Bryce Hoffman: Ford, Mulally, Red Teaming and the Discipline of Assuming You're Wrong [006]

Episode Description

Bryce Hoffman was the Detroit News reporter covering Ford when Alan Mulally walked in from Boeing to save a company that, as Bryce later reported, was already drawing up bankruptcy plans. We talk about the executive who lectured Mulally on day one about how complicated cars are, the division president who arrived with seven binders and left the leadership team, and Mulally's reply when Bryce told him Detroit was laughing at him: "I don't know how things work in Detroit, but I know they're not working." Then we follow Bryce from journalist to the first civilian from outside government to graduate from the US Army's Red Team Leader course, and into what he now teaches boards and militaries: how to challenge your own plans before reality does.

His path runs from campus revolutionary to Y2K reporter to Silicon Valley to Detroit to Muscat, Oman, and the thread through all of it is asking uncomfortable questions. We close on AI as an Iron Man suit for your brain, and why companies cutting their junior staff are setting up a talent crisis ten years out. If you lead anything, have this conversation before your next big decision.

Watch the full conversation on YouTube.