Episode 011: Bryce Hoffman on Red Team Thinking

Welcome to another episode of The Thinking Leader podcast, brought to you by Red Team Thinking. In this episode, Red Team Thinking Vice President Marcus Dimbleby turns the table on Bryce and interviews him, discussing the origins of red teaming, why we need more critical thinking, how to enable distributed decision making and create psychological safety in your organization, why leaders need to listen, and why new ways of working can’t work without new ways of thinking.

Bryce Hoffman is a bestselling author and speaker, as well as the president of Red Team Thinking. Bryce calls himself an “unconsultant” and teaches organizations and individuals around the world how to engage critical thinking, enable distributed decision making, and encourage diversity of thought. Prior to founding Red Team Thinking, Bryce spent 22 years working as a financial journalist. In 2015, he became the first and only civilian from outside government to graduate from the U.S. Army’s elite red team leader training program, then worked with renowned business leaders from around the world to develop a model for business red teaming that evolved to become Red Team Thinking.

In addition to his work with Red Team Thinking, Bryce lectures on red teaming worldwide, including at U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Warwick Business School, and the National University of Singapore.

Top 10 Takeaways:

01:58 What is Red Team Thinking?

11:05 How Bryce learned about Red Team Thinking.

16:46 What is the difference between red teaming and Red Team Thinking?

20:59 Decision making should be a practice, not a process.

23:53 How to foster real diversity and inclusion – not just tokenism.

26:13 New ways of working require new ways of thinking.

27:24 Don't outsource thinking!

41:24 Daniel Kahneman and Red Team Thinking.

48:10 Leaders have to have the courage to ask the tough questions – and listen to the answers.

53:13 How to become a "thinking leader."

Mentioned in this episode: