Turning Strategy Into Results, with Ganzorig Ulziibayar

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[00:00:37] Thank you, Jonathan H. Westover, for having me here. It is a real pleasure joining you. You're joining us from Mongolia, usually out of San Francisco. I am south of Salt Lake City in Utah. And today we're going to be talking about turning strategy into results. I love this topic. We talk about strategy all the time. Strategies have been an important thing, and I think some people are good at being strategic thinkers.

[00:00:59] They're good at being big, big picture people. But sometimes turning that big picture, that strategy, into implementation is very challenging. And kind of galvanizing your people in the front line to actually put strategy to action to get the results that you want is a totally different thing altogether. So we're going to try to unpack this and explore this together. And as we get started, I wanted to share Khunzori's bio with everybody. Or Gonzo, as many people refer to you as.

[00:01:27] Khunzori grew up herding on the Mongolian steppe, the same landscape that produced history's most effective strategists. He pursued 15 years of independent research into some conscious foundations of strategic judgment. He became a CEO of 27 and has spent two decades building companies and teaching strategy.

[00:01:44] He is a founder of the Education Board, the founding chairman of Mandel Financial Group, and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and founder of the World Financial History Museum, which houses more than 1,000 artifacts spanning two millennia. A fantastic and just fascinating background, Gonzo. Thank you, John. It's been an honor to be able to sit down with you today. Before we go any further, I just wanted to give you a chance to share with the audience anything you would like to highlight with your background or some context.

[00:02:13] Yeah, I think I'm just one of the millions of practitioners who grew tired of these strategic frameworks that were produced in the academic environments. But then to no avail, it's very difficult to enforce those frameworks in real life and complex situations. So, yeah, I decided to actually come up with a tool or framework or a concept.

[00:02:38] Some may even call it a theory, new theory that can be applicable by anybody. Not only the business leaders, but also all the main scientists or researchers or even artists themselves. So strategy is actually for everyone. So that's the key thesis here. Yeah, yeah, I like that. And I completely agree. Strategy is absolutely for everybody. I don't care if you're talking about parents in your home, you know, people, neighbors in a community, obviously within business.

[00:03:07] I like how you call out artists. I have lots of thoughts on that, actually. You know, creatives and such. Absolutely. Strategies for everybody. And you are right. Like everyone and their dog has a strategic framework, you know, some different type of thing. And they're all, you know, all trademarked and they all have their own little thing. And they're all kind of or no versions of each other. Right. So every big consultancy has their own, you know, their own version. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

[00:03:35] And let me be straight. Like, are they helpful and useful? Can they be? Absolutely. You know, are there really thoughtful tools and frameworks and approaches that can be helpful? Well, 100%, especially if someone doesn't have a lot of experience, if someone needs a little bit of handholding and help going through the process of breaking things down and trying to understand the complexity of a situation. 100%. Like those tools and frameworks can be really helpful. But you're absolutely right.

[00:04:03] They break down pretty quickly once you get into complexity. Once there's nuance. Because any model is overly simplified, right? By definition, a model is simplified. And so anytime you start to apply a framework or a model into a real world situation, it's very quickly going to have holes. And it's going to break down and it's not going to neatly apply to that situation. And so then you're going to have to start on the fly trying to figure out how you're going to do it.

[00:04:30] And that's where real human judgment comes into play. And if you're over-reliant on the framework or on the model or whatever, what ends up happening, and I see this too often, is you see, you know, well-intentioned leaders or, you know, even consultants or executives, they become dogmatic around the framework. And then they start to try to, like, square, you know, fit a square peg into a round hole.

[00:04:52] And they try to shove the nuanced situation into this framework rather than using the framework as a tool to help you understand the complex situation, right? And then that just leads to problems. And so you're 100% right to understand, you know, that the frameworks as a tool to help you understand is useful, but they're not the end-all, be-all. And that's where so many of us get caught up so often. Yeah, John, you're spot on over there.

[00:05:21] I think you just touched and you just observed the most important aspect. Because, you know, this is my new book, Strategies, Attitudes. It's not denying all the previous strategy frameworks or the attempt to explain strategy for corporate leaders, for the military, for the lay people. But it's just building on top of that. So let's imagine a basketball team. I like to play basketball.

[00:05:46] And let's imagine you are a team of five or ten players and your aspiration is to become NBA champions, right? And then, of course, you have these basketball techniques, these gameplays, these small tactics, these arrangements. But then that's not enough to make you a champion.

[00:06:07] You are missing the human element, the human capability, the emotions, the aspirations, the dreams, the grit, the self-efficacy, the confidence, the teamwork. All those human elements are not in these frameworks or these tools.

[00:06:25] So I would rather say strategy has been right, in a sense, for the last 50 or 70 years when it comes to define the process of the strategy, the process behind the strategy. But I just observed as a practitioner because I read most of the strategy books. I read tons of strategy research papers produced by academia.

[00:06:47] But, I mean, my dissatisfaction was that none of these actually touched the human element, the strategist herself or himself. So, yeah, really, I'm arguing that strategy until now had this missing half, which I call strategy is attitude or strategy as an attitude.

[00:07:07] So, really trying, we're really trying to define this and we're putting some research into this so that strategy now finally becomes this holistic process with the human being at the center of the strategy. Because, I mean, you're right that the plans are good. Now it's August. So soon there will be board meetings around the world, millions of board meetings around the world.

[00:07:31] And all the companies will approve their business plans and their strategies for 2027 or maybe next five years, for the next 10 years. But then most of them, 99% of these became just an act, a corporate act or political play. So CFO will supply some financial projections. Sales, head of the sales will supply some ambitious numbers. And CEO would just consolidate these numbers and put it to the board.

[00:08:00] But then board is not happy. Board demands, no, we want to see 50% more growth. So where did that number come from? Is it just the pressure or just an ambition? And then it's sort of a political haggling process. You know, this is wrong. Strategy must be, you know, it must be from the inside. It should not be an act on the table or written on a paper. So, yeah, that's the central argument that we are pushing forward with this new book. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And you're absolutely right.

[00:08:29] Bringing the human component into any strategy. Now, as an HR, you know, human capabilities person, I 100%, you know, believe in that. I believe the human capability is the biggest asset to any organization. And so, of course, that should be an important component, perhaps the driving component of any organizational strategy. And oftentimes it's lacking. It's amazing. You know, we pay so much time and attention to other forms of company assets, right?

[00:08:58] Like planned equipment, you know, intellectual property, whatever, like financial capital. We pay attention to all that stuff. And a lot of times we only give a passing glance to the human capital piece. You know, and then we only pay attention in terms of like labor costs. We don't actually pay attention to like actually the human aspect, right? And all of the often, and I understand it's hard to quantify. It's, you know, the intangible, you know. But also undeniable. It's there. Everybody knows this.

[00:09:26] But then this scientific methodology from the past 100 years, I think it worked wonders when it comes to technology, advances in sciences or medicine. But when it comes to management, those social, you know, art type of domains, it really failed. Because now academia, strategy academia, they need to produce research papers. They need to prepare frameworks.

[00:09:54] But then they only focus on these, as you said, quantifiable aspects of this whole thing. Because this qualitative aspect does not qualify as a doctoral thesis. So it's left over. But then are you denying this? No. Everybody says, yeah, yeah, yeah. We agree the human element, Ganso. But then we cannot put any research into that. Our business school or our university would not allow that. So how is that right?

[00:10:23] You know, I feel that was really wrong. And also, I think most of the time, also strategy was deemed as belonging to the top leadership, the CEOs. But then in this today's complex world, just imagine if you are the CEO of a global conglomerate, or if you're like me, I'm a chairman of a financial group. So we have seven companies working in seven different, total different business lines. So to me, every single one of my employees need to be a strategist,

[00:10:52] because they are just as capable as me as a chairman or my CEOs, right? They are human beings. So they have the exact same mechanism working inside their skulls. So yeah, that's also one interesting idea. I think that people need to take notice that everybody can and should become a strategist. Well, it's similar, I think, to the idea, like most people, I think nowadays accept the idea that leadership should be pushed down, right?

[00:11:22] Like everyone should be a leader. It's not just for executives. It's the same idea. Like everyone should exercise the strategic muscle. Everyone should be a strategist. Everyone should learn how to, you know, strategically collaborate with each other and do all those types of things. And why wouldn't we, especially in a knowledge economy? Like we're not just talking about people. I mean, obviously there still are factories and such where people are on assembly lines, but like even then, like more often than not,

[00:11:51] factories nowadays are humans overseeing and managing robots and like stuff like that. Right. So like, it's not even like the old factories of Rockefeller and Ford and whatnot, like the workers of today in a knowledge economy, why wouldn't we want these very intelligent people part of the strategic process? It's a huge wasted asset when we're not leveraging those capabilities. And yet you and I both, and anyone listening, we probably all have seen that.

[00:12:21] We see that every day, probably at our current organizations. We've seen it time and time again, where we're just boneheaded decisions are made, not because people are stupid, not because they're, because they have bad intentions. It's just because we're human and we have blind spots and we were not leveraging the collective wisdom of everyone around us. Like, why wouldn't we do that? Why wouldn't we have more people who, especially those who have boots on the ground, people who are like frontline workers, who are actually engaging with customers, who are actually

[00:12:50] engaging with products or the services? Why wouldn't we engage them in the process of like strategic planning and strategic decision? And yet we often don't because we see ourselves as executives or as leaders as above them. We see them as not being relevant to what we're doing. Yeah. That's crazy in this modern world. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Can I take me no more? And I think that's, I mean, this confusion, right? This, I mean, yeah.

[00:13:17] Let me also want to highlight what you just mentioned, because wasted assets. That was exactly my, also my thought. I was thinking about this. One day I was teaching strategy and then I told my students that are 8 billion people whose brain, the subconscious is like supercomputer. But then now there's a hype on the news that AI is going to replace humans. But then who, who is the human? Is it defined? Is there any measurement defined the human intelligence and human brain capacity?

[00:13:46] I mean, I think as far as we understand, we are creative organisms and we create art. We are strategic thinkers and we can feel responsibility and we can die for others. AI could not. So, I mean, who is going to replace what and what's going to replace whom? That's the question. So I think this is a very bizarre world that we're living in. This is a total confusion and chaos. So yes, you're right.

[00:14:12] 8 billion people, they need to be put in a good, like to fulfill their potential, you know, their full 100% brain capability. And then I think this confusion is also coming from this, how do you say, over-specialization and academia. Academics dissected strategy into pieces so that people no longer recognize two words. One is the strategy. The other one is the strategist who actually does the strategy.

[00:14:41] So into those small pieces like decision-making, problem-solving, critical thinking, leadership, teamwork, you know. So now there are some bunch of researchers who only study decision-making. But when I confront them and ask about strategy, they say, we don't understand strategy. I'm a decision-making scientist. But then that's just one phase, just one act that the strategist does, right? But then there are framework analysts, like strategy as a process.

[00:15:08] So you have KPIs, you have BPRs, business process re-engineering, you have OKRs, you have SWOTs, you have positioning. So, I mean, this is dissecting strategy into millions of pieces and start analyzing every piece, but then you don't know the whole. So there needs to be a holistic theory or framework. So that's what the strategy as attitude books trying to actually fulfill. So, yeah. So, I mean, yeah, go ahead.

[00:15:38] No, you're right. And that's kind of your earlier comment about academia. That's the challenge with academia. Because, you know, I'm an academic, I'm a professor, and I publish, you know, peer-reviewed articles and such. But I try, I strive to be like a scholar practitioner. I want to be useful. I want, like, anything I publish to also be able to be translated into, like, practical practice, yeah. Work that can actually hit people that are going to be able to use it.

[00:16:04] And, but you're right, like, you know, as I was trained in my PhD program, you know, repeatedly, you know, my mentors and my professors, you know, told me, you know, like, what you're trying to do is, like, there's this wall of academic knowledge in your feet. And you're trying to, like, add one little brick of knowledge to this wall. And so what does that mean? You specialize. You drill down. You specialize. You add one little nugget of extra specialized knowledge.

[00:16:32] And so when you're trying to publish in an academic journal, they don't want a theory of everything, right? They want a very specific addition, you know, methodologically nuanced and specialized. They want, you know, some new... And quantifiable. Often quantifiable. You know, there are qualitative journals, but it's way harder to do that. And so most people do quantifiable stuff.

[00:16:59] And yeah, so there's nothing wrong with that academic endeavor and the scientific endeavor. The problem is when we don't ever zoom back out to understand the connection and to see the wall. If all we ever see is the brick and we never see the wall, then what's the point, right? Like, we don't actually understand how it all connects to each other. And we don't actually see how it actually applies. And we don't actually see how to put it into practice. Then what's the point? We're not actually making anyone's lives better. We're not making organizations better.

[00:17:27] We're not making people's experiences any better. You're absolutely right. And that's one thing that is just so frustrating to me as an academic who also wants to be impactful in the workplace and impactful, you know, as a practitioner. And I know it's frustrating to lots of academics. And so that's really frustrating. And I know it's frustrating to lots of practitioners and lots of, you know, leaders in industry because they just want to be able to, like, know what to do and how to do things better. And then they read these articles and they're like, this doesn't matter.

[00:17:56] Like, this doesn't help me do anything, you know? Yeah. So I think your knowledge about bricks and building is spot on because, I mean, you are, I mean, as an academic, you become a brick scientist, specialist in a certain brick. But then that brick should be used to build a structure, a summer house or a factory, right? So I think, yeah, I think you're making great analogy about the bricks versus the construction or building. Yeah.

[00:18:25] Well, and I think, you know, one thing I know you talk about, I think it's covered in your book, but like, it certainly kind of come up in this conversation is the blindness effect. And academia has it because we get so zoomed in and we forget to, like, zoom back out. I think leaders can have it as they're using the various frameworks and the tools. They become too dogmatic around the tool. And they try to fit a square peg into a round hole. There's a lot of different ways that we can become blind around strategy and trying to move strategy into implementation.

[00:18:54] Maybe we can finish off with just a little bit of a conversation around like this strategic blindness and how we get past that. Yes. Good. So let me start with the subconscious mind, the capability of human mind. So, I mean, subconscious is not a different organ, just it's a different process mode, right? So we divide brain process into conscious mind and subconscious mind. Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel laureate, he came up with the term system one and system two. So same thing, right?

[00:19:24] System one is subconscious. System two is the conscious mind. So the conscious mind is what we identify with ourselves. So we're talking now using our conscious mind. But then we dream and we drift and we create. The artistic visions comes to our mind. That's all the domain of the subconscious mind. And I think there's some sort of agreement that majority of the human decision is made by the subconscious. First. Second, subconscious is like supercomputer.

[00:19:54] It's processing power. It's hundreds, if not millions of times faster than the conscious mind. Remember that our passwords are just eight digits long. And, you know, we receive all those messages, you know, the messages from those applications to identify ourselves like six digits and we forget these, right? So that's the capacity of the conscious mind. But compared to that, subconscious mind is like a supercomputer. Third, the memory within subconscious is vast.

[00:20:24] Psychologists, some psychologists think it's endless, actually. So now, provided that we possess this supercomputer-like power within our brains, now the question becomes how to use it for the strategy. Because using our conscious mind to deal with complex problems in this complex world, that's why strategy around the world fails. And then strategy is just left behind on the papers and documents. And execution fails everywhere.

[00:20:53] No results are delivered. Because things are changing very fast. The complexity is huge. So for that complex matters, the complexity, we have this right organ called subconscious mind, which works 24 hours nonstop, which uses like minimal energy, just, you know, a cup of coffee and a small bread, you know, that kicks your subconscious superpower, right?

[00:21:18] So it's a very efficient evolution of 4 million years. And, okay, now the question is, but then subconscious is not within reach. It's not easily used. It's like a wild horse, wild stallion. And within subconscious, as you just mentioned, there are many forces. Like, let's call them like bad actors, bad forces, like cognitive biases, bad emotions, survival instincts, bad habits. Bad habits.

[00:21:47] So habits are formed throughout our life. And not all, every habits are serving us right. And cognitive biases, it's a well-defined, almost 200 cognitive biases are negatively affecting our decision-making and our productivity and efficiency. Also, those survival instincts like selfishness, like fear, like anxiety, all those emotions, and that may or may not lead to depression, some emotional problems or challenges, they are

[00:22:16] suppressing our subconscious. So if you will, let's use an analogy. If our subconscious is a computer, that that's maybe that's our computer, right? Then we have all those bad viruses, programs that are downloaded and competing for the GPU, you know, resource. They are all competing to use the processor at the same time. But then if we let all those bad negative programs or softwares just, you know, run freely,

[00:22:46] then that's the modern homo sapiens, you know, full of depression, anxiety, you know, lots of emotions and can't make any right decision. So how can they, such people actually execute or create or formulate a strategy? That's the problem that I identified. And then I proposed a new way of using our subconscious, which is just a, let's say this way, it's a new approach.

[00:23:15] It's nothing new. Psychologists and philosophers were talking about this all the time, the religions, Buddhism, Christianism, all talking about this for thousands of years. So we use attitudes at the subconscious level to overcome all those cognitive biases and bad emotions. And then attitudes are like benevolent programs or softwares that fills our subconscious processing power and enables our innate strategic capability.

[00:23:42] So in a nutshell, this is the new concept. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if I did a good job. It's a really interesting kind of analogy metaphor, you know, the GPU approach. I like that because I do think, you know, we have a certain amount of like mental bandwidth that often does get taken up with various, you know, mental baggage, right? And we all have unconscious biases. We all have different things that sap our mental energy.

[00:24:10] I don't think there's any question about that. We all understand that there's a whole variety of things that limit our human capabilities. And I think all of us would love to unlock more of those human capabilities, unlock more of our, you know, our brain potential, more of our unconscious brain potential. All that's super fascinating. Gonzo, this has just been a great conversation. I know at the time I need to let you go. And in fact, you're in Montoya, so it's really late in the evening for you.

[00:24:39] But as we wrap up, I wanted to give you a chance to share with the audience how they connect with you, find out more about your work, where they can find your books, so they can learn more about all this fascinating stuff that we've been talking about. And then give us the final word for today. Yes, it was my pleasure to talk with you, John. And you're such a fascinating team player. Thank you for those. Also, I got, I learned a lot from you. Very good analogies and very good insights.

[00:25:06] And yeah, I mean, our listeners, they can reach and find out about this new strategy framework or concept, however you want to call it, at strategiesattitude.com. So let me repeat, strategiesattitude.com. So the book's on the Amazon and it's available on Kindle if someone wants to read digitally. So I mean, this book is really intended for everybody from a teenager to Elon Musk.

[00:25:33] So I had these two readers in my mind when I was writing this book, because this theory has been evolving in my mind for the last 10, 15 years. And it took almost five years to finish the book. So, you know, a teenager who wants to find her or his way in this complex world, who wants to choose to become a scientist or a researcher or a doctor or a businessman or go into politics.

[00:26:00] Everyone needs a strategy to create a family, to raise teenage kids, to solve relationship issues, or as a basketball player to win in the basketball tournament. It's all about challenge or opportunity or problems to solve. And for that, you need to become a strategist. And then you need to use your full human capability. So, yeah, I mean, I would be very happy if our listeners could get the book and use the

[00:26:30] ideas inside for the sake of improving their lives and improving their businesses and improving their emotional health. Because, I mean, if you actually awaken these strategic attitudes that's mentioned in the book, then all the depressions and emotional challenges should go away. So it's really a holistic approach, I would say. Thank you so much. It was my sincere pleasure. Wonderful. Gonzo, it's been a real pleasure.

[00:26:57] I encourage the audience to reach out, get connected, find out more about Gonzo. If you're free to check out the book. And as always, everyone can stay healthy and safe. You can find meaning and purpose that will be written every day. I hope you all have a great week. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the podcast. We hope you stay healthy and safe. And please join us again soon.