The Culture That Converts Even the Biggest Cynics with former WD-40 CEO Garry Ridge

Who would’ve guessed that one of the world’s best company cultures was hiding behind a can of WD-40? Of all the places to find a leadership masterclass, the blue-and-yellow can in your garage probably wasn’t on your list - but it’s time to put it there. Garry Ridge - an Australian who brought his charm and curiosity across the Pacific - joined WD-40 Company in the late ’80s and rose through the ranks, eventually serving as CEO for 25 years. But he didn’t start out as the culture-building expert he’s known as today. Early in his career, he lived by the old mantra: “be brilliant, be brief, be gone.” He had to unlearn that mindset and rebuild himself into a leader who centers people, learning, and belonging - an evolution that reshaped WD-40 from the inside out. His new book, Any Dumb Ass Can Do It, captures that journey. In this episode, we break down how Garry built a company where people genuinely love coming to work - even through recessions, pandemics, and all the external chaos leaders can’t control. We dig into the systems and behaviors that fueled WD-40’s rise, from psychological safety to accountability to building internal consistency no matter what the market is doing. Garry and I both believe that people deserve to love their work - even if they don’t like it every single day. People want to feel seen, heard, and valued. And Garry is one of the rare leaders who knows exactly how to make that happen. This is A Bit of Optimism. --------------------------- This episode is brought to you by the Porsche USA Macan --------------------------- Check out Garry’s new book. https://thelearningmoment.net/any-dumb-ass-can-do-it/ And his coaching work with The Learning Movement. https://thelearningmoment.net/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  You know, I used to introduce myself, "G'day, I'm Gary Ridge. I'm the consciously incompetent, probably wrong and roughly right chairman and CEO of WD-40 Company, and I need all the help I can get."

• 0:12Simon Sinek?

  Gary Ridge is the embodiment of what it means to be a great CEO. That he took the time to write down how he learned to lead, with such humility, I might add, means that we all get to learn how to lead like him, and that can only be a good thing, said me on the back of Gary's new book, "Any dumbass can do it." And having him on this podcast was such a treat. I've known Gary for a bunch of years, and I have learned so much from him, and today was no exception. We talked about some of the specific things he did that took WD-40, yes, WD-40, from a successful company to a wildly successful company.

• 0:55Simon Sinek?

  And it's worth noting, it is a remarkable place to work. People love working there, and the results prove it. If you're a senior leader that wants to build a great corporate culture, this conversation is absolutely essential listening. And for everyone else who wants to work in a culture where we feel loved and seen and love coming to work, well, it's also essential, because we have to know what a great culture looks like if we're going to demand that somebody build it for us. This is a bit of optimism.

• 1:33Simon Sinek?

  This episode is sponsored by Porsche and their new Macan, which is actually my car. I had it before they called. It's actually my car, and I love it. You know I quote you all the time, right?

• 1:47Speaker 00

  I believe so.

• 1:50Simon Sinek?

  There's a story you told me that I have told so many times. Of a time where you on an analyst's call. And the analyst said to you, Gary, you missed your numbers. You know, you know the story. And you said, no, I didn't. I missed your numbers.

• 2:07Speaker 00

  I missed your number.

• 2:08Simon Sinek?

  You ran a public company for how many years?

• 2:10Speaker 00

  Twenty five.

• 2:11Simon Sinek?

  Twenty five years you ran WD forty. And it public company. But you ran it in the way public company should be run, which is not beholden to the shareholders, but rather taking care of your employees and taking care of your customers. That was how you ran this company. And I love using WD forty as an example. Because it's not glamorous. It's not tech. It's basically a one product company. I know you have line extensions, but it's basically a one product company. And I remember when I first visited your offices. If I dare say it was a bit dumpy.

• 2:40Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 2:40Simon Sinek?

  And it defied all of the conventional wisdoms of what great culture is, which is flat screen TVs, free food, you know, all of this stuff. It was a dumpy office and morale was high and people loved each other. And it was home to them. And this is one of the reasons I love you as a leader and one of the reasons I love WD forty as an example, which is it defies all of the conventional wisdoms of what a lot of modern leaders think makes a great company, especially young leaders. Where did you learn that?

• 3:07Speaker 00

  Well, it went back to when I first met Ken Blanchard. You know, I became CEO in nineteen ninety seven. And the goal was to take the blue and yellow can with a little red top to the world. And I kind of knew with help of friends and people in the organization, how to market the product.

• 3:25Simon Sinek?

  Were you were you an employee first or you came in as a CEO?

• 3:28Speaker 00

  No, I'd been with the company ten years before that. I started in Australia.

• 3:32Simon Sinek?

  Okay.

• 3:33Speaker 00

  In nineteen eighty seven.

• 3:34Simon Sinek?

  Got it.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  They asked me to move to the US in nineteen ninety four. In nineteen ninety seven, the CEO tired. And for my sins, I got to be CEO.

• 3:44Speaker 00

  I knew how to do that. But what was on my mind, Simon, was we were going to have a company that the sun would never set on. How were we going to create an environment where people knew and felt like they belonged? Knew what they did mattered and made a difference, could make choices and there was a low level of fear. And I didn't know how to do it. And then I met one of our dear friends, Dr. Ken Blanchard.

• 4:08Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 4:08Speaker 00

  I went back to school. I was already CEO.

• 4:10Simon Sinek?

  Who wrote The One Minute Manager and many other books.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  And many others.

• 4:13Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  And I went back to school and he was one of my professors and I learned the.

• 4:19Simon Sinek?

  When you say you went back to school figuratively.

• 4:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, I I been enrolled in a master's degree at USD.

• 4:24Simon Sinek?

  Oh, so you actually went back to school.

• 4:25Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 4:26Simon Sinek?

  Oh, okay.

• 4:26Speaker 00

  Which was quite funny, literally. I was already two years as CEO of a US public company.

• 4:32Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  And I go into the classroom and they said, what the hell are you doing here? You're already CEO.

• 4:36Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 4:37Speaker 00

  And I said, I want to confirm what I think I know and learn what I don't know. And there's a lot I don't know. And I got to get alongside Ken and learnt the the essence of servant leadership, which are, you know, making people feel like they actually belong.

• 4:54Simon Sinek?

  I don't think people appreciate that leadership is a learnable, teachable skill, you know, and some people learn it young. They have a coach, a parent. You know, something happens in their early career, early life that teaches them this. For the rest of us, like, you're gonna have to do the work. Otherwise, you're only gonna learn from the people you work for. And that's kind of a lottery. If you're really lucky and work for somebody amazing, you'll learn all the great lessons. But I think a lot of us learn a lot of bad lessons. I always tell people, if you want to become a leader, you have to study.

• 5:21Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 5:21Simon Sinek?

  And you literally, as CEO, go back to school, proving it's never too late.

• 5:25Speaker 00

  It's never too late.

• 5:26Simon Sinek?

  So what so what were some of the things that you learned from Ken that you're this relatively young CEO, not you've been in the job for a couple of years already.

• 5:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:37Simon Sinek?

  What were some of the changes that you knew you knew you had to make to the culture of WD forty to build the company that you imagined?

• 5:43Speaker 00

  Well, first I had to change myself.

• 5:45Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 5:45Speaker 00

  And, you know, the first part of that course I did was understanding who you are as a leader. And now that I'm refired, not retired, I coach CEOs. And one of the things that I think is amazing is they don't realize how their behavior impacts the people around them. Because I don't think most CEOs get up every day, Simon, and say, I'm gonna go to work today and be a jerk. I don't think they do that. But you're right, they're looking at successful people who have huge egos. Little empathy, wanna micromanage, think they have all the answers. Don't really value learning and they think that's the way to go. So the first thing was to learn who I was.

• 6:26Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 6:27Speaker 00

  And you know, I had to change, you know, I I walked around for, I don't know, months with praise somebody written on my hand. Because I had to get comfortable with the fact that it wasn't about me, it was about the people I had the privilege.

• 6:40Simon Sinek?

  What kind of leader were you prior?

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Be brief, be bright, be gone. That was me.

• 6:45Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 6:46Speaker 00

  I was a turbo D on the disc scale. You know, I I really thought that I had to be command and control. And I pretty soon learned that my job was not to command and control.

• 6:58Simon Sinek?

  I'll tell you a story, I'll leave the name out. I met this leader who, I met him at a conference and he was asked to introduce me. And he was like, he was like doing his best impression of General Patton.

• 7:10Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 7:11Simon Sinek?

  You know, he was walking up and down the stage, talking like this and real loud and, you know. Be brief, be, you know, what you said, you know. And he introduces me and I'm and I'm literally thinking to myself, what's with the general Patton impression, you know? I go up, I do my thing. And then when we, when I'm off the stage, he and I go off and we're just by ourselves, walking down the hallway, leaving the conference. And he was humble and curious and and and asking me questions and and really, really smart, you know? And I'm thinking to myself, you're amazing. What's with that? And you realize that wherever it came from in his career. He had made the same decision that for my credibility, I've got to be strong, I've got to be commanding, that way people will see me as a leader, blah, blah, blah.

• 7:54Simon Sinek?

  And it kept working, right? He kept getting promoting through his career. He wasn't, he was the number two person at the time. And um and he made it to the big job. And I thought to myself, this is so exciting. Finally, he got the job. He'll now relax, be his wonderful, fantastic, curious, inspiring self. And he didn't. He made it to the top job and he still kept up this weird general patent thing. And you know, he was effective and smart, but I don't think he commanded the kind of loyalty he could have. Or the kind of inspiration that he could have, or the kind of innovation that he could have. If it keeps working to the point you get to CEO, which is exactly what happened to you.

• 8:35Simon Sinek?

  This, you described yourself as not the leader you wanted to be, but it kept working. What was it that you finally make it to the big job? You'd think, well, it's gotten me here. I'm just gonna keep going. What was it that you said to yourself, no? Now is the time to change.

• 8:53Speaker 00

  You know, it's interesting. I was on a flight from Los Angeles to Sydney. And as you do when you fly, you take stuff to read. And I read two things. I read a quote that's associated to the Dalai Lama. Our purpose in life is to make people happy. If we can't make them happy, at least don't hurt them. And then I read a second quote from Aristotle that says, pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. And what I thought around me was, why aren't people enjoying their, what they're doing? And it really became clear to me that it was about the leadership. You know, how did we really create this atmosphere where people were gonna belong?

• 9:36Speaker 00

  And you know, I learned from people like you, like Ken and others, that I was listening to all you guys, what you were preaching. And I'm thinking, this has to work. Why are these smart guys talking about it if it doesn't? Well, I was fortunate that I could actually try it. So we came up with a truly great purpose in the organization. Our purpose was to create positive, lasting memories. That was to be the purpose of the organization. So what changed in my mind was, I couldn't do this alone. And if we were gonna expand to a hundred and seventy six countries around the world, which we did, and if the sun was never gonna set on the people in the organization,

• 10:19Speaker 00

  I had to make sure that they are in a, in an environment where they felt safe enough to make decisions and be brave. Because. This is simple, but it's not easy and time is not your friend. And you know, you've got to put the platform in place. I love one of the quotes you had in your book where it says, culture equals values plus behavior. Well, I I took it and I adapted it. And I said, culture equals values plus behavior times consistency. Because a lot of people think that building great cultures in organizations is fairy dust. You sprinkle a little fairy dust on the organization, you bring in one training program, slap a few people around the head, tell them to behave differently and go away and things will change. They don't.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  This has to be something you work on day after day after day. So I really decided that I needed to change because I wasn't capable of being the leader I wanted to be, leading the way I was in the be brief, be bright, be gone area. And Simon, to be honest, it was scary. Cause I had to start saying, I don't know. You know, I used to introduce myself, g'day, I'm Gary Ridge. I'm the consciously incompetent, probably wrong and roughly right chairman and CEO of WD forty company. And I need all the help I can get. Now, it's interesting when you ask people for help and you do it sincerely, how much help you get.

• 11:45Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, the courage, because it's easier to do the other. It's easier to put on the the general patent act. It's easier to to be the strong commanding. Especially if you make it to that level, you have some degree of ambition and ego. You don't get there without it. It's the easier option to say, I don't know. As you said, is very, very scary for somebody who's supposed to represent. I mean, we all think our credibility comes from our intelligence or our ability to make good decisions. But it it doesn't. So it raises the question then, where does the credibility of a leader come from?

• 12:18Speaker 00

  Authenticity.

• 12:19Simon Sinek?

  And what does that mean in a modern context?

• 12:21Speaker 00

  I think it means.

• 12:22Simon Sinek?

  It's an overused term.

• 12:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it means acting in a way that's true to your heart consistently. And that's what we had to do.

• 12:31Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 12:31Speaker 00

  I say, great leaders spend a lot of time in the stinky locker room. And unfortunately, a lot of leaders think they're corporate royalty. You know, you saw our our offices and then you saw our new offices as well. You know, I remember having a fight basically with our architect when we were designing our new office. I said, my office is to be ten by twelve. And the plans came back four times with a bigger office for me. They said, now you're the CEO. You've got to have a bigger office. I said, no, I don't. We're not going to have bigger offices. We're not going to have private parking spaces. We're going to have a place where people feel comfortable that we are all there with one thing in mind. And that's to help each other succeed.

• 13:14Speaker 00

  That's why we, I, I called us a tribe, not a team.

• 13:18Simon Sinek?

  I want to go down that path because I find that really interesting. One of the things that I've changed in the way I talk about companies and, and teams since I, since I started. Is, is how to refer to the, the group, right? And I used to say, family, we're like a family. And one is confronted with the reality of a business, which is if it's a family, no one ever can ever be removed. No one can ever graduate to go work for another company, you know? And the reality is, and I think this is the hardest lesson for a leader to learn. And it's one of the reasons why not everybody's qualified to be a leader, I hate to say it. Because the, one of the hardest lessons a leader learns is I have to be loyal to the group before I'm loyal to an individual.

• 14:02Simon Sinek?

  Like, I can sacrifice one person to save the group. Like, I cannot sacrifice the group to save one person, which is an excruciating lesson to learn. And we try hard never to get to that point, but the reality is, that's what it is. And so I'm confronted with, well, that's not family then, is it? You know, because family, it's forever. And so then, you know, you started adopting team. You know, we're, we're a great team and you can trade players out and you can bring players in and players can go away. But even that team is very, for me, it's taken from, from the finite game.

• 14:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:34Simon Sinek?

  It's taken from, this is winning and losing.

• 14:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:36Simon Sinek?

  I'm going to put a team together for the transaction of this season and then I'm going to change my mind next season. And I, I don't like that either. It's, it's also wholly imperfect. Your use of the word tribe, I think captures exactly what we're trying to do, which is the, the loyalty and love we have for the family. But the infiniteness of the team, that as you keep saying, you know, this is, this is an ever burning light. This, we want to keep this going forever. When, when did you discover the word tribe as being the perfect articulation of what a company should feel like and be like?

• 15:10Speaker 00

  Well, when I think about a tribal leader.

• 15:13Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 15:14Speaker 00

  If you go back and you were to look at tribal leaders from the beginning of man time. What was the responsibility of a tribal leader? To be a learner and a teacher. What's the responsibility of a leader of an organization to be an ever learner and ever teacher? Because if we are not learning what we need to learn and teaching what we need to teach to the tribe members, the tribes are gonna go extinct.

• 15:37Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 15:38Speaker 00

  And then we had a just cause. Our just cause was a group of people that come together to protect and feed each other. That was our just cause as a tribe. So, a tribe is not referring to any indigenous group.

• 15:53Simon Sinek?

  Sure.

• 15:53Speaker 00

  It's referring to where we all started from mankind. And then if you think about attributes of a tribe, a tribe has values. So I could talk about values. A tribe has people within it that have specialized skills. So everyone in the organization has something to give. They're warriors, right?

• 16:11Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 16:11Speaker 00

  They're, they're there to, to protect and feed each other.

• 16:14Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  There's a place of community and they love to celebrate. So I, I was able to look at these attributes and say, if you're a member of our, our tribe, you will be a forever learner and ever teacher. We're gonna have values. We're gonna respect everybody in there. And the other thing we're gonna do is we're gonna be future focused.

• 16:30Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 16:30Speaker 00

  Because if a tribe leader is not future focused and they've put their tribe next to a lake that dries up, the, the tribe will have nothing to drink and they will die.

• 16:41Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  So, we have to be always looking to the future. So, but the number one essence, Simons, was we are learners and teachers.

• 16:48Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 16:48Speaker 00

  We're forever learners, forever teachers.

• 16:51Simon Sinek?

  By the way, that's magical. Um, and as you said, a, a tribal leader has the responsibility for the protection and preservation of the, of the tribe. And so money is important in an organization because that's the lake, that's the fuel, that's the sustenance. And if the money dries up, the tribe dies. There's a group of people we're talking to, we're preaching to the converted and they're just nodding and enjoying and finding new ways to say all the magical things that you and I both believe, which is great. There are also the cynics out there who go, sounds nice, sounds soft, sounds mushy. Quoting the Dalai Lama and Aristotle, you know, uh, good for you. We have to talk about it because it's the proof, which is. Which is, you still believe in making money. You still believe in a successful company.

• 17:35Simon Sinek?

  But you just believe that you take care of the people and the money comes as opposed to focusing on the money. And the people are, you're taking care of people is if you have the time and energy. It's not a nice to have. So let's talk about the performance of WD-40.

• 17:46Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 17:46Simon Sinek?

  How big was WD-40 when you came in?

• 17:50Speaker 00

  Market cap about 300 million.

• 17:52Simon Sinek?

  And when you left?

• 17:53Speaker 00

  3.6 billion.

• 17:54Simon Sinek?

  Okay. Stock price?

• 17:57Speaker 00

  When I started, $18.

• 18:01Speaker 00

  260.

• 18:02Simon Sinek?

  And how many countries were you in when you started?

• 18:04Speaker 00

  70.

• 18:05Simon Sinek?

  And you left?

• 18:06Speaker 00

  176.

• 18:08Simon Sinek?

  So it's worth noting. And it's very important to recognize that basically one product company, yes, there are line extensions, that there are copycat brands, right?

• 18:22Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 18:22Simon Sinek?

  Some of them have decent product.

• 18:23Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 18:23Simon Sinek?

  It's, you know, it's fair to say.

• 18:25Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 18:26Simon Sinek?

  And yet WD-40 has global recognition.

• 18:29Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 18:29Simon Sinek?

  Brand preference.

• 18:30Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 18:31Simon Sinek?

  I don't know what your marketing budgets are, but like, I don't think I've ever seen a WD-40 ad.

• 18:36Speaker 00

  Probably, well, we, we're probably not.

• 18:39Simon Sinek?

  Probably not, not to me.

• 18:42Simon Sinek?

  I do have a can of WD-40.

• 18:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:44Simon Sinek?

  It's the funny thing. It's like there's basics in a household. I always have a bottle of cheap white wine in my cupboard. Because if you spill red wine, white wine gets it out.

• 18:54Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 18:54Simon Sinek?

  So I always have a bottle of cheap white wine to wash out red wine. And I always have a can of WD-40 for every squeaky hinger thing that doesn't quite work.

• 19:02Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 19:02Simon Sinek?

  You have to. It goes with the house.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  I am. Eight out of 10 households in the US have a can.

• 19:07Simon Sinek?

  Isn't that amazing?

• 19:08Speaker 00

  That's amazing.

• 19:10Simon Sinek?

  And the other 10 just to have nothing. And the other two have nothing.

• 19:19Simon Sinek?

  We interrupt this podcast with an ad with authenticity. I was super excited to hear that Porsche wanted to sponsor the podcast because I love their brand. I actually own a Macan myself. Then came Patrick Long, an actual race car driver, and he took me out on the track. This is two minutes of me with a massive grin on my face. At least that's how I remember it.

• 19:43Simon Sinek?

  How about the latest GT3 with the Vi-Soc package? I think they're calling this one Cartinia Yellow. This is awesome.

• 19:58Simon Sinek?

  This car is built in red for a racetrack. So, there's my blue cone. I turn my head all the way through the corner. Patient, patient, patient, and then go.

• 20:11Simon Sinek?

  Feeling alright? It's the feeling of no control. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And then you see things coming at you. Absolutely. At extremely high speed. Right, and, and yeah visually, when you don't really know this place, there's a lot that meets the eye. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you tell me. When you've had enough, we'll bring it in. I mean, to be honest with you, I wanna drive. Yeah, no, I get it, I get it. That's like, that's that element of control. Like, being the passenger is a lot less fun. Oh, yeah. Well, what do you say? Go ahead, one more. Alright, one more. He's still in it. Alright, here we go.

• 20:46Simon Sinek?

  Not too much.

• 20:49Simon Sinek?

  Alright, that's fun. I realized what a metaphor for life this was. You know, I was legitimately, like, I had legit fear when we first started. We're going fast, I'm getting, I can't really see because of the camera. You know, you're talking to me while you're driving with one hand, and we're, you know, coming into a turn at 95 miles an hour. Like, hold the wheel lightly, relax, and you can do difficult things more easily when you're calm. Mm-hmm. That was wonderful. Over too soon. Super fun.

• 21:21Simon Sinek?

  So it's worth noting that this is not fairy dust and pixies. This is, this is, this is a, this is hard business.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  It is, and there's a formula.

• 21:30Simon Sinek?

  Go on.

• 21:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. So you and I, Simon, could write a really nice strategic plan, right? We'll write a nice strategic plan, we'll take it along to some smart professor and say, "Mark up our strategic plan."

• 21:42Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 21:43Speaker 00

  Great strategic plan, you guys. Seventy out of a hundred.

• 21:46Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 21:47Speaker 00

  But if 30% of the people go to work every day passionately executing against that strategic plan,

• 21:54Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 21:54Speaker 00

  Thirty times seventy is a number. But if eighty or ninety percent of the people in the organization go to work every day and passionately executing against that strategic plan, eighty times seventy is a much bigger number. So the formula is very simple. The will of the people times the strategy equals the outcome. Most organizations spend a disproportionate amount of their time on strategy and execution instead of people, purpose, values and learning. But if you spend a good time on people, purpose, values and learning, you raise the engagement of the people.

• 22:37Speaker 00

  So you have more people enthusiastically, passionately getting up every day, executing your strategic plan. Oh duh, it is that freaking simple, Simon.

• 22:49Simon Sinek?

  Okay, I'm gonna, I wanna say it again because I think it's so clever, which is there's no such thing as a perfect strategic plan and we obsess about the strategic plan. And I've definitely been guilty of tweaking the plan, tweaking the plan, tweaking the plan. It's always getting better. And we forget that you can have an imperfect plan, which is fine, a seventy percent good plan, which is executable.

• 23:07Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 23:08Simon Sinek?

  Uh, it's a seventy percent good plan with thirty percent passion is a, is a very different outcome than eighty percent passion.

• 23:14Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 23:15Simon Sinek?

  Cause at least there's consistency of the seventy percent plan done with, done with uh, uh, uh, uh, purpose and conscientiousness.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  So good. You know, I was talking to a CEO the other day and we were talking about the, you know, the reason why investing in building a great culture is so important. And I, you know, he was going, no, no, no, no, no. I said, look, I can call BS on that.

• 23:39Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 23:39Speaker 00

  I said, I want you to go today and I want you to tell everyone in your organization to stay home for a month and do nothing. What do you think the outcome will be? He said, we'll, we'll, we'll be destroyed. So I said, why are you letting seventy percent of your people come to work every day and sit and quit? Because you've created this stinky culture where they don't feel like they belong. They don't feel like they matter. They can't make choices and they have a whole bunch of fear instead of learning. And the people that are leading them are managers instead of coaches. You know, you walk into the first day of your job, Simon, I come up, you say, good, g'day, Simon, welcome to the company, I'm your manager. What happens if you're walking to say, hey, Simon, I'm your coach.

• 24:24Speaker 00

  I know what it takes to win a game here. I'm gonna stand on the sideline and watch you play. I'm never gonna run on the field and take the ball from you. I'm never gonna go to the podium and take the prize away from you. And I'm gonna spend a lot of time in the stinky locker room with you, Simon, because I only have one goal. To help you step into the best version of your personal self, because I know. I know you've got it in you and I just wanna see you win.

• 24:46Simon Sinek?

  Oh, my God, where do I sign up?

• 24:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:48Simon Sinek?

  One of the things that WD forty does. Is when you get a promotion, and I think throughout your tenure, but when you get a promotion to a managerial position. You offer teaching to those people so they know how to coach. Because we don't expect people to know how to coach. And it goes back to what we say before, which is we don't expect people to know how to lead. We don't teach them how to lead. And by changing the terminology, I think, because most people would be insecure to say, I don't know how to lead. Give me the job. But I think people would be very comfortable saying. No idea how to coach, but I'd love to learn. The language is a lower, is a lower bar. And I, and I, it's a very clever thing. And so I know you teach people how to coach.

• 25:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, we actually changed, we took out the word manager.

• 25:30Simon Sinek?

  So it doesn't exist on the company.

• 25:31Speaker 00

  Was coach. So if you, if I had the privilege of leading you, I was your coach.

• 25:36Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 25:37Speaker 00

  And it's amazing, once you change the description and can describe what the behavior should be.

• 25:44Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 25:44Speaker 00

  So I would say you're a coach and here's what a coach is all about, what I just shared with you a few minutes ago.

• 25:49Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 25:49Speaker 00

  And your job is to coach. And we used to mandate that at least every ninety days. Our coaches would sit down with those that have the privilege to lead and talk about. What's getting in your way? How are you? Are you okay? You know, what is it that I need to do to help you succeed? How do you think you're succeeding against our goals? You know, the book I wrote with Ken Blanchard called Helping People Win at Work. The tie line was, I'm not here to mark your paper, I'm here to help you get an A. So our job as coaches was to define what an A looks like, because that's very important. Most people let people down because they don't clearly define if an A walked in the door today, what it would look like.

• 26:32Speaker 00

  After defining that, my role as a coach is to help you get the A. And that's what we used to sit down and talk about all the time. Unfortunately, a lot of people, a lot of leaders and well, managers, protect their own comfort zone at the expense of other people's development. That's where the bravery comes in. And it normally happens because there's not clarity around what do we expect from each other.

• 26:54Simon Sinek?

  Can you tell me a story of somebody who came to the company? They heard the hype, they met the people, the interviews, I'm sure were quite different and quite wonderful. The company liked them, they offered them a job, they liked the company, they said yes. But they brought bad habits, they once bitten, twice shy, they'd worked for some people who said all the right things and in good times, they might have even done it. But as soon as a little stress was added to the system, you know, micromanagement showed up, regression showed up, you know, removing accountability showed up, removing agency showed up. Somebody who's cynical, who, how did you, like, how do you treat that person?

• 27:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, you know, one of the things I used to do was about ninety days after someone joined the company, I'd go to them and say, did we lie to you? Around, you know, what we promised and in every circumstance, they said, it's better than you ever described it. So, you know, we'd have people that had come in the company and they would go, oh, yeah, sure. But then it's up to us as leaders in the organization to help them understand what the key elements are of success within the organization. Interestingly enough, if they didn't fall into line, the tribe would vote them off the island. It wouldn't have to be us, you know. I have shared people with competitors, there's no doubt about that.

• 28:12Speaker 00

  In the end, I want people to be happy in the organization and if you're not happy, go somewhere else, you know. But the story that's really cool is when I talk about how in an organization, you can use your values.

• 28:27Speaker 00

  To really help redirect people, and this is a nearly true story. Names are changed to protect the innocent. Sure. We're in a meeting one morning, a group of leaders. And there's someone in the room that is sucking the energy out of the room. You've been in one of those meetings, right? And our second value at the company was we value creating positive lasting memories in all of our relationships. This person was not creating a positive lasting memory. So what do you do as the leader? Well, you could ignore the behavior, which means the whole structure of the culture is going to collapse. Cause everyone else in the room says, well, you may as well have that up on the wall, but you're never going to act on it, right? You can stop the meeting immediately and say, Simon, that behavior is unacceptable.

• 29:10Speaker 00

  Everybody else in the room says, when am I going to be publicly executed? So the meeting came to an end. And you recall our new building in San Diego. I walked out of the room, I said, I'll use Simon as the example. Simon, let's go for a walk. So I walk out of the building and I look in a trash can under a car and behind a bush. And Simon says, what the hell are you doing? I said, Simon, the you I know and love was not in that room today. What's on your mind? What's getting in your way? How can I help you? And Simon starts to talk. Well, I had a bad morning, I kicked my foot on the bed. You know, I spilled coffee, someone flipped me off. So it wasn't, but we were able to have that conversation.

• 29:55Speaker 00

  I said, well, Simon, you live our value of creating positive lasting memories every day. And today was just one of those learning moments for you. So I wanted to make sure you were aware of that. He said, geez, I'm sorry, Gary, we had a hug. He goes back into the office, visits a few people and says, hey, you know, that wasn't me. They say, are you okay? What's getting in your way? What's on your mind? The next morning, I noticed people going to him and say, is everything okay today? That's the thing about when you have a clear set of values and you live them. Where you can show people that it's not about, you know, you're not performing, but what's going inside you. And I love the story you tell about the sales guy, right? Guy's not getting his sales three months in a row.

• 30:37Speaker 00

  And instead of going in and, you know, reefing out of himself, you say, what's, what's, what's up? Is it, are you okay? You know, and, and I think that's, that's what's really important, showing people true concern about wanting to live who you are is so important.

• 30:55Simon Sinek?

  Have you noticed a difference in, in the younger generation of employees who came into WD forty? I mean, because every generation brings both the advantages and baggage of their generation, right? Not better or worse, just different. Our movement, if we can, uh, we are part of the same movement. Even if companies don't believe in it, and even if they don't follow it, they're all forced to have purpose statements on their website, which I see as a win. At least socially, they have to keep up appearances for this thing that they don't even believe in, right?

• 31:22Simon Sinek?

  Things like boundaries, things like mental health, these are kind of expected from this younger generation of the places they come to work. Can you talk about how the, both the successes and the challenges you had of a younger generation coming into, into, into your culture?

• 31:38Speaker 00

  I think the older generation are the worst ones.

• 31:41Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 31:41Speaker 00

  Because the younger ones coming in are aligned with what you and I believe in, right? And I haven't met.

• 31:47Simon Sinek?

  Well, we've built our movement railing against the movement.

• 31:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. But I, I haven't met a, a, a person, young, old, or even my dog.

• 31:56Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 31:57Speaker 00

  Who doesn't benefit by knowing they belong.

• 32:00Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 32:01Speaker 00

  And they matter. So, and they want to learn. So I think the younger generations coming in, they're, they're ready to go as long as you are there to show them they belong and they matter.

• 32:13Simon Sinek?

  They have a cynicism too, right? Remember, they grew up, they grew up in a world where it was, their parents were laid off, it's not a meritocracy. And so there's a reason why, you know, when you and I were young, uh, we believe that you work hard, you do the extra work. Then you go to your boss and say, look at all what I've done, give me the raise.

• 32:30Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 32:30Simon Sinek?

  And the younger generation says, give me the raise and you see what I'm gonna do. And that, that could be interpreted as entitlement. I understand it as they grew up in a world where there's no loyalty from the company, so get your money while you can, because you may not last, right? I understand where it comes from. But at the end of the day, when you and I. You know, when somebody comes to us and says, you know, give me the money and you see what I'm gonna do. And we're going, well, why don't you do the work and I'll be happy to take care of you. Like, just talk to me how the very practical ways in which a cu- a culture like WD forty adapts for a very different perspective from, from, from different people.

• 33:07Speaker 00

  So here's one example, you know, once upon a time, you had these annual reviews, right? Where you're actually looking backwards.

• 33:12Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 33:13Speaker 00

  Well, maybe now the way to go is having steps along the way so you can recognize performance. So the younger people, instead of saying, work here for twelve months and become a, a senior something or a, a new role in the position, you have steps along the way that says, okay, three months in, now I'm gonna give you this responsibility and we'll give you this. So it's encouraging them to think the way that you and I are talking about, which is, you are gonna be rewarded, you're not gonna be forgotten. And I think a lot of cases, that old, you know, annual review system was really working negative because I don't wanna wait three hundred and sixty-four days for you to tell me what I should have done better or how good I've done.

• 33:56Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 33:57Speaker 00

  What I wanna do is be coached along the way. So I think that was a typical example, but it goes back to that one thing I said earlier, Simon, that I haven't met anybody who doesn't feel better if you show them they belong.

• 34:09Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 34:09Speaker 00

  I haven't met anybody who doesn't feel better if you show them you're gonna help them learn.

• 34:13Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  Or that you, they actually matter in the organization.

• 34:17Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 34:17Speaker 00

  It, it's, it's just fundamental.

• 34:20Simon Sinek?

  You know, and I've always hated the, the annual review because having done them and having been on the receiving end of them, you can only remember the past couple of months anyway. So if somebody's been a complete, you know.

• 34:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:31Simon Sinek?

  Screw up for the past two months, but they've had, you know, sort of ten months of magic. The ten months are completely forgotten.

• 34:37Speaker 00

  Gone.

• 34:37Simon Sinek?

  Uh, or, or conversely.

• 34:39Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 34:39Simon Sinek?

  Ten months of complete screw up and the last two months you're like, you're amazing. I've had that too.

• 34:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:44Simon Sinek?

  You're right, uh, i- in, you know, you're challenging me, here's my very real struggle. You know, we have a small company. I agree with everything you've said. I don't do everything you say. And, you know, I I know that I can do better, even using the language. We don't call our people coaches. I'm thinking, maybe we should, you know? We don't use the term tribe. I'm thinking, maybe we should. The annual reviews, we do do them, even though we're not a fan of them. And the the the idea of planning towards the future, we're getting better at helping people understand what an A looks like. You're challenging me to to do the things that I know are important.

• 35:23Simon Sinek?

  Here's where I feel a very real strain, which is just time, which is energy, which is, I feel pulled in every different direction. I can't do it all. How do I? How do I get all these things accomplished? How do I build this new plan to move forwards? How do I help all my people ha- uh uh learn to coach somebody to get to an A? How do I define what the A is? I'm a little overwhelmed.

• 35:43Speaker 00

  Right.

• 35:44Simon Sinek?

  I want to do it all.

• 35:45Speaker 00

  Right.

• 35:45Simon Sinek?

  And I'm a little overwhelmed.

• 35:46Speaker 00

  Well, imagine how efficient and how better the organization would be if you did it all.

• 35:51Simon Sinek?

  No, I get all that, you know? I mean, like, imagine how

• 35:54Speaker 00

  How much time you would have.

• 35:55Simon Sinek?

  How much healthier I would be if I worked out every day and only ate celery like? Yeah, sure. Yeah, no, I know all that. I know all that. Unfortunately, you know, focusing on the urgent at the expense of the important is part of the is part of the challenge of any leadership position.

• 36:08Speaker 00

  You're right. This is not easy, man.

• 36:10Simon Sinek?

  And so I just, I want to know from your very real experience. I guess I'm answering my own question, which is, you don't do it all at once. You pick one, you do that, you ask for help.

• 36:20Speaker 00

  No.

• 36:20Simon Sinek?

  You know, and you do the next one.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, this took twenty five years, you know, well, it took about five years to gain momentum when I first started to implement a lot of this stuff.

• 36:29Simon Sinek?

  Right, five years to gain momentum, which means it wasn't even fully implemented or completed. It was momentum.

• 36:33Speaker 00

  Right. And then it becomes.

• 36:35Simon Sinek?

  I have to give myself some grace that

• 36:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:36Simon Sinek?

  this is an ongoing process and it's not a finite game.

• 36:39Speaker 00

  You know, it's not fairy dust.

• 36:40Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:41Speaker 00

  You know?

• 36:41Simon Sinek?

  It takes work.

• 36:42Speaker 00

  You know, fundamental foundations, here they were. Clearly defined purpose. Have we got it?

• 36:48Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 36:49Speaker 00

  Set of values, do we have them?

• 36:51Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 36:51Speaker 00

  Are they hierarchical, right? Are they clearly defined? Yes, okay. Now, what's next? Let's get rid of the word manager and put the word coach in.

• 37:02Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 37:02Speaker 00

  Great. And then let's take fear out of the organisation, which was an amazing thing we did, where we said, we do not make mistakes. We have learning moments. And what's the definition of a learning moment? A positive or negative outcome of any situation that needs to be openly and freely shared to benefit all people. Now, when I implemented the learning moment, here's a true story.

• 37:25Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 37:25Speaker 00

  So I'm a couple of years in now as the CEO, drunk the Kool-Aid at Ken Blanchard. I said, we're going to reduce fear, we're going to have learning moments now. So what I want you to do is I want you to email me and tell me a negative or a positive learning moment that you've had in the organisation. And by the way, we're going to have a contest and we're going to have winners every month. And at the end of the contest, we're going to send someone around the world first class to do something.

• 37:50Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 37:51Speaker 00

  The first month, I got three.

• 37:55Speaker 00

  So what did I do? I made heroes out of these three people who were brave enough to share a negative learning moment. They were going to be stars in my view. The next month, they get six. What did I do? I made heroes of them. The next month, I got twenty four. And then by the end of the the programme, I'm getting hundreds. But it takes time to build a lack of fear in the organisation that, you know, sure, you I'm going to tell you what failed and you're not going to come down on me? Or you're not going to embarrass me? No, we're going to use it. So, you know, I say, imagine a place where you go to work every day. You make a contribution to something bigger than yourself. You learn something new.

• 38:36Speaker 00

  You're protected and set free by a compelling set of values and you go home happy. Happy people build happy families. Happy families build happy communities. Happy communities build a happy world. We need a happy world. And it's as you said, Simon, you know, who wants to go to work when dad and mum come home and sit around the dinner table and? Bitch about how badly they've been treated. Now, one of these young kids are running away and say, I don't want to ever do that.

• 39:04Simon Sinek?

  Um.

• 39:05Speaker 00

  But what happens if they go, I'm happy and say, you know, I had the best day today. I learnt this. I was respected. You know, I was treated fairly. Now, I've had crucial conversations. I've had redirection conversations. I've had opportunities where I've had to let people. Move on to something, but through that whole twenty five years, Simon, we never laid a person off ever.

• 39:25Simon Sinek?

  Um.

• 39:25Speaker 00

  Through any upturn, downturn, whatever, because we said we were there. Together to do what we needed to do together. But there were some people that didn't fit the company.

• 39:36Simon Sinek?

  Um hum.

• 39:36Speaker 00

  Okay, go be happy somewhere else. I want you to leave with respect and dignity.

• 39:40Simon Sinek?

  Um hum.

• 39:40Speaker 00

  And I want you to go and find a place to be. If this is not for you, that's okay.

• 39:44Simon Sinek?

  Um hum.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  Um. So, you know, I think it's, again, values plus behaviour times consistency.

• 39:48Simon Sinek?

  I like the addition. I got that from the Marine Corps.

• 39:50Speaker 00

  I know, I I quoted it in my.

• 39:52Simon Sinek?

  Culture equals values plus behaviour, but I I like the addition. Culture equals values plus behaviour time consistency. I think that's a hundred percent true.

• 39:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:58Simon Sinek?

  It's not a one and done, the annual offsite, here are our values, here's what we expect and you're done.

• 40:03Speaker 00

  You know, a lot of people think this is the soft stuff and it's it's not. This is hard.

• 40:07Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 40:07Speaker 00

  Because if it was easy.

• 40:09Simon Sinek?

  We'd all be doing it.

• 40:10Speaker 00

  We wouldn't have seventy percent of people going to work every day, disengaged or actively disengaged.

• 40:14Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, I I I I heard a statistic. I'll get the numbers wrong, but you'll get it. Um, which was, um. Something like, people come to work and there's something like seventy percent are disengaged in their work. I mean, some some extraordinarily high, high number of disengagement in in American companies. If somebody gets yelled at, the disengagement number goes down to like thirty percent. I know. And if somebody is given one compliment about, you know, one skill or one talent, then this engagement number plummets to like five percent or whatever it is, right? But what it shows is, is that when I get yelled at. At least you know I exist.

• 40:53Speaker 00

  I get it, I get it.

• 40:54Simon Sinek?

  At least you know, because everybody goes, what? Getting yelled at actually is better than ignoring somebody, right? Or just letting them get on with their work because at least you care that I'm alive and that I show up for work.

• 41:06Speaker 00

  I'm here, I'm breathing.

• 41:07Simon Sinek?

  I'm a person, you know my name, right? But I found that astonishing.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  I know.

• 41:11Simon Sinek?

  And how the, and the numbers, and again, I'm getting the exact numbers wrong, but the, the differentials are basically the same. Which is it plummets. And we're not talking about like coaching programs and, you know, growth programs and finding one compliment.

• 41:24Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 41:25Simon Sinek?

  Of one skill or one gift.

• 41:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:27Simon Sinek?

  Makes somebody engaged and they're like, oh, this place is wonderful.

• 41:30Speaker 00

  I matter.

• 41:31Simon Sinek?

  I matter.

• 41:31Speaker 00

  I matter.

• 41:32Simon Sinek?

  I matter.

• 41:32Speaker 00

  It's simple.

• 41:33Simon Sinek?

  And it's such a simple thing. Look, you know, I don't, I refuse to use the term soft skills, as you know. It's human skills.

• 41:38Speaker 00

  Right.

• 41:39Simon Sinek?

  And we want people to learn the hard skills and the human skills to be effective at work. Hard skills, the skills you need to do your job, human skills, the skills you need to be a better human being. And WD forty is one of the best examples in corporate America as far as I'm concerned. And the fact that you are public, I think, makes it even better, right? Because people poo poo it when you're not, you know?

• 41:58Speaker 00

  Right.

• 41:58Simon Sinek?

  And that you had the courage to understand that you were public and that you had a responsibility to the shareholders, but not the only responsibility to the shareholders and that you were playing the long game.

• 42:10Speaker 00

  I had a goal. I want to build an enduring company that I would be proud to pass on to others.

• 42:14Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  And, and I think we kind of nearly got that. And, you know, I was very aware of the shareholder needs. And it's interesting, when I first started.

• 42:23Simon Sinek?

  But third, not first.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  Right, well.

• 42:25Simon Sinek?

  Employee, customer.

• 42:26Speaker 00

  A plus B equals C.

• 42:27Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 42:27Speaker 00

  They're C. But I remember when I first started going to Wall Street, I'd take my investor relations deck. And the first five pages were always about culture. And I could see the analysts sitting across from me, their eyes are rolling, kind of saying to me, get, get over that, let's get to the numbers.

• 42:44Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 42:44Speaker 00

  It was very interesting in probably my last five years, how engaged now they were becoming in a, a strong culture. In fact, we had one shareholder that took a huge stake in the company. And I asked why, they said it's the culture.

• 43:03Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 43:03Speaker 00

  And they never talked to me about quarter to quarter earnings.

• 43:06Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 43:07Speaker 00

  They said, okay, you've got to meet your goals over time, which we did.

• 43:10Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 43:11Speaker 00

  But, you know, one of my shareholders, I said, I said to them once, I'm not smart enough to run a company in ninety day intervals. And this guy said, I'm glad you're not dumb enough to try.

• 43:22Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 43:22Speaker 00

  Well, I am the dean of dumb assery, as you know.

• 43:25Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 43:25Speaker 00

  But, you know, it's like, that wasn't what it's all about. We're gonna play the long game.

• 43:29Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 43:30Speaker 00

  And there's another thing that I found really interesting as we went through Covid. You know, it was in my last two years of being CEO, so it was an interesting time. But we got into Covid and we'd just done our employee opinion survey feedback. And we had ninety three percent employee engagement, ninety eight percent of people said they loved to work at the company, ninety seven percent said they respected their their coach, who was their boss. So we get to January twenty twenty one, Simon, and you remember that time?

• 43:58Simon Sinek?

  Hmm.

• 43:58Speaker 00

  The world was still topsy turvy, there was no sign of, you know, a real vaccination, we were working hard to keep the tribe together. And I said to the folks, we need to go out and do a a pulse test, just see if we're still holding up. So we went and did a pulse test. And the numbers came back. And they were all pretty similar, except for one that went up. And the one that went up was the answer to the question, I'm excited about my place in the company's future. Now, this is January twenty twenty one.

• 44:30Simon Sinek?

  Wow.

• 44:30Speaker 00

  And I said, there's something wrong with that data.

• 44:33Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 44:34Speaker 00

  It can't be right. Go check it.

• 44:36Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 44:36Speaker 00

  They went out and checked it. It was right. I said, how can anybody be excited about their place in the company future when we don't know what the world's gonna be like?

• 44:45Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 44:45Speaker 00

  Go find out. We went and found out.

• 44:48Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 44:49Speaker 00

  You know what they said? I feel safe. That's what the tribe said. If I need to be.

• 44:56Simon Sinek?

  They were watching their friends getting laid off.

• 44:58Speaker 00

  They said, I feel safe. If I need to be anywhere right now, I need to be here. Simon, I got goosebumps then. I got goosebumps now when I think about it. I said to our leadership team, we did it. If during this time, people can say that, you know what? This is the place we think it is. One of the proudest moments of my life.

• 45:18Simon Sinek?

  Say again, the purpose of the company.

• 45:20Speaker 00

  Our purpose is to create positive lasting memories, solving problems in factories, homes and workshops around the world. We solve problems and we create opportunities.

• 45:29Simon Sinek?

  I love that. It's beautiful. The other part, which I also love, which is the the opening part, which is to to make moments that matter. And I think what's really important is I don't think people could argue. It's not a product based purpose.

• 45:41Speaker 00

  No.

• 45:41Simon Sinek?

  You know, and I think when companies think about purpose, they default to the to the product.

• 45:45Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 45:46Simon Sinek?

  You know, WD forty is a lubricant that makes.

• 45:49Speaker 00

  Stop squeaks.

• 45:50Simon Sinek?

  It doesn't. It stops squeaks. It doesn't. It makes things move smoothly. It doesn't create moments that matter at all. Right? Memories that matter is just not what WD forty is doing. It is a statement of the kind of company you want to build.

• 46:03Speaker 00

  Right.

• 46:03Simon Sinek?

  And the attention that people put into the product, the marketing, the sales, the, you know, comes out of it.

• 46:09Speaker 00

  Right.

• 46:09Simon Sinek?

  And they, as you said, eighty percent of the people are following, you know, a seventy percent good strategy. In your case, ninety something percent of all of it, seventy percent good strategy. And I think that's really important. I and it's something that even in my work, I always struggle, which is people like, we believe in your work, we believe in your work. And they show me a beautiful purpose statement that's really about the product.

• 46:26Speaker 00

  Right.

• 46:27Simon Sinek?

  And which is again, not to sound like I'm, you know, kowtowing here, uh, one of the reasons I love your company is an example, is it's not glamorous. Because very often when there's a glamorous tech product, you know, an AI product, for example, and we come up with a purpose statement. It sounds glamorous because the product is glamorous.

• 46:44Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 46:44Simon Sinek?

  And so if you can take a non glamorous product with what used to be a dumpy office, you know, uh, and public and all the things that shouldn't work according to, you know, modern conventional wisdom. And it not only works, it works better than most companies. You know, your your success is is better than most.

• 47:03Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 47:04Simon Sinek?

  But I think one of the reasons you converted so many analysts is at some point you can't help it. And it's partially because you're such a great preacher for the movement. At some point, they can't help but listen to you and relate to their own jobs, which is, I would like to work in a place like WD forty. My investment bank treats me like dirt.

• 47:21Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 47:21Simon Sinek?

  I want that. And at some point.

• 47:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 47:24Simon Sinek?

  The hardest of asses of analysts at some point has to say, shit, I want that.

• 47:29Speaker 00

  Yes, then that happened.

• 47:30Simon Sinek?

  That's that has to be that. That has to be the the reason.

• 47:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, why not? I mean.

• 47:35Simon Sinek?

  So you're not preaching, this is the right way to do it. This is the right way to do it. You're saying, this is how my people feel when they come to work, dot, dot, dot. Wouldn't you like to feel that way?

• 47:44Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly. Wouldn't you like to go home happy? And that's the other thing, you know, now, you know, I I just spent twenty five, my twenty five year apprenticeship in leadership. Now I'm putting it to work because I believe that business not only has a responsibility, but an opportunity to make a positive difference in the world.

• 48:02Simon Sinek?

  Amen.

• 48:03Speaker 00

  And I get so frustrated around this, and that's why I do what I do now. Is I can call BS, not because I'm a smart guy, you know, that's why the title of my book is the title of my book. But it's because I believe that if you understand fundamentally the the foundation that you need to put in and you take Simon Sinek's advice. Culture equals values plus behavior and add a little consistency and you do it. You can build a place where people go to work and go home happy and you will build a better world. And we need it. We need it so much now. You know, I I watch people get destroyed working in crappy cultures. And it's not fair. It's not fair.

• 48:47Speaker 00

  So you can have a great culture and you can have a great company and you can feel good about it and you can send your people home happy.

• 48:53Simon Sinek?

  You and I both believe that loving work is a right and not a privilege. You know, that you go out with your friends and somebody says, I love my job and everybody else goes, oh, you're so lucky, as if they won a lottery.

• 49:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:03Simon Sinek?

  You know, you and I both believe that the the people who don't like going to work should be the exception rather than the rule. And it is something entitled to every single person who chooses to work for another, for every employee on the planet. They have the right, not the privilege.

• 49:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:18Simon Sinek?

  To enjoy going to work. Doesn't mean every day is easy.

• 49:20Speaker 00

  No.

• 49:20Simon Sinek?

  Doesn't mean every day is fun.

• 49:22Speaker 00

  No.

• 49:22Simon Sinek?

  You know, I I like to equate it to the difference between, you know, liking your children and loving your children. You love your children. Every single day of your life, you don't like your children every day. And it's the same. You don't have to like every day at work.

• 49:33Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 49:33Simon Sinek?

  But you do get to love every day.

• 49:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, and you know, I I had bad days.

• 49:38Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, of course, we all do.

• 49:39Speaker 00

  We all do.

• 49:39Simon Sinek?

  Days I do not want to come to work and I hate everybody around me.

• 49:43Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, I don't know if I got that far, but but you know, I I had. I don't want people to think that this was a better, you know, sweet roses. We went through some tough times, you know, we went through the the Great Recession, had, we went through managing through Covid. We went through oil going from twenty five dollars a barrel to a hundred and twenty five dollars a barrel. We went through upheavals in A, we had all that, but all along the way. We kept our focus, we kept our values.

• 50:14Simon Sinek?

  The one thing that was consistent.

• 50:15Speaker 00

  And our purpose.

• 50:16Simon Sinek?

  Was was the internal.

• 50:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:18Simon Sinek?

  Because you, the external.

• 50:19Speaker 00

  We couldn't.

• 50:20Simon Sinek?

  You can't control, you can, very often, you can only react. But the one thing that has the consistency, as you said, you you can't have consistent numbers because you're not in total control of the numbers.

• 50:30Speaker 00

  Right.

• 50:30Simon Sinek?

  If the raw materials skyrocket, it's going to affect your numbers. If there's a competitive threat and they're doing a good job in their marketing or having some promotion, or it's going to affect your numbers. Like, we don't actually have total control of the numbers. And I think it's funny when companies say, we will hit this number on this date at this time.

• 50:45Speaker 00

  And like, how?

• 50:45Simon Sinek?

  How? You know?

• 50:47Speaker 00

  There's got to be some fiddly word.

• 50:48Simon Sinek?

  Exactly, that's actually impossible.

• 50:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:51Simon Sinek?

  But the one thing that we can control every single day is the internal, because that is actually under our control.

• 50:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:56Simon Sinek?

  I learn from you every time I talk to you. I am so grateful you came in. This was like, this is therapy.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  Well, you know, I, you don't know how much I owe you, because I've learned so much from you over time and.

• 51:06Simon Sinek?

  Well, that's humbling.

• 51:07Speaker 00

  I really appreciate it.

• 51:08Simon Sinek?

  That's something.

• 51:09Speaker 00

  You know, it's great that you're out out there doing what you do, because we we need it, Simon, we really do.

• 51:14Simon Sinek?

  You and I both believe in world peace, you know, and it sounds corny to say, and world peace is very simple, which is if if people enjoy going to work. They're happier people and happier people come home happier and they treat their kids better and they treat their spouse better.

• 51:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:30Simon Sinek?

  And when the kids feel good because mom or dad are happy and the spouse feels good because husband or wife is happy. They'll treat their friends and their colleagues.

• 51:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:39Simon Sinek?

  And their neighbors better.

• 51:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:41Simon Sinek?

  And then those people are like, oh, how nice that they've treated me better. I'm going to treat people better. And before you know it, the ripples spread and you have.

• 51:50Simon Sinek?

  And that's actually how human nature works.

• 51:52Speaker 00

  Right.

• 51:52Simon Sinek?

  You know, we actually are influenced by by others.

• 51:55Speaker 00

  Right.

• 51:55Simon Sinek?

  You know, if somebody yells at you or flips you off, yeah, we've all had it. Somebody cuts you off and flips you off in the car. You are pissed off for the next twenty minutes talking about them. You get out of the car and you start talking about the person who cut you off and flipped you off like it does carry. You know?

• 52:10Speaker 00

  It's amazing how many nice rooms I've got at a Marriott hotel. When I've walked in at eleven o'clock at night and said to the person behind the reception. I am so grateful you're here tonight.

• 52:22Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 52:23Speaker 00

  Thank you for waiting for me.

• 52:24Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 52:25Speaker 00

  Oh, by the way, Mr. Ridge, we have your an upgrade tonight.

• 52:27Simon Sinek?

  Here's your free upgrade.

• 52:30Speaker 00

  But you know, but sincerely, I'm happy they're there.

• 52:33Simon Sinek?

  No, no, I get it.

• 52:34Speaker 00

  We've dragged our butt across some nation and been on planes and whatever.

• 52:38Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 52:39Speaker 00

  And you see people treating people badly.

• 52:41Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 52:42Speaker 00

  And you wonder why they are getting treated badly.

• 52:44Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 52:45Speaker 00

  Duh.

• 52:46Simon Sinek?

  And if a company wants to put pressure on employees to hit certain numbers. I mean, sure, you can create some sort of incentive structure that's based solely on numbers and guess what people focus on? The short term personal gain that you've.

• 52:56Speaker 00

  And they'll do whatever they need to do to get it. And that usually means stepping on people, kicking people, get out of the way.

• 53:02Simon Sinek?

  Sometimes unethical and most extreme illegal. Yeah.

• 53:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:05Simon Sinek?

  Um, and we see it all the time. And you show me any company that's acted very unethically and has exhibited ethical fading. Almost every single time I would show you a company with a broken culture and a misaligned incentive structure, almost every time.

• 53:16Speaker 00

  The other thing that's really interesting in the work that I'm doing now, when I look at compensation costs.

• 53:21Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 53:22Speaker 00

  Compensation costs are always higher in organizations with crappy cultures. Because you can pay anybody to stay anywhere and be treated badly.

• 53:32Simon Sinek?

  It's true. Everybody's got a price.

• 53:33Speaker 00

  Everybody's got a price.

• 53:34Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 53:35Speaker 00

  But if you want to have a compensation structure that allows you to keep people in your organization in good and bad times. Culture plays hugely into it. Huge.

• 53:46Simon Sinek?

  Even the most cynical should say, you know, maybe I should invest in this for totally selfish reasons that, you know, it'll help me weather difficult storms.

• 53:54Speaker 00

  Well, unless you believe.

• 53:55Simon Sinek?

  And then, but then I think, then you learn, because you start to see it and enjoy it.

• 53:59Speaker 00

  Right.

• 53:59Simon Sinek?

  You know, I've seen that happen too, which is people like, oh, I guess I'll do this. And they, they become converted, just like you converted those analysts.

• 54:05Speaker 00

  Right.

• 54:06Simon Sinek?

  You know, it's, this is David Marquet's work, which is.

• 54:09Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Turn the boat around.

• 54:11Simon Sinek?

  Turn the ship around, which is he, he talks about, you know, we get it wrong in how we change behavior. We think we have to explain to people why it matters and hope that their behavior changes. You know, so first, first they have to get it, then they'll change their behavior. And what he learned is you force the change in behavior and then people get it.

• 54:27Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 54:27Simon Sinek?

  And then people go, oh, which is kind of what you did at WD40, which is like, let's all be coaches. Congratulations, I know you don't care, but I'm going to teach you how to be a coach.

• 54:35Speaker 00

  Right.

• 54:36Simon Sinek?

  And I'm going to force you to be a coach and I'm going to incentivize you to be a coach.

• 54:38Speaker 00

  And now I like.

• 54:39Simon Sinek?

  And now I like being a coach.

• 54:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:40Simon Sinek?

  And I'm not going to convince you the importance of being a coach and then hopefully you'll sign up for the, for the learning.

• 54:44Speaker 00

  Well, it then goes back to 97% of the people respect their coach. Now, that, that was the word in the survey. If you were to change that question, the word would be, do you respect your manager?

• 54:56Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 54:56Speaker 00

  And I would suggest you would get 10% of people who would say they do.

• 55:00Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 55:00Speaker 00

  But because they're acting as a coach.

• 55:03Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 55:03Speaker 00

  You know, most people leave jobs because they hate their boss.

• 55:06Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 55:06Speaker 00

  Well, because the boss has been.

• 55:08Simon Sinek?

  A boss.

• 55:08Speaker 00

  A boss, he's being a soul-sucking leader, unfortunately.

• 55:12Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. But Bob Chapman talks about this, our mutual friend Bob Chapman from Barry Waymiller, he talks about this, which is nobody comes to work to be managed. Nobody wants to be managed, but we all want to be led.

• 55:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:22Simon Sinek?

  You know?

• 55:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:22Simon Sinek?

  Uh, and, and we would all want to be coached too.

• 55:24Speaker 00

  I love what he says, anybody who comes to work every day is someone's precious husband, wife, sister or brother, you know? And that's so true.

• 55:32Simon Sinek?

  And I think it's worth pointing out, all of these leaders that I get to write about and some of them I get to meet, you know, um, they weren't always this way.

• 55:39Speaker 00

  I wasn't.

• 55:40Simon Sinek?

  Bob wasn't, he ran it by the, by the books, he was, he's a trained accountant. People were line items on a spreadsheet. Do your job, you get to stay on the spreadsheet, don't do your job, you get to leave the spreadsheet. I mean, that was.

• 55:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:51Simon Sinek?

  And he had a, he had an epiphany, he had a conversion. Yep, um.

• 55:54Speaker 00

  I was the same, be brief, be bright, be gone.

• 55:56Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 55:57Speaker 00

  And that wasn't gonna work.

• 55:58Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 55:59Speaker 00

  You know, when I did my DISH profile, I hated what I was told I was. So I had to move from a turbo D to an I, which was, you know, I relationships really matter. And it took me time.

• 56:10Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 56:10Speaker 00

  It took me time to really get comfortable with that.

• 56:12Simon Sinek?

  And I think that goes right back to where we started, which is if you want to be the leader you wish you had, you actually start with you.

• 56:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, it all starts with you.

• 56:20Simon Sinek?

  It all starts with you. Gary, I love talking to you. Thank you so much for coming in, such a treat. Um, these are always frustrating conversations with me because I'd like to go for another four hours.

• 56:30Simon Sinek?

  But this is the best. Thank you.

• 56:31Speaker 00

  Thank you, Simon. It's been a great pleasure.

• 56:35Simon Sinek?

  A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company. Lovingly produced by our team, Lindsay Garbenius, Phoebe Bradford, and Devon Johnson. Subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts, and if you want even more cool stuff, visit simoncynic.com. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.