Today we’d like to introduce you to Brad Deutser.
Hi Brad, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My journey has been amazing – filled with ups and downs. But each and every one of those experiences led me to where I am today. Early on, I knew that I loved to help people and to be a leader, but I didn’t really see myself as a traditional (whatever that means) entrepreneur. It took time for me to develop my own definition of entrepreneurship and to find my place within it. As I reflect on my journey, I never imagined being rejected by more than 57 companies as I applied for jobs following my senior year in college, or later at the age of 27, turning down the opportunity to own my dream summer camp or being fired not only once, but twice (the first time for saving a woman from being murdered while working for a low-income apartment complex), and I certainly didn’t foresee a path that included shoveling elephant poop for Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus, or being a token male in an all-female company, all before my true career really even began. But each of these experiences shaped the leader I became and reinforce the leader I am today.
The diversity of my career has been a wonderful gift. To some looking in, I was a nomad, wandering from experience to experience. Instead, I saw each of the experiences as pieces of a unique and growing puzzle. My journey eventually brought me back home to Houston to a marketing and advertising agency, where I oversaw the most complex communication and creative issues for clients. After nearly 10 years, many of which I was the firm’s leader, the owner of the firm passed away, and to my surprise, his family wanted to take the business “in a different direction” without me. Ironically, it marked the end of their company and the beginning of my career. I was lost, but I knew one thing – I wanted to be in a business where I could impact people’s lives. Thus, the journey to where I am today.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I think about my career a lot like I think about life – there are many ups and downs, and our happiness is defined by how we deal with the extremes. In many ways, my career has been filled with what I thought were struggles, but in reality, they were mini blessings – challenging me, redirecting me, and helping me grow. I never dreamed of being on the road for the circus, alone and bartering for every meal, hotel room, piece of clothing, and entertainment. It was scary. I never dreamed of being fired once, much less twice. I never thought I would be the token anything – and here I was in Boston as the token male. But those are all experiences I cherish and are the moments that made me me. I really struggled after being fired the second time. Every client (except one) from my former company called me and wanted to come with me to my next job. The only challenge was that I didn’t have time to look for a new job, and what I was really hoping for didn’t exist. I did not want to join another creative firm or consultancy who were driven by greed. Instead, I wanted to be part of something that did amazing things for clients and visibly changed people’s lives. But I had no choice and had to move forward.
In 2001, I began my own company, at first working through complex communications issues for clients before evolving into where we are today as a firm that focuses on a human approach to change. I have brought in unbelievably talented people – social scientists, PhDs, creative experts, and business strategists, among other disciplines – to genuinely help clients and leaders change across the world. My business has evolved and expanded in many important and intentional ways, including the creation of “Willy Wonka” styled leadership learning labs (in Houston, Austin, New York, Bermuda, as well as a sports lab in Arizona). It has allowed me to publish two best-selling books, Leading Clarity and Belonging Rules while inspiring the creation of a hub of research and belonging, the Institute for Belonging.
As my grandmother, who was blind, used to tell us, “It’s all how you look at things. To me, everything is beautiful.” And the bumps, twists, and turns are absolutely a beautiful part of my journey.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Deutser?
We get to change people’s lives. And I love what we have done and get asked to do each and every day – even when the impossible is the ask. Deutser is a consultancy that designs people-focused change solutions. Everything we do is about people and puts people at the center of our work, our design, and our execution. Our team of consultants and creators implement data-driven, design-focused, and uniquely human approaches to solve any leader’s most complex and challenging problems. Our firm helps leaders and teams transform organizations through cultural, strategic, and experiential change initiatives, creative inspiration, and empowered leadership training. We humanize proprietary research, culture, strategy, and design to ignite and fuel the flames of transformation, creating positive change that lasts. Deutser’s expertise draws from multiple disciplines, providing an integrated, multi-faceted approach to enhancing performance through intentional action while cultivating deep belonging that activates, builds on, and harnesses the potential of people.
Our process is raw, diverging from traditional playbooks. As such, our work can be hard to classify as we do everything from setting strategic imperatives to designing state-of-the-art spaces to walking leaders through their most challenging crises. But, as we’ve experienced over the past 20 years, everything comes back to unlocking the potential of people. And we do it through our consulting and creative work, our Leadership Learning Labs, our Belonging Institute, and our proprietary assessments and innovative tools. Our consulting work is multi-faceted, wildly original, and deeply integrative, with our primary areas of focus being:
• Culture
• Strategy
• Research
• Brand
• Experiential and Environmental Design
• Safety
• Coaching and Leadership/Team Development
Our offices and spaces are among the most interesting, original, and inspiring spaces. This is also seen in our leadership labs and institutes. Our Learning Labs, leveraging the science of Dimensional Leadership LearningTM, are hands-on, transformative workshops like you’ve never experienced. They are filled with raw, challenging, unfiltered, and fun conversations—and produce real results. Each workshop offers a dynamic, tactile journey into self-discovery and leadership development. People leave our workshops inspired and changed.
Everything about the experience at our Learning Labs is purposeful and designed to stimulate thinking, bring a sense of play into serious discussions, and open the brain to learning and growth. Original insights, creative disruptions, calculated distractions, and groundbreaking learning tools coalesce to challenge, inspire, and transform the leader within you. Our system is brought to life in vibrant, creative environments and by using engaging teaching methods and exercises.
Deutser (www.deutser.com) offers a diverse team of management consultants, social scientists, elite creative thinkers, and artists. We think inside the box but color outside the lines. We affect measurable organizational change holistically through people. We have decades of experience in numerous industries – education, NFL teams, NCAA athletic departments, energy, oil and gas, entertainment, healthcare, and more — supporting leaders, teams, and organizations in building the capabilities needed to achieve their full potential, flourish during times of change, and cultivate and sustain cultures of belonging. We are hired to change lives and improve futures. And we do it every day. We are hired to bridge differences and create belonging. Spread joy. Drive performance through people. Develop long-range business strategies. Transform businesses. Change cultures. Redesign office spaces and experiences. Humanize leadership. Drive generational transition and change. Create safe cultures. Develop leaders and teams. And we are often brought into the most volatile, even hostile environments to navigate change and drive human connection.
Which brings me to Belonging. I always wanted to write a book; little did I know I would write two best-selling books, the most recent being The Belonging Rules: Five Crucial Actions That Build Unity and Foster Performance. It gives a framework that captures what our team has learned about navigating through the chaos and transitions that life puts in our pathways. When we commit to being human-centered leaders, we are more open, more accepting, more vulnerable, and ultimately more able to invite people into our own dreams, hopes and vision for what can be. Our latest addition, the Institute for Belonging, serves as a think tank, idea accelerator, and experiential learning space devoted to advancing the science and practice of belonging – at work, at home, in our communities, and in our broader society. Its reach is extended as it supports transformative dialogue, groundbreaking research, and science-based leadership development. The work and research are catalysts to inspire progress on the most complex organizational and societal challenges evolving in our society today.
Within the Institute for Belonging, we have created the Belonging Lab, which is focused on human-centered leadership as experienced as an interactive, intentionally designed space that blends the latest science in groundbreaking form. It features “living exercises” that encourage open dialogue and brainstorming on divisive and complex issues. Where leaders come together to understand, work, and lead through society’s most charged and difficult issues and conversations.
This space is where brave and resilient people, leaders who are tired of avoiding the conversation or allowing polarizing forces to win, can come together in the spirit of creating healthier communities and organizations, leading their people towards a more desirable, united, and empowered future. The goal is to create an inclusive yet challenging environment where people can come together to transform – themselves, their teams, their organizations, their communities, and our world – for the better. To learn more, visit www.instituteforbelonging.com.
What separates truly great companies and their leaders from the rest is an ability to embrace change. Deutser is devoted to continuously reimagining how leaders lead and how people change their companies and the world.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs, or other resources you think our readers should check out?
I believe in the intentional pause – to reflect, to breathe, to create, to move forward. It requires me to focus on me and my own well-being. I commit to times of reflection, regardless of the velocity of the work around me, where I can break down the complexities of my work and the everyday. I use our proprietary exercises regularly – positivity quotient (evaluating daily where my positivity score is), circuit breakers (identifying things that break the flow of my energy), gratitude (often starting with myself), and admiration for people around me. I also use our 3 clocks exercise – where we work on balance (not work/life, which I believe is unattainable) through our 3 personal clocks: time for work, time for others, and time for self.
I also use mindfulness and meditation as a solid and impactful leadership tool. At Deutser, we require our whole company to participate weekly in guided meditations together on Tuesday mornings. And, we have a meditation room where our team has a designed space to engage in a mindful pause or personal meditation anytime.
Since connection is a part of everything we do, I encourage the benefits of physical activity. My activity of choice is swimming. I love gliding through the water which gives me a sense of freedom, peace, and perspective. As leaders, we are too often in a thinking loop, and through neural engagement of physical activity we can divert our thinking to make room for new understanding and imagination. Some people do this through dance, running, sport, any chosen way for you to reframe your mindset.
I am not the greatest or fastest reader – ironic from someone who writes books and articles. Still, I love a great book. A book that I often talk about and reference is one that in many ways started my journey to seek and create greater belonging. The Other Wes Moore had a profound effect on me as it inspired me to become an author as well as to become a leader of belonging. I owe author and now Governor of Maryland Wes Moore a debt of gratitude for igniting my passion about the impact and responsibility leaders have to close the gap in the deep loneliness so many feel. And I would be remiss if I didn’t share what I believe is one of the most important business books – Oh, the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss. Leaders must be able to dream – and many lose that skill. It is why I return to the book and force myself to dream and reimagine all the places I can go with my work and life.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.deutser.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deutser/
