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Is analysis paralysis costing your business money, growth opportunities, and valuable time? Are you gathering information to make better decisions, or using data to avoid making difficult choices?

In this episode of The Workforce Alchemy Show, host Mason Duchatschek interviews Larry C. Hill Sr., author of The Audacity to Decide, about executive decision-making, leadership accountability, information overload, and the hidden costs of indecision.

Larry brings more than 15 years of experience leading enterprise technology initiatives involving artificial intelligence, risk management, governance, and organizational transformation.

Discover why business owners, CEOs, and executives can have access to more information than ever before yet still struggle to make critical leadership decisions.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:

✅ Analysis Paralysis: How excessive research and information overload can become excuses for avoiding decisions.

✅ The Cost of Indecision: How delayed decisions affect business growth, AI adoption, and organizational performance.

✅ Leadership Accountability: Why hiding behind committees and avoiding responsibility can undermine effective leadership.

✅ The $300,000 Decision: How Larry identified gaps in his knowledge before making an expensive technology investment.

✅ A Practical Decision-Making Framework: How to Name It, Trace It, Weigh It, and Choose.

✅ Building Better Leadership Teams: Why executives need employees who are comfortable challenging their assumptions.

✅ Integrity and Leadership: How personal values, identity, and character influence difficult business decisions.

✅ Hiring for Character: Why identifying integrity, reliability, and work ethic matters when selecting employees.

"Information can inform a decision. It cannot make a decision for you." - Larry C. Hill Sr.

If you're a CEO, business owner, executive, HR manager, or team leader looking to improve decision-making, overcome analysis paralysis, and build a more accountable organization, this conversation is for you.

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Apply for expert training and the opportunity to qualify for up to $1,000 in practical workforce management tools, including pre-employment assessments designed to evaluate integrity, reliability, and work ethic.

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📚 CONNECT WITH LARRY C. HILL SR.

Book: The Audacity to Decide
Website: https://5230maninprogress.com/

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Transcript
00:02Welcome to the Workforce Alchemy Show. I'm today's host, Mason Dukacek. This episode
00:09is brought to you by WorkforceAlchemy.com, where business leaders discover practical ways to select,
00:14engage, and retain their best employees. My guest today is Larry Hill Sr. He's an
00:20enterprise technology executive who has spent more than 15 years leading complex work involving AI,
00:26risk, governance, organizational change, and major technology investments. His new book,
00:33The Audacity to Decide, tackles a growing leadership problem. When does gathering more
00:39information stop improving the decision and start becoming a way to avoid making it? Welcome to the
00:46show. Thank you, Mason. I really appreciate this opportunity to come on and share with you and
00:51your amazing, amazing audience. So looking forward to having a great time with you today.
00:57So we have more dashboards, analytics, advisors, and AI-generated answers than leaders have
01:04ever had before. Why do you believe that more information can actually make some
01:09executives less decisive? I think that's a great question, right? I don't think we have an
01:14information problem. We have a decision problem. To your point, right? We're surrounded by more data,
01:19dashboards, AI, the whole nine. Yet many leaders get stuck, right? The issue is not always the absence.
01:27It's the absence of a signal versus a sound, right? Understanding that beneath the sound, or for lack
01:35of better words, the noise, there's a fear. Fear of history, of performance, expectations, and the need
01:42for certainty. So, you know, look at it this way. I'm from the Midwest, and we had tornado horns or
01:48tornado
01:48sirens, right? And it was a signal, right? It was unlike a sound that came from a blaring fire alarm,
01:55right? And I think the difference is a signal means you need to actually be deliberate about making a
02:02decision. Right now, it's just more data. It's just more noise. And I think that's a very, very
02:07interesting piece that we need to be able to decipher. Yeah.
02:10I wish, it's interesting, I wish I would have written this down, because I just read something,
02:15and I think it was a discussion about General Schwarzkopf, where he was talking about how
02:19there was some big decision, and there were books and books and books of information on one side,
02:25where people were making a case on one side to do option A, and an equivalent amount of information on
02:30side B. And they both made sense. And this decision had lingered for like 10 years. And he walked in,
02:38and he made a decision, and the people around him were like, what, how did you do that? He goes,
02:42you got to make a choice. Make a decision. He goes, if it's the wrong one, then we'll find out
02:47why,
02:48and adapt, and adjust, and fix it. If it's the right one, then we went either way. Because even if
02:53we pick the, quote, wrong one, and we adapt, and figure out why it's wrong, and come up with a
02:57better plan, he goes, we can do that now. We don't have to wait another 10 years.
03:02Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.
03:04And I think that's the decision. Right. And I think that's the distinction, right?
03:09Most executives, specifically in the IT space, right? Sound is everything competing for attention.
03:15Just think about it that way, right? Use cases, technology, moving faster, being more agentic,
03:21all these terms that we throw out to sound smart and intelligent, right? If you think about it in
03:25terms like that, and then you consider a signal, the signal is the truth that requires a decision.
03:30To your point, it requires a decision, right? And then the danger, which is really the litmus of
03:37this, is using more sounds to postpone responding to a signal that you already recognize. So you just
03:47add more noise so you don't have to make the decision, right? And so that's why a lot of
03:51organizations are just kind of treading water, because people are unable to make that decision,
03:58either out of your position of 10 years of waiting, which is fear. I don't want to do it wrong.
04:03I don't
04:03want to make the wrong decision. Or people are always prioritizing noise or sound over that signal
04:09to make that decision. Yeah.
04:11Yeah. I think this is a broad brushstroke, but I think in a lot of cases, people delay necessary
04:20decisions. But sometimes I think it's just covering their rear end to say, hey, if something goes south,
04:25they can spread the blame. And it takes some guts for someone to be able to say, hey, I have
04:31enough
04:31information that I'm going to make a decision. And if I'm wrong, we'll adapt or adjust, but we're
04:34moving forward. That takes guts. And it takes a willingness to, quote, be wrong in front of others.
04:41And not everyone has that.
04:43Absolutely. And that point is, I think, the crux of where most organizations are now. You have people
04:50in titles, but they don't have the guts to make the decision. So they want to make decision by,
04:56you know, organizational movement or decision by committee or decision by board, right?
05:01When technically the decision should be within, okay, I'm willing to take the responsibility for
05:07number one, the failure. Quickly take responsibility for success, right? Yeah, I did it. It was a great
05:12decision. But when it comes to failure, to your point, I want to cover my behind.
05:16Now, true leaders are always invoking the opportunity to lead from failure, not lead from
05:23success, lead from failure, right? That's what true leaders do well. That's because they have the
05:29ability to make decisions. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. That times a thousand. I knew I was pumped for
05:36today. I told you off the air, I was pumped for this discussion because I think that there are people
05:39out there watching and listening that have some weight on their shoulders right now. And that I'm
05:45betting that you're going to be able to provide them with some insights, some guidance, or maybe
05:48just a little encouragement that they need to step up and into who they really are and stop hiding
05:53behind the perceived safety of group decisions. Yeah, yeah. So that's why I'm willing to tackle the
06:01topic. And Mason, let me say this, right? This is not a linear process. You don't just wake up one
06:08day and start making decisions. It doesn't happen that way, right? So that's really the false
06:14representation of not only leadership, but even decision-making, right? This starts as a kid,
06:20right? And your mom says, go pick out some clothes, right? And you're like, okay, I go pick this out.
06:25You know, it's like, hey, you have on red pants and a yellow shirt. She's like, oh my God, you
06:30look
06:30like a fire truck, right? Go change. And so you start challenging your ability to make decisions.
06:36So it starts building what I call the OS, the individual OS, the operating system, right? How do
06:43I make decisions and choices? And how do I have the correct governors to do that? So Mason, by the
06:51time you and I lose our hair and we're responsible for things, then, you know, it's like we don't have
06:57the OS to make informed decisions because we're making them out of things that have shaped us throughout
07:05our entire lives. So when I say it's not linear, it's something you have to kind of peel back a
07:10little bit at a time. You have to start trusting yourself. You have to start believing into yourself.
07:14I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go to show. I just want to, I want to make sure that, you
07:17know,
07:18that's a very, that's a very critical piece. So not only is it not linear, but you have to give
07:24yourself grace to explore failure. That's difficult. But yeah, meaning I don't have to be right all the
07:31time, right? I don't have to do it right every single time. I'm okay to make mistakes. And it
07:37doesn't mean that I'm a horrible person. I'm a horrible leader. I'm a horrible father. I'm a
07:41horrible mother. It just means I make mistakes. And, and, you know, even though my pants are red,
07:46my shirt is yellow, you know, it lives in some places and it makes sense. So, you know, I think,
07:52I think to your point, that's my objective with this book. That's my objective as I lead in my
07:58organization and so forth and so on. Yes, sir. I think decision-making is a lost art form and I'm
08:06glad your book is making a, an impact to bring it back. I was literally thinking about just again,
08:12I was thinking about this conversation coming up this week and I had a chance where
08:20it would have been easy to talk about how you formulate your habits, your operating system for
08:24making choices. And I was involved in a, where I did something very, very nice for a
08:31Dakota business partner and extra effort, enthusiasm, whatever. And they did absolutely
08:37nothing with it. They had, they really had the chance to shine and to make something of it. And
08:42basically my, all my effort was wasted and it fell flat. And one of my team members was like,
08:48well, that's the last time we're going to do like anything like that for anybody, blah, blah,
08:51blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I understood that emotional reaction and it wasn't unreasonable.
08:57Right. Right. But what's more unreasonable? I would argue that using that experience with one person
09:04on how to interact with others based on experiences that those others had nothing to do with. That is a
09:10travesty. I had the, the decision-making discipline to say, Hey, this person missed it, but not everyone
09:17is that person in the future. I'm not going to judge other people in similar circumstances by an
09:25experience they had nothing to do with. It's a clean slate with every new person, but that requires
09:28discipline. Absolutely. Absolutely. Mason, that's so critical because there are no such thing as empty
09:33investments. We think there's, there are empty investments, right? And so what we often sometimes
09:39plan into, or we invest in either financially, emotionally, you know, spiritually, whatever,
09:46right? Those investments sometimes don't always pay those immediate returns. And so it challenges
09:53how we make decisions. It really does. Because the first thing you do, whether you answered right or
09:59not, because that's happened to me a million times. And the first thing I said was, God, was this worth
10:04it? Like, Oh my goodness, you know, I'm overlooked. People take advantage of me, you know, blah, blah,
10:09blah, blah, blah. And so before you know it, I'm somewhere, you know, in a hole trying to figure out
10:14how I got in that hole because it was out of the kindness of my heart. However, to my previous
10:19point, because this isn't linear, you begin to learn that there are no empty investments.
10:26What this person does not repay because you made a great decision, what this person is unwilling to
10:33reinvest in because you made an intelligent decision, somebody else will, and it'll be better
10:38for you, right? Because the thing is, Mason, I just want to, you know, affirm this in you, right?
10:44The capacity to make good decisions without getting a return says more about the individual
10:50than the instant return. The capacity to do it, hold it, move through life without it,
10:57know that it's coming back to you and you don't get it right away. Oh man, that's maturation at a
11:02different level, man. Like, like you're changing the game there, man. Like you're really seriously,
11:08because, because I like our society, you know, we're talking about AI and technology and all this,
11:12everything is so microwave and instant, right? Nothing has, we don't give things the opportunity
11:18to grow and mature and come to us in a better way. We feel like we invest, we give, we
11:25do this,
11:26we make a decision. Now the decision has to pay some dividend right away. It's not the way that
11:30works, right? And so because it doesn't work that way, you get two different people. You get the person
11:36that says that was a horrible decision. I'll never make it again. My life is broken. This situation is
11:41broken. My trust is broken. My integrity is broken. I got to look out for myself. And then you get
11:46the
11:46person that sits with it and just understands that this is building capacity in me. And because it's
11:55building capacity in me, when whatever comes back, I'll be able to handle it. 100%. You use the phrase
12:02negotiation with truth for the point where additional analysis stops helping and starts postponing the
12:08decision. How does a leader recognize that they've crossed that line? Most leaders don't recognize
12:13they crossed that line. They, they, they recognize they've crossed the line after they've already
12:18crossed it. And there's been too much damage done. There are signals along the way. There's flashing
12:24lights. Like what? Give me some examples. Integrity. Am I doing things for the right reason?
12:30Right. Not for my own, my own, not, not my own ability to show my value. Right. Not just in
12:39the fact
12:39that I want to promote a position or an opportunity with an organization, but how am I leading? Leaders have
12:46a very difficult job, right? You have to lead people without trying to necessarily promote yourself.
12:57When you get into the game of promoting yourself, getting to the game of trying to push your agenda
13:02forward and not looking at the entire team, the entire structure, then I think those are signals
13:08that start coming off. The way people respond to you, the way that people communicate with you,
13:13those things are so- Or work around you. They might even start working around you because you might be
13:16the bottleneck of the log jam. If people are starting to work around you, hint, you need to make some
13:21decisions because you are the bottleneck and you are the obstacle. You are an adversary, not an ally
13:25towards the outcome that you're seeking. Absolutely. That is the one that says the
13:32road is washed out. When people start working around you, that's the one that says the bridge
13:37is out. Don't keep driving because you're going to drive into the river, right? That's that one,
13:41right? I think the subtle ones are the ones that we ignore. By the time we get to the bridge
13:45is out,
13:46it's too late. You've lost. So that's just my opinion.
13:49So how do you know when you genuinely need more information before deciding versus
13:54when you're using uncertainty as permission not to decide?
13:58I think you inquire of more information when you are unable to communicate the problem you're
14:08trying to solve. When you cannot articulate what you're trying to solve in a way that my nine-year-old
14:15can understand it, I think that's when you need more information. I don't think information is for
14:20the purposes of impressing people. Mason, I come on here and I promise you, you're a super smart guy,
14:25handsome, intelligent, but I don't want to impress you, right? I want to tell you about who I am so
14:30you see me and you understand me. So everything that I communicate should be on a level that not only
14:35do you understand, but my nine-year-old understands. And I think once I'm unable to do that, I need
14:41to go get
14:41more information. I need to understand it. I need to be able to talk about it in layman's terms,
14:46not at 30,000 feet. That's my opinion.
14:49It's funny because I look back on the decisions I make and I think people have different thresholds,
14:55but if I think I have, it's ideally 70% of what I need to know, 60 to 70%
15:01of what I need to know,
15:02I usually feel comfortable without having to stall too much longer. I can feel comfortable that
15:06I can adapt and adjust and figure it out. I know some people might be 90, 95%. They need to
15:10know
15:10everything. Now, I don't need that high of a threshold. My threshold's a little bit lower
15:13because I trust my ability to adapt, pay attention to what's working, what isn't, and adjust my
15:17approach. The other thing for me, and I'm just curious in your feedback on this, is time. Like
15:24sometimes it's time's up and I just have what I have got to decide with what I have, whether it's
15:3110% of the information I need or whether it's 90% of the information that I have. The time
15:35limit is
15:36up. I have to make a decision now. And I recognize that. And the less information I have, the more
15:42willing I'm going to be to adapt and adjust quickly. Cause I know that I'm going into this
15:47half cocked as my parents would say, but it is what it is.
15:52Let me, let me, I think that's great. Let me, let me double click on that for a second. So
15:55I'll give you the best example ever. I call it a travesty, but it was actually a testimony.
16:00Tony, I knew a lot about snowflake. I'll just use snowflake. Right. I know a lot about snowflake.
16:06And I was at that 70% ratio that you're talking about, Mason. I was like, I know it. I
16:10can make
16:11a decision. And then I learned that I didn't know what I didn't know. And so because of that, that's
16:1770% that's like executive leadership knowing, and that I'm on the ground, hands on keys, went from
16:2570% down to about 10% like quickly. Right. And I was like, okay, so I have to make
16:31a decision
16:32about bringing Sigma in and marrying this with snowflake, bringing in the AI layer on top
16:37dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And I want to make a decision. I need to make a decision quickly.
16:42Right. And I thought I was prepared to make the decision. And so I, I spoke with my leader
16:47in Hyderabad and snowflake on, on snowflake team and we're talking. And I started kind of reciting
16:54what I thought I knew, Mason. And I was, man, you talking about, I thought I was doing it,
16:59man. I, I felt good about myself, buddy. You know, I had my little tone and texture and I,
17:05you know, and I'm, I'm going for it. And he stops me. He says, Hey, that's great. But that's
17:09about 10% of the picture. And I said, my God, I need to learn this in a way that
17:15I can communicate
17:16exactly what I'm trying to do. Exactly what, like, this is the use case. This is a business case.
17:21This is the budget. How do I make this Mary where anybody can understand this? Because the thing
17:28that I never wanted to do after that conversation was I never wanted to misrepresent my value of
17:33understanding. Right. And, and I got into that habit because I knew enough about enough to speak
17:39to it, but I didn't really know everything I needed to know until I, when it got that additional
17:44information. So I think your question is spot on, right? It gives you the ability, right? You should
17:50get that 70% ratio or that, that narrative that you want to accomplish. Absolutely. But then there's
17:56those times that there's this, this travesty and it's like, Oh my God, if I would have made that
18:00decision based on what I knew, it would have been bad. Like it would have, I would have went and
18:06bought
18:07$300,000 worth of Sigma and we were already doing it in Snowflake. Right. So that just kind of gives
18:12you an idea of just an example that I have. On a little bit of a side note, and people
18:17talk about
18:17this a lot and I'm not going to shy away from either. It's crucial to have enough of the right
18:22people around you who are comfortable enough and trust you enough to tell you the truth.
18:28They're not performative. They're not performing for authority. They're, they're in the boat with you
18:35where you are focused on the destination that you all agree is where you're heading. And they got the,
18:43the guts, comfort, and trust to tell you the truth, good or bad so that you can make the best
18:49decisions. Period. Mason, I have this, I have a term that I use in my leadership meetings. Uh,
18:55I want to be the dumbest person you respect in the room. Expound on that. I have a workado team.
19:01I own
19:01applications and software, right? I have a, you know, automation layer team. I have a snowflake
19:08team. I have a PMO team. I have an operational team. I know enough about all of that to be
19:14good
19:14at leading it, right? Do I know enough about all of that to run it? It's two different things.
19:20So I expect people to talk to me in ways that they totally respect the fact that I'm the leader,
19:28but I'm not going to know as much as my directors and my managers know about those specific areas.
19:35And I want to be the dumbest guy. I want to always be learning. I want to always be not
19:41just
19:41learning, but being able to have a better educated community of conversation. As I move up the ladder,
19:47I don't want to be the guy that knows all the answers. Now I want to be enough to challenge
19:51and have an understanding, but teach me. I want to keep learning. And I think that's where leaders
19:57make a bad decision is they become know-it-alls and they don't want to keep learning. You hire great
20:03people so that you can continue to learn, right? We send people to classes and schools and all this
20:08stuff so we can keep learning. I know we're kind of off a little bit, but that's just kind of,
20:13that's my narrative, right? I don't want to be the smartest guy in the room. We have a finance team
20:20and I have to do a $23 million budget. I'm not the smartest guy in the room. I know how
20:25to add a
20:25little bit and subtract and do allocations and FB&A. I know how to do that. I'm not a finance
20:30guy.
20:31That's not who I am. So I expect that people that bring specific subject matter expertise to the
20:38table to continue to teach me and for me to continue to learn from them. And that is a decision.
20:44That is not something that leaders do. You have to decide to be teachable. Good, good. Because we did
20:50not even think about talking about that. I'm sorry. I was thinking about Steve Jobs. I think it was
20:55Steve Jobs that says, I don't hire smart people so I can tell them what to do. I hire smart
21:01people so
21:01they can tell me what to do. Absolutely. He couldn't have said it any better.
21:06So what are the biggest organizational costs of a decision that leadership keeps postponing?
21:11Growth, internal growth, transformation. This is a show that talks about AI and technology and all
21:17of that kind of stuff. If you keep postponing something specific like internal AI transformation
21:24right now, AI is in a lot of products, right? People are sending in products and you see it and
21:30all this wonderful stuff. Mason, you and I know AI is nothing new. It's just been rebranded, right?
21:35It's been around for a while. We called it automation innovation at one time. We have an automation
21:39layer. Now things are just talking and speaking a little bit better. Now we've had bots and agents
21:44that have grown and chewed. However, if you're unwilling to move to that level of automation
21:50or AI initiative, then what tends to happen is that growth gets stagnated because now your
21:57competitors are outpacing you at small things like agentic email returns, agentic project management,
22:05agentic calendar performance metrics, simple things that you can do that would allow your employees
22:11to continue to grow in their specific skill set. That's what I mean by growth. That's where you're
22:16able to use full optimization, where you're able to see full utilization. It affects everything across
22:24the board. So by doing nothing or slowing to make a decision, you impact growth.
22:31So both personally and professionally, both. I'm sorry.
22:36I think you were hitting at this a little earlier, but without putting the term on it, but I know
22:40that
22:40you have a framework that starts with name it. Why is clearly naming the actual decision
22:46so important and what are leaders often doing instead?
22:50Well, name it is simply what is influencing your decision? What influences it? Is it the board?
22:57Is it the CEO? Is it a use case? Is there an opportunity for return on investment? What's influencing
23:05your decision? And, you know, after that, once you name it, trace it, you know, where did that
23:10influence come from? What's the source of it? You know, why is it impacting you to the point where
23:15you need to make a decision? And then the next one is, is weigh it. What is it costing you?
23:21What does it
23:21cost me? What does it cost the organization to make this decision? And, and choose, you know,
23:27what does truth require now? Like in this moment, what does it require? It's a very difficult question.
23:36I'm sorry. I can stop this. This, this, this was a, I had a guest on Rabbi David Lappin and
23:42he's
23:42halfway around the world, but he helped Nelson Mandela put the government in South Africa back
23:48together. And he worked hand in hand with Nelson Mandela and we were having a discussion. This probably
23:53would have been on one of my episodes, maybe two or three months ago. And it was one of my
23:57favorites
23:58because he talked about something that we're touching on here. He talked about authority
24:06that's given to you versus that, which you've earned. He said, when you're sitting here talking
24:13about, well, who's, who's going to be affected by this decision? Who are we making the decision for?
24:18I don't know exactly what your exact words were, but you saw, are we doing this to please the board?
24:22Are we doing this? Who are we doing this to please? And he, his, his position was, he goes,
24:28there's authority that you are granted. Like if, if, if you run a business and you appoint someone to
24:38be in charge of sales, then that person that you've appointed carries your authority throughout
24:46the rest of the organization. So who do you really answer to? The person who gave you the power?
24:51Absolutely. So if the business owner gave the VP of sales, the power, then that's who is being
25:00pleased. Now you might say to a lesser degree, customers, potential customers, salespeople,
25:07but ultimately if that power was granted to that VP of sales, it can also be taken away.
25:12That's right. And the conversation I had with him when it came down to decision-making, I said,
25:19have you ever been in a position where you had values conflict about how do you decide who you're
25:25going to please, who you're going to support when you can't make everyone happy? What's the least bad
25:32choice? What's the best choice? And I said, how did you negotiate with yourself about what to do?
25:38He said, Mason, I was in a very awkward predicament. He goes, because we had political pressure.
25:46We had economic pressure. We had religious pressure. We had social pressure. We had financial
25:51pressure. He's, he goes, I'm getting hit from all angles. And I said, were you ever in a position
25:58where the person who granted you the authority where it could be taken away? And what did you do? He
26:05his answer. I'm going to share with those who, who, who haven't heard it. And if those people
26:10haven't heard this conversation, I'd encourage them to check out that episode. It was, uh, David
26:13Lappin. But anyway, he said, I've never regretted a decision that was in alignment with my values.
26:20Now he said, he said, I, I'm not saying I didn't suffer consequences. He said, I never regretted it.
26:26I said, can you give me an example? And he said, yes, I can. He said, and this was later
26:30on in the
26:31discussion and not tied to that particular thing. He goes, I was representing a company
26:36trying to do business in South Africa. He goes, and we had the best products, the best pricing,
26:42the best service. It should have been by the merits of our offering an absolute no brainer.
26:47There's no competition anywhere around us. He goes, but it became apparent to me very quickly
26:52that to, in order to secure this business, a bribe would be necessary. Wow. He goes, he goes,
26:59I know a lot of organizations just fill when they're dealing business internationally, they'll
27:04just fill that in as a line item. Hey, that's going to be a cost of sales. We're going to
27:08have
27:08to build in budget for bribes, whatever. He goes, I wouldn't do it. And I go, what happened? He goes,
27:14we lost the business to a, to a competitor who paid the bribe. And he goes, and he goes, and
27:20I went
27:21back to, to the owner who I, who gave me the power to represent the company in that particular
27:29situation. And he said, and I was, I was nervous. I go, what happened? He goes, he extended his hand.
27:35He shook my hand and he gave me a hug and said, thank you for protecting our reputation.
27:39Wow. Mason, you just, what you just said is, is one of the conflicting challenges in being a
27:45professional in 2026. It's the integral factor. And those decisions don't often align with your
27:54integrity, your beliefs, your values. And so what makes it that, what you just said so powerful is
28:00he had the ability, the governors, the OS to stand on his values and make that decision. We don't talk
28:07a lot about this. Organizations don't talk a lot about this. People are giving power under an assumption
28:13that they will do the right thing. And that assumption is gray. Right. And that, that is
28:21where a lot of those decisions are, are made. And the value of it doesn't always, you know, circle back
28:29to who you are as an individual, your integrity, what you stand for. Right. I have a rule, man. And
28:36I'll
28:36say it, I'm by no means at the level of the rabbi. I try to go to church every once
28:41in a while, but tell them,
28:41I, you know, but, but serious note, man, I don't have the, I don't lie. Well, like if you talk
28:50to
28:50my wife, she's like, you are the worst liar. Like I just don't do it well. So like when it
28:57comes to,
28:58to making integral decisions, I just don't know how to lie. Like when I started lying, I tend to like,
29:05just tell on myself both personally and professionally. So what I've done is if I can't
29:11be integral about a decision I'm making within my values, I, I, I will not make the decision.
29:20That's hard to say. Yeah. It's one thing. It's one thing for us to talk about it,
29:25but when you talk about someone who's living, you take a look at Mandela. You don't think he suffered
29:31for, for, for, for, for his decisions? Absolutely. You don't think he had the pressure coming at him
29:37every single which way? Yeah. That's powerful, man. And, and he paid consequences. He paid a price.
29:45It wasn't just like, Oh, I lost my job or someone isn't going to invite me to a party or,
29:50Oh, I didn't
29:50get that bonus or promotion or whatever. Uh, that guy paid a real price for his decisions. And what did
29:57he do? His defining criteria was, is this decision in alignment with my values? When all else failed
30:05is this decision in alignment with my values? And so, so Mason, let me double click.
30:12But the issue here is how do you know if your values are okay? How do you know that you
30:18have
30:19a good value prop or a good value ecosystem or, you know, what, what does value look like
30:27to you? Because what value looks like to me can look, can look totally different to someone else.
30:33Now I'm a seventies baby. I know I don't look a day over 15, but I'm a seventies baby. And
30:38with,
30:39with that being said, you know, there were certain things that I grew up with. I grew up with
30:45understanding how to be respectful and to communicate and say things like, yes, sir.
30:50And no, sir. And hold a door open for women. Like those are just not heard of anymore, but that's
30:57just a very high level of kind of a value prop. But in leadership, like, how do you know that
31:03our
31:04values are aligned? Like what I think is the right thing to do. You think is the right thing to
31:09do.
31:09How do you know? And I'm interviewing you, Mason. I apologize, but I haven't, I have a partial
31:13answer for you. And, and this is going to come off a little bit self-promotional because those
31:17who are watching know, I also do a lot of business consulting and employee selection is one of my
31:22specialties. Okay. I have spent time with industrial psychologists who have studied this. So one,
31:29one was an industrial psychologist out of Las Vegas named Greg Lusignat. Another one was a industrial
31:34psychologist out of San Antonio, whose business I actually purchased, Neil Johnston. And they,
31:40they would argue that, and I'm being collective here because I don't know which comments I can
31:46attribute to which one of those guys, but they would tell you that parents don't teach selective
31:50values. A parent who took the time to raise their child to say, honesty is the best policy,
31:56probably taught them things like a job is a privilege and an honest day's work from honest
32:00day's pay and so on and so forth. And these industrial psychologists have figured out how to identify
32:05the presence or absence of core values. And they've also identified the ability for employers
32:12to find out whether or not these individuals completing these surveys or assessment tools
32:17are being honest or trying to fake good. And it's very fascinating to me. Imagine just a questionnaire
32:24survey. I don't like to use the word test, but questionnaire survey that you as an employer can give to
32:30applicants. And then what happens is there are questions on there. And like, I know the way
32:36these guys developed it, like they, they did a control group of convicted felons who were on parole,
32:41who had no incentive to fake good. And they had a control group of people who were top performers
32:44and surprise, surprise, the majority of the convicted felons answered questions one way, majority of top
32:49performers answer another because there's a difference between right and wrong. Period. And it's,
32:57it's amazing. And I asked the industrial psychologist, I asked him, I said, I asked this one to Neil
33:01Johnson. I said, but if someone's applying for a job, wouldn't they automatically know what the right
33:06answers are and just lie to you like they do on applications and resumes? So why wouldn't people
33:11just tell you what they think you want to hear? Right. He said, Mason, when it comes to values and
33:16integrity and things like that, he said, have you ever broken the speed limit? I'm like, well, of course,
33:23sure. He goes, why would you admit that to me? You're admitting to breaking law. I go, everybody
33:28speeds. And then the little light bulb went off. He goes, Mason, people that haven't been taught
33:33values think everyone lies, everyone cheats, everyone steals, everyone does drugs, and they
33:36feel no more guilt or remorse admitting to that than you do admitting to breaking the speed limit.
33:42And my job as an industrial psychologist is to identify those attitudes, those high risk
33:46attitudes, and let an employer know that, hey, this is a high risk individual for these reasons.
33:53Or these are at least some high risk statements that you might want to probe more deeply in.
33:57For example, one of the statements that an applicant might make might be something like,
34:02working through my lunch break means I can go home early. Now, that's not an integrity
34:06question. That would be a work ethic, reliability type question. You follow up, you say, Mr.
34:10Applicant, I noticed on the attitude survey that you said working through your lunch break
34:14means you can go home early. Could you expound on that? And if he's like, puts his hands over his
34:18chest and says, if my boss is so screwed up that he can't work a schedule properly and I got
34:22to work
34:22through my lunch break, darn right, I'm leaving early. That's why the boss gets the big bucks.
34:27Guess what I know? I know what this person's attitude towards work is. Or the person says
34:31to me something as innocent as, well, it's a policy where I work now that if we work through
34:35our lunch break, we can go home early. That's not a high risk answer. But there are ways to
34:40identify the presence or absence of core values in people before you hire them. And I would argue
34:46that if employers take the time to pre-screen applicants for traits such as integrity,
34:52reliability, work ethic, and numerous other ones, that they can build a culture of the right
34:58people where they're surrounded by other people. So doing the right thing is not a hard choice.
35:04It's part of who they are. It's part of their identity. Like I'm an honest person and honest
35:08people don't do these things. Or I'm a reliable person. So reliable people don't do these things.
35:13I'm, this can be a little bit of a rant on my part, but I've been spending a lot of
35:17time with
35:17folks that are very, very smart. And I'm really buying into this thing about identity. Like I'm
35:26this type of person and this type of person doesn't do that. And as an employer, I want to surround
35:32myself with people whose identity is congruent with the kind of organization and culture that I want to
35:37have. Absolutely. Absolutely. Dude, that is, that is a, that's a home run. And I think,
35:43you know, what you just really summarize is how people make decisions. Like identity is so imperative
35:51to even who you are in the, in the process of making a decision. And much like you, I try
35:58to
35:58surround myself with people that are a lot smarter than me. Not to say that you don't do that, Mason,
36:02but I definitely try to find people. And I'm talking to you. So neither one of us have hair,
36:09so this is not going anywhere. Trust me. But, but, but yeah, identity is so critical, man. And,
36:15and honestly, you know, I'm going to spin this back around. That was one of my challenges coming up as
36:20a young man. And the moment you say identity, people move to 2026 and they make it, you know,
36:25some type of sexual identity or something like that. No, not that, just identity as an individual.
36:29Who are you? What are your values? What's important to you? You know, and just went really
36:35quickly. I went to SIUC Carbondale and I started my freshman year. And by the time I went into my
36:42sophomore year, I got called into the office and at the time they called them counselors. I don't
36:47think they called them career advisors or anything at that time, Mason. And she looks over at me. I'm
36:52sitting at the table. She looks over at me and she says, do you attend this university? And I said,
36:56yeah. She said, you don't have a GPA. And I was like, wow, that's not good. I don't mean,
37:00I don't even have a number. And she was like, no. And so I left and went to the Navy
37:07because I identified that I had no idea who I was. I didn't know what I wanted. I went to
37:14school
37:14because somebody told me to go to school. It was the right thing to do, but it was not what
37:18I wanted
37:19to do at the time until I got to the Navy. And when I got to the Navy, I said,
37:23yep, I better get a
37:24degree because I don't want to be on this ship. And so I think those things are critical because
37:29along the way you pick up those traits to kind of form your identity. They start as a child,
37:36right? And then those things are either reinforced or they're taken away. And so I think that's how
37:42I kind of landed where I landed kind of off the step here. But yeah, so I cannot agree with
37:48you
37:48more. That is such a powerful statement. I just don't think people make decisions that are
37:53incongruent with who they identify themselves as. For example, I mean, I'm just literally
37:57thinking about this right now. And if we took a, if someone think about the, oh, I'm a hustler.
38:04I'm a hustler. Well, what choices and decisions is a hustler going to make that's different from,
38:10I'm a steward of this organization's finances. Yep. Yep. Or I am a guardian of the culture here.
38:19Yep. When you start, I want to know how the people I'm around identify because that's going
38:29to tell me a lot about what they value and what options are even available. I wrote a book a
38:35few
38:35months ago with Bryant Wright. It's called Built Right, but I'm going to give him a plug because
38:40he's awesome. And I know that you're a St. Louis guy. Bryant coached at Festus High School,
38:4530 miles south. And in the last 17 years, the worst finish his boys cross country team had was
38:51second place in the last 17 years in the state. Wow. He won 13 state championships, eight of them in
38:57a row. We wrote a book on how he built the culture to do that. But we had a speak
39:01engagement in Alaska
39:03by me two weeks ago. And I got time to spend with this guy and I value all of it.
39:08And we were talking
39:10about this thing about identity and what choices are available. And he said, he said, Mason, he goes
39:16like, I like Milky Ways, candy bars, Milky Way candy bar. But if I walk into the airport, which you
39:20know
39:20that everything's expensive at the airport and it's $3.75 for a Milky Way. He goes like, I don't want
39:25to
39:26spend $3.75 for a Milky Way. That's rip off. I can get one at Walmart for $1.25. I'm
39:31just going to
39:31take that. I'm just going to steal that. Well, you could. He goes, but I'm not a thief.
39:38Exactly. That's not my identity. And I wouldn't do that. It's not even an option. That's not a
39:45choice. That's not among the choices for his decision because it's not part of his identity.
39:50It's not who he is. Absolutely. And it just really rang true for me with that. It was.
39:58So if there was one piece of advice that you could give to anybody listening,
40:03what is the most important piece of advice you could offer and why is it important?
40:07So I'm going to go with this one. I have a gazillion. I'm joking. I really don't have a
40:12gazillion. Information can inform a decision. It cannot make a decision for you.
40:19Good advice. So if people want to know more about you, your book, your work, et cetera,
40:23what are the best ways for them to interact and connect?
40:26So I, Larry C. Hill, senior, I just wrote this book, which I'm going to send to Mason
40:33after this call, Audacity to Decide. You can check me out on my website. It is five,
40:38two, three, zero man in progress.com. And man in progress is our arc. It is our business
40:45architecture around. We are trying to teach men to embrace the understanding of, excuse me,
40:53progression over perfection. Teaching men that there's an opportunity to live in progress
40:59and not feel as if they have to be perfect in all things. We are an identity-based organization
41:05that is invested in building people and helping people to understand their true value and their
41:11God-given talent. That's who I am. I have been just blessed to be a part of your show, Mason.
41:17Thank you for this opportunity. This has been riveting. It has been provoking. And I am just so
41:22blessed that you gave me this opportunity to come on and talk a little bit.
41:25The feelings are mutual. And before we wrap up, I want to leave people listening with one practical
41:31next step. If you want less turnover, less workplace drama, and more discretionary effort from your team,
41:36I want to invite you to apply for the Workforce Alchemy Challenge at WorkforceAlchemy.com.
41:41You'll receive expert training and have the opportunity to qualify for up to $1,000 in tools that you can
41:46actually use. And the type of tools that I'm talking about are some of the ones that we talked about
41:50earlier, like the pre-employment testing for things like integrity, reliability, and work ethic.
41:55Those tools are in that toolbox, if you will. And the training is literally based around how to utilize those
42:01tools and others complementary to them to help make better decisions faster as it relates to employee
42:06selection, engagement, and retention. So it was interesting to me that we got off a little bit
42:12off topic, but it's in alignment with what we do. So I went ahead and rolled with it. But anyway,
42:16Larry, thank you so much for joining us. I hope that people watching and listening today have
42:20enjoyed it as much as I have. Thank you. Thank you, my friend. Blessings to you.

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