4:00

bring this type of opportunity for life

4:02

change to your church. And then sit

4:04

back and see what God

4:06

does to unlock generosity and

4:09

impact the world. You can

4:11

do this by hosting a Compassion

4:13

Sunday. So find out more at

4:15

compassion.com/carry. That's compassion.com/C-A-R-E-Y. And

4:18

are you feeling the sting of church communications?

4:20

I mean, it hurts to invite visitors through

4:22

social media and then discover nobody shows up

4:25

or those emails for volunteers you labor over

4:27

and nobody opens them. They just automatically hit

4:29

delete. It feels like a waste of time.

4:31

So what's the solution? What

4:34

about texting? Texting

4:36

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4:38

not just effective, it's customizable and incredibly

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can send different messages to different

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4:47

personal. It's perfect for announcements, invitations,

4:49

daily devotionals. It can all be

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4:53

if you're ready to jump

4:56

in, go to glue.us slash

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free texting and get started

5:00

today. That's GLOO.US slash free

5:02

texting. You can get started

5:04

today. And now my conversation

5:06

with Ken Blanchard and Randy

5:09

Connelly. Well, Ken and Randy,

5:11

welcome to the podcast. It's good to be

5:13

here with you, Kerry. Thanks, Kerry. Yeah, it's

5:15

a thrill to have you. I would love

5:17

to know how the two of

5:20

you met and got working

5:22

together and then a little career retrospective

5:24

for each of you. Randy,

5:27

why don't you tell about how you joined our

5:29

company because that's how we met. Yeah,

5:32

we met when I joined Ken's

5:34

company in 1996. So

5:38

this is my 28th year with

5:40

the organization. I

5:43

started in our project management ranks,

5:45

managing the implementation of our training

5:47

and consulting projects. And one of

5:49

my very first client projects was

5:53

accompanying Ken on a talk that

5:55

he was doing at

5:57

American Honda up in Torrance, California.

5:59

and we're based in San Diego.

6:01

And I got to ride

6:03

in a limousine with Ken Blanchard. I had only

6:05

been at the company like a few months and

6:07

it's like I flew under this

6:10

lucky star, you know, and I get to ride

6:12

with Ken up

6:14

to Los Angeles and back and we

6:16

just connected. You know, our faith was

6:19

a common denominator for us and we

6:22

just had a great connection. And

6:25

over that time, I moved

6:27

into different leadership roles at Blanchard. I

6:29

was on our executive leadership team for

6:31

a number of years, leaving

6:34

the delivery side of our business. And

6:37

the last several years, I've been focusing on

6:39

client work, my area

6:41

of expertise is in building trust. And

6:45

so Ken and I had talked

6:47

for quite a long time about

6:49

doing a book together. And one

6:52

of the few good things that came out of COVID

6:54

was we actually had the time to do it. And

6:57

it worked out perfectly because the

7:00

book is, you know,

7:02

52 ways to become

7:04

a servant leader and build trust. And

7:07

so 26 of them is

7:09

about servant leadership

7:11

and those are mine that I

7:14

kind of share and then 26 on

7:16

trust. And we put those together in

7:19

first the initial book and now

7:21

the playbook. So it's really

7:23

been fun in many ways. It really

7:26

covers all the concepts that

7:29

our company has been teaching over the years

7:31

around the world. And

7:34

52 being 52 weeks in the year, right? That's

7:37

right. Absolutely. Yeah. One

7:39

for each week. Co-authorship is tough.

7:41

I mean, a lot of people think

7:43

about it. They have a hard

7:46

time doing it. Ken, you've written 70 books,

7:48

is it? Most of which were co-authored. What

7:51

are some secrets to making a

7:53

co-authorship work? Well,

7:56

I think first you got to decide what's

7:58

the big... topic that you

8:00

want to talk about. And a lot of

8:03

my co-authors, I would go even to them

8:05

like Norman Vincent Peale, who was a positive

8:08

thinking guy, and Gary

8:10

Ridge, who became President of WD-40, and

8:16

different people like that. And I

8:20

don't sit down and write. I've

8:22

never been that kind. I always have

8:24

a recording of some type and go

8:26

and interview and have

8:28

a discussion with a person. Then I

8:31

have two great editors, Martha Lawrence and

8:33

Renee Broadway. One of them will type it up

8:36

and then we'll look at it and see

8:38

how we're going to organize it all.

8:40

And I

8:42

also like to write parables. That's

8:45

what I did with Spencer

8:47

Johnson. That's Spencer at a

8:50

cocktail party at Adelaide

8:52

Brie, who wrote Visual Advensation, is Directing

8:54

the Movies of Your Mind, and a

8:56

party for authors in San Diego. And

8:59

I had written a textbook with Paul

9:01

Hersey and so I qualified for this

9:03

party. And my

9:06

wife, largely, met Spencer first. And

9:08

he was a children's book writer. He and his wife

9:11

wrote all these kids books

9:13

and value tales series, the

9:15

value of Kurt, starring Jackie

9:17

Robinson, the value of the

9:19

termination of Helen Keller. And

9:22

Margie Hand carried them over to me and said,

9:24

you two guys ought to write your children's books

9:26

for managers. They're going to read anything else. And

9:29

so I invited Spencer to

9:31

a seminar I was doing the next day.

9:33

He said, and he back and laughed and

9:35

he came running up and he said, forget

9:37

Paragie, let's do the one-minute manager. And

9:42

we decided to do a parable because I'm a

9:44

storyteller and he was a children's

9:46

book writer. Life is what

9:49

happens to you when you're planning on doing

9:51

something else, I think. I didn't know that.

9:53

Okay, I got a bunch of questions about

9:55

writing. What

9:57

made you think that was a good idea to collaborate?

10:00

with a children's author? Well,

10:04

my wife really was the one that

10:06

suggested it, you know, because people won't

10:09

read anything else. And

10:11

too many of the management leadership

10:13

books were really long, extensive things.

10:15

And I

10:19

always thought we would be much better off

10:22

if people had simpler stuff. My

10:26

mission statement is to be a loving teacher,

10:28

an example of simple truths that

10:31

helps myself and others to awaken to

10:33

the presence of God in their lives

10:36

and realize that we're here to serve, not to

10:38

be served. And so it's been

10:40

kind of my mission statement. So it's kind

10:42

of an ending. A textbook

10:45

really came out of meeting

10:47

Paul Hersey when I was at Ohio

10:49

University. I heard he taught a

10:51

great leadership class. He came and taught

10:55

as chairman of the management department. And

10:59

the dean asked me to teach a course

11:01

in his department. It was really kind of

11:03

interesting. It's an inside venture. My faculty

11:06

in graduate school all said, if you want

11:08

to be in a university, you should be

11:10

administrating because you can't write. I read

11:13

a learning, maybe it was too simple

11:16

and easy to understand for their style.

11:19

So my first job was to listen

11:21

to the dean of the

11:23

College of Business at Ohio University. Hersey

11:25

came as chairman of the

11:27

management department. So Dean Harry

11:29

Ever said, teach a course in there.

11:32

And I hadn't thought of teaching before

11:35

because if you don't write,

11:37

you perish. That's a

11:40

faculty member. He

11:42

said, I don't care anything about that. Teach a course. So

11:45

I started to teach and after a couple of weeks,

11:48

I told my wife, this is really fun. That's

11:50

what I ought to be doing. She

11:52

said, what about the writing? I said,

11:55

I don't know. I'll figure something out.

11:57

Hersey taught a great leadership course. and

12:00

if I could sit in his course the next semester.

12:02

Said, nobody audits my course. We want to take it

12:04

for credit of your weapon when he walked away. And

12:06

I thought that was interesting because I

12:09

had a previous team, he didn't. He wants me to take

12:11

his course for credit. So I talked to Margie

12:13

and she said, is he any good? I said, he's supposed

12:15

to be great. She said, we'll get your regal out of

12:17

the way and take his damn course. And so I had

12:19

to talk to the registrar into letting

12:21

me in to take his course. And I did, and I

12:23

wrote all the papers. And in

12:26

June, I think, 16th, Percy

12:28

came into my office and he said, I've

12:30

been teaching leadership for years. I think I'm better

12:32

than anybody. They want me to write a textbook,

12:34

but writing is in my great skill area. But

12:37

I've been looking for a good writer like you. He'd

12:39

read my papers in his class because I had to

12:41

take it for credit. He said,

12:43

would you come author for me? And I said, well, we ought to

12:45

be a great team. You can't write and then

12:47

it's a paper, so let's do it. They

12:50

wanted to meet Spencer. I

12:54

thought, God, isn't it going to be fun to

12:56

write shoulders books rather than this textbook stuff? Well,

13:00

Ken is easy to work with as

13:03

a co-author. I

13:05

lovingly tease him. I

13:07

call him Captain Optimism because

13:10

he's just super optimistic, super

13:12

open to your ideas. He

13:14

really doesn't have a ton

13:16

of ego. So

13:18

he's a learner at heart. And

13:22

so it's very easy to

13:25

work with Ken. Ken,

13:27

is that a learned optimism or a natural

13:30

optimism? I

13:32

think I got it from my father. My

13:34

father was an interesting guy. He

13:38

worked at West Point. His

13:40

father was a

13:42

doctor in Highland Falls at the gate of West Point.

13:44

But again, out of high school, that's where he wanted

13:47

to go. So I said, no son, you should go

13:49

away to school. He said, well, if I can't go

13:51

to West Point, I'll go to Annapolis. He

13:54

graduated from Naval Academy in 24, but

13:56

they didn't need Naval or

14:00

one that just ended in 22. And so

14:02

they released them after a senior cruise and he went

14:05

to Harvard Business School and made you an fine dancer.

14:08

And in 1940, he came home and

14:10

said to my mother, well, I quit today.

14:12

She said, you did what? He said, yeah, I quit. She

14:14

said, well, why? He said,

14:16

Hitler's crazy and the Japanese are gonna be in

14:18

this. He said, I need

14:20

to help out. So he takes from a

14:22

vice president to a second luigi and they

14:24

put him in a book in Navy Yard

14:27

and Pearl Harbor happened. He said, well, this

14:30

looks like he's gonna stay there

14:32

because he's 40 years old with

14:34

no experience. That wasn't my dad's style. So one

14:36

of the classmates that stayed in was

14:38

in Washington in the Navy. And he said,

14:41

called and said, John, what do you got

14:43

for an all-fart? In the action, I gotta

14:45

get in the action. Said, Ted, let

14:47

me look into it. He called back a few days. Said,

14:49

unfortunately, the only thing I have for a guy

14:52

like you is

14:54

a suicide group going into the Marshall

14:56

Islands. And so, I opened up a

14:59

rank or two and gave him a

15:01

bunch of LCI, the Glanning Craft Infantry.

15:04

His job was to protect the Marines and the

15:06

Frogmen coming into Saipan,

15:08

Kewajalein, and re-tuck and continue in

15:10

the Marshall Islands. And

15:13

so my dad was always wanted

15:15

to help. It wasn't positive about

15:17

things. And so when I

15:19

was in seventh grade, I won the presidency of

15:21

seventh grade. It was a

15:24

predominantly Jewish school and I was chosen to

15:26

go in for the month and all that.

15:30

And so I came home and said, Dan,

15:32

I'm the president of the class. And he said, now

15:34

you're president, your leadership training is

15:36

gonna begin. As

15:38

a leader, it's not about you, it's

15:41

about we. It's about

15:43

people. He said, people think in

15:45

the military, it's my way or the highway.

15:47

So that's a myth. It's really bad that

15:49

somebody's gotta call the shots. But

15:51

if you act like you're a big deal in peacetime,

15:53

your man will shoot you before the enemy. And

15:56

he started really teaching me about leadership.

16:00

Wow. Did your dad make it through the war?

16:02

Yes, he did. He's a real admiral.

16:07

Pretty amazing guy. Randy,

16:11

what was the easiest

16:13

and the hardest part of writing these

16:16

books with Ken? Well,

16:21

I would say the easiest

16:23

was Ken and

16:25

I were both operating from areas

16:27

of strength, things that

16:29

were both passionate about and like

16:33

to share with other people. So that was

16:35

really easy. The

16:37

hardest part was getting, although

16:40

I said Ken is easy to work with, the

16:42

hardest part was getting used to the way that

16:44

Ken writes. Ken more

16:47

speaks a book than he writes a book.

16:50

And so as he mentioned, you

16:53

know, he'll record stuff into a tape

16:55

recorder. And

16:57

one of his assistants,

17:00

Rene or Martha, will type

17:02

out the script. And I'm just the opposite. I've

17:04

got to sort of think about it, ruminate

17:07

on the topic and kind of

17:09

get my thoughts down on paper. And

17:12

so we would have

17:14

working sessions where we would talk about,

17:18

you know, the different topics that

17:20

we're writing about and Ken would

17:22

be verbally processing. And I

17:24

could only do that so much. And I'd say, okay,

17:27

I need to, you know, have some time to just

17:29

sort of get my thoughts down on paper. But

17:32

it actually ended up being a great symbiotic

17:36

process, you know, and

17:39

it turned out wonderful. So it's

17:43

just been one of the highlights of my career

17:45

is to work with Ken on these two books

17:47

that we've done. No kidding.

17:49

Randy's been the best co-author in the past and

17:51

all. And so we have a lot of fun.

17:55

And we divided this thing up beautifully

17:57

with 26 on serving leadership. my

18:00

area of biggest interest in 26 on

18:03

trust. So

18:05

it was fun. You had

18:07

the dual expertise. Ken, I

18:09

remember when the One Minute Manager

18:12

came out and it revolutionized.

18:14

I mean, everybody talked about it

18:16

for years and years and years

18:18

and years. Describe what

18:21

you were doing before the One

18:23

Minute Manager and then what

18:25

made that book hit? Well,

18:29

it's really interesting is that I

18:33

met Spencer Johnson as this

18:36

cocktail party. My wife

18:38

introduced him to me. And as I said,

18:40

he was a children's book writer and

18:43

wrote these books with his wife and

18:46

value tales for kids. And we

18:49

started to talk and he was

18:51

working on a One Minute scolding

18:55

with a psychiatrist on

18:57

how to discipline kids. And

18:59

so he invited him to a seminar, he was doing it

19:01

the next day and he laughed and

19:03

came running up at the end. He said, forget

19:06

purging, let's do the One Minute Manager.

19:09

And since he was a

19:11

children's book reader and I'm a storyteller, we felt

19:14

we'd write a parable. And

19:16

we had three secrets. I had

19:19

focused on goal setting and praising and

19:21

catching people doing things right. And he

19:23

had the scolding down, which we changed

19:25

to the One Minute Reparad. And

19:29

we just ended up writing

19:32

a parable. And that

19:34

was interesting. We

19:36

were invited on the Today Show on

19:39

Labor Day, 1982. And because

19:43

it was unusual to have a

19:45

parable for leaders in this

19:47

kind of book and people were interested in

19:49

it. And

19:51

the next week it

19:53

went on the New York Times bestseller list

19:56

and stayed on for two or

19:58

three years. It

20:00

still sells today. In fact, we

20:02

redid it. We have the new one-minute

20:04

manager. The big change is we change

20:07

one minute reprimand to one minute redirects.

20:09

Because it's more

20:11

of a collaborative style.

20:14

But so I end up

20:17

being a storyteller and

20:20

a valuable writer, which I really

20:22

have enjoyed tremendously.

20:25

Because I don't like to write really

20:27

big, long books. And so

20:31

Randy's and my book is really long. But it's

20:33

made up of 52 little books. Yeah,

20:38

there you go. And I

20:40

think, Kerry, you asked what really made

20:42

the one-minute manager hit. I

20:45

think it was a combination of those

20:48

things. One, it was probably, if not

20:50

the first, one of the first parable

20:52

type leadership books for the

20:55

business world. Number two, it

20:58

was short. But yet

21:00

the price was like, it

21:02

was a dichotomy. It was short and sweet.

21:04

But the price was like the price of

21:06

a regular book. It was

21:08

positioned as like this gem. It

21:10

just took off, as Ken said.

21:13

The Today Show helped propel

21:15

that. I mean, Ken and Spencer actually

21:17

self-published it before it got picked up

21:19

by a big publisher in

21:21

New York. I didn't know

21:23

that, really. You'd self-published it. Well,

21:26

initially, when we met, we met

21:28

in the first part of November.

21:31

We had a draft of the book by Tom,

21:35

we were heading up in two windows bagels

21:37

to the Rose Bowl. And

21:39

we had a copy to give to

21:41

everybody to read on the way up

21:44

and back. And people just loved it. And

21:47

I said to Spencer, well, let's go to New York

21:49

and get a contract. He said, no.

21:51

He said, they'll beat us up and

21:53

take all the money because they don't

21:55

know who we are. Let's build a

21:57

record. So let's self-publish it. So

22:00

we ended up self-publishing the book and

22:03

we sold 20,000 copies with no

22:05

advertising, basically through a group called

22:07

the Young Presidents Organization. Oh

22:09

yeah, YPO. You have to become

22:11

president of the company before you're 40 years

22:14

old and have at least 50 people and

22:16

5 million in sales. And I

22:18

did some sessions for them and they really loved

22:20

what I did. They said, what are you

22:22

gonna do at the end of the year? Cause I was

22:24

on a one year sabbatical leave to

22:27

do the third edition of her season. My

22:31

textbook. And he said, we're going

22:33

back to the university. I said, no, you're not. I

22:35

said, what do you mean? You sure you're gonna start

22:38

your own company? I said, how are we gonna do

22:40

that? My wife and I don't even know how to

22:42

spell the word entrepreneur. How are you gonna be one?

22:45

And they said, we'll help you. And five

22:47

of these presidents volunteered to be our advisory

22:49

board. You know, one from San

22:51

Diego, one from Illinois, one from Pennsylvania, one

22:53

from Mexico, and

22:57

helped us build a company from

22:59

scratch, basically through

23:02

YPOers. And so when

23:04

the one minute manager was available, it

23:06

was all these YPOers that bought all

23:08

the copies and all of

23:10

a sudden when we went to New York, we

23:12

had something. We had a track record. Could

23:17

get a good contract. That's

23:20

a fascinating story. Now you have

23:22

people like Patrick Lincione or John

23:24

Gordon, you know, that it's a

23:26

common thing, right? To write leadership

23:28

parables. Those are two wonderful guys

23:30

that I've found a mentor that

23:32

have been friends and colleagues. I

23:35

met Lincione when he was 24 years old.

23:38

I was at a session he was doing. And

23:40

I came up to a manager and I said,

23:42

Pat, what fabulous stuff that is. I

23:45

said, you know where all that's from? I

23:47

said, where's that? I said, it's in the

23:49

Bible. He said, really? And

23:52

so he's a good Catholic and he

23:54

now has realized that

23:58

because I'm a Catholic, I

24:00

realized that when

24:03

the Women of Manager came out, a

24:06

friend of mine, Phil Hodges, who I met, us

24:09

going to orientation camp at Cornell,

24:14

Paul B. said, let's take a walk in the beach, even

24:16

if you're a spiritual guy. He said,

24:18

Ken, why do you think this One-Minute Manager

24:20

is so successful? I said, I don't know,

24:22

somehow God must be involved. He said, oh,

24:24

thank God. And

24:27

after I mention God, then I get a

24:29

call, you know, when I'd be willing to

24:32

meet with Norman Vincent Peale, and would I

24:34

be willing to meet the Bob Buford who

24:36

started halftime, and so on. It

24:40

just turned out that suddenly

24:42

we were often running with

24:47

that, all with kind of a

24:50

spiritual base. And since then

24:52

starting minister called Lead Like

24:54

Jesus, it's all

24:57

this not connected to our company because we

24:59

wanted to keep it separate. But

25:03

it's amazing. Everybody around the

25:05

world loves Jesus. They just

25:07

don't like Christians. So

25:10

I was on a radio show recently, they said,

25:12

really, Stan, you're very spiritual. What's your

25:14

faith? And I said, you might follow Jesus. I

25:16

said, oh, you're a Christian. I said, no, I'm

25:18

not. And neither was Jesus.

25:20

A lot of people in the Christianities

25:22

never mentioned in the four gospels. And

25:25

it's mentioned a few times in Acts and it's

25:27

negative, those damn Christians. I

25:30

don't think Jesus came to start a religion. He

25:33

came to build relationships around love.

25:38

I got a lot of places I could go.

25:40

You know, when it comes to the parable, and

25:42

yours is more like almost, I

25:44

wanna say a leadership devotional, 52

25:48

different short, very

25:50

easily digestible chapters. So

25:53

I've gotten to know Pat Lincione over the years.

25:55

And I said to him in one of our

25:57

meetings, like, I enjoy the parable.

26:00

parables, but I always go to the back of

26:02

the book where he outlined the strategy, because that's

26:04

how I think. And he goes, you're one in

26:06

a hundred. He says, everybody reads the parable. Nobody

26:08

reads the back of the book. But

26:11

I say that to say this. Do

26:14

you think, and this is sort of a

26:17

softball, but take it where you want. Do you

26:19

think a lot of us over complicate leadership that

26:21

we make it too long? I'm always telling preachers,

26:25

go shorter, not longer.

26:27

Go simpler, not more

26:29

complicated. What's your

26:31

thoughts about the role of simplicity and

26:34

brevity? Yes, absolutely.

26:39

I like to say leadership is

26:41

a complex field, but it

26:43

doesn't have to be complicated. There

26:46

are many parts and pieces in the world

26:48

of leadership, but you're right, Kerry. I think

26:50

we get in our way

26:53

so much. We try to over complicate it.

26:57

And that's what we wanted to do with

26:59

the simple truth was remind people, common

27:02

sense principles, right? And that's the

27:04

subtitle on our book, making

27:07

common sense, common practice. These

27:10

are common sense things, right? That you

27:12

probably learned throughout your life in some

27:14

form or fashion. And

27:16

if we can just keep those at the forefront

27:19

of our minds, treat

27:21

people the way they want to

27:23

be treated, the way that we want

27:25

to be treated, remember

27:27

these simple things. That

27:31

gets a big bang for our buck.

27:33

So completely agree with you. And

27:36

Ken is the master of simple truths, starting

27:38

with the one minute manager and

27:41

throughout all of his writings, it

27:43

really is about let's

27:45

keep things simple. Wouldn't you say, Ken?

27:47

Yeah, that's what I always felt. I

27:50

said, I just don't have

27:52

a very complicated mind, you know? And

27:55

when I looked at a lot of

27:57

these leadership theory books and everything, my

27:59

God, they just were so. so complicated

28:01

and so research-based

28:04

and all that kind of thing. And

28:07

so that was really fun when I initially

28:09

got together with Paul Hersey to start developing

28:15

situational leadership. And

28:18

we did that before the one-minute manager

28:20

came out. And then Paul

28:23

and I decided to go different ways in

28:27

terms of the theory. So we have

28:29

SL2, which is our form

28:31

of situational leadership. But it's really saying

28:34

that you need different strokes for

28:36

different folks, but you

28:38

also, and this is really powerful, you

28:40

need different strokes for the same folks

28:43

on different parts of their job and

28:46

that there's no one best leadership style

28:48

to use with

28:50

one person or one. You

28:52

have to look at the task and

28:54

ask, what is their competence to

28:56

do this task? And what is their

28:59

commitment? And we start

29:01

off with enthusiastic beginners, very

29:04

sometimes where people are excited to learn

29:06

something, but they need a skill, they

29:08

need direction. And then they

29:11

get a little disillusioned because it's more complicated

29:13

than they thought. So they need coaching. And

29:15

if you can coach and do disillusionment, then they get

29:18

to the point where they got the

29:20

skills, but they still want somebody

29:22

to support and encourage them until

29:24

eventually you can delegate to them

29:27

because they're a peak performer.

29:30

And so we have these four development

29:33

levels and with the leadership

29:35

styles going through them and it

29:37

really made a lot of sense. And

29:39

so our whole companies, I

29:42

think, don't you think, Randy has built

29:44

on simple truth theories. And I think

29:46

that's why we've done so well. We're

29:49

like 30 or 40 nations, you know, we

29:52

got 300 people around the world. And

29:54

we're working with this. Yeah, it's simple

29:57

as better. And it's not to, you know, where

32:01

everybody's sucking up the hierarchy and

32:04

all that kind of thing. And that just didn't

32:06

make any sense. And we decided

32:08

to start our own company. We certainly

32:10

didn't want any of that. And

32:13

we were hiring brand capable people. We

32:16

wanted to use their brains

32:18

as much as ours. So

32:20

we'd say, we have things to share, but what

32:23

do you think? And

32:26

so it wasn't sort of, we

32:29

lay down the law and this is the way we're going

32:31

to do it. How will we do

32:33

it together? So

32:36

that was a turning point for you. We, not

32:38

me. Awesome.

32:41

Randy, what are one or two

32:43

strategic moves, decisions, moments that were

32:45

inflection points in your view? Well,

32:50

personally or professionally, or both, or either.

32:52

Yeah. Yeah. Well, when you think about

32:54

the trajectory of the company or your

32:56

own career, what do you see? Well,

33:00

a personal one was prior

33:02

to joining Blanchard, all

33:04

in the same week, my

33:07

wife gave birth to our second child. I

33:10

graduated from college

33:13

with my bachelor's degree. I had dropped out

33:15

and went back as an adult. And

33:18

I got laid off from my job, all

33:21

three big events in the same week. And

33:24

as I started my job search,

33:27

I ran across this opening at

33:29

Blanchard. And I'm like,

33:31

that name Blanchard rings a bell. Where

33:34

was it? And lo and

33:37

behold, as I interviewed and ended

33:39

up getting a job at Blanchard,

33:41

I realized it

33:43

was from my management class, hence textbook,

33:45

Management of Organizational Behavior, right? Was one

33:48

of my textbooks. And I remember reading

33:50

about situational leadership. I

33:53

was saying to myself, wow, this

33:55

makes sense to me. This is the kind of

33:57

leader I want to be. It's what I believe

33:59

about leadership. leadership. And

34:01

I remember looking in the footnote at the

34:03

bottom of the page, it says Ken Blanchard,

34:05

Escondido, California. And I'm like, oh, wow,

34:08

this guy lives right here in, in,

34:11

in my town. I didn't even know that. So

34:15

that life experience was an inflection point

34:17

for me that set me off on

34:19

a different direction in my career. And

34:23

then I think corporately, we

34:26

Blanchard has chosen to really focus on what

34:28

we call the heart of the house. And

34:32

that's all those managers, you

34:34

know, in the heart of the house,

34:36

in the middle layers. Yeah, we do

34:38

work with executive leaders. That's part of

34:40

what we do. And

34:42

we do work with frontline supervisors.

34:44

We do that too. But the

34:46

heart of the house, all those

34:48

managers in between, those

34:51

are the people, those are the foot

34:53

soldiers of every organization, right? They're

34:55

the ones that impact the

34:58

day to day life of all

35:01

the people in the organization. And we've

35:03

chosen over the years to stay focused

35:05

in that area. And

35:08

I think it's really made a huge impact

35:11

that that's where we're most effective. That's our

35:13

sweet spot. I'd love to know

35:15

why you made that decision. Because, you know,

35:18

a lot of organizations would be saying, oh,

35:20

we got to get to the C-suite. We

35:22

got to get CEOs and VPs, et cetera.

35:25

But you're like, no, middle management is actually the heart

35:27

of our company. Why that focus

35:30

and decision? Well,

35:33

Ken can chime in. I would say we

35:36

don't do it to the exclusion of those

35:38

other audiences because we do quite a lot

35:40

of work with those other

35:42

audiences. And

35:44

it's not an either or, it's an and. It's a

35:46

both. But you

35:48

haven't excluded them either, which a lot of

35:51

companies would do. They would go for the

35:53

higher ticket. Right. Exactly. And the

35:56

simple truths that Ken and all

35:58

of his other co-authors leadership

38:00

summit years ago, back when it was

38:02

whatever, the Willow Creek Summit or whatever.

38:05

But I remember you talking about seagull

38:07

management and you kind of

38:09

read my mail. Can you, for leaders who

38:11

may not be familiar with that concept, talk

38:14

about what seagull management is? Well,

38:17

that's the typical top down organization

38:20

where the top managers think they

38:22

have all the brains. And then

38:24

when they wander around, what

38:27

they do is they focus on what's

38:29

wrong, which way they call them seagull

38:31

managers. They fly in, make a lot

38:33

of noise, crap on everybody and then

38:36

fly out. They

38:39

wonder why people are leaving and

38:41

are really good at command.

38:44

And so, no, it's how

38:46

do you work with your

38:48

people and not seagull in?

38:50

Because what happens when you

38:52

seagull in, then you get

38:54

a bunch of ducks. We love

38:57

to talk about that. They can quite like it's our

38:59

job. So you got

39:01

seagulls running and ducks going

39:03

in the place is a

39:05

noisy place, but it's not

39:08

producing what you really want,

39:10

where you want people

39:12

to say, this

39:14

is the place to be and

39:17

this is what we want to, where

39:19

we want to work. That

39:21

is the power of a simple metaphor though.

39:23

As soon as you said, this is most

39:26

managers, you're not there very often, you swoop

39:28

in crap all over people and leave seagull

39:30

management. I'm like, anybody

39:32

can understand that. It's

39:35

so powerful. It captures exactly

39:37

how a lot of leaders

39:39

lead and this is a leadership podcast.

39:42

What is the key? Because you have a

39:44

bunch of them in your servant leadership, Randy,

39:46

and your stuff on trust. What

39:49

is the key to

39:51

developing short, memorable metaphor

39:53

statements, pithy phrases that

39:56

simple but profound? I mean,

39:58

it's not like Like it's

40:00

not a nursery rhyme. It's deeply profound

40:02

because it's like, no, that's exactly how

40:04

it works. You can say it in

40:07

10 seconds. How do you develop things

40:09

that are that simple but carry

40:11

actual weight? Wow.

40:15

Well, that's top secret,

40:17

Kerry. There's the IP,

40:19

right? We're going to have to stop recording. Yeah,

40:21

we could tell you, but then we'd have to,

40:23

you know. Yeah, that would

40:25

be the end of me. No,

40:28

it's... I

40:31

don't have a great answer for you, Kerry. You

40:33

know, it's... I

40:35

think it's a couple of things, you

40:37

know. One is I think knowing your

40:39

audience, right? Like what will resonate with

40:41

them? Yeah. Number two,

40:43

looking at your own personal experience, you

40:46

know. For

40:49

me, like when I'm writing and

40:51

trying to communicate concepts to people,

40:53

I often think first in headlines,

40:56

you know. Like article headlines

40:58

or titles. That's helpful. And

41:01

if I can sort of come up

41:03

with that, then I can start to

41:06

sort of formulate a

41:09

message, you know, whatever that looks

41:11

like. Whether it's, you know, an

41:13

actual article, you know,

41:15

some metaphors. That's

41:19

how it works for me. I don't know. What

41:21

about you, Ken? Do you? Yeah, do you actually

41:23

remember how you came up with Segal Management? Oh,

41:27

I don't know. I don't have

41:29

that stuff in my sleep, Henry. But

41:32

I think the big thing that I

41:35

enjoy, Kerry, now more than anything is

41:37

that the big problem with

41:40

self-serving leaders is their

41:42

ego. I've

41:45

started a 12-step ego as

41:47

an itemist because it's the

41:49

biggest addiction in the business world.

41:51

Wow. And there's two forms of

41:53

ego. One is false pride. When

41:56

you come from a more than philosophy, you

41:58

think you're brighter than people. and

42:00

all and all and the other is

42:03

fear or self-doubt where you have

42:05

less than positive feelings

42:07

about yourself. A lot of people

42:09

say how's that in the ego?

42:12

You're focused on yourself and so

42:15

what we try to do we have a number of

42:17

managers that they have their weekly

42:19

meeting with their people and they started off

42:21

with an egos anonymous meeting where you got

42:23

to stand up one by one

42:25

say hi I'm Ken and everybody says hi

42:28

Ken and I'm an ego named Maniac and

42:30

you have to talk about sometime that week

42:32

when you think your ego might have gotten

42:34

in your way either with false pride or

42:36

self and if we

42:39

always say if you can't think of

42:41

an example then you probably lie about

42:43

other things too. The

42:45

ego comes up periodically and

42:48

it's something we have to really work

42:50

on and length about and all that

42:52

kind of thing because if we're

42:54

going to do a week culture not me we

42:57

have to get our egos out of the way. That's

43:02

so good. Yeah I want to talk a

43:04

little bit more about that. So you

43:07

know you have so many competing ideas

43:09

but there's a life theme. Randy yours

43:12

is about trust. Ken

43:14

yours is about servant

43:17

leadership and it's funny talk

43:19

about memorable metaphors. I don't know whether it

43:21

originates with you but I think the first

43:23

time I heard it again at a big

43:25

public leadership conference was from you Ken probably

43:28

in the 90s ego stands for edging

43:30

God out right. Is that original

43:32

to you or did you pick that up somewhere

43:34

else or? I don't know where

43:37

that came. It's so widely quoted now but

43:39

you were the first one I heard it

43:41

from. I'll take it. Yeah might as well

43:43

right might as well nobody else is claiming

43:46

it. Randy have you ever heard about the

43:48

rules of attribution? You know no

43:51

go ahead. Okay well the first

43:53

time you say something when you're

43:55

giving a talk you say well

43:57

Ken Blanchard has said you know And

48:00

so I stepped through that door and

48:02

it set me off on this trajectory of

48:06

becoming a subject matter expert in trust,

48:08

doing a lot of research, a lot

48:10

of writing, working with

48:12

clients in the field. And

48:16

so I think for those

48:18

who really become experts,

48:22

whatever definition you want to qualify

48:24

as an expert, I

48:27

think there's often an intense

48:29

personal connection to what it

48:31

is that they champion. And I

48:33

know it's similar with

48:35

Ken and his focus on servant leadership.

48:38

Yeah, Ken, life focus. Good idea, bad

48:40

idea for young leaders. And then tell

48:42

us about servant leadership. I

48:44

think getting some focus on

48:48

where your skills are, where your values

48:50

are, if you really do

48:55

something you care about, you never

48:57

have to work a day in your

48:59

life. And so

49:02

that's really important. I got interested in servant

49:04

leadership because I really found

49:06

that people didn't understand what it was

49:08

all about. They were thinking it was

49:11

about the inmates running the prison or

49:13

trying to please everybody in your religious

49:15

movement. They didn't understand there's actually two

49:17

parts of servant leadership. One

49:20

comes from the judicial hierarchy. That's

49:22

vision, values, direction

49:24

and goals. Leadership's

49:26

about going somewhere. That's responsibility

49:29

of the hierarchy. It doesn't mean you don't

49:31

involve other people in getting there. But

49:34

if people aren't clear on what they're

49:36

being asked to do and what good

49:38

behavior looks like, shame on you because

49:41

that's your responsibility. And once the vision,

49:43

direction, values and all are clear, now

49:45

you go to the servant part of servant

49:47

leadership and you turn the pyramid upside down

49:49

and now you work for your people

49:52

and your job is to help them win, is

49:55

to do what? Live according to

49:57

the vision, the values and accomplish the

49:59

goals. that are in their particular

50:01

area. And when you look at it that

50:03

way, well, that's really a

50:05

powerful, powerful thing. And

50:09

so the ultimate, when we get to your

50:11

egos out of the way, I

50:16

always talk about what did Jesus do?

50:19

He got down and he washed the feet of

50:21

his disciples. No, he

50:23

was trying to demonstrate to them, it's

50:26

just as I've done for you, do

50:28

for others. The

50:31

ultimate is serving leadership as you really

50:33

eventually work for them. But it's

50:35

gotta be clear. And he

50:37

came down with a clear message and

50:39

a single values and direction. And

50:42

then here, we gotta get you to use

50:45

it. Yeah,

50:47

I guess that retirement isn't a concept for

50:49

you, is it? You're still going?

50:52

I wrote a book called ReFire. Don't

50:57

retire, make the rest of your life, the

51:00

best of your life with Mark Shavis, who had

51:02

landed at the psych department at

51:04

University of San Diego. We talk about

51:07

four areas of refiring. First of

51:09

all, what are you doing intellectually

51:12

to stimulate your mind? Secondly,

51:15

what are you doing physically?

51:19

Okay. What are you doing spiritually?

51:23

And finally, what are you doing emotionally

51:25

with relationships at all? And

51:27

take a look at that. And

51:30

you're all gonna be, into

51:33

this week, I'm gonna be 85. And

51:35

people say, don't

51:37

seem like you're ready to retire.

51:39

I'm continuing to refire because

51:42

I'm really excited about different kinds of

51:44

things and trying to

51:46

find things that we can do

51:48

and excited. That's why it's been fun to work

51:50

with Randy. And now I'm working on

51:53

a book with my son, Scott, who is

51:55

the president of our company now. And

51:58

he's called, It's Always the Leader. is

1:06:00

the point of if there anything is

1:06:02

trust and a

1:06:04

relationship with them, where

1:06:07

when you're not around, they

1:06:09

want to perform justice. Well,

1:06:11

that's when you're there.

1:06:14

And so a lot of

1:06:16

times when you really build people

1:06:18

up and make them part of the

1:06:21

team and all, boy, when

1:06:23

you're not around, they really want

1:06:25

to even be better than they

1:06:27

could be if you were watching.

1:06:31

How do you get that? Wow.

1:06:34

You know, I think that's

1:06:37

the secret sauce of leadership, right? It's

1:06:39

taking all these common

1:06:42

sense principles and, you know, R52

1:06:45

are not the sum

1:06:47

of the universe, right? Those are ones that

1:06:50

we've chosen to focus on. Most

1:06:52

of the universe, fair enough. Yeah.

1:06:54

Ken's right. There might be 54,

1:06:57

55 out there. We gave

1:06:59

you 52, you know, but

1:07:04

I think it's the day-to-day behaviors, right?

1:07:07

It's the day-to-day behaviors. How do you show

1:07:09

up day in and day out so

1:07:12

that you're creating that environment that people

1:07:14

know they're trusted. You're using

1:07:17

a variety of leadership styles to develop

1:07:19

their competence and commitment so that they're

1:07:21

all peak performers at what they do.

1:07:25

And in a

1:07:27

sense, in the biggest, grandest sort

1:07:29

of metaphysical sense, a leader's job is

1:07:31

really to kind of work our way

1:07:33

out of a job, right? To develop

1:07:35

other leaders, to develop our people to

1:07:38

be self-sufficient. And if

1:07:40

leaders can do that, then they're doing

1:07:42

the right thing. Well,

1:07:44

this has been an absolute treat to spend time with both of you.

1:07:47

Is there a final word from each of you? Anything we didn't cover

1:07:49

that you want to touch on before we wrap up? Well,

1:07:54

I'd like you to understand that I'm

1:07:57

pretty lucky having a partner like Randy.

1:12:00

Just go to karinoohoff.com/episode 657

1:12:03

and we've transcripts for you there and all kinds

1:12:06

of links that you're going to find valuable.

1:12:09

So I would love for

1:12:11

you to check out what our partners are doing.

1:12:14

I knew Child Sponsorship was an opportunity for

1:12:16

our church to make an impact worldwide. So

1:12:18

I went to Compassion and

1:12:20

we partnered with them starting with

1:12:23

our first Compassion Sunday. That was

1:12:25

over a decade ago. We haven't

1:12:27

looked back since. If you want

1:12:30

to get started there, I highly

1:12:32

recommend compassion.com/carry. That's compassion.com/C-A-R-E-Y and

1:12:34

take the pain out of communicating with your people

1:12:37

and actually connect. Get free texting

1:12:39

via our friends at GLUE. Check

1:12:41

it out at glue.us slash free

1:12:43

texting. That's GLOO dot

1:12:46

US slash free texting. Well

1:12:48

next episode is me, man.

1:12:50

No guest. I'm going to

1:12:52

talk to you about toxic

1:12:54

people and how, what do you

1:12:56

do? How do you relate to them? How do

1:12:59

you spot them? What are the subtle signs that

1:13:01

you're dealing with a toxic person? And

1:13:03

we're experimenting with that format. Dropped one last month,

1:13:05

doing one this month. Would love to hear from

1:13:07

you about that. But then we're

1:13:10

back to our regularly scheduled programming. Had a

1:13:12

fantastic conversation with Alison Cook. Will Gedara is

1:13:14

back on the pod. Priscilla

1:13:16

Schreyer, Rich Velodis, Andy Stanley,

1:13:18

Charles Duhigg, Max Lucado, Mark

1:13:20

Sayers, and a whole lot more. All

1:13:23

coming up on the podcast. Very excited

1:13:25

for what is ahead. And if you

1:13:27

enjoyed this, please leave us a rating

1:13:29

and review. That's exactly what

1:13:31

Lydia did. Lydia, thank you for yours. Or

1:13:33

text this link to a friend. Just do it direct.

1:13:36

Okay. And I want to give you

1:13:38

something free before we go. It's my preaching cheat sheet. Over

1:13:41

10,000 leaders use it every week. Go

1:13:43

to preachingcheatsheet.com. You can run your message through

1:13:45

a series of 10 simple questions that I

1:13:47

ask you. And then you kind of know

1:13:49

whether you're done or whether you need to

1:13:51

go back and do another round or you

1:13:54

miss the key point. It's the preaching cheat

1:13:56

sheet. It's absolutely free. Go to preachingcheatsheet.com. The

1:13:58

link is also available. available in

1:14:00

the show notes. Well, thank you so much for

1:14:02

listening, everybody. I really appreciate you. And

1:14:05

we're gonna do this again next episode. How

1:14:07

does that sound? Okay. And I

1:14:09

hope our time together today helped you identify and

1:14:11

break a growth barrier you're facing.