How to Build a Career Around the Problem You Want to Solve - Chike Aguh

Not every career pivot starts with a dramatic resignation. Sometimes the deeper shift happens when you realize the title you hold is no longer the best way to serve the problem you care about.

In this episode of Why I Left, Brian Aquart sits down with Chike Aguh, Head of Innovation and Strategy at the Kapor Center, for a conversation about workforce, public service, leadership, and the quiet discipline behind intentional career movement. Chike reflects on his family’s immigrant story, his time in government and advisory work, his decision to return to service during the pandemic, and the difference between leaving something and going toward something.

This conversation is for leaders who feel boxed in by their current role, professionals trying to make sense of uncertainty, and anyone who has ever wondered whether ambition should be attached to a title or a problem worth solving. Chike offers a grounded framework for building a resilient career, leading change, and staying honest about what the next move is really about.

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Transcript

Speaker 0:44

The American workforce, if you look at the data, depending on how you slice it, it's either stagnant or shrinking. We don't have enough people for you to be picky about which people. For a workforce or population to stay at the same level, the average couple needs to have 2.1 to 2.3 kids. In America, the average couple has 1.6. That's just data. So therefore, what it means is I need to go find talent wherever it is, prepare it however I need to, and then I need to keep it on as long as possible. Those demographics are going to defeat you at some point because we don't have Americans to waste. I've been lucky to never have to be trying to get away from something. Partially because certainly it's been kind of mission-focused, problem-focused. But the question is if you have the idea of the problem in your head, even if you don't know the job, if you can see in your head, whatever I do next, I will be accomplishing X, then you're going towards something.

Brian Aquart 1:31

Welcome to Why I Left, a podcast exploring life-changing career moves. I'm your host, Brian Aquart. Join me as I chronicle real stories from real people about the bold decisions that transform their careers and lives. Let's dive in. Hello, and thanks for tuning in to this episode of Why I Left. Not every resignation is loud. Some happen quietly over time when staying starts to limit the good you can actually do. Today I'm joined by Chike Aguh, head of innovation and strategy at the Kapor Center. Chike has built a career by knowing the difference between leading something and going towards something. And that distinction matters more now than ever. Let's go check it out. Alright, welcome back. So our guest today is Chike Aguh, a nationally respected leader at the intersection of workforce, policy, and innovation. Chike has served in government, advised major institutions, and helped organizations navigate moments of real uncertainty, including during the pandemic. And he currently serves as the head of innovation and strategy at the Kapor Center. He's also a fellow presidential leadership scholar, and his career isn't defined by a single leap, but by a disciplined series of choices rooted in service, clarity, and long-term impact. This conversation is about how you build a career that actually holds together. And so I'm very excited to have him on the show.

Speaker 3:04

So, Chike, welcome to Y I Left. How are you doing, man? Doing all right, Brian. Thank you so much for having me. And more importantly, just thank you for having this space. I think right now there are really few spaces that have these types of conversations. So when someone creates it, I want to acknowledge it. So just thank you for what you've built. Thank you.

Brian Aquart 3:19

No, I appreciate it. This has been a labor of love. And as we've been continuing to grow, it's important. Like the feedback I get on this show is just so awesome to hear because, like you said, so many people are going through things right now. And hopefully this could be a safe space where we can all talk about the real that comes out in this work. And you know, so I I'd love to start one by saying, you know, I know we'll we'll talk a little bit about PLS on occasion, but but I just want to appreciate everything you've done. You were actually the the lead, the connect that got me into PLS. And, you know, you introduced me to the program. And so it has been everything that you said it would be, definitely a life-changing experience for me. And I'm just glad that now we're we're both alums. And I just thank you for planting that seed for me when you did.

Speaker 4:03

Look, uh let me say one one thing, which is I've I met I met you, Brian, kind of in in this work around kind of healthcare workforce that the Bloom that Bloomberg Philanthropy supports and that you helped lead in New York through Northwell. And when I saw you and the work you were leading, it's kind of like when you're a scout for like a sport and you're like you're thinking about something and you see somebody like, oh, that guy. And so, like, literally, I would I would extend the thanks the other way, which is you were everything the program was looking for. You were everything, I think, kind of the work that you were doing that that the country needs. And so honestly, um uh thank you for not making me look uh silly on the other side as far as performing well. But no, I think honestly, for those of us who've experienced a good thing, our job is to pay it forward, and particularly to pay it forward to people who are gonna make the most of it. You are a prime example of that. So, in many ways, like it was an easy thing to do because you made it an easy thing to do by just being who you are.

Brian Aquart 4:50

Awesome. I thank you for that. You know, so so you've worked at this intersection of policy, workforce development, like you mentioned how we met, and and organizational leadership. How do you usually explain your work to someone outside of those worlds?

Speaker 5:05

It's a great question. I think um, if you were to say it like kind of at a high level, I would argue that kind of any endeavor of progress we're looking to deal with as a society or a world, pick your issue, climate change, economic development, even dealing with political discourse, political polarization. The bottleneck, the ceiling, the limiting factor is people, whether those are workers, whether they're in economic development, is it entrepreneurs, whether if it's scientific innovation, it's innovators. But in the end, I have tried to figure out how do we make sure we have the people we need to do the things that we think are most important in our society. Because in the end, with the right people, you can do anything. Without the right people, you can't do anything. And so that's kind of how I've been at the top level. And then I'll say for me, and we'll probably talk about this a little bit, partially my own kind of life story and the journey of my family in America has kind of proved that. And it's kind of why I probably focused on that really early as a young person and now into kind of you know mid-careerhood. Yeah.

Brian Aquart 5:57

And you know, and looking back, what are some of those early experiences that shaped how you think about service, opportunity, and responsibility, especially at scale?

Speaker 6:07

It's a great question. I think, and I'm not sure if President Clinton used this phrase with you, but I heard him use it once when he released his book after his presidency. He said, uh, we are all prisoners of biography. And it is very much true for me. My family were kind of a very classic immigrant story to this country. My family is from a village on the far side of the world in Nigeria that most Nigerians themselves will never see and never visit. It is none of my grandparents went past middle school. My mother and my father, who were born in that village, literally over the hill from one another. They grew up on streets that were unpaved then. They're mostly unpaved now, but they had Peace Corps volunteers in their classrooms, and they both kind of scratched the lottery ticket and got to come to the United States as international students back in the late, late 70s and early 80s. I am the first person in the entire history of my family born in America. And so very much because of access to education and economic opportunity, you go from in a single generation in my family, four grandparents who didn't go past middle school, to my parents who had peace for volunteers in their classrooms, to me, who got to have some of the best opportunities, go to the best schools in the world, and serve an American president. And what I like to think of when I think about this now as an older person, this is kind of what happens when you get it right as a society, as a community, as a country. I think when you look at the data, we don't get it right often enough with enough people in enough places. So what I like to say kind of tritely, but I think it's true, this country has given me more than I can ever repay, but I'm gonna spend the rest of my life trying. And I think through every part of my career, I've tried to repay what's been given to me. And my mechanism has been how do we make sure that we have the people we need to do the things that need to be done? And how do we make sure that everyone can do that thing that needs to be done? And so whether it's my starting my career in education, literally as a as a policymaker and as a teacher, to the workout that I'm doing now, that's kind of been the the the through light of the kind of North Star on the mission.

Brian Aquart 7:50

That's amazing. You know, I learned something about you new every every time. I mean, when you think about it sounds like kind of lofty, right? But like that American dream type of story, it's like you're an embodiment of that. And so that is that's actually pretty cool to hear. Pivoting a little bit, talking about some of the work that you're doing. As I noticed and as we've spoken, um, there wasn't really one dramatic resignation moment for you, but there was like a series of intentional moves. When did you realize the lane you were in was limiting your impact?

Speaker 8:21

I would say it a different way. I think I would say, and it's something that President Obama said. If you go on YouTube, there's a speech he gave to a class of White House interns, summer White House interns. And he said something, I think it was probably in graduate school when I first saw it, but it it was a way I started to try and look at the world, which was he said, look, is he said, all of you are ambitious, you want to do great things, and there's a temptation to frame that ambition in terms of a job. There is this job that I want. And the problem is when you frame it as a thing that I want, a job that I want, a title I want to have, there are only so many of those. Not all of you can have that. So a bunch of you are going to be disappointed. And that disappointment can actually lead to everything from depression to simply retreating from the field. He said if you frame it not as a job I want to have, but a thing I wish to work on, a problem I seek to solve, then the aperture is much more open. And so what I've tried to do generally is when I think about the problems that I seek to solve, the problem that I seek to solve, I've generally tried to say, where at this moment can I make the most difference, exert the most leverage on that problem. And it has led me to some interesting places I didn't quite expect. But um I have, but but taking that mindset, I think in some ways I've been much more kind of spiritually healthy. And also it's expanded my mind. Almost every job that I've ever taken, I would tell you I didn't envision that job. Like if you had asked me like five years before, would you be in a job like tax, I would have been like, I wouldn't, I would not have foreseen it. Few, maybe. I think I always vaguely had an interest in serving on the federal level. It's something I'd studied for and prayed for in some ways for a while. Bunch of other things along the way, absolutely not. And I think because I said, what not what is the job I wish to have, but the problem that I seek to work on, I had a much wider aperture. The other thing that I'll say is as I got older, particularly I'd say, particularly after I'd been a CEO myself, I realized how important it was to work for the right people, to have people that I could learn from and learn with and learn through. And I think what happens is as you get older, become more senior, do more things, the amount of people who can actually teach you, mentor you, that that that group becomes a little smaller over time. Because in some ways, now your job is to mentor others. And so whether it was when I worked for General McChrystal, which was a life-changing experience, whether it was working for Julie Sue when she was deputy secretary of labor and now, and then and then acting labor secretary, whether it's the work I do now with people I commissioned Friday Cape, or seeking out people that I could learn from. That has also been, again, if I look, it makes sense when I look backward, but I try to seek those people. That's maybe kind of what's gotten. So it's been more about how do I focus on the problem? Take the role that at that moment allows me to get the most leverage and impact on that for the people that I seek to serve. And then it allows you to not stay too long, but also have a wide option for what you could do next. Because I think probably the saddest thing is if there was a role that someone could take on that would make a big difference that they missed because they were so focused on, I only can do this.

Brian Aquart 11:15

I think a lot of people don't have that frame of mind and end up missing certain opportunities. So I I love that you that you framed it that way. At different points in these transitions, what did you have to let go of in order to move forward? Like identity certainty or credibility? What did that look like?

Speaker 11:33

It's it's funny. I think when I think about most of the tr the the transitions that I've been in, very rarely did I necessarily have a job when I left. So there was always this period of uncertainty. You kind of like I'm jumping without a net. And it's particularly for those of the those who are watching who have particularly families and kids and spouses, that it can be particularly scary. And I and it's funny, I always give my wife a lot of credit. My so my wife is very different for me. My wife's a physician. She's been a physician at a single institution for almost 15 years. There's probably very few more secure professions than being a physician. And I remember when I, you know, when she and I first got married, I said, look, our lives are going to be very different. You likely will all will not necessarily be in the same job, but you will likely always have a job. It'll be more certain. And I said, for me, there will may be ups and downs. There may be periods where it's not clear what's going to come next. And I always, I remember I I would ask her, I said, look, for the first 90 days, I just give me grace. After nine, like like 90 days, you can be on my case all the time. And generally, what's always happened is I've always ended up getting a job like day 87, day 88. Like it's just it's very, very interesting. But I think the first thing is like, wow, I have to step into something sight unseen. That's number one. Uh, and particularly when you have people depending on you. Like, that's just real. And so it's why that problem orientation has been really important to me. If it was just about a job, I don't know if I would have taken all those jobs because candidly the certainty would have been more important than what could come next. I think the other thing is, and I think I've I've been fortunate there, which is I've tried not to make my identity the institution, if that makes sense. That is really important. One is it's healthy. You should, I think there should because because when you make the institution your identity, it actually can make you you at times don't do all the things you need to do while you're in the job that you need to do. For example, there are times you need to change some stuff. Well, if you see it as you, it's really hard to change yourself. As most uh ask anyone who's been married, anyone who's asked their spouse to change, it's really difficult. Um, it's the same thing with oneself. Everyone wants change, but no one wants to change. So I've always been lucky and important to have my family, my wife, we have two kids. My son, but my son is eight, about to be nine, I see my daughter's four. I've been lucky to have great friends, like from our presidential leadership scholars cohort who exist outside the job. So that when it comes time to move, not all of me is invested in that. And let me be clear. I anyone who knows me know I kind of run through the tape and do walls. I will work longer than probably probably advisable. But mentally being able to have an identity apart from the institution is really important. I would probably say my identity is very much based on the problem I seek to solve, but not necessarily an institution at the time that I am in. And I think that is the way we want to look at it. I would say the other thing, which is always a barrier, is um how will it look? In the sense of there are times that people say, oh, I'm leaving without a job. How will it look? I would argue to you that's the least of your concerns. How it will look is how it will look. You should be more concerned with what it is. Yeah, there are tactical things to manage and things like that. But, you know, I remember when um I transitioned from the McChrystal group, and it was during COVID. And to give some background, so I've been at the McChrystal group for about that point almost two years, and I was leading our strategy work. And during COVID, the McChrystal group took on an amazing body of work around. We had previously worked with large organizations, mainly private sector, to help them manage their teams, create more leadership synergy, so on and so forth, really kind of organizational consulting as well as looking at talent and leadership for mainly Fortune 1000 blue chip clients. During COVID, which and if anyone remembers that time, literally think of March 2020, we began to have governments reach out to us to say, hey, can you help us literally strategically plan how we respond to this unprecedented crisis? The city of Boston, the state of Missouri, the state of Virginia, the state of Nebraska. And partially because I had been in government before that, I ended up being the point of the spear for kind of just a lot of that coordination. While we had amazing teams on the ground doing great work. And it was in that time where I kind of said, you know what, I kind of need to get back to service more formally. And I remember I called two of my bosses, Barry Sanders, who is a former, probably the best business person I've ever worked with. I called Chris Fossil, former uh SEAL Team Six guy, who was my direct boss. And remember, then I remember I called General Crystal. And I called him, and I, and it was a short call. I basically said, sir, I so thank you for so much for the honor of working here, but I need to kind of get back to service. And to a person, they were so supportive. One, first of all, all almost all of them had worn the uniform. But secondly, they said this is a crazy time in life of the country. Like people like you should want to serve. And so I ended up working for a nonprofit after that. And we were working on on higher education issues. Particularly, we were working with community colleges trying to figure out how do we help people who'd lost their jobs during this crazy time. Just to put it in perspective, in May of 2020, 20 million American jobs evaporated. To put it in perspective, the highest amount of job loss before that in American history, December of 08, was about 900,000 job losses. So community college was trying to figure out how do we help. And so that was what I was what I worked on. Someone could say, well, you went from working at this great firm with a very well-known name to a nonprofit, less well known. Well, how would that look? And I could have let that stop me. But in the end, the problem and the mission was top of mind for me. And weirdly, what ended up happening was I ended up staying at that nonprofit. I was there for about six months. Love my work, but we had an election during that time. And that was when uh I was taught by President Biden to join the administration. Um, so it's funny how how things work, but I think people can worry about how it looks, and that can stop them from making a move that they should.

Brian Aquart 16:49

And you know, you said something in one of our calls where you said like there there's a real difference between leaving something and going somewhere. Yes. That was very profound. How do you know which one you're doing?

Speaker 17:02

I mean, some of it is just like honesty with oneself. And I've been lucky to never have to be trying to get away from something, partially because generally it's been kind of mission-focused, problem focused. But the question is, if you have the idea of the problem in your head, even if you don't know the job, even if you don't know the job, if you can see in your head, whatever I do next, I will be accomplishing X, then you're going towards something. If you are basically defining where you want to go next as you just don't want it to be like that, you you're you're running from something. And look, and by the way, every now and again, you need to run from something. Look, that that that that happens. I I would I have generally tried to be going somewhere than running from something. And I think the biggest thing that I tell people is what will be true because you were in that next job? Like what is the thing, but for me being and wherever I'm going next, that will not have happened. That's and and that's kind of how I I push people to think when they think about when they think about this. I like that. If if you hadn't left when you did, what do you think it would have cost you?

Brian Aquart 19:15

It's a great question.

Speaker 19:17

I think you can't you don't have a crystal ball, you can't do a Monte Carlo simulation, you can't kind of do the multiverse and figure out what would have happened. I don't know if I would have served in the federal government when I did. Not because I didn't want to, but I I could imagine just literally just like path dependency. It might have been hard to transition, hard to move, so on and so forth. And one of the things that I'm most proud of in my life is I, you know, I remember I was offered the role of chief innovation officer at labor. I was offered that. It was January 7th, the day after the insurrection. It was the day after the insurrection, I was sworn in. Joe Biden was sworn in at 12 noon on January 20th. I was sworn in roughly 220. And that time, particularly 2021, first time 2022, that was a crazy time in the life of the world, and particularly in the government, and so on and so forth. And I am glad I served during that time. It is a time I will tell my kids about when I'm an old man. Um, I won't say we got it all right. I won't say we we did everybody did everything we could, but my view of it is when gentlemen crystal would say this a lot, you want to run to the sound of the guns. When a lot of people are running away, you want to run too. And I I like to think at my best, I was running to where the problems were. I would have been afraid that I that I would have missed that opportunity. Not because of they would have stopped me, but I could just have seen it personally being harder for myself. I love my that firm. I loved my colleagues, I loved the leadership. And not that I didn't love the education design lab where I went as well. But what was interesting was I was doing literally workforce development higher education work, which in many ways prepared me very specifically for the role I stepped into at the Department of Labor. And then ironically, my all the private sector work I had done that my crystal group also was super useful because in the end we have to connect workers with employers. And so weirdly, I might have missed a key piece of preparation that made it easier for me to serve in that role when I did.

Brian Aquart 21:07

I think that's a great point because it's almost like everything happens for a reason, right? And so, you know, you're you're working across government advisory in these private sector spaces. Not a lot of people get that type of experience. Where do leaders consistently misunderstand how change really happens?

Speaker 21:24

How much time do we have? How much time do we have? So I'll say a couple things. I think about like when I've dealt with whether it's clients, whether it was in government myself, and the and and I always say when I talk about this, these are things that I have not fully mastered. No, very few people have. I'll say a couple things. The one is a quote I always use. Um, actually, there are two quotes I always uh I would use. One is from Yogi Berra. For those of you who who grew up watching the Yankees, he has a lot of great quotes. A bunch of which he actually didn't say. Um just made up along the way. But one of the things he says is uh if you don't know where you're going, you'll end up somewhere else. It sounds very basic, but it's very true. The amount of leaders who I meet who don't know where they're going. And that is your job. Lots of things as a leader that are not your job. That one is your job. Where are we going? And let me be clear, you don't just make that up by yourself. Obviously, I trust you in conversation with stakeholders in the world, also with your internal team. But in the end, your job is to ensure that it's clear where you are going. And then your job is that everything in every meeting that you're in, everything that you're doing, you're asking, are we getting closer to that place or farther away? That is number one. And I've and a lot of my roles really in the private sector have always been strategy roles. Even now in my current role, I'm a strategy guy. And I'm always the guy's like, wait, wait, wait, what are we doing here? That's number one. I think number two uh is an alignment piece. And here's what I mean by that. So the uh it's a story I used to tell the clients when I was in the private sector a lot, which is from President Kennedy. I think it's in 62. President Kennedy has said we're going to the moon. Uh, and he goes to uh John, what is now Johnson Space Center in Houston. He walks in there, and if anyone's seen it's a huge building, and he walks in and there's a janitor uh mopping the floor. And he goes to the janitor and he says, Sir, what is it that you do here? And the janitor looks up and he says, Sir, I am putting a man on the moon. And I always tell that story and I say, what's interesting is not just what he said, but what he was doing. He said, I am putting a man on the moon. He knows where we're going. But now look at what he was doing. He was not trying to be the rocket scientist doing the equations. He wasn't trying to be the engineer building the rocket, he wasn't trying to be the astronaut preparing to go on the module. He was mopping the floor because my job to make that thing happen is to keep this floor clean so that these guys can get to where they they they need to go. If I walked into your organization today and asked a random person, what is it that you do here, what would they tell me? And usually when I would ask this question, everyone would be like, oh my God, please don't do that. Please. Like, I don't know what I don't know what they're gonna say. If you have not created that level of clarity on where you are going, what you are doing, and then what that person should be doing at that very second, you've not totally fulfilled the obligation of leadership. The third thing is I always say there when you are trying to make a change that in your organization or even in the world, there are three types of people. What I call the first mover, the person who wants to change and they wanted it yesterday. You have your laggard who will change over their dead body, and then you have most people, which is most people are in the middle. They'll go with Where they see the momentum is like called the mushy middle. Most people in an organization where they're trying to make a change, what they do is they go to the laggard. The laggard who because they're gonna be the loudest when you're trying to make a change. And what happens is usually because there's no change happening, the laggard doesn't move. The first movers get disillusioned and some of them leave. And the mushy middle doesn't go anywhere because they're like, well, that well, nothing's happening. One of the things I learned, and I learned and I learned it from a mentor of mine was start with the first mover. Start with the person who wants to change, give them whatever you can and let them make that change in however small way they can. And then when they make that small change, praise them, give them more resources, give them more attention, and then something happens. The mushy middle's like, oh, something's happening here. And leadership is rewarding that. And the laggards do one of two things. Either they change, or some of them say it's not, it's not, it's it's not the place for me. That was a key thing. Was most people, even think about when you try to do something in your that you think it might be controversial, most people go to the people who are going to be against who they know will be against it first. And the problem is nothing happens. Yeah, because they shut it down. Yeah, they do, yeah, because they they shut it down, but they're but you always there's always one person who actually does go to that person and say, I need you to do this. I will support you, just go. And then you begin to create that kind of snowball effect of uh change. The only last thing that I'll say, and it and it's yes about change, but also about leadership. General McChrystal would use this phrase, it's it's it's in his book, Team of Teams, leader as gardener, is he said, your job as a leader is to be like a gardener. And basically, a gardener, what they do is they have their plot of land, they have plants, and their job, yes, plant seeds, as harvest, but also clear out the obstacles, clear out the rocks, clear out the things within that place that'll keep those plants from growing, and then let them grow and do and do what they do. Your job as a leader is the same thing. My job is not to do the job, my job is to remove all the obstacles, all the things that'll inhibit people's growth and people doing their job, and then let them work. Yes, give direction, yes, give clear rules. You built the fence. The fence are the big important rules that have to be followed. Provide nutrients, provide resources, but too many leaders think their job is to do the job. And the issue is you can't do that. There's not enough of you to go around. The only way to do what this already means to do is that other people have to be empowered, be prepared, be grown to do those jobs. And by the way, the growing analogy, you know, a seed is different from a full-grown plant. That requires nurturing, that requires this thing together. And the question is, okay, because you uh you also again, in some ways, you know, I wouldn't take tell someone on their first day unless I knew their capacities, do the super hard thing that no one's ever done before. The deal that we do in a relationship is that you grow a person over time. That's part of your job too.

Brian Aquart 26:25

That's key advice, too, is people need to think about how they're moving about in their respective either organizations or just within it within themselves. You know, I want to talk a little bit about kind of this world of work, right? Because, you know, we we overlap in in some similar, similar spaces. What is the most dangerous myth organizations still believe about talent, skills, and the future of work?

Speaker 26:46

Boy. I don't know if it's a myth, but let me say it another way. I think there are things that people say but don't fully believe. Okay. If they did, things would look different. I think most people would say, I've heard it said by many people, talent is universal, opportunity is not. I don't know if everyone believes that. Because if they did, they would seek talent differently, hire talent differently, prepare talent differently. Candidly, to paraphrase my old boss, President Biden, the American workforce would look more like America if that was universally believed. I think in many ways there is the core thing that everyone has to believe. You have to believe that there is talent everywhere. Or, or let me say it another way, that the only thing that should determine if someone can do a job is if they can do the job, not a bunch of other factors that are immutable and candidly have been turned against them for too long. I think that is the biggest thing that people say they believe. But actually, if you look at how people operate, we just don't see it enough. I think, for example, if we believed that we would recruit in different places. You would come to a state like mine, Maryland, and you would be do much more recruiting in a place like eastern West Baltimore, the inner beltway of Prince Russes County, in the largely white, largely rural, largely poor part of Maryland, western Maryland, near in Appalachia, you'd be on the Eastern Shore, which is basically like eastern North Carolina, very agricultural, very rural, mainly uh so on and so forth. That's just one example of where people recruit. Similarly, you would work better to fill in gaps that people may have. Yes, they came to you through it through a different route, and you're gonna have to do different support to get them through. By the way, for other workers that have, you also give them support of different types. So it's not like you're doing something especially, you're just doing something differently. The reason that this belief is so dangerous, and now I'm gonna get empirical, is the American workforce, if you look at the data, depending on how you slice it, it's either stagnant or shrinking. We actually don't have, we don't have enough people for you to be picky about which people. If we're very, if we're very candid. For uh for a workforce or population to stay at the same level, the average couple needs to have 2.1 to 2.3 kids. In America, the average couple has 1.6 today. That's not that's that's not a political argument, or that's just data. So therefore, what it means is I need to go find talent wherever it is, prepare it however I need to, and then I need to keep it on as long as possible. By the way, it's not the old days where all right, I have a super hard environment, that person leaves, so what? I have 10 people who want to be in this job too. Those demographics are gonna defeat you at some point. So that's why I think it's a thing that people don't believe enough, and it's why it's dangerous for them not to, because we don't have Americans to waste. Great point.

Brian Aquart 29:12

And, you know, I was very intrigued by some of your work during the pandemic. And looking back at that time, what did it reveal about leadership that most institutions failed to learn from?

Speaker 29:23

Again, like you're asking hard questions. In some of the work I led uh at the Education Design Lab, we did a three-day summit for community college leaders on some of this on kind of rescaling, particularly during that time. This is in the summer of 2020. And one of our speakers was at that time the CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation, but now my my governor, Governor Moore. And he said something which I've never forgotten, which is he says, he said, a lot of great leadership has been exemplified during this time and a lot of poor leadership has been exposed. Let me say one thing and let's talk about uh there's a lot of debate about remote work, hybrid work, all this. But I'll say one thing. I used to get asked a lot, how do you make remote work successful? Like what does leadership need to do? And I would say, it's kind of the things we were supposed to be doing before. For example, all right, if you you were using remote in-person work because that was how you made sure that someone was doing their work, you had a problem. If the only way you know someone is working is that they're in your eyesight, you have a problem. You should know, again, where are you going? What are the things that I should be seeing to tell me that I'm getting closer to my target, which by the way shouldn't be like eyesight. It should be like these are things I can empirically prove. And then lastly, I should have enough compelling work that this person wants to work on that stuff without me being there. Those are basic leadership things. And what we found was candidly, I think a lot of leadership used proximity as a crutch for poor management and poor and poor leadership. Absolutely. And I think that is the biggest thing that was exposed. Candidly, debates about remote work, hybrid work, in-person work. I don't think all those things that were exposed have been fixed. And so when I see a lot of the return office mandates, um, and you ask why. I what I hear, ah, people aren't working, we need to have culture, da da-da-da-da. It's kind of a bunch of hand wavy stuff. What I generally say is if you're gonna bring people back to the office, you need to be to you owe it to them to be precise on why. You need to be precise on what they need to be together for in a particular space that can't do a part in a bunch of different spaces. You owe that to them. Um, and I think what's happening is it can't really, I don't know if we've fixed all that poor some of that poor leadership. Therefore, people are going back to the crutch of proximity. I also think there are also a bunch of big commercial real estate leases that people want to make sure want to make sure that that they get, you know, uh, you know, the proper money from and all that, so on and so forth. But that's not a good enough reason. I always remember this um in one of my first classes when I was in graduate school, there's a case study from HBS on a guy named Jan Carlson. Young Jan Carlson ended up being, I think he was head of either Finnish or Swedish Air. This is in the 70s. And then he became head of Scandinavian Airlines, SAS. And so when he became head of SAS, both of these were turnaround jobs. He's kind of like the prototypical turnaround CEO. So he comes in to Scandinavian Airlines and he basically says, look, our strategy is working, we're we are we are gonna serve the business customer. That's gonna be everything that we do. But they said, and they and his team said to him, Well, we just bought these like literally like 10 planes there that are for passenger travel. He said, Mothball them. No, no, we're not gonna use them. And so what is he? And so they they end up leasing them out to other airlines, but he literally said, No, I understand you you did a huge CapE expense, but this does not fit in our strategy, does not fit where we are going. We will not use a CapE purchase to justify committing to a poor strategy. Oh true.

Brian Aquart 32:30

Yeah, that I have so many thoughts on the return to work, hybrids, of all those things, because I do think that a lot of the return to work mandates are a bit short-sighted, right? And to and I love that you raise a point that leadership and organizations owe it to team members as to the why. Because work was getting done, arguably at a higher clip when folks were remote. And now that things are back to it's like, well, work wasn't getting done. Well, wait a minute, but we were just getting praised six months ago for all the great work and all these other things. And so you can I love that analogy. It's a bunch of hand waving because I think that is what it is, right? It it it is it is those things. And so I'll be curious to see how this all plays out because you know, I talk a lot about this and with with some other guests around. Is there gonna be a moment where someone or folks are just like, you know what? No, like I'm not gonna be doing this. And then back to what we were just talking about. If people realize they don't need to be coming in, they're just gonna find somewhere else to work where they can fit their lifestyle in a better place. And that's gonna cause a whole set of other issues.

Speaker 33:37

But by the way, intersect that with the demographic issues that we're talking about. Absolutely. Yes. If you were to pick Goldman Sachs 20 years ago, shoot, somebody don't want to like work in the office, forget them, because I got 10 people who want to do that job. As this shrinks, and I can tell you for some of the services that I f follow around emerging technology and so on and so forth, you're talking about seven to one open jobs to a person who might be qualified looking. So what do you do with that? And so now the now I'll I'll just I'll now I will give two kind of counterpoints. Not night not counterpoints, but things to consider. And I do, I am not totally in the remote everything. I'm not there. Where I generally am is there are a couple of places where I think it really I do think in-person is really good for alignment. Hey, we have our all hands, we're coming in, we're gonna we're gonna look at strategically where the organization is. I I think those are really important. I do think increased in-person time for entry-level employees new to the organization or new in their careers, I think is I do think is important. I do think that is a thing anecdotally that I hear from a lot of younger folk who didn't learn some of the, how will I call it, just anthropology of being in an organization, which I think, and that's sociology. I think that's important. I also from a social capital perspective, bumping into some, you know, I think there's some of that. So I would be strategic about that. I think there's so, but again, be be clear on the why versus the oh, just being being in the same place will create all these benefits. No, I mean, I'll tell you, when we were at labor, I still remember this. My boss, the deputy secretary, late, you know, later the acting secretary, asked us to look at all of our KPIs during the pandemic period. So she asked a very experienced person to do that. And when he came back a week later, she he said, ma'am, all the KPIs during call it mid-2020 to call it mid-2021, they either are the same or they went up. And just to put it in perspective, building that I was in in government, this was the Francis Perkins building, holds about 4,000 people. During the pandemic, it was 4,000 people daily. That shrunk to about 750 during the pandemic, just to put it in perspective. So do do your math. More than 85% of people were not in the building every day. But the KPIs were either the same or they went up, particularly around employee satisfaction. And so that's why the whole you just will make everything work better. That's that that's just not generally empirically true. And the big question is how do you use that time specifically and precisely? Generally, most orgs that I feel like have kind of gotten it right. Yeah, you know, they'll one to three days a week in person. But what I see them really do well is when folks are in the building, they are using that time to do things they cannot do apart. Yes. That is the thing. Like, hey, we have we have our team meeting this day, everyone meets with their like, you know, da da da da da. We do our lunch and learn where the young folk meet with one of the senior people, da-da-da-da-da. That is what I see, like the people who I think are kind of getting it right.

Brian Aquart 36:18

Uh uh, that makes a lot of sense. And I I agree wholeheartedly with that flow as well, especially on the early careers piece, because they do need to be in person with folks to kind of get that get that flow going. You know, we'd love to talk a little bit about lessons learned and piggyback on an idea that we that we talked about earlier in the conversation. Um and it goes back to something not only we talked about here, but about previously. You talk about building this career like an iceberg, right? And chasing this perfect job. Sure. Could you explain that a little that idea a little bit more and why does it matter right now?

Speaker 36:51

Yeah, let me use an analogy. I think it's one I used when we talked about it, which is I was watching, I think I saw some YouTube video and it was a uh it was uh it was a couples therapist. And you and and they and someone said, Why are people why are so many people not not necessarily happy in their marriage? And and the therapist said, Well, there are lots of reasons, but one of the things that I see in my practice is that a lot of people believe their spouse should be everything. My best friend, my lover, my pickleball partner, my business partner, my person I watched the Netflix show with, and they named all these things, and they're like, no one person can be that. It's impossible. Same way you can't be that for them. So their observation was I actually think a lot of marriages would be healthier if people had more friends, more closer with their siblings, had these other people in their lives who shoulder some of that load. And they had a more that would be a healthier kind of human ecosystem than trying to have all that interaction be in one person because it's just no one person can be that. Transfer that to a career. If you think of your career simply as your nine to five, and by say nine to five, I mean your your job, your headline on LinkedIn. No one job, very few single jobs will provide you the title with the prestige you want, the level of power you want, the level of budget you want, the level of people you want, or let me say another way. There are far fewer of those jobs than people who want them. Let me say it like that. So, what I began to see, this would be like when I was much younger. You know, I I was someone, this is you know, this is before this is in the mid-2000s, before we had like LinkedIn and stuff and Google, or Google was like, that's ubiquitous. I love to just research people. It's really just fascinating to me. Like, hey, like I'd find people who I admire and say, like, hey, like I sort of figure out what you did, where you were. And what I would notice is the most successful people, the people who I found made the most impact, whether it be in their business, whether it be in for society, they had really long bios. And initially I just thought they had a lot of jobs. What I realized was at any one point in their career, they were not simply their headline job. They had a career that mirrored what I call an iceberg. So if you think about an iceberg, there's this part above the water that you see. But if you look at most icebergs, they are much bigger below the water. And so if you think of your career like that, think of your headline job as the thing above the water that people see. But then there's all this other stuff: board memberships, affiliations, fraternal organizations, so on and so forth. And what people do is they use this iceberg of a career, this ecosystem of obligations and responsibilities that one personally fulfills them in aggregate, which is far more likely than finding one job that'll do that. And then secondly, it creates these synergies that makes that makes you better in your job. So, one example, like I remember once listening to uh Reed Hoffman. Reed Hoffman at that time served on 12 boards. And they were like, How do you serve on 12 boards? And he said, Well, they're actually all synergistic. They actually weirdly make me better at all the others. The one makes me better at the 11, and vice versa. And I think that is what I've sought in kind of my career, but with most successful people, that's what they do. Another analogy that I've heard people use is a solar system. You're not trying to build a star, you're trying to build a solar system. You have a solar system in the middle is it's a star and it exerts gravity and light and heat. And someone said, the star is your job and the gravity is money, as well as a bunch of other things. But there are all these other celestial bodies. There's the earth. For me, the earth is my family. That is the most important. That will protect it at all costs. But then some of them are your board obligations, some of them are your community obligations, some of them are academic affiliations, some of them are just people and friends in your life. But you create this, and your goal is to basically don't have these celestial bodies crash into each other. And those are the careers, the solar system and the iceberg that I think lead to the most impact, lead to the most kind of personal health, mental health, mental well-being, so on and so forth. And then lastly, which we don't talk about, they lead to the most career resilience. Because I've seen in my career, in those kind of uncertain times when I was going from one thing to another, part I didn't, part of the way I would get to the next thing was there were these other obligations in my life that pointed a pathway to something else. For example, when I was leaving my nonprofit CEO job back in 2018, I remember this is a PLS story. I may have told you this story before. I we had a mini reunion from my class, and one of the people in my class was a woman named Lenore. And Lenore was a partner at the McChrystal group. I did not know what the McChrystal group was. We had our reunion just in DC. We did it ourselves, and we were just talking. I like the lunch. And she's like, So what are you doing next? I was like, I have no idea. She and I talked more and she said, just come by the office. And I said, Lenore, I don't even know what you guys do. And I went and I was like, I like these folks. They kind of liked me, and two months later, I was an employee. But because of that PLS affiliation, that part of the iceberg, I would never, without her, I would never have ended up in Christmas, wouldn't even have known it existed. And so it relates to resilience. So one, you'll make more impact. Two, you'll just be a happier person because you have all these things that's fulfilling all your needs of purpose and service and whatever else it is. And then also, when you do come to those uncertain times, it's gonna be those other, because very rarely does the entire earth like iceberg fall apart at once. That's very rare. You're in some ways diversifying your career and social capital by having all these different obligations. And it's always been true that these other parts of my career in the solar system have helped me get back to the star to again to take the analogy further.

Brian Aquart 41:53

Now, moving to uh some advice for someone mid-career who feels maybe boxed in by their role, but unsure what's next, what's the first honest question they should ask themselves?

Speaker 42:03

I go back to know where you're going. I generally tell people the way you figure out where you're going is I was uh there's a concept called ikigai, which many people are familiar with, but to me it's a four-circle Venn diagram. In one first circle is what do you believe the world needs right now? That that question is different for everyone, but what is the world's biggest need? Circle two is what am I really good at? And when I say really good at, I have people be really precise. Two or three standard deviations better than average person or a hearing that I use is if they had a conference about that thing and you were not there, someone would say, Where is Brian? Three, what do you love? And I separate what do you love versus what are you good at? Because they're not always the same thing. When I say what do you love is what would you do for free? And then the last thing is, very practically, what can I get paid for? And in a small circle of those four is what you should be doing. And generally the way that I tell people to answer those questions is number one, deep reflection. Go off by yourself, turn off your phone, sit with a whiteboard or a piece of paper, and just think. The other is wide exposure. Go have as many conversations with as many different people as possible. And if you do those two things for long enough, you'll figure it out.

Brian Aquart 43:03

And now looking forward, when you think about what you're doing now, the next decade of work, what are you most hopeful about?

Speaker 43:10

Because a lot going on right now. We are in a time of deep uncertainty and deep fear. I think in the best scenarios, those types of times lead to a tremendous change in innovation. And I went to a conference, I guess it was earlier this year. I think it was earlier this year. Sherilyn Eiffel from the NAACP legal defense funds, she gave a virtual talk. And she talked about, and these are for the and for anyone who's a church person, but even with something that's something that we've probably all heard, there's a time to reap and a time to sow. And I think this is a sowing time. And so what I what I am most hopeful for is what as a society and as a world, there'll be a bunch of changes that we probably needed to make for a long period of time, particularly in terms of how we treat one another, that we will make because of the crazy, fearful, uncertain time that we're in. That's one. I think two, I think there is a recognition that people are the limiting factor to the to the success and the progress that we want. That be economically, that be socially, that be from an innovation perspective. And at least in my time in government and even afterward, that recognition is pretty widely held now across sector, across political ideology, across geography. That is hopeful. I think lastly, it's like a 3A and a and a 3B. There's promise and peril in all these emerging technologies from AI to quantum, but also a bunch of others. Used well, so they can help us get to a bunch of things that we didn't think were possible. Used poorly, they compound a bunch of things that already make the world a tough place, that already make human beings tough to deal with. And so that's the promise and the peril. But uh but uh actually almost a year ago exactly, I got to go to the King Center and do a panel on uh AI with uh Reverend King. And what I and she asked a question, which is what would my dad want said about AI if it was successful? And it was a profound question. And I basically said, God's I didn't I didn't know the man, but I said, Look, I would think that Dr. King would hope that if we used AI correctly, we would someday talk about there used to be this thing called poverty, and someone figured out AI, we figured it out. There used to be these diseases that killed kids that we figured out because of this. There used to be people who literally couldn't figure out where their meal was gonna come from, how they're gonna pay for a house, and we were able to use these tools to figure it out. That is the measure of whether AI did what it was supposed to. It's not market cap, it's not revenue, it's not net income, although those those things are important. It's actually, did we change and improve the human condition because of these tools? And I think there is the opportunity for that. There is also the opportunity that candidly, at our worst, we simply use it to enrich the few and not necessarily improve the lives of the many. So those are those are what I'd hope for. One, that after change at after fear and uncertainty comes change. Two, that that this recognition that people are the limiting factor that we need to invest in, it becomes even more wide widely spread than it is right now. And I think that's actually already happening. Then thirdly, that we use these enriching technologies to feed the best parts of us and not the worst. So now I would love last question.

Brian Aquart 45:58

Actually, flip the mic. And uh, what's one question you have for me that I can hopefully answer? Yeah.

Speaker 46:04

You've done a lot of these conversations.

unknown 46:06

Yeah.

Speaker 46:06

And I'll say I have a lot of these kind of types of conversations now with people who are, again, in this time of uncertainty and change, are looking for the next thing. Think about all the conversations you've had like this when people have talked about these transitions. What's some advice you would give to somebody based on all the conversations that you've heard? That, hey, you let's say you are in a new job or looking for a new job, either by your own choice or not. Based on all the conversations that you had, what what advice would you give that person at this moment? Great question.

Brian Aquart 46:30

At this moment, what I would say is that people need to give themselves time and space to think appropriately. Why I say that is because one of the premise of the show is from the great resignation when and why I started it was around I didn't understand why people would leave stability during a time of instability. And as these conversations started unfolding, what I recognized was that when the pandemic happened, actually, let me back up. What I recognized is that people are we're always asking ourselves these questions around work and things we'd want to do and why we're doing this and all that. And sadly, we never gives our give ourselves an opportunity to actually sit down and answer those questions until something forces us to. And what the pandemic did was forced everybody to slow down. You didn't have to travel an hour each way or 45 minutes each way to go to work. You were at home, right? Some people, unfortunately, they they got furloughed, right? So there was nothing to do. They had to sit with their thoughts for an uncomfortable amount of time. But what you start, what I started hearing and what I started seeing and then fleshing out in these conversations is that that time was actually a benefit for them. Because now those questions they start, because they never go away, right? Those questions never go away. They started popping up again. And you know what people did? They started being real with themselves and they started answering those questions. And what they discovered was that, you know what, this maybe isn't for me. And not everybody's trying to own their own business and do all that, but but the org that I'm working at now is not aligned with who I am and who I'm becoming at this stage in my life. I need to find a better place that is more in alignment. One. Or two. You know what? I've always wanted to do this thing to help others in some type of way. Wow, I got a lot of time to do that. I have one guy who was telling me, he's like, look, he was like, an hour on one end of commute, an hour on the back end of commute. Guess what, Brian? That's two hours that I could then work on this thing. And you know what? I don't need a lunch at home. There's another 30 minutes. So there's two and a half hours a day that I could be working on this thing that I said I always wanted to do. And we start compounding things, two and five, that's 10 hours a week. That's damn near part-time job, right? And so that's what I would say to folks. I would say, if you're in this moment and you don't know what to do and everything is hectic right now, you need to find a way to pause, reflect, go somewhere quiet or whatever works for you. But pause, reflect, and then choose which direction you're gonna go. Because I think it does go back to what you're saying. You need to know where you're gonna go. But I think you need to give yourself time and space to think about that intentionally.

Speaker 49:05

I so agree with that. Uh and in some ways, you can't be glib about the where you're going. You actually have to be intentional. That's why I say again, it's it's a combination of deep reflection, and I also think deep um exposure. Talk to talk to as many people as you can. At times you will hear it and you're like, oh, wait, that's it. That's it. It's so important because so many people, I mean, the way I say it is, you know, I want people to end up in the type of job that they want to be in, job, role, career they want to be in, partially because I want that for people. I think secondly, in a crazy time in the life of the country and the world, until people get into jobs and the careers they want to be in, they don't, they are not mentally free to think the bigger thoughts we need them to think. And, you know, I always say this because, you know, I've said I serve in the government, but I there are people who I want their brains on the bigger questions because we are gonna we need that now, and we're gonna need it on the other side of kind of all of what's happening now. And so that that's super, super helpful. And you know, look, I I end where I began, which is thank you for creating the space for this conversation that people are gonna need to have, particularly now. I'm look, I'm from the DMV. We got a lot of people who who are who are forcibly answering this question for themselves right now. And I think you you you've you've you've created, I think, an amazing space and roadmap for people to follow.

Brian Aquart 50:22

I appreciate that. I want to thank you for coming on the show today, as I mentioned earlier. Of course, I appreciate the nudge for PLS back in the day, definitely life-changing, and and I'd love to continue following your work. And would love for you to share where people can find you online and support some of this work that you're doing going forward.

Speaker 50:40

No, thank you so much. Uh to follow me, really easy to find. Feel feel free to call to follow the K-Por Center at uh korecenter.org, K-A-P-O-R-C-E-N-T-E-R dot org. Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm the only one on me on LinkedIn, I'm easy to find. Uh, you can find me on uh Twitter at C-R-A-G-U-H or Instagram, Chike Aguh, uh, one word. But uh that those those are easy ways to find me. Love that.

Brian Aquart 51:06

Thank you for all that info. And look, that'll do it for today's episode. Again, I want to thank Chike Aguh for joining me today. All of his information will be in the show notes. Hope you all have a great week, and we'll definitely see you next time. Chike, have a good one. You too. Thanks for listening to why I left. Join us next time for more inspiring stories about growth, resilience, and transformation. Visit us online at www.yileft.co. That's whyileft.co.