The Negative Space Is The Work with Kathi Dalguntas

[0:00] why she walked away from a chief-of-staff role to start Not Rising

Dan Korus: And so I'm like sitting there and I'm like, fuck, give me out, give me out, give me out, give me out, give me out

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. I I feel that I don't miss that.

Dan Korus: I know, I know, I know. Yeah. So you how how long have you been doing this?

Kathi Dalguntas: This as in substack or corporate?

Dan Korus: Yeah, Not Rising. So you're the you're the chief executive, officer, editor, ev kind of all of it for Not Rising, right? So this is your this is your project.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. I started, I mean, not rising magazine officially launched in March of this year. I started planning the architecture and the framework sometime January of this year. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: And I had planned to, you know, like I do want this to be I don't know, like my dream is to go back to media and go back to journalism.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: And I had initially planned to keep my corporate job while I built the infrastructure for the magazine. And the universe just kinda laughed and said, No girl, you're just gonna go back

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: to your first love of journalism. And so I quit my job back in March.

Dan Korus: So cool. Dude, congratulations. I'm so proud of you. and was it like an explosive leaving like someone ate like your leftovers out of the fridge and you were like fuck it, I'm out? Or you know, was this like a planned move?

Kathi Dalguntas: It was, I did leave in quite a dramatic fashion. It was not at all exp yeah. I'm happy

Dan Korus: Okay, cool. Do you wanna tell us? You don't have to tell us, but if you want to okay, cool. Lay it on us.

Kathi Dalguntas: to. I had spent a whole year acting as a fractional chief of staff. And the plan was, I mean, you know, the the team had expressed interest in officializing it. And I think long story short, they officialized it without I think the appropriate compensation for what I felt was appropriate for the responsibilities that I was carrying.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: And so it was kind of a wake-up call for me to say that, you know, one of my biggest issues with I mean not issues, but I observe this in talent and culture where the when you live in the negative sk space when your contributions are, I'm creating conditions so that we flourish and we mitigate problems. When you live in that negative space, it's really hard to measure that. It's hard to get the appropriate compensation for that, the appropriate

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: reward and recognition. And

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: the chief of staff role was pretty much the exact same thing. And so

Dan Korus: Yeah, yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: I I think it was just a wake-up call for me. And so we came to an agreement where I expressed what I felt was appropriate for you know, the the year where I was doing. half like fractional work and the terms that I provided was either I do this full time and this is what I get or I stay in my role as director of talent and culture.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: And I had known at that time that, you know, we had just laid off my team unfortunately in talent management. And so they had they did not have a use for the director role. But

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: I was like, well I'm gonna stay in it. and you're you're

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: just gonna have to like figure it out. So long story short, we came to this agreement that

Dan Korus: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: okay, we will part ways and I am here now.

Dan Korus: Yeah. I'm so happy that you're here now because now we get to talk and maybe we wouldn't have met otherwise and so it's just kind of a a a happy happenstance. I think that you're kind of at the center of this whether or not you feel like you're at the center. but from the outside looking in, you're like there's a lot of people that are in your orbit. You know, all of there's a lot of you're like creating constellations, you know, with how you tag people in Substack and curate these lists of who's who's writing interesting things this week according to your themes and then you're picking between them for features for your magazines. Tell us and and this is all under the Not Rising project, right? So tell us a little bit about that.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. I think the gist of it is that it's decentralized journalism. When I went to school in the Philippines for journalism, I saw firsthand what the pitfalls were. And so having the benefit of being in corporate and what it took to run a business, what metrics you looked at, what what are the strategies to scale and grow. It gave me all of the information on what does not work. And so

Dan Korus: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: when I thought about this idea for not rising, it's it's a completely deviant way to do media.

Dan Korus: Uh-huh.

Kathi Dalguntas: And I knew first and foremost that I was never going to get capital funding for this. I'm not going to get a venture capital for firm or you know, a private equity firm. to sponsor it and I don't want to be dependent on advertisements because that's also how you lose your editorial independence. And so I knew that I would have to rely on the people to keep this project alive. And that's good. It's a built-in failsafe. If the people say this is no longer valuable, then then the people vote for their support, right? And that's good. You don't want media to be so to outgrow its purpose. And so that's kind of the idea is first and foremost, it's it's around this theme of I want to platform voices that are calling for a better tomorrow, whether they're naming what's wrong and what's fucked up with today's systems, and the people who are imagining or envisioning or building new ways of doing things. And I wanted it to be diverse. And so that's part of why

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: there's this. what I call the decentralized editorial network.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: I want different voices, voices like, you know, Sam Illingworth in the UK or Kevin Gwinney from Winnipeg and Canada

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: or Prague or Rebe, you know, like it's

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: really cool to have different perspectives, different curations. So yeah,

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: that's that's kind of how it turned out.

Dan Korus: That's so awesome. so you're on month four and how are you liking it?

Kathi Dalguntas: I'm loving it. It's

Dan Korus: Really?

Kathi Dalguntas: I I've had this like I've always had this inherent curiosity about people. My dad kept

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: a journal of me growing up and he said that like even when I was maybe two or maybe three, I was already talking like an adult and I would talk to my neighbors. Like my

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: neighbors were like a young couple and they had like a a young a young child, but I would talk to the to the guy and be like, Hey, how's how's work going today? Where's your mom? Is she still over there in Kagaya? And like I was having conversations

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: with adults. So it's been really fun to just keep doing what I'm doing with interviewing and recruiting, where I just get to know people's stories and get to know more about them. And now I get to amplify it with zero agenda, other than I want people to be heard because we humanity needs to connect so we can build the kind of tomorrow that we want.

Dan Korus: Hell yeah. Cool. So I wanna go back to something that you said a little bit earlier. So you went to journalism school, right? And

Kathi Dalguntas: I did, yeah.

Dan Korus: okay, so you said that you got to see first hand what the pitfalls are. What are they? What are the pitfalls?

[7:24] what are the real pitfalls of modern media?

Kathi Dalguntas: well it usually ends up be no, it's it's

Dan Korus: Is that a loaded question? Yeah. Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: it's not a loaded question. I'm it's I'm trying to figure out a way to like concisely capture what I've observed and I think

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: it's that they media is so powerful that it is

Dan Korus: Uh-huh.

Kathi Dalguntas: prime for being captured. It it ends up

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: being used as a as a mouthpiece for those with the resources or those with a clout. And

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: it ends up kind of I don't know, it it ends up sacrificing truth.

Dan Korus: Mm.

Kathi Dalguntas: So I can I can dive into specific examples if you'd like, but that's the punchline I think.

Dan Korus: Sure. I think what I wanna know is just what are you trying to do differently to avoid those pitfalls? So you said it's our it's decentralized, you're having other people in engagements that way you've got a diverse selection group, you know, that's kind of helping you find articles from different viewpoints. you know, what else are you doing to avoid those pitfalls?

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah, it's a good question. I think having a a North Star of

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: a North Star that's just beyond like a lot of times organizations, you know, that's why we have mission and a vision and all of that stuff, but it tends to

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: become platitudes on a wall. But in this case, it's it's always been embedded in my soul that

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: systems are I believe that there are a lot of good humans that are stuck in bad systems. And communication and connection to me is a powerful way for us to connect and collectively work towards a better state.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: and it doesn't have to be completely building brand new things. It could just be improving what we have today. But it it starts with connecting and being united. And right now, what we see with media is just we're all meant that we're all pitted against each other. We're all meant to think that if somebody disagrees with us, they're an enemy. So there's loneliness, there's a fracturing, there's a lack of understanding of what what is this re what is our shared reality even? You know, you

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: can look at a situation and people can see it differently because of the way it's being spun. So yeah, just kind of got on a little red there.

Dan Korus: No, no, no, I love it. I think the work you're doing is extremely important. and I want to follow it up with a really serious question. what's your favorite road trip snack?

Kathi Dalguntas: That's such a serious question. Favorite road trip what?

Dan Korus: Snack. Like if you like

Kathi Dalguntas: dear.

Dan Korus: average gas station, you're kinda hungry, like what are you coming out with? Not a full meal, just like a snack.

Kathi Dalguntas: Dude, it's such a good question. I always get like pumpkin seeds for myself and sunflower seeds for Garrett.

Dan Korus: cool, okay, cool. Does he go for salted or are they are they shelled or unshelled? Okay, cool. Damn. okay, yep. Yep.

Kathi Dalguntas: Sheld Dill Pickle. He used to play baseball in high school and yeah, sunflower seeds were a thing.

Dan Korus: Yeah, okay, cool, got it. Dill pick well, that's a good pick. I like that. And beverage?

Kathi Dalguntas: it would be a cold brew coffee. yeah, or water.

Dan Korus: Okay. Yep. Black? Just black. So just cold black coffee.

Kathi Dalguntas: usually black with cream if I can. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Okay. Okay. Got it. Cool. Okay, cool. And then is that the same for

Kathi Dalguntas: What about you?

Dan Korus: like your morning is that the same for your morning coffee?

Kathi Dalguntas: very different. My morning coffee is

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: bulletproof coffee that Garrett makes. He's been yeah, so he puts yeah, and we've been doing this for like yeah.

Dan Korus: Nice. Okay, cool. He's been on the bulletproof grind. Awesome.

Kathi Dalguntas: he he puts I mean that collagen that I shared with people in Substack.

Dan Korus: Whoop who

Kathi Dalguntas: he puts MCT oil in it and we use good coffee. Like we we we like to go to roasters that, you know, source good beans and all that.

Dan Korus: Cool. so bulletproof coffee used to be all the rage. It was like a big thing, like maybe what, ten nine or ten years ago. and that stuff is delicious, and I know why it used to be all the rage. it feels like really good in your brain, you know, and it's like an awesome way to start the day. So yeah, for those who don't know bulletproof what's your guys' bulletproof coffee recipe aside from just like the collagen?

Kathi Dalguntas: If we do a tablespoon of butter, a tablespoon of C T oil and collagen. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Uhhuh. Uhhuh. Okay. Dude, that sounds tasty. That's so good. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: It's like my treat. I I fight it I really look forward to it in the morning and he's been making it for me every single day. And we've

Dan Korus: my gosh.

Kathi Dalguntas: been together for like nine years now. So

Dan Korus: Uh-huh.

Kathi Dalguntas: yeah, we've been doing it for almost a decade.

Dan Korus: Where do we find a Garrett? You know, like where do we do they still make Is there like a like a non-luxury model, you know, for the rest of us? Yeah. Okay. shit. Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: It's a good question. He seems really one of a kind. He does have a single brother though. Actually a couple.

Dan Korus: Yeah, you'll find the link in the description after the show.

Kathi Dalguntas: Dustin's gonna kill me.

Dan Korus: I think it's funny. It's funny. It's funny. I thought okay, so here's here's here's just a random thought before we get back into leadership stuff. one thing that I always thought was really fun was like like a singles night, but you bring your best friend and your best friend like gives a power point about how great you are to like everyone else. You know, so it's not like you pitching your s like 'cause in a relations that's kinda cringy, you know, like saying I'm good but someone else singing your praises is like classy. You know, and they can say a lot more and

Kathi Dalguntas: Absolutely.

Dan Korus: have fun with it and it would be like cool.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. I love that idea because also there's stake in it for you. Like for me, I would never set

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: up my best friend with anybody with just anybody. I'm like

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: the most selective, like best friend. If she and my best friend is single right now too. So

Dan Korus: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. This could I mean this could be yeah. And I don't know if it's like one per so that you like they just one single person who needs it and then everyone else kinda comes in and, you know, p pitches. It's like a pitch, almost like a pitch contest or like a conference. but yeah, I d I don't know. I don't have many single friends, so but I think that that would be a really fun way to do it. So

Kathi Dalguntas: That sounds so much better than hinge.

Dan Korus: Yeah, yeah, I know, right? Dude And like it's community, it's like grassroots, like there's food, you know, it's not like greasy at all. It's just kinda like you know, we're like setting

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah.

Dan Korus: out yeah, it's good. Okay, so I read this story and and I wanna know if I can pry a little bit into it. So when you were in grade school, the principal called your parents. Tell dude, tell us tell us that story. Tell us that story.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yes. Yeah, you know how in like elementary school they ask you what you want to be when you grow up. And

[14:49] growing up under a dictatorship and choosing journalism anyway

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: my answer was I wanted to be a journalist. And I was like an straight A student, like teacher's pet and all that. And I was

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: very surprised to find myself being called to the principal's office with my parents there. And my principal was just very concerned. And I distinctly remember her saying, Journalism is dangerous. And they

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: really wanted to talk me out of this dream. And

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: you know, I think it's been an inherent trait in me that if somebody tells me to not do something, I tend to do the exact opposite. I do not respond well to being told what to do.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Hell yeah. All right, cool, yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: and so I went to you know, I graduated with my degree in mass communication and journalism ten years later.

Dan Korus: huh. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: but you know, after reflecting on it, actually just recently, now that I'm doing this, now that I'm

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: really throwing myself into this dream, I have a greater understanding for where she was coming from. Because

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: at that time, the Philippines had just been under martial law. We it had been under a dictatorship for two decades essentially. Like it

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: was it was insane. And and so it it made me realize like my parents grew up in an environment where journalists were being thrown in jail without due process, tortured, things like that. And so I I understood where they were coming from because that dictator was ousted from his position the year that I was born. And so this was only, yeah, the so when I was in grade school and I said I wanted to be a journalist, this was still very

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: much fresh on their minds.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: so I have a greater understanding for it now and credit to my parents, you know, they they were very supportive of me pursuing journalism and my dad, yeah, my dad

Dan Korus: Outstanding. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: saw the papers that I wrote about current events and like social issues and just was super proud of it. So they were still very supportive and I just kind of have a more holistic view of where my principal was coming from.

Dan Korus: Yeah, and and I think you kinda already talked about like how important it is in the modern day to have independent media and independent journalism that isn't, you know, doesn't have as many financial motives, you know, and isn't

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah.

Dan Korus: being swayed by people with financial motives. you know, so what what are your thoughts on the safety of it these days? Like do you think it's do you think it's more or less dangerous? you know, doing journalism in the US, do you do you ever feel un unsafe practicing journalism or

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah, absolutely. I think part of this architecture that I'm building is I'm coming into this with the assumption that I am entering an actively hostile environment where and hostile can mean, you know, right now the algorithm absolutely favors specific things and I'm going in there trying to rally people to kind of combat that. And I think

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: the more influence and the more reach you have, the more attention you're kind of putting, the like a you're kind of putting a target on your back. And there are certainly people today who have the reach who are trying to get the truth out there, who get bullied by people with legal resources and things like that. So I'm part of my strategy is absolutely thinking about how do I rally a decentralized network of folks in an actively hostile environment where we can still thrive and get the truth out

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: there.

Dan Korus: Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, great. so, you know, part part of the the work that you're doing is okay, let me start that again. So you've got this quote, and I think it's something along the lines of like media prioritizes being first, and you prioritize being discerning, you know, and picking right. What does that mean to you?

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. that was another one of my observations of where pitfalls can can be when you're in media is there's this race for breaking news. You know, there's this race for like, there's Trump said this today and this happened today. And so there's this like it kind of when you want to be first, you you lose this discernment. And the benefit of what I'm trying to do is I just want to know what people are saying and what people are really thinking. And I get the benefit of being able to go out there and read what people are writing about. And I get to curate that and say, okay, well, this happened a couple days ago, or this happened last week, and here's what people are saying about it. That way we're not just kind of reactive to

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: what the current events of the day what the current event is because that's kind of what happens is media breaks the news and then we react to it and we don't really get to sit down and intentionally digest it.

Dan Korus: Yeah. do you think that you've been successful in creating moments for people to sit down and digest it?

Kathi Dalguntas: I think so for me personally, yes.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: And and I think that the benefit of reading different views. So I'll give you an example. last week I was very interested in the topic of automated license plate readers. And

Dan Korus: Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: and so every day I do a specific search for a topic so I can find new writers. And last week I was like I did not I expected to read certain topics like flock and what people are doing about that, but I did not expect it to go into this space of home kind of security. I did not expect to read that. I didn't expect ice to be a part of this. I should have.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: but you know, I get this for me personally, because I sit down and I take the time to read what other people are saying about a specific topic, it does give me a more holistic view of how are people thinking about this and how are they connecting the dots. And I hope that my curation does that for those who are reading it.

Dan Korus: Okay, that's cool. I think one of the one of the hardest things is that it's not easy to find and engage in the alternative media sources that are out there. You look you got all this big list of media, you know, and they and they span if we if we s if we really simplify it down, I know that it's three-dimensional, but if we simplify it down to, you know, two dimensions, you're either reading red news or blue news or you know, gray news in between. And Or you're you're reading and I guess which is more common now, you're reading about particular people. So you're reading like a person's opinion, you know, so you're like getting that person and

Kathi Dalguntas: Yes.

Dan Korus: then they move on the spectrum according to the issue. I think that one of the things that I like about what you're doing is it gives people a really easy entry point. You know, it's like, hey, here's the list. Like just you can go and you can get a broad assortment that is mind opening without having to spend a bunch of time like doing what you're doing, 'cause that's a chore, right? It's a chore and it requires like constant effort and you have to be willing to find things that challenge you and aren't actually in line with things that you already think and that's really tough for us, you know, as people to do, like to want to go seek that out. so, you know, as aside from that and aside from reading your list, do you have any other tips for people who, you know, might be like, I only get my news from this and I wanna I wanna broaden my horizon just a little bit.

[22:13] how to break out of your media echo chamber

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. Thank you for that feedback, by the way. That's that's special

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: to me. I can share what's worked for me.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: because I agree with you. I think what I'm seeing is that we've kind of moved away from intentional responsible reporting where back in the day we would say, here's one side and here's the other side. Now it's really

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: more about here's what happened and here's my opinion about it. And that's that's fine.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: but I think for me, I try to go straight to the source if I can. So if I watch a clip of you know, some late night show guy talking about his opinion on this thing and he shows like a four second clip of what happened, I want to go straight to the source of where that clip came from and just look at it for myself and decide for myself. I think it's good to hear what other people are thinking about a certain topic, but I would encourage folks to Try to go straight to the source and form your own kind of opinions about it and use what other people are thinking as like a cross reference.

Dan Korus: Okay, let's say that you we snap our fingers and tomorrow everybody in the world is going and and getting primary source information and forming their own opinion first. What do you think would be like the first thing that changes? Like what do you like how do you think it would manifest? Like how what how would we notice?

Kathi Dalguntas: I love that question. I think I suspect that we find that we have way more in common than we think and

Dan Korus: Okay. Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: that we don't have to like it doesn't have to be an adversarial conversation if we see things differently.

Dan Korus: Mm hmm. Okay. So we have more in common and there and there's less adversarialness. That'd be cool. I would

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah, like I

Dan Korus: like that. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah, which then hopefully leads to more nuanced conversations and

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: just a more intentional way of seeing things versus reacting to what's

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: being fed to us.

Dan Korus: Nice. Okay, cool. I love that. I I hope that that one day happens. I doubt it, but for the folks that are listening, we can we can start some here. So your favorite movie of all time is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. And

Kathi Dalguntas: Yes.

Dan Korus: in i in my podcast preparations I did not have time to watch that movie, so You know, tum tell us a little for those who haven't seen it like me, what's the movie about? Is it and is it good?

Kathi Dalguntas: dude. I it's it's hands down my favorite. I think because it has all of the elements of the things that I love. so

Dan Korus: Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: it's about this guy named Walter Middy who has been in this job for 16 years for Life magazine. and he was a negative asset manager, meaning he handled the negatives of the photographer who went out there into the world and did took epic photos of.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: You know, he'd like ride a plane and take a photo of an exp an exploding volcano or like an erupting vc volcano. And meanwhile

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: Walter Mitty is there in the back room like processing the negatives, but making sure that he captured what the photographer was trying to do. And the scene of the movie is that Life magazine just got acquired, I think by time or something like that, by like a bigger magazine and people

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: were getting laid off. And so he's going through this like existential crisis and goes on this journey of I need to find this photographer. and so he finds himself doing these like crazy adventures that used to just be all in his imagination. So the the elements that I love about it are this kind of finding the courage to I don't know just just do what you haven't done before to go into the unknown. I like that

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: it keeps it real, that it's like Just because you decide to break away from your comfort zone doesn't mean that you're not going to encounter danger and you're not gonna know what the hell you're doing and it's not gonna be easy.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: there's photography in it. I've always wanted to be like a I told Jae Hong actually in her NI20 interview, I said, if I weren't a writer, I want my dream was always to be a national geographic photographer. So magazine,

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: photography, travel, life, daydreaming, all of that stuff. Like it just spoke to me.

Dan Korus: That's awesome. All right, so I can't I can't help but notice in this story that you you you quit your job in March, you know, and to start this new venture. So is this is this venture your Walter Mitty moment or is that still ahead of you?

Kathi Dalguntas: I think it's absolutely my Walter Mitty moment.

Dan Korus: Alright, cool. Tell us more.

Kathi Dalguntas: It's it's a grand adventure. I I quit my job, you know, I I got a good severance and I'm using that to bootstrap this this initiative and I'm giving myself like two years to kind of get this off of the ground because I know I'm not going to get funding for it. So

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: you know, I'm I'm broke as all fuck and Garrett's been really supportive of this.

Dan Korus: Good.

Kathi Dalguntas: But yeah, I'm just I believe in it and I'm going to do what I can to to make it happen. But yeah, it's it's going into the unknown. It's like really betting on myself. I know what the pitfalls are and I know what the potential kind of sacrifices are if it if this doesn't work out and I'm willing to willing to to do that.

Dan Korus: Awesome. And you've been very you know adamant that not rising, the publication, is always going to be it's gonna be free first, right? So that way there there's equal access. So, you know, my my question about that is, and you're also a value first, you're a values first publication. So, you know, values overreach. so when we're thinking about sustainability, where do you think the money's gonna? Come from and for people who care about this and want to support you, what what can they do to help?

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah, thank you. I think the distinction is that high human on Substack is my discovery engine for

Dan Korus: Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: the magazine for not rising. High Human will always be free. I've n I'm never going to turn on paid subs on there.

Dan Korus: Okay, got

Kathi Dalguntas: so the the idea for that is the discovery engine has to be free. I don't want any paywalls. I I want people to have equal access to being discovered on there.

Dan Korus: Yes, uh-huh.

Kathi Dalguntas: And the more Stack Hunters, the more editorial contributors we get, the more diverse the the search and discovery process is. Not

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: rising, I do hope to you know, make a living out of that eventually in maybe a couple of years, because

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: I d I would really like to depart from corporate if I can help it and build my own thing. And my dream

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: for it is To use that as well as a prototype for maybe this is a better way of doing journalism and maybe this is a better way of organizing ourselves as an organization. So I also intend to run this like a living organism, like a living system. And that's where my systems thinking brain comes in. but I hope to eventually as far as sustainability for this magazine, I do have pledges turned on on there. I haven't really shared this publicly yet, but I'm making plans to kind of offer limited edition print copies of the magazines in the future, just so that it's like a tangible thing. and there's a few different ways there that I'm kind of exploring. So one of them is you know, connecting more seasoned writers with like newer writers. And I think that's such a good way to like connect people with other connections. If people on Substack want to like if they have goals to monetize or to eventually get sponsored or to get,

[29:38] designing a magazine for sustainability without selling out

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: you know, partnership opportunities there, I'd love to be able to help facilitate that because I really want people to kind of break away from their corporate cage if they can. I know not everybody's in a position to do that, but

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: if I can show that it's possible. and there's people I can connect them to, then that's another way that I'm hoping this can be a sustainable option.

Dan Korus: Awesome. That sounds so cool. So do you think that along with the limited edition prints that you know, it'll always be like a digital first magazine, or will we one day have the option to get like a physical copy? because for those who haven't seen Not Rising, which if you haven't, you should definitely go check it out. The layout is super sweet, the knowledge in it is always really actionable and inspiring. Like I really like it. I think it would be like a very good looking magazine overall. I don't know where you got the graphic design skills from. Maybe you can tell us but what what's your plans there?

Kathi Dalguntas: yeah, I mean this is all built by me. I mean, I'm a one person team right now, so thank you for the compliments on the graphic design.

Dan Korus: Amazing. Yeah. No, it serious it seriously does look really good. I really like it. It's very cool. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: Thank you, I appreciate that so much. and sorry, remind me what the question was.

Dan Korus: Well, you know, to to be more specific in my compliment, I think that not only are the photos big, right, they take the main stage, you really like see into the person with the photos, but the rest of the the editorial layout is minimalist. Right, it's a minimalist layout. There aren't a lot of questions. Like I think you have half as many questions as I do in an interview, and like you seem to get more out of people than I do. So I think that's a lesson for all of us. Less is more. But it also it puts the content first. Right? So it

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah.

Dan Korus: is it is artistic, it does have all these like really nice design elements that draw the eye, but it doesn't take away from the human writing, which I really like. I think it's great. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: Thank you. That's the goal. That's that's the goal is you know, human stories. We that's that's

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: what I mean by like the more stories we can get out there, the more we maybe realize that we want the same things. Like a lot of us

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: want the same things and just we have a lot in common. But yeah, yeah, thank you.

Dan Korus: Damn. So are we ever gonna get an in print magazine? Like you know, can will we ever get Snail Mail not rising?

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah, that's ultimately the plan is

Dan Korus: Cool.

Kathi Dalguntas: yeah, and I'm I'm really going at a at a slow pace here because one of the pitfalls with organizations is they try to scale and try to get revenue and in a way that like you you can't really sustain it. And I

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: want to be able to sustain this on my own as much as I can 'cause I'm being I'm bootstrapping this. But yeah,

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: I I'm making plans to make physical copies available. Soon, maybe Q four or Q one of next year.

Dan Korus: Very cool. Okay, you gotta let me know because I want that. I would love a

Kathi Dalguntas: I got you.

Dan Korus: physical copy. Hell yeah. Okay, so I think that you know, one of the let's go a little bit into like your corporate background. I know.

Kathi Dalguntas: Mm-hmm.

Dan Korus: but tell me I think I think it's interesting and and you know, you've said you have a systems brain a couple times, you know, so like where did that come from? Where'd you, you know, where'd you where'd you sharpen your teeth in the corporate world?

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. so when I moved to the US, I

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: already had this like background in the Philippines of I used to work as a copywriter act or copy editor for a self-publishing company in the Philippines. Yeah.

Dan Korus: cool. Okay, got it.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. And then I worked for like a call center and kind of became a supervisor. So I had some leadership.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: But starting over in in the US was like really hard. Nobody knew my education. Nobody knew the companies I worked for. And

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: I didn't expect to be in recruiting, but I just ended up like finding a company that was looking for high potential entry level folks and they were looking for a recruiting, I think it was a a a recruiting coordinator at first. And I'd I'd had interviewing experience and you know, journalism background and all of that seemed to kind of overlap. So that's how I started.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: and so I I had my I built my career in recruiting, moved up to corporate recruiting leadership, became a director of talent and culture for this behavioral health company. And

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: a few years ago I saw that the job market was changing. They were laying off software engineers and recruiters all over the place. And I

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: knew it was only a matter of time for my team. So we We intentionally I intentionally kind of challenged them to upskill themselves and make their portfolios more robust. So in addition to recruiting, we expanded into learning and development, we expanded

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: into people analytics, and culture and engagement, organization effectiveness. And you know, I was always that person who had proposals and ideas to implement. And that's part of how I got the courage to do this, to do not rising, because I've

Dan Korus: Yeah. Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: done this in a smaller scale in in the corporate world with success.

Dan Korus: Mm.

Kathi Dalguntas: and I think because of that, because I I have this like ability to look at different cross-functional kind of dots and I see how they work together and I I kind of see the like it really I do see it as like a living, breathing, dynamic system. I I don't see it as like a static state. And that I think was can that contributed to my success of being kind of put into a chief of staff role, which is all about essentially kind of being the CEO's second brain. and so when you're at that kind of altitude when you're looking at corporate operations, then you get to really see how demand generation works with operations and you see how like what are the you know, where does churn really come from? And I tend to look at it from like a more historical view of like, remember when we went through all of these layoffs like three years ago and it just kind of spiraled into this thing, like the hidden

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: things that they don't always measure, I think, kind of gave me that benefit of being exposed to that and observing it that way.

Dan Korus: Alright, we gotta go back in time here. Can we go back to the call center days really quick?

[37:02] first-time supervisor lessons: know the people you lead

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah.

Dan Korus: Okay, so you're working in a call center and they make you a supervisor. Why'd they pick you?

Kathi Dalguntas: Well, so some context. The call center was a market research firm and they would have clients that either called people up to do surveys on like how was your satisfaction with Walmart's customer service all the way to political kind of surveys, like how do you feel about Mitt Romney or whatever, you know? And so this

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: was me in the Philippines calling Americans up and We would be given this script, but I kind of I like my human curiosity kind of made it more conversational, where I would call people up and say, Hey, I want to get your opinion about this. And people were always willing to talk to me about their views. And so I became a top performer. Like I was like super productive,

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: like completing so many calls and all of that stuff. And that's how I became a a supervisor. I was really shitty at it. Like my first supervisor job, my God.

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: cringe. I I have massive regrets. I it was horrible.

Dan Korus: Really? Yeah. Okay, what wh why were you ho what did you learn? What were Take us to some moments,

Kathi Dalguntas: Dude, I so this was a

Dan Korus: yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: yeah, like I didn't really get training and

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: I was there to like supervise people and I didn't even know the people. And so I would be, for

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: example, responsible for shift scheduling. And one

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: time we had to like really change the schedule and I had to call people up and I had like a list, a directory, and I would call

Dan Korus: Uh-huh.

Kathi Dalguntas: them by their first names, like a Hey, I'm looking for this, this and this, like Natalie, blah, blah, blah. But in reality, like we she goes by bubbles, you know, and and she was so it was just one of those things, like you

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: you can't really lead effectively if you don't know the people you're leading.

Dan Korus: dude, that's so good. and we talk about this all the time, right? Like the technical high performer gets put into the leadership position and then they don't have the training for the leadership position. and so you like lived that firsthand. Do you think the lessons that you learned, you know, at that marketing research call center, you think all of them have been effective in your leadership journey? Do you

Kathi Dalguntas: absolutely. Every fuck up I've made has really helped me become a better leader for sure.

Dan Korus: Tell us tell us some more fuck ups, if you will.

Kathi Dalguntas: yeah, I'll tell you an an example of when I first became a recruiting supervisor. I was actually very reluctant. My director

Dan Korus: Yeah. Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: offered me the job and I turned it down because I I didn't want to be a leader. I just I

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: knew I was a high performer and I didn't feel like I was a good leader. And so I

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: turned it down the first time. And the director was like, You're too like, you need to just do it. Like, and so he offered it again. And I became a yeah, and so I d

Dan Korus: This is solid negotiation. Hey, as you know, as your supervisor I think you just I think you just gotta do this one.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah, like you need to just do it. I'm like, okay, fine. And so Yeah. And I had

Dan Korus: Yeah, I can Nike my way into this. Yeah. Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: somebody on my team. Her name's Carol. Carol

Dan Korus: Uh-huh.

Kathi Dalguntas: May is what I call her. She's a Southern Belle. We this this was a remote position too, like early days. Like we were in person. I had my most

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: of my team was in person. But I had somebody in South Carolina. And we were recruiting and we were kind of slotting in our new hires for the the new hire training schedule. And she emailed

Dan Korus: Yeah, okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: me to say, like, hey, I'm really having trouble getting my new hire into this next class. And

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: the way I saw it was like, she needs empathy. I would just slot them into the next class is what I would have done w if I back when I was in this position. And so I said, I'm so sorry. Like I gave her empathy. And I didn't realize that what she actually needed from me was You need to help me make sure, like, like use your leadership card so that we can put this higher in for this class because this person needs this, this, and that. And she went,

Dan Korus: yeah, okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: yeah. And it made me realize that I'll always remember that lesson because I received it. And in that moment, I just assumed that she would do what I would have done. And that's not the case. And so I learned to be much more intentional about. One, what does this person need from me in this moment and clarify

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: and not assume? And second, collaborate with them on what the action is and not assume

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: that they would just do what I would have done back in the day when I was doing the job.

Dan Korus: For sure. Okay. That's that's so great. And I think I think we do that all the time, right? When Someone

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah.

Dan Korus: comes to us and they give us something and we're like, okay, I'm gonna give this. this is what they're getting. And you know, we don't we don't really know and yeah, the question of what do what do you need from me or how can I help in this moment is often escapes us, but what a great question to be able to ask. Yeah. That's great. Thanks for sharing.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. It was a big gut yeah. Good lesson for sure.

Dan Korus: So that that's two that's two supervisors in a row who are like, Kathy, you need to be in leadership, you know, and and I think you're I think you're being humble with us. What do you think they're seeing?

Kathi Dalguntas: Performance. I I'm good at what I do, you know, like I

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: think it is that thing where you kind of see them do something well and then they decide, you should be you should be a leader.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: but and I think that's that's what people tend to see. I think they also see that I'm I'm a I have a high capacity for learning. That's always been,

Dan Korus: Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: I think, what's helped me. succeed because I will mess up. I will fuck up. But I am very comfortable as a learner being awkward, making a damn fool of myself, but learning from it, owning up to it. If I make

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: a mistake, I do what I can to make it right and also communicate what I'll do to make sure I don't do it again. So I think maybe the learning is learning and potential, I think is what people usually see in me.

Dan Korus: Well that's a pretty great thing to see. Now d wouldn't it be great if all leaders were quicker learners and okay being wrong and okay being mistakes right and okay growing from that. I don't think many many leaders are and I think that a lot of people who get promoted because of their performance ability probably go into the leadership role thinking that they're there because they know how to do it all right. Wouldn't wouldn't yeah, go for it. No no no

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah, yeah. And Go ahead. No, please do.

Dan Korus: you no no no you

Kathi Dalguntas: Well, I was just gonna ag I agree with your point and I think

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: it it may not necessarily be ill intentioned, right? I think

[44:27] why information equity makes or breaks a team

Dan Korus: Uh-huh.

Kathi Dalguntas: we kind of we we kind of go in this flow where the environment, the feedback loop tells us that, hey, we're rewarding you for your high performance. Now that you're in this position, you kind of fall back to what used to work. And so I think it's a natural kind of way the brain works that like well this used to work before where I just did it myself and I did it well. You don't necessarily get taught to kind of transition your brain into like, okay, no now you're responsible for the team's results, not your results. And that's a totally different mindset shift. Like you're not gonna do this yourself. You're gonna empower them to do their jobs well. And that's totally different.

Dan Korus: What does it look like to be a leader who empowers their team to do their jobs well?

Kathi Dalguntas: Not giving the answers right away, but making sure they have the context that they need. For example, I have this like big beef about the lack of information equity in an organization.

Dan Korus: Tell us about that. That sounds like good beef.

Kathi Dalguntas: yeah, like leaders have more access to things, right? And you you it's the leaders that kind of end up filtering information down to the folks on the front lines who have to do the work. And so for example, if if you're a recruiter and you're you're just told, well, hire a director of marketing, but you don't really know that the CEO wants to, for example, hypothetically, we're gonna move everybody back in office. And I want a s a, you know, chief marketing officer who's based here. But like the recruiter that their goal is to like hire the best person. And if you're still a ro, you know, remote. first company, you're gonna recruit everywhere. And but if you're gonna tell them no, you can only hire from here and you're not gonna tell them like why or what have you, like it makes them it makes

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: it really hard to it makes it hard for them to do their jobs well and to meet expectations when the expectations weren't fully transparent to begin with.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Dang, that would be hard. And like, if you've got the world, you know, to recruit from, that's a much bigger pool and that's a much bigger mission than recruiting from like a small town of ten thousand.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah, yeah. And I I think they're

Dan Korus: Yeah, the job ad's gonna look different. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: yeah. And just from like a kind of broader standpoint, it it's really hard to like you're almost setting somebody up for failure when you tell them to do a job but you don't tell them exactly what what the job is about, if that makes sense.

Dan Korus: Done. And you know I think for leaders listening to this, you know, they're probably thinking like, well, you know, no shit. Like of course they can't read our minds. You know what I mean? But like I feel like we do this

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah.

Dan Korus: to people every single day. So, you know, especially when we're tasking something and we're not necessarily giving the broader context or we're saying, Hey, we made this decision and we're gonna go in this direction or we're not saying why you know, like what are what are other times when you've seen this play out where there's this inequity in information access?

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. and I'm trying to give an example where because I'm also not a proponent of oversharing. Like I do believe that there are certain things like for me as a leader, like I'm not gonna go vent to my team that, my

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: CEO sucks and my CEO said this today and what have you. Like

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: I'm not going to do that. But I do care about giving them the context that they need. So

Dan Korus: Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: For example, when we were building employee engagement, you know, strategies, this this can be

Dan Korus: Yeah, yeah, sure.

Kathi Dalguntas: this is very salient to kind of your leadership roundtable conversation

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: today. Like, you know, like my team was responsible for giving like sh the getting input from people on what's holding them back, w what's holding them back from performance and et cetera, et cetera. And As my team comes up with these ideas for here's what here's how we should act on this feedback. We should have the you know, we should have this, this, and this, and we need funding for an employee resource group or what have you. And meanwhile, I know that the executive team and the board they have grand plans to expand their operational expenses so we can Acquire more companies. And that's kind

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: of indirect, there's kind of conflict between we need to invest in our people and we need to do this, this, and that. Whereas the kind of the context here is more we need to spend as little money on people as possible. And so as my talent management partners who are having conversations with VPs to say, here's what your team is saying, and what can we do? What can we do? What can we invest in for training? Those leaders are thinking about, I don't want to spend money, and people are just going to be put through the ringer because there's probably going to be layoffs on the road. So why are we even doing culture engagement surveys when we know

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: that this isn't going to happen? So it's kind of balancing like how do I give them context of what's within our control and how do I kind of guide that conversation so that it aligns with that it still aligns and it still aligns with what the overarching kind of direction is.

Dan Korus: Hundred percent. And I I wanna go back to something earlier that you said. You think of organizations as like these living systems. You know, they're they're breathing, they have a pulse, they're interconnected. I always think of like aspen groves, you know, how they how like the the trees can die but the root system stays alive and like they're all really like one tree. You know, and so when one of gets a disease they all kinda get a disease, but they're like this network. I always think of aspens when I think about when when people compare organizations to that. But you said that you're good at seeing like cross functional dots, you know, and connecting them. what are like what are two cross functional dots or two cross functional teams that, you know, you would you would normally look for in an organization or kind of what are you looking for when you connect those teams?

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. I love that Aspen Grove analogy. so I'll give yeah, I think it is

Dan Korus: Kinda fun, right? Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: really accurate. And mycelium networks as an example, like

Dan Korus: Uh-huh.

Kathi Dalguntas: I draw a lot of inspiration actually from biology as I'm developing my strategy for growth here. But

Dan Korus: cool.

Kathi Dalguntas: yeah, but I'll give you an example. when

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: I was the chief of staff, I my role was to really create executive alignment and remove decision bottlenecks.

Dan Korus: Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: And it's very easy if you're just looking at it from at face value when you're in meetings. it's very easy to get lost in the swirl of, my CEO didn't tell me this, but the chief medical officer needs to know this, like, and they're butting heads. But if I zoom out, like from a larger standpoint, I I think of it as like, okay, well, let me imagine this company as like. a human being like let's let's call this human being iris and iris is getting ready to build ai kind of products which historically we used to just be offering telepsychiatry services and so to me people can in like if you're just looking at it at the foundational level, people will see it as like, we're changing, we're changing our services, we're changing our identity. And to me, it's like, well, I think it's more like we are our mission is the same. Iris is still the same. It's just Iris is going to get a heart transplant because Iris needs to expand their offerings in a different way. And so if Iris was getting a heart transplant, then I see my chief people officer as like the person who looks at the vital signs and and the chief people officer should be able to tell the CEO who's the surgeon, like, no, the body's gonna reject your operation because the body's immune system is not working well and the immune system is change readiness, culture, morale, et cetera, et cetera. Like that's kind

[51:51] treating an organization as a living body, not a box

Dan Korus: Well.

Kathi Dalguntas: of an example of how I see how I see things as like a living ecosystem.

Dan Korus: Dang, okay, so companies are a person and we're trying to see this person be successful, right? And then like the team that is in you know, in in charge of the care for the person is maybe like the most like like the decision makers or the the C suite. Okay. where's like where's like the boots on the ground people? Like are they are they fingers, toes, like what are they Okay

Kathi Dalguntas: They're the cells, they're the mitochondria, they're the ones that keep the blood flowing, they're the ones that keep the heart pumping, they're the ones like Yeah. I I would say the

Dan Korus: Yeah. Got it. Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: dys yeah, it's kinda like how everything's fractal, right? Like I this is gonna be trippy, but I think of like from a philosophical standpoint, I am made of cells and

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: DNA and mitochondria and stuff and like but I think of myself as this one entity, but I actually have a

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: multiple systems that are functioning independently so that I can function as like a a living, breathing, not clumsy human being who just falls on her face every morning, you know, like

Dan Korus: Yeah. And and in that you're trying to be nice to all the different and trying to care care care for and integrate all the different organisms within yourself. Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. Like we like as an example, and I am trying to be better about this, but like

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: you lose like I think of org organizational structure like org, org charts, like how you're how you're arranged and how your roles are designed. I think of that as like the sk skeletal mu like structure, right? Like if my thumb is like sprained.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: You can't really function very well like with this like teeny

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: tiny thing that you just take for granted every day. Or like

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: you hurt your knee and you're not walking very well anymore. And I think that's the equivalent to you you have this like org structure and you keep tacking on these like Frankenstein roles and you're no longer this like efficiently designed system. Or if somebody is in a role that's not working well, like you're you're like a fractured knuckle or I don't I don't know what the analogy would be, but something like that. You know what I mean?

Dan Korus: Yeah. Okay, cool. So and and I'm not poking holes in this philosophy. I think this is really interesting, but I want to ask a question. So if the okay, so we're saying that the people doing the work, right, who are you know, following a leader or under or in in the org chart making making shit happen, they're inside the body, right? And then and you're

Kathi Dalguntas: I think so.

Dan Korus: And then in your analogy, we've got like the C suite executive who's like a surgeon or a chief of people, you know, like watching the vitals of the body. and they're outside the body, right?

Kathi Dalguntas: I think so. And poke holes, by the way, I want this to be refined for sure. But yeah,

Dan Korus: Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: it seems like so far decision makers are the ones who make the biggest impact on the body. They can decide to like completely rip your heart out and replace it with something else.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Okay. At what level in the org chart, like an elevation, does it not do people stop being a part of the body and start being outside the body?

Kathi Dalguntas: Good question.

Dan Korus: Where do we does it change? Does it change company to company? That's the easy answer I think. But I think there's probably some sort of a line there.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I think that's a good thought to chew on.

Dan Korus: Maybe it depends on the size of the company, would be my initial thought. Like but I bet I I think it's really interesting because one of my opinions that I that I hold and and maintain is that leaders have more impact on our health than our doctors do.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yes.

Dan Korus: And so I love this analogy, you know, like the CEO being the surgeon. Because I'm like, hell yeah, you know, like our my current and past and all former CEOs, you know, and me as a CEO, like, of course we have more impact on our people's health than their doctors do, because how many times during the year do they see their doctor versus how many health impacts come from, you know, interacting with a CEO every single day, whether or not they're good or bad? and there's those studies of people who are driving to work and their anxiety is like increasing as they get there and their blood pressure. pressure is rising as they go because they're driving towards, you know, what what we've classified in a study as toxic environment. And so I just think it's interesting because, you know, there's people who are a part of the system and we think of the company as identity as a person, right? and and if we personify it in that way, we include people who are doing things as a part of the as a part of the system and then, you know, the the leadership is outside of it acting onto it, you know, or guiding it or or being a part of it. And so, you know, I just I can't help but draw parallels there. And I just wonder like, you know, does it Did d you know, are the VPs a part of the body? Are they not? You know, does it depend on like how much influence you have over those decisions? or whether or not you're more in line like whether or not you classify yourself as like leadership versus not, you know. I

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah.

Dan Korus: don't know, just interesting. I'm taking this on a total tangent here.

Kathi Dalguntas: I love that. No, I think it's great. And I I one hundred percent agree with you about you know, leaders impacting our health.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: and and yeah, I think that's a good question. And scale, I do think, makes I think you might be onto something there about the size of the company because if you're

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: you know, an individual contributor, but you you have the ability to make important decisions,

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: I think that that could impact that. And I You know, for me, it doesn't mean that the body is I mean, the people are the body. Like you're the heart.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: You're you're the one you're you're the heart, you're the you're the brain. Like without that, these you know, surgeons are nothing. Like

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: they can't do anything to this organization without the body itself cooperating.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: So I think both are vital. and maybe it's more a question of the influence and the ability that you have to kind of I don't know, the impact the level of impact and influence you might have.

[59:15] running layoffs with dignity through COVID

Dan Korus: I think it would be great if leaders in the C suite did think of themselves as operators onto a body, you know, in a real person. because we always tend to separate those decisions, you know, leadership decisions as if we're operating on like a box, you know, and there aren't actually people inside. It's like this black box

Kathi Dalguntas: Exactly.

Dan Korus: that like we're making decisions on and we're looking at like these secondary consequences such as like revenue, EBITDA, you know, what our what our growth trajectories are, what our own salary is, but we're not thinking about like the people. And if we personified

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah.

Dan Korus: it as a person, you know, maybe maybe they would have more thoughts about the decisions. I can't I I remember your story about advocating for a leadership team to not take annual incentive compensations towards keeping staff on and and avoiding a series of layoffs.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah.

Dan Korus: Do you wanna tell us about that story? Can we talk about that story? Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: Absolutely. Yeah, I think you know, I in the the company I'd seen it happen before. I worked for a different company. They were a healthcare technology company. And I was like n in my first week when COVID happened. And so there were a lot of like conversations around do we have to furlough people because all of a sudden we're not able to offer services. So it it did have a direct hit on the organization's revenue. but the but the executives decided to pledge and not provide bonuses for that year just so that we could avoid furloughing because we weren't sure what was going to happen. And so I saw it happen before. I also saw this company do kind of layoffs in a very compassionate way where this VP of sales, like he'd worked with his team, knew their families. And so when he had to have conversations with them that their job was impacted, he was willing to he did the work of connecting them with other companies, other connections so that they could land on their feet. And if we couldn't put them in a different organization, he spoke with their families and was like, I really here's what I tried to do and here's why we're doing this. So I saw the example of what it's like to be human-focused when you're a leader leading through crisis. when I moved to this other company, I think unfortunately that didn't really work very well because

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: the goal wasn't about sus surviving a crisis as an organization. The goal was How can we provide more return for a handful few? And so the idea, the the proposal to, well, if if the reason for laying off people this year is because we didn't bring enough sales this past year to hit our revenue goals or to sustain or we don't have enough business. That's that's just a temporary state. We could increase our business again this year without having to lay off people. We just need the bridge for that. And so that would have worked to forego some of the executive bonuses to pledge that so that we could continue on. But the goal wasn't that. The goal was just kind of returns for for a handful. Phew.

Dan Korus: Yeah, and I think that I mean, like sometimes I ask people like what they think leadership is, you know, and I and I think that story kind of says it all about what you think, you know, and people centered leadership. I mean, would you add anything on to that about just like where where your values are in terms of like what you'd be willing to do to take care of people or you know, what you think a leader's responsibility is inside of a company?

Kathi Dalguntas: Would I add anything to it?

Dan Korus: Yeah, I mean I think you if I if I'm reading you right, you're a staunch believer in people first leadership and in recognizing the human, you know, in in all senses, and that's a reflection also of, you know, high human, your discovery mechanism and of not rising, you know, letting people pick what what gets read and what gets promoted versus like an algorithm. and so this is this is kind of your your leadership brand and your leadership philosophy. Like are are you know, are we getting that right?

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah, yeah. I I one hundred percent think so. I think it's it's unnecessary to i it it reminds me of what Neela said in your in your interview, in your collaboration. Is

Dan Korus: Yeah. huh.

Kathi Dalguntas: like there there doesn't need to be this like disparity where you know like eighty percent of the the resources and the wealth goes to like just 20%. Like I think we I think there's abundance. I think there's enough, but your your motivations have to be in the right place. And that's why ultimately I want to break away from corporate because there are too many organizations right now that are beholden to their investors. And you can't really change the intrinsic motivation in that sense because they invested in money and they want return on that. The value flows upward. There's not really incentive to make sure the value is distributed amongst the people appropriately based on the effort that they put in to make that organization successful. So yeah, I think it has to start with your ultimate motivation. And I think the only way a model like this works is if you're if if it's not driven by greed, if it's driven by this, staunch kind of belief that we should all prosper together.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm. So if you were gonna start a company, how would you set it up so that way you do prosper together?

Kathi Dalguntas: There's so many there's so many different ways that you could go about it. I would say

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: organizational effectiveness is such a a big thing. I think, yeah, one, first and foremost, you have to have the right motivations. So the right North

Dan Korus: Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: Star, whatever you're trying to do,

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: just make the mission real. Make it like

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: what you're that's the hill you're gonna die on. That's not just you know, platitudes on a wall.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: I think second, really architecting it in a way that's human-centered, like systems have to be human-focused. And if I were to build an organization, I would pull in folks like Jennifer Hool. I think Ashley Gibson is a really good systems thinker.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: you know, I would consult with folks like you who really put people front and center and design a structure that's meant for humans. That includes incentives, performance kind of measures

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: like expectations, accountability, culture, that kind of thing.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: And people. Just, you know, you want people who also believe in in that mission and the way incentives are designed would be that's kind of what I'm doing with the stack hunting right now is you kind of benefit from it proportionally. So for example, I spend two to three hours every day reading and searching for at least five to six new writers.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: and so my growth, my organic growth is proportional to that. If somebody ca has the bandwidth to only do one per week, that's still value add and that's still c contributing to the mission, and it will benefit their growth proportionally. but it's not going to negatively impact anybody else. so

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: I think that's a good way to kind of structure a a scrappy kind of function where people get they benefit proportionately to the effort that they put in.

Dan Korus: Cool. So you're a fan of like pay for performance?

Kathi Dalguntas: Say so. Yeah, I think there's

[66:40] swarmwise: letting people contribute what they're best at

Dan Korus: Okay, cool.

Kathi Dalguntas: certainly some pitfalls to that as well, if we think about current systems. But

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: yeah, I think the foundational aspect of it, there's some merit to that, fr for the circumstance that I'm in today, like for the yeah, for the scale that I'm at.

Dan Korus: Got it, yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, sorry, I didn't I didn't mean to like put that on you like as a blanket, like Gothie's

Kathi Dalguntas: No, no, no. Yeah.

Dan Korus: a fan of PFP. cool. how you doing on time right now? Are you good?

Kathi Dalguntas: I I'm actually great. How about you? I know you've Okay. Sure, yeah.

Dan Korus: No, I'm good. We're good. Because I got I got more questions. so I can either wrap it up or I can ask more questions. but I got more questions, so okay, hell

Kathi Dalguntas: I got all day.

Dan Korus: yeah, dude. let's get it. So You think you're ever gonna have employees at Not Rising?

Kathi Dalguntas: That's the hope. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Dope. Cool. Awesome. I'm just curious. What do you think they'll do?

Kathi Dalguntas: I I think I would start with Team. Have you ever heard of this strategy called Swarmwise?

Dan Korus: No, tell us about it.

Kathi Dalguntas: it's essentially a way to get just a whole bunch of people it's kinda like hive mind where people

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: can can contribute to a goal autonomously in a way that like y if if you're if you want to contribute you can in your own way. If your skill

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: is you know, art. Or if your skill is strategy, or if your skill is leadership, you can all bring your talents and contribute to the larger mission. and that's that's kind of my hope for this is the this strategy will require some scaffolding where

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: you have specif like you know who to go to, you know what the expectations are, you can th these people can disseminate information quickly so that you

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: have the so that you can organize. in an agile way and you can respond to emerging things together. because

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: I think that's one of the pitfalls of current organizations is you're so like siloed that you can't really like cohesively be agile and respond to emerging problems in real time. so if I were to hire a a group of people, it would be that scaffolding. it would be

Dan Korus: Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: a small group of folks small group of elite leaders who know how to rally like yeah, large large groups of people and can communicate and lead in in a in a way that people can act autonomously.

Dan Korus: Yeah. this sounds like a a leadership style I was reading about a little bit. It like on digital virtual leadership, online leadership. and I I think this is almost a better description for what their description of that is because it you know, we're we're talking about and it's also very like egalitarian, you know, people bring being their job description, if I if I have it right, people people showing up and their job description is, Hey, contribute what you're good at and what you like doing and that That's it. And we make it rigid, you know, and there's there's really good specificity around that, but people aren't showing up with do what you're good at and then all this other shit too.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. And and I think another benefit, because I agree with you 100%, it's like the difference between pigeonholing somebody into like a very specific thing, but they're so capable of so much more. And

Dan Korus: Uh-huh. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: I want people to be able to bring their whole selves and their whole like I'm such a big fan of creativity, as you can tell. Like

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: Des Kennedy and Zven will be so proud. But I do think that that's important. And

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: one of the other things is that When you design a role, you tend to design a role for what the organization is in that moment. But the organizations these days, they change and they evolve so quickly. Like you're you're

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: adding new products, you're switching to AI. And now, like a, you know, an administrator, like a systems administrator now has to administer chat GPT accounts on an enterprise level. And

Dan Korus: yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: that that changes a lot. And The organization

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: doesn't make it a habit to like go back and revisit somebody's job description or their role design and how that interacts with somebody else's role that's also morphed into something else now, you know? So like it's a we get stuck in this static state. So I I think the ideal kind of organization in today's world is agile and can respond and can evolve together based on The emerging environment.

Dan Korus: Cool. I think that you're making me rethink a lot of like functional organizational structures, you know, where we group people based off of what degree they have or what function that they have in the organization. You know, that is just like such like the classical model. and being able to scramble on something and adapt in a creative way that takes advantages of people's strength sounds like a real differentiator and also like a great way to create the trust and transparency that you would need in order to, you know, make a make a project like Not Rising where it is all about the people succeed. Cause if you lost

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah.

Dan Korus: that it wouldn't be not rising, right? Like Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah, yeah, agreed. And and you know, I want people to poke holes on that because I tend to bias towards you know, like radical deviant ideas. but there's so much

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: value to respecting existing structures that we have today. There's just

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: a lot of structures that have lost kind of sight of the original purpose. And so I do think like what I'm really aiming for is this balance of kind of radical deviant ways of

Dan Korus: Mm.

Kathi Dalguntas: designing systems that are more human-centered while

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: still kind of honoring some of the things that we know have worked for us for for a long time. Like structure is really important. Like I'm I I think we need structure, but we also need more freedom and flexibility.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, you said it yourself. The ig the the current organizational paradigm structures aren't doing us a a big service when it comes to being adaptable or being able

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah.

Dan Korus: to mobilize in times of crisis or evolutionary nuance. And so in that way, is it is it deviant if we do a structure that actually works? Like or are we just like refusing to be stupid and like, you know Like I would call it calling the sunk cost, you know, like I don't I don't is it

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah, totally.

Dan Korus: dumb for doing what we've always done even though we know it doesn't work? You know, like is that deviant?

Kathi Dalguntas: Good question.

Dan Korus: Is that deviant? I wouldn't call it deviant. I would I think it's I think it's smart. You know, I think deviant has like a it's fun, but I don't know if there's like there's much deviancy there. You know, you're not breaking

Kathi Dalguntas: Ha ha ha.

Dan Korus: rules, you're you're serving the new rules.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. I like that. I think that's a good reframe. It it's not it it make you're just it makes sense to

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: like go back to what's what's working.

Dan Korus: Yeah. And and I think we carry all this shame for change, right? And I and I don't have you ever felt this because you said you're a lo a big ideas person and you bring up ideas and you like to follow through on them and and create these sorts of change within larger organizations. You know, when you bring up an idea and and people are like, fuck that. That no we're not gonna do that. You know? and then and then you're made to

[74:04] the shame of proposing change inside a stuck organization

Kathi Dalguntas: yeah.

Dan Korus: feel like you're like a bad employee for trying to suggest something different, even though you care about the organization just as much, if not more, than them. You know?

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah.

Dan Korus: So like you've got like there's like shame in trying to improve upon things. You know, trying to do things differently.

Kathi Dalguntas: Absolutely.

Dan Korus: And people see it as like a big threat when you want

Kathi Dalguntas: Mm-hmm.

Dan Korus: to make make a positive change just you know, because it you're poking at the status quo and we don't like that.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah, story of my life. I'm I'm that person who's always proposing

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: new ways of doing things and people are just like, nah, we've

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: had too much. I mean, I tried to in implement agile decision making on the executive level. because

Dan Korus: Uh-huh. And

Kathi Dalguntas: they just cannot. I mean, decision bottlenecks are such a big deal right now. Like they're just frozen. They can't make decisions. But it's because like You need to like we need to be more iterative. We need to like not like we need to have micro deliverables. Like everybody's thinking about these like monolith deliverables and you're just frozen. But you know, all the time. I'm always proposing like new ways. Like I it's a miracle I was able to get the executive team to actually use Jira and Atlassian my last job. But I think I I have like a success rate of one proposal out of like ten ideas

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: implemented every time.

Dan Korus: Well, when Not Rising is extremely successful and leads a new wave in indeper independent decentralized journalism, you know, and they ask they're in the interview, you can you can get petty and you can say, Hey, remember all those ideas I had that so and so you in particular shot down? well I did all and they worked, by the way, so get fucked, you know.

Kathi Dalguntas: You know, I am not above my cheap shots. I mean, that's probably the only reason I'm on LinkedIn these days. It's to just like

Dan Korus: We take him and we can get him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's leadership.

Kathi Dalguntas: Right? You know, leadership sometimes can be like, I told you so, get fucked. I told you it would work.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Kara Kara reminds me that that's not leadership. and Kara always reminds me that I need to be playing what she calls and I don't know if she got this from somewhere, but she calls it playing on expert mode, you know, which is

Kathi Dalguntas: Ooh.

Dan Korus: winning, but you But the other people don't know that they're playing, you know, or that that they've lost. Like, you win, but they don't know that they lost.

Kathi Dalguntas: Ooh, look at that.

Dan Korus: Playing on expert mode. Yeah, so she's like, Dane, you gotta play on expert mode here. You know? that's

Kathi Dalguntas: Love that.

Dan Korus: her that's that's the that's the yeah, that's the thing. So we gotta play on play on expert

Kathi Dalguntas: You should interview Kara.

Dan Korus: mode. I should interview Kara. Dude, I should. She's great. that would be really funny. We would have so much fun. Yeah. I love Kara, she's great. I definitely think I wouldn't be here without her, for sure. You know? she's really cool. Yeah, so in that interview I think we'd talk a lot about that. I think just her impact on me has been really profound, so Yeah, plus she's a big supporter, you know. You know

Kathi Dalguntas: Love that. Yeah.

Dan Korus: those memes of like people who are like, I ha my my boyfriend got a Cloud Pro account and now he has like a SAS that burns like a thousand dollars a month or something and doesn't make any money? Like that's totally me, you know, but it just not SAS, it's leadership, you know, and so like it takes a lot in someone to just like support you wholeheartedly because you're having fun and you love what you're doing, you know, and There's no it's all belief, right? So, yeah. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. That's a real team right there. You know, my my mom and my dad. My dad was I I get this from my dad. if I see something that's not right or leaders are just acting for the fucked up reasons that they won't

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: tell people, like it's not right, you know? And he didn't really have a high tolerance for it and he quit certain jobs. Like he moved up quickly,

Dan Korus: Brilliant.

Kathi Dalguntas: but you know, he quit certain jobs because it compromised his values. And I I remember like my mom always like support being supportive of that, even if it meant like, we're you know, we're going into like a single revenue household in a third world country, we've got three children to raise and my dad wants to pursue his passions and there's you

Dan Korus: Wow. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: know, that's truly like choosing belief over I don't know, like pragmatism sometimes. I don't know, but it

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: It was inspiring to me because it does take having to break away from the norms and take like taking massive risks to to invest in something that you believe in. And it's really valuable to have people who believe in the same things as you.

Dan Korus: So you look up to him a lot.

Kathi Dalguntas: My dad?

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: I do, absolutely. Yeah.

Dan Korus: Yeah, I think I look up to him too. I think that quitting just because they don't align with your values is such a badass thing to do. It's very punk rock. It's very cool.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. It's very bunk rock.

Dan Korus: Yeah. so you've been in a number of different leadership positions. Okay, and You know, eventually you've you've risen up to become the VP Tow of Talent and Culture, you know, fractional CPO, I think was the title, right? I don't want to get it wrong. Fractional

Kathi Dalguntas: Tree from staff, yeah.

Dan Korus: Chief of Staff. Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. That's different. okay. Fractional Chief of Staff. So you've seen the top. And what I wanna know is there's this stat out there that says that Like eighty percent of people think they have self awareness. And only like and only like fifteen percent do or something. Like I'm probably misquoting the stat. I'll have it I'll have it in the bio for this, but it is it is like some outrageous like close to one in ten number. You know, being being someone who's been at the top of the companies, what what's your opinion on that stat? You know, and do you think that the people at the top are typically more self aware or not self aware?

Kathi Dalguntas: I love this question.

Dan Korus: You don't have to comment on yourself. That's okay. You can j we just talk about other people.

Kathi Dalguntas: Well, I'm torn because I

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: think I'm certainly I mean, I like to think that I've developed a a high level of self and social awareness and self and social regulation just because I've had to rebuild my life from scratch in a brand new country where the rules are totally new and different. but even then, like I'll find things about myself that I wasn't aware of. Like I I once had a a a chief growth officer who accidentally sent his feedback about me to me and he said that yeah and he said I kind of came across as like a know it all and I was like right.

[81:29] self-awareness, blind spots, and the executives who get it right

Dan Korus: fuck. Whoa, miss misclick of the century, dude. Damn. Okay. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: I appreciated it. It was like, well I I wanna know like how I come across to people. I'm I'm somebody who loves to learn and I love sharing what I learned. And it's good to know that that can come across as like a know-it-all sometimes. So I do think

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: like every human has some level of blind spot as far as self-awareness.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: when I think about the executives I've had the pleasure of working with, I actually feel like most of them had really high self-social awareness, self-social regulation. And I learned from them. There were certainly a handful that just lacked it, just absolute like zero self-awareness. but I don't know if it's because I've always chosen to work for mission-oriented organizations. but I would say like Most of the leaders I've actually interacted with and learned from have developed a high level of self awareness.

Dan Korus: That's awesome. That's really cool. where do you think they learned it?

Kathi Dalguntas: Good question. I I think some of them learn from the like just being thrust into a position that puts a lot of pressure on them and a lot of responsibility. I think if you're a good leader and you get you know, you put your feet get put to the you get thrown into like the deep end, you try to kind of you do what you can to learn and do it right. And there's like so I I would say they lear they learn it from experience, they learn it from the pressures that they have to deal with every day as as executives. but there are certainly executives who just don't even take the time to reflect. I know some who are really good at it by journaling. They they take the time to reflect, they write. They ask feedback, they listen to other people. And those are the folks that I think have developed really good self-awareness is those who are willing to listen. because I think there's a high correlation. I can think of somebody who has zero self-awareness, and this person is has also zero tolerance for hearing things that they did not want to hear.

Dan Korus: Yeah, we know those people. okay, so here's here's a question. So you've told us that you immigrated to the US at twenty? Twenty-two? Twenty-four. Okay. I

Kathi Dalguntas: What I was twenty four. Mm-hmm.

Dan Korus: was too I was one guess away. if if we think about those is the leaders who haven't developed self-awareness yet, you know, the ones who don't like getting bad news. And we made them go to a country where English wasn't the first language and we made go work there for like three years. What do you think they'd learn? And and would it be self awareness and emotional regulation?

Kathi Dalguntas: I think first and foremost they'd get their ass kicked and learn humility, which is probably the most important lesson that they need to learn.

Dan Korus: Damn. Okay, cool. How would they learn that?

Kathi Dalguntas: You go to a totally different country and they

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: you don't understand what they're saying, you don't know how to get from here to there, you don't know how to function normally 'cause you don't know what the rules are, you don't know how to get a taxicab, you don't know that there's like you can't just get a taxi here. People use public transportation. Like there's all sorts of like norms that you you get exposed to that is completely different from the world that you grew up in. And that is a really good way to be humbled. is you start you you you feel this level of helplessness and you realize that you need other people. You n you you can't just do this on your own.

Dan Korus: Yeah. that's so great. I love that. For people who don't necessarily have three years to go go go do a you know like a rags to riches hero arc in another country. not like not like rags to riches literally, but just like you know, like getting uncomfortable and having like a barrier to overcome. I I was talking with one of my friends, her name's Kendra, and and she had said that and I was asking her, like, Kendra, like, if you would if you could have someone teach emotional intelligence and empathy, like how would you get them to teach it? Or or how would you teach it to them? And she said that they should be listening to podcasts, and and me and reading media by people who disagree with them.

Kathi Dalguntas: Mm-hmm.

Dan Korus: particularly long form media, by people that they don't understand and who disagree with them because the the media wasn't made for them and the conversation doesn't include them, and they aren't in the context of the conversation or the piece. And I think that this shares you know, this would be maybe be a way like to to to microdose the immigration experience, you know, because you're entering

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah.

Dan Korus: a conversation that wasn't made for you and and maybe do you think that that would be similar? Am I right in that or do you think you know, how would you tweak that?

Kathi Dalguntas: I would say it's similar, but I would

Dan Korus: Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: say immersion is a whole nother level of learning because you can

Dan Korus: Awesome. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: hear it, you can you can you can hear different perspectives that you don't want to hear, and I highly encourage that. I do want people to always

Dan Korus: Right. Right.

Kathi Dalguntas: I mean it's robust intel, like why wouldn't

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: you want to hear other perspectives, right? Like it's only gonna make you like think better.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

Kathi Dalguntas: It's it's a great thing. but there's something to be said about being thrust in that environment where you're really immersed in it and

Dan Korus: Yeah. Cool.

Kathi Dalguntas: the internalizing that lesson is a little bit different because so as an example, I grew up in a third world country, but I grew up in

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: in a s in the city in the middle class. And part of my journalism school was we did this whole immersion and overnight trip to like kind of one of the more rural areas. They didn't

Dan Korus: Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: have electricity. They had like, you know, kind of pigs running around. They had like an outhouse. And it was like,

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: but it was beautiful. Like it was such a beautiful way for me to realize that like not everybody lives the same way that I do. Not everybody has access to the same things that I do. And that changes it changes the decisions that I make. Like Another example, planning for a company party. And you know, when you check into the hotel, like some people have to like like the hotels will get the they'll use part of your funds as like some they'll hold it when you check in. And once I made, you know, when when I got consulted, I said, yeah, I think people can just use their cards and they'll get refunded. But I didn't think that there are some people who wouldn't have those funds in their cards and they would probably expect the company to cover that. So the organization should have made the decision to cover all of that rather than put it on the employee. And that was

Dan Korus: Right.

Kathi Dalguntas: another tough lesson for me because it's like

Dan Korus: Done.

Kathi Dalguntas: even then I still have blind spots of not really fully taking into account different lived experiences when I make a decision as a leader.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Okay. so not the same. Hearing other opinions is good and we encourage that. We're we're both strong advocates of that. And immersion is different and you learn something totally unique. I love this. Awesome.

[88:53] teaching emotional intelligence by role modeling it

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Korus: For people who've never had that experience of immersion, you know, like what would your recommendation be? Like how could they get s an experience similar to that? 'Cause I'm thinking about you know, someone who's maybe been in the same spot their entire life and maybe they're doing well but they're wondering like is there something else out there or, you know, am I one of the people who's not self aware, you know, or I don't I don't know,

Kathi Dalguntas: Ha ha.

Dan Korus: you know, like maybe someone's chasing that experience and what would what would be your advice?

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. I don't think it has to be anything grand. Like if

Dan Korus: Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: you wanted to, you know, go to Jamaica, for example, like go to Jamaica, but don't stay in your all-inclusive hotel and eat burgers while you're there. you know, just like talk

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: to a local, get to know them, ask them how

Dan Korus: Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: do you say hello in your language? How do you

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: say thank you in your language? What's your name? What do people call you? I don't know, like,

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: It it can be yeah,

Dan Korus: Get out there and act get curious. Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: it I love that. That's it. Get out there and get curious.

Dan Korus: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Did you have more to say there? Okay, cool. All right.

Kathi Dalguntas: No, no, that's perfect. No, you didn't interrupt. That was great.

Dan Korus: going back to the topic of, you know, teaching emotional intelligence. If I asked you how would you teach someone emotional intelligence, how would you do it?

Kathi Dalguntas: Don't know. Role role model?

Dan Korus: Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Role model. Alright. No, this is good. This is good. I love it. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: I I do think role modeling it. so

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: one example, I'll tell you a story and it's it's relevant to this, I promise. So, you know, back

Dan Korus: Please. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I trust you.

Kathi Dalguntas: in yeah, I was in recruiting and my teammate, she was in in the offer process. And our interview process is pretty rigorous because we really care about bringing the right people in.

Dan Korus: Right.

Kathi Dalguntas: And so at the end of the process, there's like a panel where you kind of discuss and and we encourage people to like look at pros and cons and all of those things. But in that

Dan Korus: Right.

Kathi Dalguntas: scenario, we discovered that the interviewers actually knew that the final candidate was the son of the VP of the department, and we didn't know. And so the information that I got was my

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: my teammate told me she was like, ooh, so this happened. and so to me, I saw it as like, well, this is an integrity issue as a leader because this I I the information that I got, I thought the leader had asked the interviewers to not disclose that this person was her son and and this and that. But and so I confronted the leader. we had a conversation, but I I realized that when I As I was planning the conversation to talk to the leader, I realized

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: that my initial kind of preparation was about confronting them. But then I was like, no, I actually need to ask them, ask their side of the story first before making assumptions. And

Dan Korus: Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: from that, long story short, I learned that this person had. gone through the due diligence and had asked like can I put my person put my son through this and the the higher up leader had said yes and then that person left so now like they were it was all coming from good intentions and so

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: as a result of that you know I role modeled to say like I called her and apologized because she said like it made me feel like you were accusing me and this and that I'm like I that was you know and so I made it right.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: and this kind of got escalated all the way to the executive team because

Dan Korus: Mm, mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: I really thought it was you know, like an integrity issue. But

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: I made it right and my recruiter also realized that, you know, we we had made it we had made an assumption and

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: so I asked her like what do you usually do when you make a mistake? You know, here's what I usually do, but what what do you usually do? I didn't even share right away what I did to make it right. I just

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: asked her and my teammate was like, Well, I like to talk to the person and make it right and apologize, and here's what I'll do. And so we did that, and she talked to everybody, talked to the candidate, and then down the road the CEO told me She was like, hey, I really appreciated how you did that because you were a higher up person. You were a chief of staff, but you apologized to this VP, this director. And I think that's really good role modeling to own your mistakes and just really

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: appreciated how your team handled that. So I think role modeling is a good way to show somebody what good leadership looks like.

Dan Korus: And now that that team had seen you made a mistake, I'm sure they would be much more comfortable making a mistake in your presence, right? Or around and it would be more socially okay to apologize and and to admit rather than to, you know, gain elevation or make it diffuse or, you know, cast blame or obfuscate, right?

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah, exactly. And and you know, because my I knew that I wasn't gonna have my team forever, they were going to move on to other places.

Dan Korus: Uh-huh.

Kathi Dalguntas: I also had in mind like role modeling is important because you're showing you're grooming new leaders who are going to then take those lessons to other companies and then they're going to start mentoring newer folks. And so that particular team member, She's now a director for a nonprofit organization. And she's still she still texts me to this day. She's like, grateful for your leadership. Here's what happened during this time. And here's what I did. And here's I

Dan Korus: Good for her. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: asked myself, what would Kathy do? And so that's what I did. And like, Yeah. Yeah. And it's like,

Dan Korus: that's so sweet. Yeah. What like a heartfelt thing to get. A little text of appreciation. That's so nice. Man, that's such good feels. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: yeah, and it's not solicited. it's

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: it it makes you I think that's why. for just doing the right thing is it can be scary and it can be counterintuitive, but I think it it's very rewarding because that

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: impact is exponential.

Dan Korus: Absolutely. All right. Favorite song right now.

Kathi Dalguntas: Homewriter. Too many. My my favorite band of all time is Blind

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: Pilot. They're based in Oregon. And

Dan Korus: Cool.

Kathi Dalguntas: the man the front man, the main guy is c his name's Israel Nebaker. I really like them because him and his drummer just years and years ago did a DIY tour, like a bike tour, and they did the whole Oregon trail just kind of the trail from Astoria all the way down. South and it was him and his drummer. They just had guitars and a drum kit on their back and they just biked the whole coast, which is so fun.

Dan Korus: Yeah. That's pretty f yeah. A a bike packing trip but in the most musician way possible. That's awesome.

[96:18] career advice for every stage, from first day to C suite

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. And he's an incredible songwriter. Like his words

Dan Korus: Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: are poetry and yeah, check him out. Blind Pilot. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dan Korus: Blind Pilots. Blind Pilot. Okay, not plural. Blind pilot. Singular. Got it. me? favorite

Kathi Dalguntas: What about you? Uh-huh. Favorite.

Dan Korus: band favorite band or favorite song? favorite band, I think. Shoot, I've really been vibing with fifty cent lately. I think

Kathi Dalguntas: Nice.

Dan Korus: like every year I go through like a couple months where I just only listen to like fifty cent. and just like fifty cent and the red hot chili peppers and wheezer are usually like my top three.

Kathi Dalguntas: Nice.

Dan Korus: Yeah, solid picks. I've been big into the song. like my my repeat song right now has been Give Me Shelter by the Rolling Stones. Do you know that song? Yeah, I love that

Kathi Dalguntas: nice. Yeah, yeah. huh.

Dan Korus: I love that song. That's been like my wake up song. It's been my morning song lately.

Kathi Dalguntas: Love that.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I like it a lot. I like I like old music. I think it reminds me of my of my parents and like growing up. You know, they would play like a lot of classic rock. and then just like fifty cent just always sounds good, you know, especially on like nice speakers, just bumping. Anyways,

Kathi Dalguntas: Love that.

Dan Korus: Yeah, yeah, I love fifty. so okay, I've got three final questions for you. Are you ready?

Kathi Dalguntas: What's that?

Dan Korus: Awesome. Okay, so Someone's first day in the workforce is tomorrow. Very first job. Never done a day of work in their life before. What's your advice for them?

Kathi Dalguntas: It's okay to be a beginner. Everybody's everybody starts there. It's un it's uncomfortable. You're gonna fuck up, but find find the people that you can learn from.

Dan Korus: Okay, that's good advice. For someone who's in the middle of their career, so this could be like a a top technical contributor, this could be a middle manager, this could be someone who has people above and below them. What's your advice for them?

Kathi Dalguntas: This is the shittiest part. Being a middle manager

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: is really the hardest part.

Dan Korus: hi. Why?

Kathi Dalguntas: I think because not only are I mean you've heard the term the messy middle.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: there's you're kind of at that stage where you you probably have to transition from the mindset of you've been a high performer yourself and now you have to create conditions for a high performing team and that's very different.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: you also have to really kind of lead sideways and you have to lead you have to manage up and you also have to lead the folks that are are looking to you for guidance.

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: So there's a it's a very it's one of the most complex roles, one of the most challenging roles. So think my advice one of the advice that one of the most effective tips that I've learned from from other leaders is yeah to keep learning to like be open to like just create conditions where people can be honest with you because that's

Dan Korus: Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: the most important it that's the most important asset you have is information.

Dan Korus: Yeah. Man, there's like four pieces of awesome advice in there. I think I caught them all. create conditions where people can be honest with you. Never stop learning, learning never stops. learn how to navigate a complex political environment where you're caught between a lot of different people who have different motives and different intentions. And then the mindset change of being going from being being a performer yourself to creating conditions where other people can be good performers. Did I get them all? Hell yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: You did? Look at you, active listening pro.

Dan Korus: Smiley

Kathi Dalguntas: Impressive.

Dan Korus: Yeah, this is why I'm on this side of the desk. No, I'm just kidding.

Kathi Dalguntas: You're really good at it. You really are.

Dan Korus: I love it. I it it's fun for me. plus this is like I love these questions. This is like my favorite three questions of the entire show. for people who are at the top, the C suite, the founders, the VPs, what's your advice for them?

Kathi Dalguntas: Get over yourself. This is not

Dan Korus: Brad Brad Just kidding, lovey Bradley Uh-huh, uhhuh.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah, for real. I do my bestie Bradley. yeah, no, I I do think like when you're at that level,

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: the stresses and the pressures do kind of I don't know, like it it kind of brings out it can bring out the worst in people and it can bring out the best in people. And I

Dan Korus: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: think it brings out the worst in people when they're driven by their ego, whether that's their pride, their insecurity, their even subconscious kind of baggage that they haven't fully resolved, it really comes out when you're it when you're carrying that much pressure and that much responsibility. I think it brings out the best in people when when you when you recognize the level of responsibility that you're carrying. Like every single interaction that you have, like, that creates like a feedback loop to other people. And that you could be giving the wrong feedback loop. Like, as an example, you know, parenting is is very similar to this. You know, we we talk a lot about how we tell kids like, good job, or, you know, we say things that We intend to be good, but then it creates this feedback loop of, I have to be high performing or I I have to be this because that's what they said was good. And you have to think about that kind of influence that you have as an executive leader. and that's the kind of good pressure that brings out the best in people is this hyper awareness of the influence that you have. And it makes people much more responsible and much more intentional about. The decisions that they make.

Dan Korus: Wow. No nodes. That was great. Okay,

Kathi Dalguntas: Ha ha

Dan Korus: so for people who have been listening and are like, damn, Kathy's hella smart and has bitchin' tips and really good things to say, where can they find you?

Kathi Dalguntas: you can find me on Substack. I am

Dan Korus: Okay.

Kathi Dalguntas: Chief Absturdist Officer. you can also find me on LinkedIn. I'm Kathy Eric Delguntis, but it's all linked on my Substack. So yeah, find me on Substack. That's where I have conversations with people.

Dan Korus: Alright, cool. And they can find the Not Rising magazine there as well?

Kathi Dalguntas: Yes, they can. Mm-hmm.

Dan Korus: Hell yeah. Okay, is there anything else you want to leave the audience with?

Kathi Dalguntas: I think I would encourage them to listen to Dan Chorus and the Kestrel Edge's podcast and

Dan Korus: cough out. Cough out. Not like favorite Pokemon starter or like

Kathi Dalguntas: No. No, it's it's true though. Like I I haven't really I've I've only come across your publication and the work that you're doing very recently through

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: Jae Hong. We should give her credit for that. she did? Nice, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, good people know good people. And I immediately was you know, I I immediately liked everything that that you were doing. It's I do think it's impactful. I you know, there are some folks that stand out to me on Substack that I'm immediately like, I'm such a big supporter of this, like does Kennedy and Zven,

Dan Korus: Aw. huh.

Kathi Dalguntas: Ashley's

Dan Korus: Mm-hmm.

Kathi Dalguntas: you know, the the foundry that she just started and your podcast,

Dan Korus: Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: like I it's genuine. I I do think people should listen to your content and read your your series because I think you're doing

Dan Korus: Thanks. Good.

Kathi Dalguntas: really good work.

Dan Korus: Yeah, they better they're gonna get called out and it'll be good for you know? Looking at you, Brad. Better better tune in. Yeah.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah. And it's funny. Did you know that there are studies that show that humor in the workplace and leaders that have a sense of humor are what was it? Something like thirty five, forty five percent much more effective. it's a very

Dan Korus: Damn

Kathi Dalguntas: effective tool, yeah.

Dan Korus: Damn, okay, cool.

Kathi Dalguntas: Yeah.

Dan Korus: shit, well I better start cracking more jokes, you know?

Kathi Dalguntas: It's and it's not an easy thing to pull off. Like classy humor in the workplace is it's a balance to strike. Yeah.

Dan Korus: It's tough. It's tough. And a lot of people will punch down, you know, or punch aside. yeah, it can be tough. It can be tough. Yeah. Awesome.

Kathi Dalguntas: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Not everyone can pull it off, but you do, Dan.

Dan Korus: Aww, thanks, Kathy. Man, this was so much

Kathi Dalguntas: Ha ha

Dan Korus: fun. Dude, you crushed it. This is a really good two hours. This is really this is yeah, this is great. This is honestly awesome. Yeah, this is great.

Kathi Dalguntas: Really? Good. Thank you for the opportunity. This has been really fun. You're you're a great interviewer.

Dan Korus: well you're a great interviewee.