Beneath the Transaction | Chris Pineda on Leadership, Transformation, and Purpose

Chris sits down with leadership strategist, executive coach, speaker, researcher, and author Chris Pineda to discuss transformational leadership, organizational culture, purpose, conflict resolution, personal growth, leadership development, and the inspiration behind his bestselling book Beneath the Transaction.

Chris shares his unique journey from collegiate athlete and peacebuilding student to working alongside philanthropists, organizational leaders, healthcare executives, and communities focused on creating long term transformational change. The conversation dives deep into why most organizations fail at transformation, the dangers of transactional leadership, and how sustainable growth requires much more than quick fixes and surface level solutions.

Throughout the episode, Chris discusses:
 • The difference between transactional and transformational leadership
 • Why most organizational change efforts fail
 • Studying intercultural peacebuilding and conflict transformation
 • The importance of purpose driven leadership
 • How transformational change requires discomfort and vulnerability
 • Building trust, consistency, and safe spaces within organizations
 • Why leaders often focus too much on compliance instead of transformation
 • The role suffering and adversity play in personal growth
 • Leadership development inside healthcare and organizational systems
 • Helping leaders intentionally build strong organizational cultures

Chris and Chris also explore:
 • The importance of defining and living with purpose
 • Why transformational leadership cannot be forced
 • Organizational assessments and identifying cultural gaps
 • The danger of constantly searching for shortcuts and productivity hacks
 • Creating sustainable long term change instead of temporary results
 • Why transformational leadership starts with individual growth
 • The importance of slowing down in order to grow faster long term

One of the most powerful moments of the conversation comes when Chris explains that transformation is not a destination but a lifelong process of becoming. Instead of relying on transactions, compliance, or temporary motivation, true transformation requires intentional habits, vulnerability, trust, and consistent leadership over time.

Books and authors discussed during the episode include:
 • Beneath the Transaction
 • Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
 • Søren Kierkegaard
 • Martin Buber
 • Carl Jung

https://www.groundworkleadership.org/chrispineda

If you are interested in leadership, organizational culture, executive coaching, personal growth, purpose, transformation, entrepreneurship, psychology, communication, or building stronger teams and relationships, this episode is packed with wisdom and perspective.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Cool. Where where were you traveling to? I was in uh Chicago. Yeah. All last week. So nice, man.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Nice man. Do do you do a lot of traveling?

SPEAKER_02 0:27

You know, it just depends on when there's events going on and and lately I have with the book launch. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Well, man, I'm excited to talk with you and especially about your book, as it just came out just a couple of months ago, beneath the transaction, and I came across it and saw a lot of the work that you do, just your background. I pulled up your LinkedIn and I was like, oh yeah, I gotta get Chris on the podcast. I think what you're doing is really cool, and just talking about, you know, and I'll let you dive into it a little bit more, but trying to change transactional leadership into more intentional, um, and and taking that approach a little bit differently over a uh many different changes and over a long time instead of trying to look for a quick fix. But Chris, I'd love for you just to share your story a little bit on just your journey of your career, and you've been coaching and and you've been in organizations looking at things for a long time, and I'm sure that's where you got a lot of the insight and details that you put in your book. But talk about that path to to where you decided, hey, I can be maybe even more impactful if I if I put this all in a book and and share it with everyone.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Yeah, it's a good question. You know, I uh a lot of people say they don't they kind of fell into the things that they're doing. I was, I guess a little opposite. I was pretty determined to figure out a way to live out um what I'd what I'll say uh kind of a life purpose that I was fortunate enough to to discover when I was pretty young in in college in my undergraduate. And uh I was studying, I was a collegiate athlete, and then I was also studying peace building. So my whole personality is very competitive, you know, type A type of individual. I I thought, you know, I was gonna probably make a career in in sales or doing something where I can always be sort of competitive and and uh I thought I was gonna play soccer, you know, a a little bit professionally overseas. And then I study peace building, which is kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum. It's very, very much human-oriented, and and I kind of fell in love with that. So when I fell in, when I fell into that major, I developed this purpose for my life to to give my heart to, you know, I'll I say God, right, to divine, give my heart to God by being an influence for good and catalyzing transformation. And uh I I got really specific about defining that. And I didn't know what it meant for me. I just felt like that's what I needed to spend my life doing. So every decision I've made since that point has been, you know, dictated by that moment when I felt that sort of conviction. And uh, it's an important part of my life and and my wife, and and I don't my wife and I's life, and I don't mean that purpose to be cliche at all. I mean it's very, very much real to me. And uh so I out of college, I started working in training and consulting, and I was working on projects, you know, throughout nationally on different peace-building initiatives. Again, didn't quite know how I was going to make this into a sustainable career. I just wanted to help people and help groups um of people come together and and you know, solve problems, essentially. And during that time, I met a philanthropist. I didn't even know what a philanthropist was, I didn't know how to spell it, I didn't even know how to pronounce it, but I met this guy, and uh, long story short, you know, he's worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and he asked me a question that changed my life. He said, if you could come to my community, and this was in Oregon, right? Which I I had never really been to Oregon. He said, if you can come to my community and help me make a difference, you know, create transformation, what would you do if you didn't have to worry about resources? And I it was quite a question. And at the time, you know, I was mid to late twenties and didn't really know how to answer such a question. But I took it seriously and I wrote down a basic simple plan on one piece of paper, sent it back to him, and then he said, I like it, let's go to work. And uh it was a year kind of guaranteed at first. And the the thesis was let's bring let's bring leaders together and let's just start with that. And if we can bring leaders from across sectors together, then maybe maybe we can make a difference. That, you know, one year deal turned into ten, you know, to a decade. A lot of incredible work that's all in the book and discoveries, working with leaders from all over and helping them go through transformation individually and uh and their organizations and ultimately our community. So the book and a lot of formal research in there. Before I started actually working with him, I I finished a master's degree in negotiation and conflict resolution from Creighton's Law School. And then while I was working with him, there were so many incredible things happening. This is one of the chapters in the book called Push for Chord. We had to push for chord. We realized, okay, there's so many amazing things happening in our community. We need to be documenting this. So they they sent me back to get my PhD and my dissertation, my research really came was centered around the work that we were doing. And then, you know, some things kind of came to an end, and there's a whole story there. But after that, I went back on the job market, got a a job in uh healthcare as a uh executive in healthcare and and was sitting in the chair making all the decisions, had the opportunity to to apply all these things that I had been researching in other people and other organizations, you know, myself as a as the leader in the in the chair. And then I stepped away, wrote the book, and here we are. So that was a that was a very quick synopsis. You're free, you're welcome to ask any clarifying questions if you want.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

No, and really a unique path, Chris. I mean, the things you got to do, a lot of people don't get the opportunity or kind of flexibility to go learn and and be around leaders and then pick up on things. And I was curious, you you mentioned peace building. I've never heard of that. Was that a program in school? Like, what is that exactly?

SPEAKER_02 6:34

Yeah, it's uh it was a major intercultural peace building, and it's essentially the study of conflict, right? We studied high state conflict, and then how do you not just resolve conflict, but how do you transform it? And that's kind of where I fell in love with this idea of transformation. You know, like there, there's something deeper than just surface level change, and it happens beneath all of that within people. And so that's where those seeds of something deeper is happening were were planted, you know, was when I studied peacebuilding. So I owe a lot of my kind of my perspective on life and change to those initial years of studying peacebuilding and having the opportunity to be involved in different projects as well.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Yeah, very cool. It sounds like that's probably a course that everybody would benefit from taking or learning. There's things, man, I learned, I I look back at like college and some of the curriculum, and I'm like, man, if I had a class on that or a program on that, like what you went through and learned in peace building, I feel like everyone could utilize no matter what direction they go as far as career or coaching, I mean, any life. It just seems like something that would be a very powerful lesson in class for everyone. So I think it's really cool that you experienced that as a major. I have never personally heard it where I went to school. So very interesting. But no, and I was looking through, you know, a lot of your book, you know, you discover the seven conditions that transform life and leadership. And I was looking through those seven conditions to unlock transformation. So you've got purpose, commitment, common language, vulnerability, consistency, deep and trusting relationships, and safe space. I like how you talk about how everyone is is looking for shortcuts, productivity acts, techniques for quick fixes. And you're very clear that that's not that's not how you can transform your organization or your team or or yourself. But talk a little bit about I guess how you go about working with leaders or companies and helping them understand that it's a it's a marathon, not a sprint. And how do you get them to see these conditions and and how do you get them to buy in and work through just the process of implementing and and doing all of these?

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Yeah. Oh, it's a great question. You know, one of the the challenges of the work that I do is it's very against the the grain of of the norm, you know, because of this word transaction that we talk about. Our our our life, our relationships and our organizations are kind of structured and frothed with transaction. And and we hold on to those things to make sense of order and structure. And and so to let go of the need for transaction is to kind of be open to to something that's a bit unknown, right? And there's a there's a lot of that in now. I'm kind of gonna talk theoretical and then I'll put it in kind of practical terms, but you know, with with the idea and theory of transformation, there's a lot of unknown and uncertainty there. There's a lot of of trust and sort of stepping into the unknown to just see what can become, right? But that's that I mean, that's ultimately the process of becoming for an individual, is they constantly are stepping into unknown every day, trying new things they're becoming, right? Rather than just bubble wrapping yourself and staying, you know, in a in a room by yourself, you're not going to grow. So life is life is so much about becoming and stepping into uncertainty. And transformation has a lot of that. So people get afraid of that. They get scared about letting go of the transaction and the structure that they've created their life around. And individuals have fear with that, but organizationally, there's there's an incredible amount of fear. You know, the data also shows that most organizations, 70 to 80% of them, fail when they're going through transformation efforts. And large, largely because their leaders are not transformational leaders. They're transactional leaders. They know how to lead transactionally, they know how to get handshakes and agreements and they know how to get compliance, but those things never created transformation ever. And so, you know, I talk about in the book transformation's pretty uncomfortable. And so it requires us to be okay sitting in some of that discomfort. So that's sort of the some of the theory there. And the last thing I'll add to that is everybody typically longs for transformation. We want to grow and become better every day. We want our relationships to improve. We want our teams to be better. We want our organizations to be better. We inherently want that. So when somebody maybe tries to deny the fact that they need it, they're sort of lying to themselves. We all want it, but it's incredibly difficult to accomplish. And so that was the task that I was given. And I had unlimited resources to figure out quite an impossible problem. How do you create transformational change in a world that's full of transaction? That was that was a very difficult thing to set out to do, and we failed quite a bit at it for the first couple of years. Part of the challenge is you're we're trying to structure and make sense of something that you can't really make sense of. Yeah. Right. And I I got to a point where I almost gave up. I thought, you know, transformation's meant for, you know, church. It's meant for like religious things. It's not something that can actually happen, you know, in a in a secular professional environment. It's just not not going to happen. That's kind of what I got to, because I was pretty upset about, well, not upset, but discouraged is the right word. I was discouraged that it just wasn't happening. And then we had a bunch of breakthrough moments that are all kind of key, t key to the book. And then we discovered these seven conditions, which I think are actually really practical, right? Like you purpose number one, if you want to create transformation in your life, live with purpose. Define it. Be really clear about it. That's tangible. Write it down. Can you define it? Can I dictate it to somebody? Can I tell them what it means for me? Do I make decisions based on that? And then you put that in an organizational context. That's an organizational vision. And is it more than just writing on a wall or in an employee handbook? Are we talking about it often? Are we hiring based on that? Are we firing based on that? Are we celebrating and disciplining based on that? Are we making decisions based on that? And I found that most organizations are not doing those things. They've spent the time to define their vision, but they're not intentionally ingraining it into everything that they do. And so therefore, transformation, that's why a large percentage of organizations don't go through transformation because they settle for the transaction, they settle for compliance and checking the box and going through the motions. And so that's just one example of vision, right? Are we really clear about vision and our purpose? Are we talking about it enough? Are we implementing it into our daily practices, our weekly practices, our monthly practices? And I found that a large majority of organizations and leaders, their answer to that question is no. They want it here. They think that sounds like a good idea, but then when push comes to shove, they just, you know, they focus on the tangible things that they can touch and feel every day.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

I'm assuming that this is a pretty tough process with leaders and companies to get them to slow down and take the time to kind of peel the Yunion layers back a little bit and realize where their struggle is. I'm curious to know when you when you're tagged in to go and observe and help, is it more that leaders are hitting the panic button because they just don't like they've lost control? They don't know how to get it back to reorganize, or are there a lot of leaders who are proactive in this and reaching out and saying, you know, hey Chris, I think we're struggling here. Can you come in and take a look and help us define and also put into practice what we're trying to preach? I mean, where's is it a lot more of the 911, or do you do you see a lot of organizations and leaders be very open in proactively reaching out before it gets to that point?

SPEAKER_02 14:47

Yeah, you I mean, you named kind of the two types of groups that I work with. There's one that's things are not going well. It's red, they're looking for help, there's some desperation. And then there's the other side that it's just the leader is that sort of leader. They're always looking to improve, right? They kind of understand that I have to stay out in front of my own development and my organization's growth. You know, those are the two types that that honestly that I'll that I would work with. The third type is the transactional leader that doesn't see any problems and is just going through the motions. They're the ones that are obviously hard to work with. They're not looking for somebody like me to help them. But that there's a lot of leaders like that right now that, you know, probably think they're fine just as they are. But any leader that is oriented towards growth would never say, I'm good. You know, they're always looking for improvement in themselves first and then in their organization. So it's either things are all red or they're just that sort of an organization and leader that they're looking to always improve. And they're thinking, what can we do better? So those are the two types for sure that I that I work with.

unknown 15:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

And I was actually going to bring up the potential third leader because as I was thinking about that, you know, there's probably a lot of organizations and leaders who who do who don't think things are going wrong. And, you know, I I was curious, like, do does a leader above them call you in so almost force their hand to have to go through the process? Um, I would assume maybe that happens sometimes, but like you said, not not the most successful probably outcome if you're working with someone that's just not open and receptive. But Chris, what's the typical time frame? I'm assuming things can be transformed quicker the more open leaders are to understanding how to how to go about implementing and practicing versus some that may be a little bit hesitant. I mean, is it a six-month process, 12-month process? I'm sure it's different based on organization size and goals, but I mean, just from your experience, how quickly can you transform a culture or or processes? What does that time frame look like?

SPEAKER_02 17:02

Yeah, no, that's a great question. And it's always going to depend. There's always gonna be sort of, you know, nuance to everything. But here's what I've found, and I can only speak for my my own research and myself, right? Working with one leader in a coaching setting, you know, if you give me 60 to 90 days, they're going to be a completely different leader at the end of that if they're entering with that desire to change, right? It doesn't, doesn't take long. And you can't force transformation. So all I'm doing, if I'm working with an individual, is helping them create a foundation that they can build upon for the rest of their life and their leadership. And the foundation is based on those seven conditions. And those seven conditions, by and large, I've found most people have not spent the time creating it as their individual leadership philosophy. In fact, people are kind of thrown into leadership and they're constantly reacting and they're they're feeling overwhelmed and they often don't know what they're doing and they're just trial by error, right? And there's a lot of benefit to learn trial by error, but they've never taken the time to intentionally build a foundation. And that doesn't take long in a one-on-one sort of setting. So, you know, a month, a couple months. Now, if you're if I'm working with an organization and they actually, it's not just like one piece of their organization, like one section, one department, one group, but it's like an organizational transformation, which I've done several of those. I call them deep dives. We always begin with an assessment, and the assessment answers some of your what you said earlier about resistant people. There's always resistant leaders, there's always resistant people within an organization. But an assessment is basically holding up a mirror for them. So I conduct an organizational assessment that is, you know, evidence-based. It, there's a, there's a really tight methodology to it. And after that, I write a report and that here's what I learned, right? And I'm basically what I'm doing is I'm interviewing pockets of their organization from all different levels, from frontline all the way up to, you know, executive leadership. And I'm trying to find where are the gaps in their organizational culture, right? What do they say they believe in, but that what do people actually feel? Those two things rarely line up. And uh, and and then when you show those gaps, it's a mirror. And when they see that, they can't hide from this is what we found. And I have no bias, right? I'm third party doing an assessment, so I'm just showing them what I learned. And so that's very revealing. When they do that, which only takes a month or two, depending on the size and scope, you know, then then it's a matter of implementation, which I've I've done kind of six to eight months process where they can get everything built that they need to have, and then it's up to them really after that to carry it forward. Now, if you're talking about community transformation, which is what the book is really the main arc line in the book, now that takes a lot more time. And and it took us just a couple of years to get momentum. And, you know, it so it that's a that's a that's a big commitment, but it's a community's big, right? You have an entire makeup of a community, different sectors involved. But I'd have seen that when leaders come together in an intentional way, they can create transformational outcomes together when it comes to education, homelessness, you know, city livability, mental health issues, that they can actually make a difference. But that takes, that takes time. It's easier, I'll say, in a controlled environment, like one organization.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Yeah, yeah. No, because I'm just thinking, you know, I I'm blessed to be, I always tell people how blessed I am to work where I'm at because the the culture is so strong, the the care is there, the vulnerability is there, everyone leans on each other, but I've also been in environments where that's way different. And but I've seen also the attempt to change, which is a good thing, but that also comes with a lot of headaches. Sometimes employees are already checked out, they don't want to be a part of that process, you know, leaders don't want to change what you deal with. That during that transformation, there are probably a lot of things that transpire that it's almost like, hey, we're gonna probably take a step back, but this is gonna lead you to two and three steps forward. Is that a conversation you have to have a lot of times too? Of, hey, there's gonna be some pain along the way here, but if we'll if you'll hang tight with me, this is kind of the end picture I'm painting for you that we can get to.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

Yeah, no, for sure. There's, you know, there's really three key elements of transformation that are kind of interwoven in those seven conditions. Those seven conditions are pretty concrete. They're like you can create habits and systems and process around each of those seven things. But the three things that you can't, you know, the first one is transformation's caught, not taught. So you can't just force it or teach it into people. You have to create environments for people to catch it. And so that that's one really important thing to understand. The second is it's a journey, not a destination. So, you know, if we think that there's some sort of moment that we've made it and it's like, ah, this is transformation. Then we're kidding ourselves. There could be like transformational moments and some sort of outcomes, but it's more about the journey, anyways, which leads to the third piece is that, and I said this earlier, it's it's uncomfortable. So those three things, an individual or an organization has to sign up for those three things, right? And and then, you know, there's this idea of fast to slow or slow to fast. And so fast to slow is what most organizations do. They want to create change, so they get get all the resources and they boom, might make change. And and but it doesn't last. It's just for a moment in time and it's all based on a transaction. So it's like the difference between um to, you know, I want apples. So I'm gonna, if I want apples, I'm gonna go to the apples, the the store and I'm gonna buy a bag of apples and and I'm gonna have that transaction over and over and over again to anytime we need apples, we're just gonna go and buy the apples, and here we have apples. Versus the slow to fast way is I plant an apple tree and and I help it root in and I nurture it and I grow it. And then obviously we have apples for you know forever so long as we continue to take care of that. And and so when I talk with leaders about their organization and and we learn from their assessment, that's very telling. And that depend, that's gonna dictate our conversation. But oftentimes it's this isn't a quick fix, right? You can't just wave a magic wand and fix these things. And if that's what you want, then I'm probably not your guy, right? You can go hire another transactional consultant, but then in a year or two, you're gonna be facing the same problem. So what the work that I want to help you do is create sustainable transformational change over time. And that means we're gonna have to start slow. Doesn't mean everything stops and the entire rate operation needs to come to a halt. It just means we got to slow down enough to ask different questions and to have different conversations that we are not having right now. And that's always to my advantage because if an organization is failing, and even when I was in leadership and healthcare as well, I ran two different facilities, both were not doing well. So my first week on the job is getting to know all my leaders and department heads, but it's also just stating the obvious. What is what we're currently doing isn't working. We're not, we're not hitting our numbers the way that we could. We're not accomplishing the these the you know, these KPIs and all of our outcomes that we're wanting to see. They're not happening the way that they could. So that means the only thing that we can do is go up from here. And so a lot of that early conversation is so important with an organization of where are we today and where do you want to be? Because if you keep doing the same thing, then you're you're not gonna be here, which is why I'm here, right? Yeah. If you want, if you want things to be better, then we have to make some changes, and that means it's gonna feel like we're slowing down a little bit to make these changes, but then you know, we're gonna be able to play at a higher, you know, we're gonna be able to fly at a higher altitude, essentially.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

I love your apple tree analogy because I'm thinking I mean, your book is a best-selling book, and there's a reason to that. Obviously, it can help transformation with organizations, but I'm thinking of even guys, I'm thinking of myself, like trying to build something, can read your book and maybe see some things that you can change while you're building so that you don't get to a point where you have to do as much transformation. Maybe you can do that on the front end. And again, it's the power of books, uh, a blueprint to to help, you know, cheat code so you don't make the same mistakes as maybe somebody else or another company. And so um, Chris, I've I've really just got one more question for you. Again, your book uh can impact so many people on a personal and professional level. Um, before just a books for guys question and perspective, I'm always curious to know, you know, what is a book or two that has meant a lot to you personally or professionally? And what's a book or two that you like to recommend to other people?

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Yeah, you know, one of my all-time favorite books is Man's Search for Meaning, which you've probably read by Frankel. That that book and his his work and some of his other books that, you know, came after that one have been very influential to me. You know, outside of kind of faith-based books, Bible and whatnot, those have probably that's probably been the most impactful book to me. Uh not just as a human being, but specifically, you know, as a man. And a big part of the way I talk about purpose is suffering, and and that's the whole premise of of his work, you know, Victor Frankel's work on logotherapy is finding meaning through suffering. And I think life is is about suffering. We suffer a lot. And and then, you know, to your audience, specifically as a man, you know, a lot of being a man and a husband, a father, provider, it's suffering in a lot of ways. And you have to be able to find meaning in those things. I'm going to give up my own desires of the flesh and the things that I want to do with my life specifically, and I'm just going to suffer for the those that I love, and I'm going to find meaning, not just in the connection to those people, but in the suffering itself. And so that that book has been really transformative to me. Another book that I really love is well, I'll talk about authors instead of books, because the authors love I'll even mix up like what book did they say this and that. I don't, I don't always remember. But another book, uh, another author that I love is Soren Kierkingard. I call him kind of the the father of Christian psychology. He wasn't known as that when he was alive, but you know, looking back on his work, that's definitely a category he falls in. Martin Buber's work as well has been very impactful to me. I I I Thou is is his main book, Martin Buber's book on I Thou. So I also love Carl Jung. And so those are those are some of the authors, I guess, that have really influenced me. But I'm a, I'm a, I don't I like those sort of books, man. I like those are all books you have to read the page multiple times. So it's not, they're not easy reads. So I will say that. If you you like easy reads that just you read a page and then everything makes sense, then these books are not for you. You have to mark these suckers up and read them over and over. And I I actually write that way too. So I had to really tone it down. And my wife and some other mentors were like, you gotta write your book for a larger audience. So I my first few drafts were very theoretical and very like deep. And I had to kind of really scale back and just write to human to human instead of just trying to wrestle with all these thoughts that are hard to understand. So but those those are some of my favorite books and or sorry, authors.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Yeah. No, I'm not surprised by the books you mentioned just because of your just your personality and style and deep thinking intensity. I was, I was, I figured you were probably gonna go that route with your book recommendations, and those are all impactful for sure. And and again, I know your book is having an impact on many people and and will have even more of an impact as time goes on. So super excited to spotlight it and be a part of promoting it and putting that message out there for you, Chris. But man, this has been such an impactful convers. We keep using that word, impact, such an impactful conversation. And I think a lot of leaders and people who follow this specific podcast and platform, I think is is gonna get a lot of value out of. And I hope they it leads them to reading your book as well. But Chris, man, this has been great. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

No, thank you for having me, and and thanks for the great questions. They were very thought provoking and and uh I ramble, man.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

No, I loved it, man. It was perfect. Appreciate it, Chris. Yeah, thank you.