just now, and it this is definitely a wonderful way to capstone this, is that Boyd never said that, did not say to make decisions quickly or to be speedy with your decisions. What he showed is that quick decisions emerge naturally when your orientation is very well shaped to reality. And I think that to understand environment, intent, and constraints is such an incredibly simple yet powerful way to really challenge and beg of leaders to expand their orientation. Because it's not only going to work for your system in your company, in your in your career, it's going to work everywhere. And I think that's what the the greatest of leaders can take away from Boyd is that the way that most organizations interpret orientation can can become the fuel for which they thrive in the long in the long haul through the speed with which our society is is changing and evolving.

Mike Jones 51:32

I love that. Yeah, I think that's definitely good to go about. And this is what I love about these conversations, because typically if you have a you know a strategy podcast, you'd get strat well, so-called strategists, uh, you know, atypical strategists, you say, on the call. But I always find a lot of them don't really have anything new. But uh it'd be fascinating, and I think that your perspective and where you've come from is is so non-traditional, but it's enlightening. And it and I think there's a lot of generals out there that could probably have you sat next to them teaching them actually what what it is about.

SPEAKER_01 52:13

Well, I I did I have sat by some Navy I have sat by some US Navy SEALs and have challenged them. I said, you get to deploy home. I do not.

SPEAKER_02 52:22

Take that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:23

Take that, and just remember that you get to go back home to Paris Island, I don't. I'm frontline parenting through this without a break. And it is a beautiful life that I get to live, and it's happening for me, is is frontline to the nth degree. Um, and I and I do believe that that once I learned the theories of John Boyd, it it all actually clicked in the most beautiful of ways.

Mike Jones 52:48

Yeah, I love that. I love that. Thank you so much, Sarah, for coming on. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

This is a wonderful conversation, and I hope it creates a wonderful reflection amongst your listeners.

Mike Jones 53:00

Yeah, no doubt it will. And I I look forward to staying in touch.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

Fantastic.

Mike Jones 53:05

Thank you.