Pod Insights Human Capital Leadership Returning to the Fundamentals of Leadership, with Derrick Mains About this episode In this podcast episode, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Derrick Mains about returning to the fundamentals of leadership.
Derrick Mains is an Emmy Award-winning content creator, four-time author, operations podcaster with more than 160,000 monthly listeners, and optimization consultant renowned for his pioneering work in process engineering, design, and transformation. Mains work spans more than 20 years and 150 companies across nearly every industry, from early-stage companies on through the Fortune 10. Mains approach melds essentialism with a keen focus on human-centric system design, emphasizing the need for regular audits, reflection, and reinvestment to achieve optimization. Mains believes that all organizational systems share a fundamental purpose: transforming the input of resources into value, through outputs. He highlights how, without active management, systems degrade, leading to inefficiency and value and margin fade. His philosophy underscores the criticality of understanding the interconnectedness of systems and their natural progression towards entropy.
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Transcript 0:03 Speaker 00 Welcome to the HCI family of podcasts. We're your source for personal, professional, and organizational growth and development. We share our own original research, explore industry trends, and interview executives and thought leaders from across the globe. Join us for practitioner-oriented content around all things leadership, HR, talent management, organizational development, and change management. Maximize your personal and organizational potential with the HCI family of podcasts.
0:35 Speaker 00 Derek Maines, welcome to the conversation today.
0:37 Speaker 01 John, thank you for having me. We've already had a good time chatting about some things and challenging some things. So I'm excited to be here with you.
0:44 Speaker 00 It is a real pleasure. You're joining us from Phoenix. I'm south of Salt Lake City in Utah. Today, we're going to be talking about overcoming our biological resistance to change systems, challenging leadership sacred cows, kind of all this kind of stuff. You're right, in the pre-interview, we were having a great time chatting. I think we could have talked all day even before we ever hit record. But I think we're going to have a great time dissecting things and really digging in. Before we do that, though, I wanted to share a little bit about Derek with the audience. Derek Maines is an Emmy Award-winning content creator, four-time author, operations podcaster with more than 160,000 monthly listeners, an
1:25 Speaker 00 optimization consultant renowned for his pioneering work in process engineering, design, and transformation. Maines' work spans more than 20 years in 150 companies across nearly every industry from early-stage companies on through Fortune 10. Maines' approach melds essentialism with a keen focus on human-centric systems design, emphasizing the need for regular audits, reflection, and reinvestment to achieve optimization. He believes that all organizational systems share a fundamental purpose: transforming the input of resources into value through outputs. He highlights how, without active management, systems degrade, leading to inefficiency and value and margin fade. His philosophy underscores the criticality of understanding
2:10 Speaker 00 The interconnectedness of systems and their natural progression towards entropy. Oh, man, I love everything.
2:16 Speaker 01 That's a lot, though, man, we got to cut that down. That's like my philosophy. I feel like the theory of the cave should start with that or something, you know?
2:24 Speaker 00 I love it. I love it. And and it's a good tease, I think, for your new book. And which you you'll have a chance to talk a little bit about. As we as we go through the conversation, but great stuff there. And and yeah, we're we're going to start the focus, I think. Around resistance to change. But before we do that, anything else you would like to highlight about your own?
2:43 Speaker 01 No, I think I think that's a pretty good summary at a philosophical level of what I believe that the system is the problem fundamentally. And I think mathematics has proven time and time and time and time and time again. That the vast majority of problems inside companies are systems problems and don't have anything to do with people. If if you're where with, if you know Six Sigma, if you know the total quality movement, you know, the ninety four six rule. That was, you know, determined after World War Two, that ninety four percent of all problems during World War Two. Had nothing to do with the employees and were the result of something that was within the control of management that they didn't take care of. And that experiment was incredible because we had seven million women that came into the workforce to replace seventeen million men.
3:25 Speaker 01 These weren't just unqualified women that have never been in these situations before. They have to do the job of two and a half times of the big, strong men that just got shipped overseas. And they did it. And they did it with greater quality, with greater with greater efficiency, with less drama and and stress. Than anything else. And many of the generals at the end of World War Two, when they were really, you know, confiding in what won the war. They were like, look, we did a pretty good job on the front line, but we could have been nothing if it wasn't for what these women were producing. So we have this experiment in American history that says, don't blame people, don't ever even consider people as a variable.
4:05 Speaker 01 Just focus on improving the work every single day, find the conditions that people are in and make them better. And every single day, they will come in with their why on fire and they will outproduce anybody else.
4:20 Speaker 01 In history, and yet we just completely and totally ignore that in today's Western management. It's unfortunate, but the history tells us it's true. And then we extracted our own idea in 1950 and shipped it across the ocean to Japan and taught the Japanese American management. And 25 years later, they went from being nuked to be the second biggest economy in the world and eliminating the Rust Belt in the United States because of their efficiency, using American ideas on how to manage people that we forgot. I fundamentally am passionate about rescuing work. Yeah.
4:55 Speaker 00 Yeah, and you're right. And post-war, we completely reverted back, right?
4:59 Speaker 01 Right, the XY theory of management. McGregor wrote a book in 1960. Listen, people don't understand, if you got an MBA in the 70s, 80s, or 90s, which I realize the people listening to this didn't, that was your boss that did that.
5:11 Speaker 00 Yeah.
5:11 Speaker 01 Every one of them went to school and had to sit through a course talking about XY theory of management, that at one point, America believed that do unto others was management. Management was not goal-setting, it was leadership, and leadership was helping people do a better job with less effort. That was the actual philosophy, the written philosophy of American management during World War II. Help people do a better job with less effort. That's it. And then at the end of the war, these soldiers come back into a brand-new system that didn't look anything like what they had experienced before. And Peter Drucker, a philosophy professor, not a business professor at that time, let's be clear, the most influential voice ever in American history on management, was a philosophy professor. And he writes, it is 1954 work, The Practice of Management,
5:55 Speaker 01 and introduces KPIs, OKRs, all of these things that we'd never used, and talks about this idea of setting up, set a goal, then break it into objectives, then hand those objectives off to leaders, then the leaders break those down into tasks, and then judge and rank everybody based upon those tasks to figure out who the new leaders are. And when it came out, it sounded like heaven, because it was exactly, exactly what was written in the military manual on how you manage soldiers. Command and control management is real. We didn't create it, we copied it from the generals in World War II. And McGregor in 1960 in these universities is teaching these courses and saying, "Something's wrong. We forgot about the do unto others. We forgot what made America great. We've exported it to Japan and they're already starting to kick our ass. Are we
6:40 Speaker 01 really gonna let this happen?" And I love the best comment ever on McGregor in a talk at that time. He said to American managers, he said, "What you believe about people will become reality. If you believe that they are reluctant and they're unwilling and they're trying to get the best for themselves and they're only here for the money, that is exactly what they'll be. But if you believe that the goal of a company is to invest in people, to develop people, and to use those people as tools and resources, and to build them up with legacy over 20, 30, 40 years, so that that one moment when he's 63 years old, he can see clearly through the clouds and he is like Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and just leads us right to our next success. And that 40 years investment into
7:24 Speaker 01 that guy was worth every penny for that one moment when we needed him to be the eyes and ears for 40 years to see what we couldn't. That's what American management is, and we threw it all away. And we replaced it with this... All we do is blame. I did 120 keynote talks to CEOs in the last two years, and every single one of them believes all of the same thing, and every one of them is a little whiny victim. "If I just had the right people in the right seats, if the market was just bad..." You know what? Shut up and go do something about it. Stop blaming other people. Stop setting goals and then just yelling, "Yeah, pizza party!" Get out there and lead
8:06 Speaker 01 from the front line, like America did during World War II, like the Japanese did after World War II that kicked our ass, like the Chinese are doing right now. The Chinese are learning management philosophy from the Japanese, which is American management philosophy. It's like, I feel like we are victims of a system and we can't see it. Maybe Rage Against the Machine. We just need all this and the Rage Against the Machine and Pink Floyd albums for about six months to remind ourselves what we're competing against here. We're in charge. The small to medium-sized business- Owner controls forty eight percent of the American workforce, not the two percent that Fang does. Why does the tail wag the dog? This is outrageous. We need to step up and become real leaders. Stop every Eleanor Roosevelt said it, small minds talk about people,
8:51 Speaker 01 average minds talk about events and great minds talk about ideas. And all you ever talk about is people and events. Boo hoo. Go step up and start talking about ideas and see what happens to your organization. Sorry, I feel like I just preached for five minutes.
9:07 Speaker 00 I love it. I love it. So last week.
9:10 Speaker 01 I took my ADHD medication this morning. That's why that's why I'm able to focus and get that right on.
9:14 Speaker 00 No, that was great. And last week I was I was at a dinner with a bunch of like kind of senior learning and development executives from some some top companies. And and there was one gentleman across the table from me, we were talking for a bit, and he was talking kind of similar to like what you were just saying. And he he'd been in some meetings with with some CEOs recently, kind of like one of their CEO council type.
9:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, sure.
9:37 Speaker 00 And and he was conveying kind of the the the attitude that that he's been hearing consistently over the last six months, last year or so, from a lot of the CEOs on their CEO council. And this kind of this this victim blaming mentality was very pervasive in what he was sharing. It's certainly consistent with what you were saying. It's consistent with what I've been hearing, what I've been seeing. And it's definitely less about the big ideas. It's definitely not about the systems. It's definitely about it's about the people and it's about like the employees, you know, it's all about the employees, like employees are lazy, employees are taking advantage of us.
10:17 Speaker 01 They're not.
10:18 Speaker 00 All of that. And in this particular instance, at this dinner, this gentleman was talking about how the CEOs are all, at least in his little sub sample, right, of CEOs that they were all complaining about HR, like like CHROs, how it's all the CHROs fault, like during the pandemic, all the CHROs said, we have to, you know, have empathy, and we have to have flexibility, and, you know, we have to look out for our people. And now employees. All expect that and now they've all been caught quote unquote coddled and
10:51 Speaker 00 and we we gave them all of these we gave them all of these accommodations and we we showed them empathy and now they expect it and now now look what it's done now now we have all these soft employees and now it's caused all these problems and all so the CEOs are all complaining about all this and I I'm just sitting there kind of just like what is happening here?
11:10 Speaker 01 Just victim, victim, victim. Oh, I feel so bad. They should get some therapy and coaching for themselves. But let me tell you something. I've worked with some of the most powerful CEOs in this country. They would they would fire any anybody that worked for them that talked like that. They would they would run them on a rail out of their office in thirty seconds. They'd be like, here's your severance. Go away. Please don't have any communication with anybody in this organization because you're poison.
11:33 Speaker 01 The reality is if I can't control the such the situation that I'm not responsible for it. Well, you are responsible for it. You're the CEO. Step up and do something. Maybe that compassion wasn't a bad thing. Maybe if you really all in embrace that and explained to people and really were clear with them on what the outcome and the objective was and and gave them some commitments. Listen, Japan at the end of World War Two, when when the American quality folks went went to Japan at the end of World War Two, the one thing that they told these companies that that would solve all of their problems is to stop firing people. To commit to your employees, the day that you hire them, look them in the face and said, you will get a paycheck here every single week for the rest of your life. Every week you'll get it, even if we fire you.
12:14 Speaker 01 Because we're that committed to you being honest with us. What's about what what's about wrong with our system? If we control this system and and and you don't work out in this system, it certainly has nothing to do with you. It has to be our fault. Who else could it be? We're in charge. We built the thing. You're a victim of that. But what we need from you is for you to be the voice, the censor, the scout, not the soldier, to come back to us when you see anything and you go, hey, boss, I just had an unsettling conversation with a customer. Could this be a try? Is something this doesn't seem right? And I don't want to have that conversation again because isn't it funny that I'm the one that has to have all the conversations, not you up there in the boardroom? Do you want to hear what you're?
12:56 Speaker 01 Actual customers say, listen, every CEO in that room, their parents worked at the same place for 20 or 25 years where their grandfather did. Why? Because customers, companies used to believe that efficient coordination of resources was competitive advantage. Now, but that takes actual leadership skills to say, I'm going to officially coordinate, most efficiently coordinate my resources, my people, I'm going to invest in them, I'm going to do all of these things to grow this organization. But instead, we just said, well, let's just set a KPI 10% over and, and, and get rid of those who can't reach that goal. Come on, it's just lazy management. There's a reason that the greats in management history in the 90s said that any idiot can manage a company on an up year. You can hire preschoolers and children.
13:40 Speaker 01 Manage a business like it was in the 60s, 70s and 80s where it went up for two years, down for one, then it would flatline for three. You might not grow your business for the next five years, but how do you expand it? How do you increase margin and downtime? These are things that old managers used to know because they used to live it. We went 129 months after the great, after the recession in 2008, we went 129 months of growth straight. It's the only time in economic history, it's not feasible. It doesn't work this way. We're being lied to. We don't understand it. And when, when things really do get tough, oh man, it's going to be a bloodbath because nobody knows how to actually run a business.
14:22 Speaker 01 All they know how to do is set goals and talk to their coach and go on ayahuasca retreats out in Palm Desert. And I'm happy to go with you to your next one, but I'm, but I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna experience the same reality you are. I'm going to show you that you're living in the wrong matrix and you just need to wake up. And that's how you become a leader. Walmart started with one guy. Kaiser Construction, one of the biggest companies in this country in the 30s and 40s, started with one guy and a wheelbarrow and a piece of hose, and then he hired a second guy and a third guy. And, and, and his executive team was all those original guys that he hired, all the other unemployed guys. And what did they do? They built the Hoover Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam.
15:02 Speaker 01 I know I'm going overboard. My apologies, John.
15:06 Speaker 00 One of the things I think you're highlighting is the what's long gone, like decades ago, generations ago, the this psychological contract that used to exist, that's that's a figment of our past kind of understanding and imagination where there's commitment and loyalty that's reciprocal, where where organizations would truly be loyal and committed to and invest in their people. And because they did that, people were committed and loyal and gave their discretionary effort back to their their employees.
15:39 Speaker 01 And when they needed right people, they already had them because they had built the right people internally for the last 20 years. Nobody had to worry about age. There's a reason it used to just be personnel because we didn't we barely we only needed to hire the bottom. We were going to emerge all the top would emerge like that's.
15:53 Speaker 00 Yeah.
15:54 Speaker 01 You know.
15:54 Speaker 00 And that's.
15:55 Speaker 01 Paul Wirth, the CEO of Dow Chemical, one of my mentors, started in the mailroom and became the CEO of Dow Chemical in from the mailroom. That's how it used to work. My apologies. Go back.
16:05 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's just that that is it's so far behind us, that reality. And, you know, I don't want to just sound like I'm, you know, reminiscing about, you know, long days gone. I mean, things do change. Obviously, they change. The economy changes, society changes. But I do. I do feel like it's a lost opportunity for organizations. And let me also say, it's not every organization, like predominantly it's gone. But there are. There are examples of organizations that still foster this, right?
16:36 Speaker 01 And we're so shocked to see that somebody actually treats people with the do unto others thing that the whole we want to believe. See, people tell me, oh, you know, it's a Christian nation. Well, then do unto others, right? Well, I don't believe that at work. Now, that's only to my family and the members of my, you know, my inner circle, you know, to people that live in my street, but I don't apply that to these bums that work for me. No, God, I'll never be judged on that. Oh, let's wait and see. Let's wait and see if you have a moral imperative, if that applies beyond just your pew, or if you're supposed to take that stuff out into the world. I know you're not supposed to, right? Sorry.
17:12 Speaker 00 Yeah, it it it's just the the the benefit. I mean, certainly, there's there's, you know, an ethical, moral argument, right, to be made for this. But there's there's a business case for it, too. Like, the business case is pretty crystal clear.
17:26 Speaker 01 Stronger than what the one you have right now.
17:29 Speaker 00 Yeah. And and so it is it is mind boggling. And and so instead of that, though, instead of that reality, we have this reality where there's just this constant churn of people, revolving door of people, constant turnover, constant chase for talent, and no, no loyalty, no commitment, either direction, right? And and yeah, we're just in this wild, wild west of of talent in in organizations. Maybe they think, maybe they think that, you know, AI is just going to take care of all of their their talent needs in the future. If they do, they're crazy. But, you know, who who knows? But this this reality is such a hard one. And I think leaders need to kind of
18:14 Speaker 00 get their head screwed on straight.
18:16 Speaker 01 Or they won't be leaders very long. They're going to go like in 2008. And I said this to a private to a group of private equity folks the other day. They didn't like it. I said, I remember back when you guys were finance bros one day and paper boys the next. I remember watching you. I was going through McDonald's, watching you give me the fries and the whole thing, because you realized you had zero marketable skills, just like the people that you were trying to outsource. You were them in that moment. All you knew how to do was talk hedge funds and shorts and all things that did that were ethereal. And when it came down to actually putting food on the table, y'all had to go out and get yourself a paper route. And you're going to have to do it again. 2027 probably will be it. You know, maybe 2028. But, you know, keep keep the keep
18:59 Speaker 01 your khakis and and polo shirts because you're going to be parking cars at the country club. And I'm and I like that. And I'm and I don't mean that in a negative way. I just mean it wake the hell up and realize what's going on. We live in this world with AI. I got to tell you, here's the funny thing. AI makes mistakes and hallucinates on me all the time. And I use it a lot. I'm a power user. I spend two to $4,000 a month on tokens. The reality is of the last 100,000 people that I've stood in front of, employees that I've run workshops with, working inside big companies, holding employee meetings, talking to employees of this 100,000 plus that I've talked to in the last 25 years. I fundamentally believe there were three of them that actually didn't want to do a good job, that woke up every morning and said, I'm gonna burn this thing to the ground.
19:41 Speaker 01 The other nine hundred and ninety-nine, nine-nine-seven of them all wanted to do a good job. They all actually went to work not for money. What they wanted to go to work for was for pride and joy, but they were so desperate for the money that they never obtained pride and joy. They never obtained mastery. Nobody ever, it blew me away. I, the last time I remember it was probably twenty-five years ago, a company where frontline employees at a waste company were, were coming to HR and saying, I need to get Thursday off because it's my kid's career day and I want to go and talk to my, about being a garbage man. Like, that's pride in something. You would never, I bet you no HR department deals with career days anymore. But a man can be a garbage man and go to school and be like, this is the fundamental
20:24 Speaker 01 function of society that I perform and I'm damn proud of it. And I'm proud that it puts the food on the table and my two girls that are in, twin girls that are in this class, you know, I'm glad that they get to see their dad stand here and say, I'm not a freaking garbage man. This whole thing comes down without me, right? Understand my importance to you in society. Nobody does that anymore because we don't allow them to do that. Let them, I'm okay making the profit. Let them get the pride and joy. Let them get the twenty years experience. Let them sit home, at home at night and realize they did a good job. Let them share in that success with me. And, and it's so simple. It's leadership. It's not leadership. It's just do the stupid, basic stuff. Your mom always told you, stop picking on your sister.
21:06 Speaker 01 Stop picking on your damn sister and go after this thing and do it the right way. But we're so afraid and all of my peer group says, I'm gonna get the right people in the right seats, so they must be right. They're fundamentally wrong. Sixty-nine, sixty-eight percent of businesses that make the fortune or the Inc. five thousand fastest growing companies list go out within five years. What? Forbes did a whole study on it. The fastest growing companies in this country are the ones that go out of business the fastest. Stop that. Franchises only go out of business at fifteen percent rate. Why? Systems, process, understanding that the frontline people, you don't have to have the best people. McDonald's can hire people as long as they can fog a mirror, they can participate in the system. And the reality is everybody's on an intellectual spectrum.
21:51 Speaker 01 So if I say right people, right seats, what am I saying? I am saying I am only going to deal with people that are my intelligence level. Nobody less than that. Screw you, buddy. Go hire average to below average people and you'll see how loyal they are. And you will see how when they dedicate their lives to one thing, they will learn how to do something in a way that nobody else on this planet can. And that thing is probably what's going to save you on Christmas Eve when the fog rolls in. And every, you know, that one guy is going to step up and go, hey, boss, I've known something for a long time. Let me show you. And bam, the whole system gets unlocked. And unfortunately, we don't have that legacy. So we have to deal with resilience and yoga retreats to reduce my cortisol level.
22:35 Speaker 01 Fix the damn thing so you don't have stress in the first place. Like I just, it fundamentally doesn't make sense to me. But then again, I've been preaching this for 25 years and nobody's listening. So this isn't going to change anything, I don't think.
22:47 Speaker 00 Oh, I love it, Derek. This has just been a fantastic conversation. I know we've only scratched the surface. We could go on all day, but I know at the time I need to let you go. Before we wrap things up for today, I wanted to give you a chance to share with the audience, how they can connect with you, find out more about your work, your books, and then give us the final word for today.
23:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm the, I'm, you could just Google me. It's the easiest way. You can find me on LinkedIn, you can find me on Substack. I had a really popular podcast for a long time that I put on hiatus for a while. Starting to bring that back. There's, there's lots of ways to find me and lots of ways to engage with me. We have some free courses on our website. I do webinars all the time, like just, just start following this movement of alternative thinkers. You know, we're a very divisive country, but, but a hundred percent of leaders all believe the same thing. And statistically, those things are not proven to be the best thing. So maybe we should create an alternative movement of people that say, you know what? I'm going to question every one of those, right? I.
23:46 Speaker 01 Right people, right seats, ideas, or hustle culture. All of those things, let's put them to question and say, are these really, are 19th century ideas still relevant for 21st century businesses? Or do we need an upgrade? And can we look at our own history and find better patterns and copy those patterns into something that can take us to this next level? A world where we work in hand, hand in hand with AI and people do what they do best and nothing else. I mean, isn't that true freedom? Where every human being gets to do their best and nothing else? Like, they don't have to worry about the mundane. They don't have to enter the numbers into the AI does that. All we get to do is be great. And I don't care where you are in that spectrum of intellect. You can find lots of books and movies about people who are on the extreme other side of you
24:31 Speaker 01 and what they were able to accomplish. And I think we could do it too. But we're the ones that control the system. We have to unlock that potential. If we're the victims, nobody ever gets helped. If we step up, we can save the world and that's my challenge to everybody.
24:43 Speaker 00 Derek, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Encourage the audience to get connected, reach out, find out more about what Derek can do for you. Check out the books. And as always, I hope everyone can stay healthy and safe. You can find meaning and purpose at work each and every week. And I hope you all have a great day. Thank you.
25:02 Speaker 00 Thanks for joining us for this episode of the podcast. We hope you stay healthy and safe and please join us again soon.
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