The Person You're Trying to Become

The Person You're Trying to Become

West Point economist Dean Dudley on how the best leaders reduce ambiguity, shape who their people become, and turn conflict into a problem disciplined thinking can actually solve. Dr. Dean Dudley retires from West Point this month after 33 years teaching economics and game theory to more than 33,000 cadets. He returns to the show to trace one thread from identity to game theory to the beaches of Normandy: what a leader actually does when the models stop working. The conversation runs from George Akerlof's identity economics, the idea that leaders and institutions can move the "bliss point" people measure themselves against, through the currency of commitment, to a working definition of the job itself: good leaders reduce ambiguity. Dean closes with the two case studies he teaches, D-Day and Gettysburg, showing how the side with the better model, not the bigger army, wins. Both anchor his forthcoming book, Game Theory and the Art of War, out in August. Along the way: why your team plays rock-paper-scissors against you and already knows you play rock, why a marriage is a harder allocation problem than a trip to Walmart, and why the most useful thing a leader can do is listen down. Mentioned in this episode * George Akerlof, Nobel laureate, the "lemons" market and identity economics * Identity Economics by George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton (recommended on air) * Adam Smith, the invisible hand * Sigmund Freud, id, ego, and superego * John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, zero-sum game theory * John Nash, the Nash equilibrium and non-zero-sum games * Roger Myerson, Nobel laureate game theorist who reviewed Dean's book * Bayesian and Bayesian-Nash equilibria * Jordan Peterson, "chaos" * Pema Chodron, "ungroundedness" * The Night Stalkers (160th SOAR) creed * D-Day: Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt * The Battle of Gettysburg * Game Theory and the Art of War by Dean Dudley (West Point Press, out August 2026) Featured guest: * Dean Dudley — Dr. Dean Dudley is an Associate Professor of Economics at the United States Military Academy at West Point. A recipient of the West Point Superintendent's Award for Excellence, he has spent over thirty years teaching game theory and strategic choice to future military leaders. His research translates complex mathematical models into practical tools for both battlefield tactics and corporate boardroom strategy. (Game Theory and the Art of War, pre-order (West Point Press, August 2026) [https://press.westpoint.edu/books/game-theory-and-the-art-of-war/], West Point directory [https://www.westpoint.edu/directory/dean-dudley]) Subscribe to the newsletter — one short essay every other Tuesday: leadershipeconomics.com [https://leadershipeconomics.com/]

Your Unit of Reward Will Change

Aaron and Spencer explore Andrew "Drew" Barnes's path from the job site to the classroom within the Leadership Economics framework, from why his students are paid from the neck up to negotiation as a master skill and why your unit of reward shifts from dollars to minutes. Most construction management programs are built around contracts, scheduling, and cost control. Drew Barnes built his around negotiation, communication, and the soft skills that firms say they need most. Drew is an Assistant Professor of Construction Management at the University of North Florida. Before academia, he spent five years with Dan Ryan Builders, where he developed a complete curriculum for preparing new hires to operate and lead well. We follow Drew's path from the job site to the classroom and explore the ideas he teaches: why construction management is a management degree and his students are paid from the neck up, why Getting to Yes anchors his graduate labor course, how your unit of reward shifts from dollars to minutes, what the scroll is really costing his students, and why the leaders who perform best have mastered their inner experience. What we cover * The lumber-gopher origin: from carrying boards for a framing crew at 16 to a Ph.D. in construction management * Mentorship that moves you forward: Edwin, and "how long do I have with you?" * The missing curriculum: why soft skills, not just technical skills, decide who leads * What even counts as a soft skill, and the trouble with teaching it at scale * Reputation, fair prices, and trade partners: trust as the real currency of a job site * Negotiation as a master skill, and why Getting to Yes anchors his graduate course * The unit of reward: how it shifts from dollars to minutes, and what that shift costs * Social media and scarce minutes: the brushing-teeth math and what the scroll really costs * Everything is created twice: the blueprint, and controlling your inner experience Mentioned * Getting to Yes, Roger Fisher and William Ury * Harvard Business Review on Negotiation * The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey * Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi * Garth Brooks, "Unanswered Prayers" * David Hume and Adam Smith (Spencer's founding-philosophers aside) Featured guest: * Andrew "Drew" Barnes — Andrew Barnes is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Construction Management at the University of North Florida (UNF). After receiving his bachelor's degree in Construction Management from Brigham Young University in 2013, he spent five years working in Raleigh, North Carolina for the mid-Atlantic homebuilder, Dan Ryan Builders (now DRB Group) as a senior purchasing agent and later as the corporate instructional designer. In 2018, he left the workforce to attend graduate school at Virginia Tech where he received his Ph.D. in Environmental Design and Planning. Drew loves teaching young men and women how to build homes, bridges, buildings, hospitals, roads, and, most of all, themselves. His research focuses on construction management education, managerial workforce development, and residential construction with an emphasis on offsite delivery methods. (UNF Faculty Profile [https://webapps.unf.edu/faculty/bio/N01502033], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-barnes-95778131/]) Subscribe to the newsletter — one short essay every other Tuesday: leadershipeconomics.com [https://leadershipeconomics.com/]

Great Is Good Over Time

Aaron and Spencer explore LTC (R) Josh Richardson's experiences and leadership lessons within the Leadership Economics framework, from the pace of trust to knowing when to stay the course or pivot, and why great is just good over time. Episode three of Leadership Economics, and our first guest. Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Josh Richardson is a West Point graduate, a Ranger, and a 75th Ranger Regiment veteran who now directs the General Wayne A. Downing Scholarship Program and helps build cultures of safety in American plants and factories with DEKRA. He joins Aaron and Spencer to put the playbook to work on a real career, from pickup basketball as a market to the pace of trust, the explore-versus-exploit problem of when to stay the course or pivot, and his closing philosophy that great is just good over time. What we cover * Pickup basketball as a market: coordination, reading people, and being the role player who makes the team better * The pace of trust: why trust between strangers cannot be rushed, and why it is built in drips and lost in buckets * Trust and lived experience: the Antonio story, and why "trust the system" is a harder hurdle for some than for others * West Point as a pressure cooker: preparation as the muscle to keep going, and why time and experience make the leader * Explore versus exploit: when to stay the course and when to pivot, a problem with no clean mathematical answer, and the place of free will * Rules of the game: why leaders should expect people to test the rules, Douglas North, and the 1982 Ewing goaltending call * Tactical patience at scale: why large organizations struggle to mentor person to person, and the tension between moving fast and pacing yourself * A different lens on leadership: building a culture of safety so everyone goes home, and why great is good over time Mentioned * Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind * Douglas North, on institutions and the rules of the game * Kevin Plank (Under Armour), "trust is built in drips and lost in buckets" * The 1982 NCAA championship, Patrick Ewing's goaltending and Michael Jordan's game-winner * The General Wayne A. Downing Scholarship Program * DEKRA Strategic Consulting Featured guest: * Josh Richardson — Josh retired in 2023 after 23 years of Army service including assignments leading units in the 75th Ranger Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, and NATO Allied Rapid Reaction Corps based out of Innsworth, England. He currently divides his time between two ventures: he is a Principal Consultant with DEKRA Strategic Consulting where he develops leaders to drive success through a culture of safety excellence; he also serves as the Director (Operations) for the General Wayne A. Downing Scholarship Program where he deploys a non-profit investment to build leaders to serve at the highest level of U.S. national security and defense. (DEKRA Organizational Safety and Reliability [https://www.dekra.us/en/organizational-safety-reliability/overview/], General Wayne A. Downing Scholarship Program [https://ctc.westpoint.edu/education/downing-scholars-program/], Madison Policy Forum [https://madisonpolicy.org/], Combating Terrorism Center at West Point [https://ctc.westpoint.edu/], CTC Sentinel [https://ctc.westpoint.edu/ctc-sentinel/]) Subscribe to the newsletter — one short essay every other Tuesday: leadershipeconomics.com [https://leadershipeconomics.com/]

The 6 Principles of the Economic Leader

Aaron and Spencer turn the AIME framework into a working playbook, walking through the six economic principles every leader actually uses: opportunity cost, marginal thinking, incentives, trade and trust, information, and command and control. Episode two of Leadership Economics. Aaron and Spencer build on the AIME framework from the pilot and lay out the six economic principles that turn it into a working playbook — the tools every leader actually reaches for. The episode walks through each principle with examples ranging from the sunk-cost trap of a deteriorating boat to a randomized Army recruitment experiment that saved tens of millions of dollars. What we cover * A quick AIME recap (Allocation, Information, Motivation, Execution) and why the framework needs a playbook of working principles underneath * Principle 1: trade-offs and opportunity cost — every choice closes other doors * Principle 2: marginal analysis — sunk costs are sunk; the next dollar is the only one that matters * Principle 3: incentives matter, and they go far beyond money — culture, identity, and meaning all signal what people pursue * Principle 4: trade is a win-win, and it runs on trust — markets and relationships work the same way * Principle 5: information clears the market — read what people are doing, build structures that surface honest signals, and design real experiments * Principle 6: command and control — the centralized-vs-decentralized trade-off and the principal-agent problem in mission command Mentioned * Ray Dalio, Principles — radical honesty as a cultural mechanism for surfacing bad news * Black Hearts and the West Point MX400 leadership curriculum — mission command, principal-agent failure, decentralization * Carl von Clausewitz — the fog of war as a metaphor for information under uncertainty * Adam Smith — the invisible hand and coordination through self-interest Subscribe to the newsletter — one short essay every other Tuesday: leadershipeconomics.com [https://leadershipeconomics.com/]

How we got here and why leadership is an economics problem

In the pilot, Aaron and Spencer argue that great leaders are quietly good economists, and introduce AIME (Allocation, Information, Motivation, Execution) as the four focal points of a leader's job. The pilot episode of Leadership Economics. Aaron and Spencer trace how the framework took shape. Spencer brings the operational side, a career flying assault helicopters and teaching at West Point. Aaron brings the academic side, an economics dissertation on incentives. Together they lay out the case for treating leadership as an economics problem and introduce the AIME framework (Allocation, Information, Motivation, Execution) as the four focal points of a leader's job. Every future episode will return to one or more of those pillars. What we cover * Why the leadership shelf is full of books but short on a definition * Why first principles thinking, the way Newton built physics, beats pattern-matching from observed greats * Spencer's path from enlisted combat engineer to special operations aviation to the West Point Economics Department * Aaron's dissertation on teacher performance incentives, and the puzzle of why big financial incentives so rarely work * The Joint Allocation Meeting (JAM) in Afghanistan, a single decision that touched all four AIME functions at once * A first look at AIME: Allocation, Information, Motivation, Execution Mentioned * Adam Smith and David Hume, the intellectual lineage of treating human behavior with rigor * The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Joseph Campbell), Aaron's closing reference to the "coordinated soul" Subscribe to the newsletter — one short essay every other Tuesday: leadershipeconomics.com [https://leadershipeconomics.com/]