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No Way Out
Welcome to the No Way Out podcast where we examine the variety of domains and disciplines behind John R. Boyd’s OODA sketch and why, today, more than ever, it is an imperative to understand Boyd’s axiomatic sketch of how organisms, individuals, teams, corporations, and governments comprehend, shape, and adapt in our VUCA world.
No Way Out
Innovating with Boyd: Exploring the OODA Loop and Overcoming Obstructionists for Transformation and Growth with Kuan Collins, PhD | Ep 28
What happens when we explore the fascinating world of John Boyd's methodology and the impact his OODA loop has had on managing programs, teams, and decision-making?
Join us in an insightful conversation with Dr. Kuan Collins as we uncover the secrets of Boyd's work and how it has influenced her life and career. From discovering Boyd's handwritten notes in bookstores to discussing his marked-up copy of Warfighting and his paper Destruction and Creation, this episode is a treasure trove of wisdom.
We also dive into the five obstructionists that Greg Larkin identifies when it comes to transformation or disruption of the status quo. Learn how to overcome skeptics, cops, traditionalists, terror territorialists, and capitalists using John Boyd's definitions of evil and corruption. Kuan shares her valuable insights on the significance of innovation and the power of embracing discomfort and design for growth.
Tune in as we discuss empathy, humility, and navigating change in various environments. We'll also explore the origins and mission of our Intersections podcast, highlighting the value of multidimensional thinking to cultivate understanding of innovation and the human being behind it. Listen in to be inspired by Kuan's journey and the disruptive power of Eastern philosophies, which are foundational to John Boyd's methodology.
Don't miss this opportunity to learn, grow, and innovate with Dr. Kuan Collins!
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March 25, 2025
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So, lo and behold, I put up a post, which I am known to do almost on a daily basis, about John Boyd, either directly or indirectly. And here is Kwan Collins commenting on John Boyd and liking and showing pictures of the John Boyd books that you have. How did you get into John Boyd and give us some background on that?
Dr. Kuan Collins:Sure. So I started I guess it was when I got out of college, because I hadn't heard about him when I was in college, you know, as an electrical engineering student, and we really didn't talk about oodle loops or anything like that, but I'm sure we did, but it was sort of in the periphery of the whatever we were talking about. So out of college, you know, i started working at the Pentagon and learning about defense acquisition and we got lots of training on acquisition and program management and those kinds of things. And Boyd wasn't spoken about directly but oodle loops were mentioned and it was weird. It was always like sort of a passing thing, like here's a methodology that we should know. And I'm like I was drawn to it because I'm like wow, why is this not the only thing that we're studying? This is amazing. And so I think, inherently I'm just a methodology process girl, you know, and I just I latched on to that and I'm like this is there's something there.
Dr. Kuan Collins:And then every class I took, whether it was about lean management or I got further certified in acquisition and program management or whatever, like oodle was always part of the discussion And I think it just became sort of, you know, inherent to how we do things right. How do we manage a program, how do we manage a team, how do we make decisions, how do we do whatever? And I think when I started becoming an agile practitioner, so I'm also scaled scaled agile framework version five, whatever program consultant and DevSecOps and all these things And all of them really are found like UDA is foundational. So everything that Boyd came up with I mean all the ways that we talk about going faster and accelerating and innovating and creating is all tied to what John Boyd came up with. And so I think it all just came together for me in my head, like in the last five years, and I'm like so there's nothing new under the sun.
Dr. Kuan Collins:You know, all these methodologies and everything that we're talking about is not new, but it's reimagining what we do in a new way And that's innovation. And so I feel, you know, i feel drawn to all of his work and I want to study it more, because I've never really studied Boyd And I think you sparked all of that with that one post, so that one post really did. Now I'm diving deep. I want to do a whole you know dissertation on Boyd.
Mark McGrath:I think it was some of the handwritten notes that maybe that I posted that he had That stuff. Oh my God, that's gold.
Dr. Kuan Collins:I mean I had so much fun. I mean I love that stuff. Anyways, like you know, one of my the early dates with my husband we would go to old bookstores and all of those like the handwritten notes. That's like magic. And it's funny because my kids and even my husband freak out when I write in the book because they're like you can't write in the book. I'm like, yes, i can, it's my book, i never have to look at it again. But yeah, so when I see that I just I imagine you know what he was doing, what he was thinking, you know how he was like. He got all excited because you can totally see it in the way he writes in the margins And I resonate. I feel like I channel him now.
Mark McGrath:Yeah, it's amazing to put those things in your hands, particularly say his copy of Clausewitz on war or his copy of war fighting. I had the last trip I made I found his copy of war fighting And just to say, you know, it's funny about that one, like Clausewitz, he absolutely drowns in marginalia because he was basically going to war with Clausewitz. Intellectually At least, that's my take.
Dr. Kuan Collins:That's interesting Yeah.
Mark McGrath:And when he was in war fighting, he didn't. He didn't mark it up very much. He had some pointed comments, but they were brief, you know, and they weren't, you know, compared to a lot of the other books. When you're in there too, like articles, even like ditto copied remember when we were kids, like high school, like those old copiers yeah, there's tons of those types of articles and they're drowning in his notes And I'm trying to. I'm trying to still understand this highlighting methodology, because he would underline words and he would put little X's and little squares, like so It's not so, not so intuitive. The other thing that might blow your mind is that you know all of his briefings he wrote out by hand multiple times, oh my God. So I'll have to, i'll have to put these up and I'll share them with you. What I'll do is I'll send you a Dropbox link so you can go through all these.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Oh my goodness.
Mark McGrath:You know his only paper was Destruction and Creation. that that has only published work from 1976. But when you go in there the archives, there's probably five, six, seven handwritten versions of it, like he wrote the whole thing out in hand by hand multiple times And you could. you could just imagine him writing these things out and dwelling on them and thinking about them.
Dr. Kuan Collins:And that's so cool.
Mark McGrath:And getting feedback. You know like he would he would share it with his, his inner circle, and have them do like for Chet Richards, for example, would contribute to the mathematics. Or Chuck Spinney helped them with the. You know the drafting of the of the Oodaloo book. That's really amazing to see the various versions of that.
Dr. Kuan Collins:This is fascinating. So I read a book which I don't know if you've read it. It's Farrell, on Collaborative Circles. And he talks about groups of people throughout time that had this cohort of people like trusted partners that they shared their work with and what they were thinking about, and it was all about.
Dr. Kuan Collins:So they were rebels, they were innovators, they were sort of not thinking traditionally, and so the mainstream of the time was rejecting them as as leaders, because they were just too far out of the the bounds, and so they would form these circles. And so examples of that was like Tolkien, tolkien and CS Lewis and his what they called the Inklings in Oxford. You know they, their writing was way ahead of where everybody was right. It was so out there, fantasy was not a genre right, and so these, the world creations that they were doing was just out of you know, out of the norm.
Dr. Kuan Collins:And so they, you know, no one respected that work And so they formed this group and they would meet at the bar and they would just sit around and talk about their ideas. And there was a whole process associated with this thing, which is what Farrell sort of captures in terms of how this subculture. You know, it's kind of like going to the party and your board, so you form the sub party, so they you know they had this sub party and they would drink and talk and then they would go off and do work and come back and share what they were thinking, what they were doing, get the feedback, go back and incorporate the feedback or argue with each other. They would take these long walks together And all they would do is talk about their ideas And I'm like, oh my God, this is a lost art.
Dr. Kuan Collins:I mean, we don't do this anymore. You know we have lost the ability to give feedback and disagree with each other and still be friends. You know this art of civilized discourse has just completely gone And even you know I'm trying to. You know I hope, thank goodness, for people like you. And you know we're able to have discussion online and it's not like an argument. You know, it's not an us versus them kind of thing. We're just sharing intellectual musings about what we think about things And you know we either agree, disagree, whatever we learn from it and move on. But that's not the norm anymore, right? You see these crazy flame wars on, you know, whatever the topic of the day is, and it's sad, it's tragic. So it's so exciting to hear the stories and to share them like that. I think that's really cool.
Mark McGrath:So I guess I think of the collaborative circles. So like Paul McCartney was a great songwriter, but he's better with John Lennon.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Yes.
Mark McGrath:Challenging his assumptions and helping him think things through, or changing words or whatever. Yep I like that a lot.
Dr. Kuan Collins:There was a whole. there was a whole documentary on that. Did you watch that about the Beatles When they were trying to On Disney. Uh-huh.
Mark McGrath:About. Let It Be, yep. Oh, i watched it twice. Amazing, so good. It's unbelievable.
Dr. Kuan Collins:That's a case study and leadership and teams and all of that Like just the dialogue that they had about different things that they were doing was very cool.
Mark McGrath:Well and being familiar with them extremely. So, just based off the mother that I have, that made sure that we knew about the Beatles very young, You know we know the finished products so well and to really dig into that documentary and see how they're refined. There's that one scene where Ringo is sitting at the piano and George is like sitting next to them and he's helping them write Octopus's Garden, And then you're like you're listening to that, You're like oh my gosh. That's the genesis of Octopus's Garden. That's amazing.
Mark McGrath:Amazing It's so What you're saying too. I like that, how you know it's. I have a friend of mine. He's a consultant, interesting background and he does improv. But we were having a conversation last week and he was talking about how you know, there's an echo chamber and there's a sounding board. A lot of people reject the sounding board or like we're, you know, with a sounding board. I'm getting my assumptions challenged, i'm getting my thoughts challenged, and we can do something like that in a safe, in a safe spot, where you know, in an echo chamber, if you and I don't agree, we think the other person shouldn't live, you know that's insane So.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Lincoln. So I don't know if you've read his biographies, but he also operated that way, and so all of his cabinet members.
Dr. Kuan Collins:He intentionally selected people that thought differently than him because, he wanted everyone to challenge him and make sure that whatever he put out there, whatever speech he wrote was, was vetted by the opposition. And I mean, how difficult is that? I mean he was already challenged in a time where, i mean, no one wanted to get behind what he was doing with the slavery and the emancipation and everything. And so it's fascinating to read Doris Kern Goodwin I love her work on Lincoln in particular and how you know he would just, he would push the issue, he would force everybody and it made everyone uncomfortable, right Cause he's the president. But he wanted to be challenged, He wanted the debate and he would not leave until people pushed him.
Mark McGrath:Like Ray Dalio, you ever read principles by Ray Dalio?
Dr. Kuan Collins:That's one of his.
Mark McGrath:He runs a hedge fund and that's one of the characteristics of it that you have to challenge each other, and if you're not, then you're not doing your job Right And you're stymie. If you stymie learning, then by default right Adaptation can occur.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Exactly.
Mark McGrath:So I mean we talk a lot about feedback and debrief and psychological safety, where you should be able to have those kinds of conversations with everybody on your team, up, down and laterally, where rank and emotion is kept outside and we get to the bottom of things. And I think the other thing too, that if you're not doing that you're not gaining as many perspectives as you could, and back to Boyd, your orientation is going to be off.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Exactly So as you shape observations. But I'll turn back to Boyd. He was that man. I mean seriously, because intellect I mean by training this was. He wasn't really a classical who you would think would come up with something like that, but it's just, it's amazing, like he was just a natural in understanding what needed to get done.
Mark McGrath:I'll share a story with you about Boyd. There's a couple, there's lots about how his own thinking evolved, but one that Punch Talk likes to talk about a lot is that you know, boyd had created the definitive study on air to air attack and dog fighting, and then, when he came up with energy maneuverability theory, this was designed. That this or this was an equation or a theory that informed, has forever changed fighter design ever since, and it was actually the head of Top Gun in the Navy That said all this is good, but you're forgetting about the person in the cockpit, you're forgetting about the pilot in the plane. What about the human dimension? And I think that Boyd added that Like he didn't, He just totally got it.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Yeah, he, I mean it's, yeah, it's magical.
Mark McGrath:Yeah, he didn't. He didn't dismiss it. You know he didn't cut that out. He gave that some consideration, that the human aspect of it, in keeping with his pattern of or his order of people, ideas and things. You know you do have to think about the way someone's trained too. So design is important in the way the hardware is designed is important, but the person operating it is is the most important because, as he would tell us, people wage wars, not machines, and they use their minds Exactly. Do you find so? when you talk about Boyd with colleagues and peers and you know, do you find it? people get it or are interested in it or dismiss it, or how does that go with where you're at now?
Dr. Kuan Collins:So there's pockets, right. I think you know I have a cohort of friends that get it and you know, i think you've probably seen most of them in my LinkedIn posts now, anytime I bring it up, and they're like Oh my God, yeah, let's talk more about this, or whatever. In fact, some colleagues at work, it's it's almost like we're all looking for each other, because now I have all these people that are like Oh, i studied Oodle Hoops in this class and I want to talk to you about how we're implementing it on this program, and I'm like yes, please come. And so now I'm forming a little club, i think, around. You know this interest, but I wouldn't say that it's prolific. You know, i don't. I don't think everybody gets it, but it's like anything else where I mean inherent in what Boyd is doing and what he created is innovation. I mean, this is foundational to innovation and how we need to think in order to create new ways of doing things and reimagining how we do things and go faster.
Dr. Kuan Collins:And so he, just he, you know he boiled it down right And he, he, he defined that And what I've been learning. so I I'm working with Greg Larkin. I don't know if you follow him on LinkedIn, but he's a head of something called punks and pinstripes How exciting is that name.
Dr. Kuan Collins:I love that so much. And so he talks about obstructionists. And so when you think about innovation or transformation or anything like that where it's disrupting the status quo, there are five obstructionists that he talks about. And this doesn't matter in any industry, any anywhere. And the five are, and they could be all in one person sometimes. So the first one is a skeptic. Right, that's like yeah, you know, i don't get it, i don't like what you're saying, i don't, you know whatever you're saying. I need to be shown, right, you need to show me. And so there's playbooks for each one of these. So I'll tell you the five and then I'll talk about the play for each one, sure.
Dr. Kuan Collins:The second one is cops. Cops are the regulation people, right, that say, oh, you can't do that because you're gonna break every rule and you're gonna go to jail. And you're like sure, okay, so then we'll talk some more about that. The third one is your traditionalist. We have never done it that way, never gonna happen, right, this is, you know, we've been doing this since jesus walk the planet, and that's the only way we're ever gonna do it, okay. And then we have the fourth one, which is the terror territorialists. These guys are evil because it's just all about them. This is my territory, this is my sandbox. You can't play in it, get away. And then the fifth one are the capitalists, and all they care about is making money, and so they can either be your best friend or your worst enemy When we're talking about a change. So there's a place.
Dr. Kuan Collins:The play for skeptics is never pitch the thing. So for that person never gonna talk about it or what boy does, doing, or how he thought or anything What I'm gonna pitch is the outcome. Why is what boy came up with important? and why is important? because it drives this, drives this outcome, and that's the outcome that you care about. So let me do the thing and we'll get to that outcome together. The second one were the cops. So the cops are not wrong. Right, there are reasons we need these rules and laws in place, so we need to pull them in And say, okay, you're part of this, let's do this together. Show me where the boundary is, and we're gonna design what we're designing together.
Dr. Kuan Collins:The third one were the traditionalist. Right, I'm never gonna, we're never gonna do it that way. We've been doing safety, security, airworthiness, all these things for decades. We know how to do it. You don't know what we're doing. Army, we know how to take the hill. No doubt Marine Corps we know how to fight. Yes, yes, you do. I'm never gonna teach you how to do that. However, we can reimagine a little bit some of the things that we are building for you to go faster.
Dr. Kuan Collins:So in those cases, i just need to bring friends right. So if I'm talking to a Marine Corps officer, i'm gonna bring somebody that they respect more than likely another Marine. That Marine says, oh, yeah, i get it, listen to her. Then, all of a sudden, i'm in, right, and so you have to bring friends, trusted partners, to say this is why this is an important thing to listen to The territorialist. Those guys, we just have to play the narcissist game and say, yeah, you're right, you're amazing, you're right, i'm never gonna play with you. And then go do it anyways, and then invite them to the party later and say, hey, you want to come check this out, cuz it's cool. I'm the capitalist. As long as you're showing them the money, then they're your best friend.
Mark McGrath:Hmm, show me the money.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Jerry McGuire. My name was in that movie. I am the Kwan.
Mark McGrath:Another great gen X from the gen X cannon. So I love these, i love these breakdowns. You know the territorialist boy. I as you say that I can name those people yeah, from my corporate career and asset management I make, i can think exactly These people are and they'll stop at nothing and they don't care what happens. Nope, no and mission aside.
Dr. Kuan Collins:This is my boundary get out.
Mark McGrath:No, you use the term evil and I thought that that would be a really good time to pull up from John Boyd's discourse on winning and losing. You know he actually defined evil and corruption. Yeah, and a lot of people. You know, i think, when you, when you, when you listen to his, his definitions, i don't, i don't, you know, i think, what people say evil They're thinking of, you know they could be thinking bad guy yeah, demonic satanic or whatever.
Mark McGrath:I think that his definitions of evil and corruption are actually pretty fair. I'm gonna do just a quick word search but I'll find them. But he, you know he's, he's talking about something that everybody can relate to. So, like when you say these territorialists are evil, you know, i'm not, i'm not picturing somebody standing around a cauldron, you know, with the, with the, with the crystal ball, or you know, you mentioned, you mentioned Tolkien earlier. Like I'm not, you know the eye.
Mark McGrath:We're trying to throw the ring back in the fire I'm thinking of let's see here It's from his In evil I'll find it. There we go. Evil occurs when individuals are groups, embrace codes of conduct or standards of behavior for their own personal well-being and social approval, yet violate those very same codes or standards to undermine the personal well-being and social approval of others.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Oh my god, that's a beautiful definition.
Mark McGrath:So as you're describing those territorialists, as evil.
Mark McGrath:Yes, In in. In Boyd terms, that's, that's not a stretch, like that's, that's not a stretch at all. And just for for giggles. You know his, his corruption definition occurs when individuals or groups, for their own benefit, violate codes of conduct or standards of behavior that they profess or are expected to uphold. So so I think that those definitions and they come from his strategic game of question mark and question mark, which was interaction and isolation Those are, those are good things to have posted out so that when you say yes and put them everywhere.
Mark McGrath:And well, and you, and as you say, you know, when you explain someone that you know to say territorialists, you know they're evil people and you can dispel that you're not saying they're worshiping.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Devil, devil worshipers right.
Mark McGrath:You're simply saying that their individuals, who have race codes of conduct, their standards of behavior for their own personal well-being and social approval, yet violate those same codes as standards and undermine the personal well-being and social approval of others.
Dr. Kuan Collins:They're the reasons why we can't have nice things right. There are the reasons why we can't move faster in the government. And it's scary and they they look like. I mean I think at heart, somewhere, deep, deep inside they are probably decent people but, they just can't help themselves, right?
Dr. Kuan Collins:they they don't even realize that they're doing what they're doing and they so, on the outside right, people don't see it right away and they trust them, their trusted leaders in our community, but they are not allowing new ideas to flourish because it It doesn't align with their objectives.
Mark McGrath:So it seems to me that those would be the hardest, the most challenging to to breach, so to speak.
Mark McGrath:They're the most dangerous of you know for what we're trying to do, which is, you know, protect this nation and go faster. I'm consulting somebody, i'm coaching somebody up and I'm teaching them to be more collaborative and competitive. What, what edge do I give a company, do I give a team, if they can identify and isolate the territorialists in who they're competing against? are they the most? they might be the hardest to connect with, but are they the most direct to compete against?
Dr. Kuan Collins:We don't want to compete with them and there's no, i mean.
Mark McGrath:I mean, if I'm external, like if I'm an external, if I'm an external competitor.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Oh, i see what you're saying yeah. So you're an external competitor and you know that they have these territorialists in in, yeah, so that's good. I guess you know that that it's because that's a weakness, and especially if they are allowing that territorialists to to guide their strategy, then you can be sure that there is weakness and that you can crush them if you know where the jungler is.
Mark McGrath:Yeah, i'm thinking like you know, if I'm, if I, let's say, you know the benefit of hindsight, which is always 2020, so our much younger selves, we're coaching this upstart called Netflix.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Oh yeah.
Mark McGrath:And we see that these quote unquote territorialists are wedded to this retail model of blockbuster stores and they have so many thousands of employees and so many properties and things like that. They're not giving that up. That's their, that's their vulnerability from a, from an external competitive thread.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Well, and we know what happened there, right?
Dr. Kuan Collins:so there's so many stories like that right, with the PC, with IBM and the PC, right, the IBM had the PC, they created the PC And they didn't see it as a as a thing, because they were all into mainframes and the big, big iron and they were like, yeah, that no one, no one is ever going to want a lap, you know, a computer at their desk. Oh my God, come on now. So, yeah, we have so many of those examples and you know, the good news is that, at the end of the day, the territorialists don't win.
Mark McGrath:Right. So internally then we would say well, we're just going to do it anyway, and they're either going to come along or they're going to get. They're going to get left behind because we need to.
Dr. Kuan Collins:We need as leaders, or we need leaders to recognize when they have that gold in their organization, right, where they have the person that is willing to act on the thing that they know and believe right and go and do it and we call them intrapreneurs, right. More than often they're the ones that get fired because you know you're the noisy one, you're the one that's not playing the game, you're not doing the party line stuff, and you know they don't get promoted, they don't get the VP title, they don't get any of that recognition, but they do it anyways because they believe. You know they believe in what they're doing, and so we need leaders to just recognize more when they have that.
Mark McGrath:And to.
Dr. Kuan Collins:You know, not to say that they. You want everybody to be a disruptor, because that's not good for business either, but when you have somebody that's that's that motivated and that's that's that inspired, you need to protect them. Interesting guide them and mentor them.
Mark McGrath:Yeah, on one hand I think that territorialists could be quite vulnerable, but on the other hand, i've seen some last decades.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Because, at the end of the day, i mean, they've proven their worth also and their value right. They didn't get to the positions that they were in because you know they were not good at their job.
Mark McGrath:So well, back to our example. I guess it would be hard to argue right if you were blockbuster and you're the number one video retail. It'd be hard to be hard to argue against those numbers, to think that there is something.
Dr. Kuan Collins:I mean that was like a household name. You went to blockbuster. I remember we would take, you know, the kids when they were little and we were. That was a big day. We went to blockbuster to pick up the movies you were going to watch.
Mark McGrath:There was a bowl game, the blockbuster bowl. Yeah, eric and I would meet. We she finished a shift at the hospital and then we would meet at blockbuster.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Yeah, it was day and night.
Mark McGrath:Yeah, we tried to explain that to kids. Oh my God, they can't even.
Dr. Kuan Collins:What That's so weird, you old people.
Mark McGrath:Yeah, they can't even fathom. So I love. So we'll look up Greg Larkin Punks and Pinstripes again.
Dr. Kuan Collins:He's a magical human. You're gonna love him.
Mark McGrath:I think of like. I think of Punks and Pinstripes, i think of like the clash meets Gordon Gekko. Yeah, so so when you Google Kwan Collins and Axian on on Google, there's a great article that comes up from Auburn University and it says the executive gives back locally.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Yeah, that's cool.
Mark McGrath:It starts with a phenomenal quote that's very buoyed. It says innovation requires discomfort. You have to become comfortable with feeling uncomfortable, said Kwan Collins, the executive director for digital innovation at Axian. So let's talk about that quote. Innovation requires discomfort. You have to become comfortable with feeling uncomfortable, and I think of the five that say that you just, you just listed those five paradigms. They probably would have a hard time becoming uncomfortable.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Yeah, so anytime you're learning something new, it is uncomfortable.
Dr. Kuan Collins:You know, it's you're scared, it's scary, it's scary to learn new things because you feel vulnerable. You feel like and especially the older, we get right And you get, you know, you get all these accolades for being smart and being good at your job or whatever, and you it feels good, right, all of that feels really good. You gain confidence from that And then you start to realize how much you don't know right. And I study a lot on imposter syndrome, especially for you know, women in positions And as they want to progress in an organization. You know there's always that fear like can I? can I do this job Right? Can I do I know enough? Do I know the things? So that discomfort is magic because it is a good signal. It's a signal of the things that you don't know yet. It's a signal of the things that you need to to learn right. And what the tragic thing is is that most people don't want that feeling right.
Dr. Kuan Collins:They're like oh, i want to stay away from that. So let's go back to the place where I'm comfortable and everybody's telling me how amazing I am. I think I first realized that when I was working on my dissertation. And I remember, you know, i walked into the doctoral program very cocky because, you know, work was already like they were promoting me, i was getting all these you know awards and stuff, and everyone around me was telling me how cool I was. So I walked into the doctoral program thinking, you know, i got this right. You should just hand me the doctorate right now. And I remember when I met my dissertation chair for the first time and I gave her my pitch you know, my elevator pitch on what I wanted to study, and she's like, yeah, that's garbage. And I'm like, excuse me, do you know who I am? And she's like, yeah, you're nothing right now And I'm the gatekeeper to get you to where you want to go. So, yeah, and I'm telling you that you don't know anything right now, and I've never, felt so dumb in my life.
Dr. Kuan Collins:I was like oh my goodness, And I took it. Dumb or humbled. So I felt all of it.
Dr. Kuan Collins:I felt like oh my God, like so it totally shook my world because I'm, like, i came in thinking I was, you know, this hot shot, you know rising star in my company, paying for this doctorate thing, and this woman just told me that none of that mattered there, right. And it was interesting, like the more I read, the more I studied, the more I thought about the thing that I wanted to study, the more I realized how right she was and that I did not know anything. Like all of my assumptions were challenged, all of you know you start setting up your research question and start coming up with your hypotheses And I'm like, oh my God, i know I really don't know anything.
Mark McGrath:And I didn't.
Dr. Kuan Collins:So it was brilliant, though That was my turning point, i think, because I was like, wow, this is how, this is it, this is why I'm here, right, this had nothing to do with the degree anymore. It had to do with me realizing that I needed to always be in this place where I was challenged. I wanted that collaborative circle of people that were challenging everything that I thought, because otherwise I was going to die right, and at that point it was like, i think, you know, when I start, i say innovate or die or whatever I realized that that's exactly where I needed to be all the time. And it was when, you know, there was a shift in my career path also, where I was becoming much more comfortable with taking on positions, taking on projects, where I didn't know what I was doing but, I was confident in the fact that I could learn and that I could surround myself with people that would help me.
Mark McGrath:So so it was a recognition that discomfort is not necessarily a bad thing. To put you in that position was a reminder that, in order to achieve the growth that you desired, it sounded like you needed to have that kind of I needed that.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Yeah, if I didn't figure that out, i'm pretty sure I would have been doing the same thing for the next 30 years And I would not be where I'm at today. I would not have, you know, been okay with with being challenged And I needed, i needed to be okay with that. And it's interesting, like when I think back to my childhood and moving. You know, we were overseas, we were always around people from different cultures. I almost think I was bred for this too. I just didn't realize it.
Dr. Kuan Collins:You know, like when you're, when you're and you know, this is a marine And traveling so much, and why you are drawn to other cultures is because it does challenge you that just being in a different country, being around people that think differently, it's exciting because you are inherently challenged, right, you're tasting new food, you're smelling new things, you're hearing different languages, and yet there's a commonality there too, because we're all humans and we're all trying to do very similar things raise our families and, you know, do our job and help our country, and so it's cool to realize how we're connected and yet how we're also so different, and that's that's exciting.
Mark McGrath:Yeah, i think that those situations where you're essentially your orientation is disrupted and you encounter a mentor of mine says there's three D's that shift orientation. Number one is drift. you know, like our early 90s high school selves see the world. We see the world completely differently now than we did back then with no internet and no smartphones, right, yeah? So that's just the drift of time that changes our perspective.
Mark McGrath:The other two D words for that I love. I think they actually have to go hand in hand. I think they tie in with Boyd's creation and destruction, or Chang and Chi moves. It's disruption on one hand and it's design on the other. And you said earlier to disrupt for the sake of disruption, and only disruption, gets you nowhere. but meeting it with, meeting it with design, it's how you do it. So when you, when you go to a new culture, as you're, as you're describing, and those new smells hit you and and and you can't read the language and you can't understand the language, and you're put in that situation and you're, you're challenging your, your correspondence with your world is shattered And you're, you're designing a new one on your own or in the, in the unfolding interactions with the environment around you.
Mark McGrath:That's creating a new design that you can adapt, you know you can you can learn, you can relate to this. So the Marines, i think, are really good at this, because they take a high school kid, they put them on the yellow footprints in the middle of the night of a bus with no windows and paris Island or San Diego, and they, they absolutely disrupt your correspondence with what you think the world is, but it's met with a very exacting design So that in 90 days you have a you have a Marine.
Dr. Kuan Collins:My husband's a Marine, as you know, and we talk about some of this sometimes and it's so funny because he was trained that way. He's like how come no one else understands this? Like this is normal. This is, you know, status quo, and I'm like it's not, though, right. It's not because most people want to be in their comfort zone, because it's safe, it feels good, everyone's praising them, and and it's biological too.
Dr. Kuan Collins:So I study a lot of neuroscience as it relates to this because, biologically speaking, so there's this, the two hemispheres of your brain, right, left, right brain and your sympathetic nervous system, your parasympathetic nervous system, and then in management, we talk about system one versus system two thinking. So we are biologically trained by evolution, like since we were, you know, fighting dinosaurs, to respond to stress. So you know we've got, the attack is coming and the core zone we raise, you know we get ready to fight, or what is it? fight or flight? right, and that's a normal biological response. So that's system one thinking. System to thinking is one. We're not under stress And we have time to just think about the big ideas, to think about open thinking, to introduce, and, you know, let the environment allow us to think about different things. So we want to spend more time in system two because that's where we can create, that's where we can innovate, that's where we can meet new people, be in a foreign land and be okay with all of that.
Dr. Kuan Collins:The problem is now so we don't have bears attacking us every day. Thank goodness We're not in a wartime situation all the time, but little things now are causing us to live only in system one thinking. Social media is one of those things. Email, all anything that's task focused right. We're so task focused, and even with our parenting styles, right. We keep our kids so busy And that's all we do. That's what we think is the right thing to do to be successful, because that's what society is telling us, right? So we're getting all this feedback that this is that's the way to go.
Dr. Kuan Collins:The problem is, when you look at the brain and what's happening, all of the blood is flowing to the part of the brain that's only a system, one thinker And all the. There's the parasympathetic nervous system that allows you to relax and just really absorb. What's happening to you is virtually dead, like when you. So there's a scholar, richard Boyatzis, that I talk about on my podcast, and he did so. He did a lot of work. So he's with Case Western in the business school, but he did a lot of work with a neuroscientist I forget her name, right?
Dr. Kuan Collins:now unfortunately, but they did brain scans of actually special operations forces and this was fascinating. So when they did brain scans of people that were chronically stressed, so all system one, like the hemisphere of the brain that was a parasympathetic nervous system, was dead. There's nothing going on there. And the other side of the brain that was system, or the part of the brain that was system two, thinking, was dead. system one lit up right, all the colors there, all the blood's flowing there For the spec ops folks, because you would think right Intuitively that these guys are under fire all the time right.
Dr. Kuan Collins:So they must be super stressed, they must be in system one all day long. But guess what? They are the most calm individuals on the planet. They are the most mindful of everybody And this goes back to Boyd now because they can, and they are innovators. They are natural innovators because when they're in a firefight, they need to be always observing what's happening, right. It doesn't matter what the plan was. If things need to shift, they need to shift immediately. So why is that the case? Because they studied why that was the case And what it all came back down to was something called instrumental intimacy or trust. So when you are in those kinds of situations, you train with your fellow Marine or Delta Force or Navy SEAL or whatever. The spec ops is so much right That you trust that individual that's standing next to you, like you trust no one else in the planet more than anybody, right? You know that if anything happens, that person is gonna react in the way that you know how they're gonna react and you're fine.
Dr. Kuan Collins:So, you can walk into the most dangerous, the scariest situation and you're like we're good. I know what that is.
Dr. Kuan Collins:And so it's fascinating And guess what? So in every organization, a normal corporation or whatever, we never have that experience right, because we're never going to be that close, but we can adapt and we can recognize what are those things that are going to create that culture where we're not. so, you know, just go do your job, kind of thing right. And so when I think about, like this quiet, quitting, quiet, firing, all the stuff that we're talking about, the reason all of that is happening where people don't care right, that they don't care about the job, they just wanna show up, pick up a paycheck and go, and if somebody else hires them, fine, the reason that's happening is because we don't, we're not paying attention to the human right. Back to what you were saying about the void and recognizing. you know that, yeah, it's all about the human.
Mark McGrath:Yeah.
Dr. Kuan Collins:So anyways.
Mark McGrath:It's fascinating, because one of the things that he talked about pulling from the I guess, the post-Napoleonic Prussians was mutual trust, was Einheit that's what they called it that if you don't have that, it's very hard to unify around a narrative. You know a focus and direction together. You know to your point I've said this on podcast before. I mean there's. I left the Marine Corps Active Duty in 2004, yet so many that I served with and under and over, we still talk constantly and we still seek each other's counsel and advice because we trust each other and we've been in those interesting situations. It is interesting that in maybe the business world, there aren't as many examples like that. Not that it's impossible, though, because this year will be the 14th year of assembling with about eight guys that I went through the great we all went through the great financial crisis together on a sales team.
Dr. Kuan Collins:It's possible in the corporate world, but you have to recognize it and you have to be, attentive.
Dr. Kuan Collins:So WL, gore, so they make Gore Techs right. They have a beautiful culture And Gore, though, he knew he knew how to build a company and grow but still maintain that culture. So what he would do every time they had a building, he would only make parking spaces for 150 people, because he said, after that we forget the person. So at 150, i still know everybody's name. I know their wives or spouses, i know their children, i know birth dates, i know everything about them.
Mark McGrath:The Dunbar number right, that's the yeah.
Dr. Kuan Collins:After that I don't know that anymore. So then we have to set up a new business, a new company, so that they can maintain that culture going forward, and so that's intentional right, it's recognizing that I need to know that human being and I need to lead that way.
Mark McGrath:Yeah, well, i was gonna add too that you know we were on a team with a very different leader. that was kind of an isolated pod in a world of chaos that we bonded together, which is not pervasive throughout a lot of organizations right, they just don't build that like the Marine Corps like the Sears or the Rangers or that kind of thing. So I do like that you know the thing about, say you know the Dunbar number right Or the, you know the 150. It is important to know people and it is important to know.
Mark McGrath:You know to be empathetic Ever see Erin Brockovich.
Dr. Kuan Collins:I love that movie so much, isn't it great Many times?
Mark McGrath:Yeah, she was just here in Ohio with the train wreck spilling the chemicals.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Oh, my God.
Mark McGrath:But my 17 year old is really into film Like he loves studying film and scripts and everything.
Mark McGrath:So we watch Erin Brockovich together. So do you remember the scene where she figures it out of? she sees something that she's gotta pursue, but she's not meeting the objective of nine to five in the office every day, so they fire her. Well, i think that that's an example of the opposite of what you're talking about. They didn't know her, they didn't know her situation, they didn't have empathy for what was going on. They didn't know her. She had an interesting family situation, but she also had a very interesting business situation that they found out the hard way What she was onto. That if they had taken those steps in the beginning to get to know her, Well, it's back to the obstructionist right.
Dr. Kuan Collins:She wasn't doing the traditional thing right Which was showing up, which was respecting the boss and doing the things you were told. She was a disruptor. And disruptors are always met that way.
Mark McGrath:It's a great example, like I'm always trying to find non military examples to talk about with. You know, with Boyd, with Uda and that kind of thing, with people, ideas and things. You know a lot of the Boyd concepts And that's a really good one that I think a lot of people can relate to. But it goes to what you're saying, like if he had taken the time to really get to know her and if there was that ability to share feedback up and down without obstruction, it never would have been an issue that she wasn't there, because they would have known that she's out hunting down what became a massively huge case which a lot of people were affected by. That, you know, there's a lot more of a ripple effect, i guess, than just somebody not showing up to work at nine to five every day.
Dr. Kuan Collins:So I read a recent quote about empathy. I don't know if you saw that in my LinkedIn post, but I wanted to pick it up, or I wanted to share it with you again. So the author is Mohsen Hamid. He's a British, pakistani writer And I mean it's amazing. So I'm trying to look it up. Give me one second.
Mark McGrath:I do want to ask you about pee hacking.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Oh sure, Go ahead.
Mark McGrath:Well, what was the quote? What was the Okay?
Dr. Kuan Collins:so give me a second. Sorry, i write too much. Hold on, it's coming. I know it's close.
Mark McGrath:And anybody listening should follow you on LinkedIn, because you do put up a lot of interesting stuff.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Oh my God, I'm all over the place. I think I've.
Mark McGrath:Yeah, you pull from a very interesting. I mean you're not linear at all, you're very multidisciplinary in your postings. It's awesome.
Dr. Kuan Collins:That's like the best descriptor of me. I am not linear, that is for sure.
Mark McGrath:Well, it's no surprise that you would be drawn to Boyd, because when you dig into Boyd you really realize that he was into so many things and he pulled from so many disciplines, so many industries.
Dr. Kuan Collins:All right, I'm gonna just Google it, because I can't find it. Oh, I think so much, certainly Okay. empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.
Mark McGrath:Hmm.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Such a beautiful quote.
Mark McGrath:Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself. Yeah, I guess that would suggest relatability and understanding what somebody's going through.
Dr. Kuan Collins:And finding that connection. I think it's back to what we were talking about, like when you're in a foreign country, like yes it feels very weird and different and you can't get it. But when you are empathetic about the situation, you find that common ground. Like where are we similar?
Mark McGrath:Well, yeah, and I also think that add to what you were saying when you went to your dissertation director, it does involve a word that is commonly we commonly use when we discuss Boyd is humility. Yes, yes, you've got to have humility.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Yes.
Mark McGrath:To admit that you don't know everything. Admit that you don't know everything about a person. I mean, there's things where patterns emerge with, say, an employee and like, say, go back to the Aaron Brockovich example Like a pattern emerges, well, why wouldn't, i ask first?
Dr. Kuan Collins:Exactly.
Mark McGrath:Yeah, rather than just fire her.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Right, find out, find out what's going on. Go with her wherever she's going. Just travel, see what she's doing And I guarantee right, because finally that lawyer that she was working for right, once he saw what she was doing and recognized the skill set that she brought that he didn't have, he started to get it right, he started to appreciate her. But, yeah, there was more focus on how she was dressed, how she was talking, the fact that she wasn't you know there all the time.
Mark McGrath:And reduction like standard reduction, like reducing to numbers and I went through that throughout my career.
Dr. Kuan Collins:You know, i remember when I was I worked for a company that I won't name, but It was a lot of you know older white gentlemen and I was very young and I was brought into lead the engineering team and change their process. So I was always in this role where I was there to be the disruptor and I didn't get it, then You know I didn't know about obstructionists or anything.
Dr. Kuan Collins:back then I was just like, yeah, i can do that, right, i know how to do that. And so I, you know, i laid it all out. I laid out the new process, and what they wanted was more rigor around how they were evaluating their designs. And it wasn't that the engineers didn't know what they were doing. There was just not a lot of standard ways of doing it.
Dr. Kuan Collins:right, they were kind of the wild west, like everybody just got their job done, which was fine when they were small, but then when they grew they needed more standard process. So I'm like I got this right, i know how to do that. So I went in and I started laying it all out. We set up these, you know, those routine checks and everything and meetings, and, and I didn't know what they knew because I wasn't, you know, i was my 30 year uh, satellite designer or anything like that. But I did understand process right, and I knew how to do that.
Dr. Kuan Collins:So, um, but they were so frustrated with me and they were just like you know, who does she think she is? And you are, you know, in your 20s like what do you know about anything? And, um, it was fascinating. So, um, yeah, it was very, it was, it was challenging And I was very uncomfortable, uh, because I didn't have authority either, you know, because I was still young. Um, even though the vice president of engineering was like go do this thing, i'm like, okay, you don't understand, no one is listening to me.
Dr. Kuan Collins:So, how do you want me to do this job Exactly? Am I supposed to just start yelling at everybody, because I don't think I can yell louder than some of the guys. So, um, anyways, it was, uh, it was definitely a learning process, another learning process and understanding how to manage and navigate, because what I realized, you know, and what I know for sure now, is that this is, this is normal, right.
Dr. Kuan Collins:And it wasn't about me, right? It wasn't personal. Uh, it was just the changes very hard and that we are hardwired to resist it. Um, and biologically, sometimes it's not possible And there is a cost to pushing the change when you don't do anything else to fix that resistance.
Mark McGrath:Hmm, and well, the benefit for you is growth, right, yeah, you got to growth and experience.
Dr. Kuan Collins:I did And I grew up.
Mark McGrath:You find that in those situations, i wonder what you think about this Um. You know a lot. A lot of the leadership discussions and a lot of the coaching and teaching discussions um are often deeply rooted in, based on um, a very exacting school of learning what not to do. I find that you know, like I learned so much at certain companies of what never to do that it was an inch. It wound up being, rather than a miserable experience, It turned into a valuable classroom.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Yeah, Um. so at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how right you are if no one is working with you and if no one is listening to you.
Dr. Kuan Collins:So I think that's that's the important bit to recognize, in that you know everybody, no one wakes up, or no one wakes up in the morning. This is another thing. Even those territorialists, they don't wake up in the morning thinking, oh, i'm going to go to battle with that person that's trying to disrupt my world. You know, i think everyone wants to try to do the thing that they believe is the right thing to do, um, so I think you know, back to empathy, it's important to understand that and understand that you know everybody, from their perspective, believes in the thing that they're doing and that it's our role to uh, to be humble, to have humility, to understand that first, before you go in with guns blazing saying you know you're an idiot, um, because as soon as you shut that person down, it's very hard to um open that back up. Right, it takes a lot of work to get back to a point where you're communicating again. So if we are going to move forward together, we have to, we have to figure that relationship out And, um, and that's what I loved about what Greg has taught me with the obstructionists is that realizing I'm not.
Dr. Kuan Collins:This is not a fight right, i'm not here to fight everybody. I'm here to figure out how to, um, how to change, how to help people to change, and even with the work that, um, richard Boyatsis has done with Case Western, this is a partnership, right, we have to partner with everybody and we have to bring everybody along and learn in the process. Because I don't know everything, i'm going to be the first one to tell you I don't know a lot of things. Um, so, i believe in a lot of things that I believe are the ways that we can go faster, but I can't do this by myself, right? I there's, i need everybody to, i need the village, i need the army behind me, and, um, so that requires you know that I need to learn first.
Mark McGrath:The? uh. I guess that kind of approach allows you to harness complexities to your advantage rather than be defeated by them.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Exactly.
Mark McGrath:Yeah, you, you, you don't lay out the walk of mat for entropy, right? It seems like when we're not learning, we're not, uh, working towards common goals. Um, one thing, one thing we keep going back and forth with with me, anyway, developing is if, if I don't have self-awareness, if I don't have effective self-awareness, there's no way. I could have good situational awareness.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Yep, that's so true. And you know, that's one thing we don't interview for either when we're hiring people, um, you know, google does a really amazing job.
Mark McGrath:I don't know if you've ever interviewed with Google, um, but it's very We're going to read somebody from Google on the on the podcast that hasn't been released yet, but yeah, we've talked to people from Google Fascinating interview process because they care more about your ability to be part of the culture than they do about what you know how to do.
Dr. Kuan Collins:I mean they trust it with your certs and your job and what you've done. that technically you're going to be able to do your job. Yeah, but it's more important Yeah.
Mark McGrath:Yeah, that's like the, that's the people ideas things right.
Dr. Kuan Collins:I mean we?
Mark McGrath:we assume that anybody that would send their resume for the most part would be basically qualified to be there. The differentiation comes around. Are they able to subscribe?
Dr. Kuan Collins:Yes.
Mark McGrath:To to ideas rather than just generate prescriptions. I always talk about the difference between subscriptive and prescriptive you know, Subscriptive, as we align to core values, we align to beliefs of the team that we're going to work together towards, we're going to be focused and directed towards. A lot of people don't want to do that because they say I'm objectively really good at this, i'm objectively the best at this, but you put them in front of people or you put them on a team and It falls apart.
Dr. Kuan Collins:It falls apart, yeah It falls apart.
Mark McGrath:Entropy, entropy takes over. Tell us about your. So you've got Samaya Studios and you have a great podcast Intersections Mission to Innovate. You have a teammate on that, like I do.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Yeah, prachi. So, Prachi and I worked together at SAIC She was on my team when we were in analytics together And it's funny you know your colleagues that work back to the whole friend thing and getting to know people. we didn't really get a chance to know each other until after she left. So she left SAIC and then we kept in touch because we really enjoyed working together. And so she sorry there's a little bit of background noise, but That's okay.
Dr. Kuan Collins:So she was really interested in figuring out how to sort of do things outside of work that would open up that part of the brain that was more creative, And so she was great at like she, she had a whole thing where she was writing science fiction stories like short stories And that was her way of like escaping from the day to day of work and thinking outside the box and all this stuff.
Dr. Kuan Collins:And I was fascinated by all of that And I. So we got to, you know, talking and every time we talked we were like we should do a podcast. Except no, you know, because this would be really cool to record what we were saying. But we were both not experienced with that And we were like, well, you know, we would listen, right, and how do we even do that? And where would we? where would we start? So whenever I moved to Huntsville, which was summer of 21.
Dr. Kuan Collins:I connected with RigVed at ITC, the invention to Innovation Center, which is like a co-working space in the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and I reached out to him, just cold emailed him, and I said, hey, you know, i'm moving to Huntsville, i would love to be part of your organization.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Somehow I didn't even know what that could look like. Well, i went there, i took a tour, he has a podcast studio And I said, hey, I have a girlfriend of mine and I really curious about podcasting, can you help us? And he's like, oh, my goodness, yes. So he, you know, he was all into signing me up as a mentor. Anyways, i was coming from Austin, texas, and you know I was a mentor for startups in Austin and he's like, oh, so you be a mentor and then this will be part of what you're doing as a mentor is doing this podcast. I'm like, oh, my goodness, thank you, and he had all these students that were helping with the production And so I didn't even need to worry about you know, figuring all of that part out. All we had to do is build the content.
Dr. Kuan Collins:So, Prachi and I immediately got to work and we started, you know, and we're both type A, you know very meticulous with the planning and we were very self conscious of the fact that no one was going to listen to this podcast. So we were like we were very aggressively building content because we wanted it to be good, and I think the thing that we, we, we talk about in our early episodes is, i think when you're you know, when you're writing, when you're publishing, the threshold for quality content, right, is higher because you're like, wow, you know all these experts in the field are going to, you know, evaluate it, and so then you don't write as much because you're like it's stressful, right, you can always meet that threshold. But with things like LinkedIn and podcasting, like things just like a conversation or okay, right, it doesn't, everything doesn't have to be scholarly every time you you post something or or share something on a podcast. So we liked that because it allowed us to sort of just document the things that we were thinking about and not feel like it had to meet some you know, very high threshold for good quality literature, i guess. So, anyways, we came up with all this content And what we realized was.
Dr. Kuan Collins:We had enough for like the first at least five or six episodes. So we started breaking it down and and figuring out our plan. And, yeah, we recorded our first one and we're we both work full time and very demanding jobs And so we thought, well, i don't know if this thing is going to last, right, because you know we're going to get busy and this is going to be the last thing on our list. But what ended up happening is we loved it so much that we were like, oh my God, we have to keep this going. Whatever it takes, right, we were going to, we were going to get it done.
Dr. Kuan Collins:So that that was the birth of the intersections podcast mission to innovate and mission to innovate. So we both, we both named it. So she came up with intersections because her vision of what we were doing was when you meet a friend in a cafe and you have this amazing conversation, right, just like what we were talking about with the collaborative circles, and ideas start sparking and you get that feeling, the butterflies in your stomach, because it's just it's, you've met somebody that is a kindred spirit, right, and that you, you have that amazing conversation. So we wanted that podcast to be sort of a way to have that conversation always, and then mission to innovate. Did you ever watch what was it called Nightly news, i think on HBO with. I think it was nightly news. It was about the broadcast, the nightly broadcast and Jeff Daniels.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Oh, jeff Daniels, Yeah, oh my God, i love that show so much. So he in the beginning, you know, talks about Don Quixote and the mission to civilize right, and his whole thing was he was going to use the nightly news, the hour that he had to help to make better informed citizens when they're going to the polls, and that was his one objective. And so my thought with our intersections was that my mission was to help with the understanding of innovation And what does?
Dr. Kuan Collins:it take, cause we throw that word around so much. Right, everybody says, oh, we want innovation, we want transformation, we want all these things, but we think it's a tool, we think it's a technology, we think it's a. You know, we got to go get a Tesla and now we're innovative. No, it has more to do with the human being And so that's been sort of our reasons for having the podcast.
Mark McGrath:Well, and you say you know we. We explore intersections between disciplines, ideas, technologies, so you're pulling from multiple places. Multidimensional thinking I love the definition of Samaya means a system of teaching in the conduct required of a practitioner.
Dr. Kuan Collins:So there's a good story behind that too. So when I started studying mindfulness as a sort of a foundation for innovation right And when, we're thinking about the human being behind the innovation.
Dr. Kuan Collins:I really got into yoga and and because when you're, when you're, i mean it's a very ancient right, art form And, from Buddha's time right, mindfulness. This is all part of that teaching, of why you know you need to do no harm. Do no harm to self, do no harm to other people. You know, be truthful, be clean in your thinking. All of that is around the same ideas that we've been thinking about right now with mindfulness and that system to thinking. So that linkage of yoga and and this idea of of being an innovator and creating the mindset for continuous learning, they're very tightly coupled And so I'm always, you know, like connecting and the patterns are very interesting to me. So I was never a real practitioner of yoga. I mean I was, you know, i'd go to the group classes or whatever in the gym and and I didn't get it. Like you know, everybody kept talking about the, the mind shifting, and I'm like I don't get it. And it wasn't until I met my now current yoga instructor and also connected with Pima children. So Pima children is a monk in Nova Scotia And I, you know, i, my bucket list item is to is to just go hang out with her forever in Nova Scotia someday, someday.
Dr. Kuan Collins:But her writing really resonated with me And so she has three principles, which are all foundational with what the Buddha taught. But one is the do no harm. Right, and that's really powerful when you think about it, because we harm, and all the things that we were talking about in terms of not having that civilized discourse. All of that is harmful, right. When we, when we attack somebody's idea, when we're not empathetic, when we're, and we do that to ourselves, right, and all of that reaction is actually it's connecting back to the things in ourselves that we don't like, and so it's the do no harm. Lesson is is powerful. She also talks about using poison as medicine. So when, every, when things bad things happen, or you know you got a bad day at work or whatever, she's like, all of that discomfort back to the discomfort discussion are ways that you can learn. So what?
Dr. Kuan Collins:is that teaching you about yourself. What is that teaching you about? whatever is going on, so using poison as medicine. And then the third one is everything is on the path. There is nothing that you interact with in your day. That is not supposed to happen.
Mark McGrath:I wanted to share because I don't know if you're aware of this, of this slide, so it's, it's literally, you're describing it to a T. Can you see this?
Dr. Kuan Collins:It's a little small, but I can read.
Mark McGrath:Is it? is it didn't blow up.
Dr. Kuan Collins:No, it's good. It's good, i can see it.
Mark McGrath:So so this is from Chet Richards webpage slightly east of new Okay. Chet Richards was one of the acolytes of John Boyd that collaborated with him and did the math on destruction and creation which you can see. That was the beginning input And this sort of tracks the origin of UDA and in Boyd's own evolution of thinking about UDA over 20 years leading right up to his death in 1997. But everything that you've been saying notice that last green bit Eastern philosophy, taoism, zen, samurai, adaptations, the Toyota production system, tai Chi Ono. It's interesting that in the last years of his life formulating these things, boyd was really studying Eastern philosophy and depth. And it's interesting about the mental.
Dr. Kuan Collins:It is so fundamental to all the ways that you need to be a system to thinker and to allow that part of your brain to open up. And it's, it's, it's I mean, it's biological, biologically impossible to do the thinking that Boyd was prescribing without understanding that philosophy. And it's nothing to do with religion either. I mean religion it's. You know, people sometimes reject that philosophy because they think it's going against Christianity or whatever. But it has, it's very it's, they're mutually, they're symbiotic.
Mark McGrath:Yeah, it's a way of thinking I always point out I'm a big. I don't know if you can see on the shelf up here I have every Jack, a lot of Jack Kerouac books, and Jack Kerouac wrote a lot. He popularized the study of Zen and a lot of Eastern thinking, And at the same time he was also a very devout Catholic.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Yes, it's possible to be both, i mean that's the beauty of intelligence right, Is the possibility of having two even divergent thoughts in your brain at the same time and still being able to function.
Mark McGrath:Absolutely Yeah, now, that's, and I think that that's really what Boyd is telling us to do ultimately is you have to. You have to take in as much as you can, because we've used this quote on the podcast a lot, but it comes from the big short. It's either Mark Twain or Will Rogers. It's not what you know, i'm sorry. It's not what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you're absolutely sure of, that that turns out not to be true Every single time Every single time.
Mark McGrath:And if you're not exposing your, you know you're not open to ideas. I mean, that's, that's where I think the entropy sets in with orientation, where you become stagnant, you, you're static, you're no longer dynamic, and the world is living proof that you need to go out, because, guess what, there's how many billions of people that don't see it your way.
Mark McGrath:Oh never, exactly. So there's a. There's a guy. He's our age, his name is Peter Santonello. It's one of the one of my favorite YouTube channels. You have to check this out, this guy. He has an Italian passport so he's able to go places that you know we might not be able to go, but he's got like 10 videos of Iran, 10 videos of Pakistan and India, and all from the ground level, and all he does is he takes cameras with him like a GoPro, and he walks around by himself And whatever happens happens. It's very, it's very flow. You know, he just lets it flow Yeah.
Mark McGrath:And he's. I remember looking at it the first time and he had a I don't know 20,000 subscribers and now he's over a million, but he's going. He's going into places that we would never think to go. So he goes into Amish communities. He does like 10 videos of of of going with Amish communities in Ohio, or he goes into Compton in California or he goes into East LA. He goes into Hasidic Jewish communities in New York and he's getting their story from them. So what's interesting is that it breaks the. It really disrupts your viewpoint of what you may have thought or assumed And and at the same time you're looking like boy. I really want to go to the Hunza.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Valley in.
Mark McGrath:Pakistan because it looks awesome. You know, the people look super friendly.
Mark McGrath:The food looks awesome and the mountains are beautiful And I never would have known about it if I hadn't seen. You know this guy's disrupting the way that we, the way that we think, and you know we were talking about it earlier, how things like social media and whatever it's it's overhauling our, our, our ability to function And as Gen Xers were kind of unique because we've had our hands in both worlds, right. I mean, you and I know how to use a rotary phone.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Right Children have no idea. No, In fact that's like a historical item, like oh, look at that.
Mark McGrath:Isn't it crazy, like you know? but we we can. We can see how apparently we're less susceptible, like those of us that have that have lived in both worlds were less susceptible to sort of the, the I don't know, the, the overriding. We've had a couple of guests on that, have talked neuroscientists that have talked about that. But what I find in the value of something like Peter Santanello is creating is a disruptive view of some, say, iran, for example. You know, if you take the, if you pull the average American at their, their view of Iran is what they hear in the news.
Mark McGrath:Right, the I etola. You know, i mean, that's one of my earliest memories of, of, of thinking. You know the way he yeah, the way he looked and how scary they were. And you know, growing up in army Brett, we had a lot of Iranian kids that we grew up with that were, you know, refugees from Iran. So we had one view. But then you see this guy again. He goes over there like two or three years ago and he spends two weeks in Iran And you're like you're kidding me.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Like that's amazing. I want to go there. It really looks like a cool, a cool spot. And it was. It was the Europe of the Middle East back in the day.
Mark McGrath:I think the thing is is like there's a there's a demand for disruption like that. That it's met with, we'll go back to work. Talk about disruption, design He's. He's disrupting your view of what you think about X and he's with design, he's showing you know the human interaction And one of the things that he says. And then you, you would find this interesting because you grew up in Saudi Arabia. He, he lived in, he went to Saudi Arabia for a couple of weeks and at the very beginning he says this is about Saudi people, not, not Saudi politics, and it's nothing like you would have heard on the news and just like this fascinating stuff, beautiful beautiful people They're, you know it's a beautiful country It's, you know, unlike.
Dr. Kuan Collins:I think it boils down to, like everything else that they're. They're just people and they're doing their thing. They believe what they believe and, you know, when you're not trying to compare it to something that you know and believe, then you can appreciate the beauty in what they're doing, where there's some archaic things that they did, sure You know.
Mark McGrath:But It's just. It's where empathy and understanding come in right. We just have to understand that cultures are different and it's not going to be.
Dr. Kuan Collins:They're trying to change, and how, how amazing is that to watch right So now women can drive. Now women can vote. So that kind of transformation in a culture that was so anchored right In in the ways that they were doing things is that's pretty amazing, right, and that's that's going to be a place to watch, because if they can change like that, that's pretty amazing.
Mark McGrath:I mean from an innovation standpoint. It does seem like there's a lot of interesting things going on there.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Yeah, i mean in Dubai right, especially like that, and they have sort of the benefit of everything because they're a little bit more Western. They're sort of like the perfect blend of Western and Eastern and everything and and lots of money, so there's no boundary for them there.
Mark McGrath:Fascinating. Yeah Well, we should close with directing everyone to. your podcast is on Spotify.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Yes, so we're going to try to get onto more platforms, but right now it is Spotify And it's if you go, or if you search for intersections mission to innovate, you will find us there, and we have, i think, like 16 episodes now. Our latest was on chat GPT. So we're talking about generative AI and the good, the bad and the ugly.
Mark McGrath:So I can follow. I'm following. I've got my notification bell, so the last one was with Jeff. Jeff Evernim, correct, okay, excellent, yeah, and we can talk offline about podcast platforms and stuff, for sure. And then, of course, people should that are on LinkedIn should follow you on LinkedIn because your posts and the things that you share are great. Thank you. The things that you echo about Boyd Well, as we close, anything for us, anything you want to know about you haven't had a Boyd episode on your podcast yet Yes, I need to have you on my on my podcast so we can talk about Boyd and innovation, because there is.
Dr. Kuan Collins:I mean, he was an innovator, So I'm I look forward to scheduling that one.
Mark McGrath:Just say when. So good Thanks for, thanks for joining us. We really appreciate it.
Dr. Kuan Collins:Thank you, i appreciate the opportunity to take care.
Mark McGrath:All right, i'm going to stay.
