Beyond Profits: People-First Leadership

Summary

Podcast Summary: Take Command: A Dale Carnegie Podcast – "Beyond Profits: People-First Leadership"

Episode Information:

• Title: Beyond Profits: People-First Leadership
• Host: Joe Hart, CEO of Dale Carnegie Flagship Podcast
• Guest: Bob Chapman, Chairman and CEO of Barry-Wehmiller
• Release Date: November 12, 2024

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1. Introduction

In this compelling episode of Take Command: A Dale Carnegie Podcast, host Joe Hart interviews Bob Chapman, the visionary CEO of Barry-Wehmiller. Renowned for his dedication to people-centric business practices, Chapman shares his journey of transforming a struggling company into a global enterprise while maintaining a steadfast commitment to employee well-being and leadership excellence.

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2. Background of Bob Chapman and Barry-Wehmiller

Bob Chapman took the reins of Barry-Wehmiller, a $3.6 billion global firm, under challenging circumstances. At 30 years old, following his father's sudden passing, Chapman stepped into the role of president of an $18 million company burdened with debt and outdated technology. His foundational philosophy revolves around valuing people as individuals rather than mere functions within the organization.

Notable Quote:

"[Leadership is] the stewardship of the lives that you have the privilege of leading."
— Bob Chapman [31:45]

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3. The Initial Takeover and Turnaround

Chapman's entry into Barry-Wehmiller was marked by immediate challenges. Upon his father's death in October 1975, he faced the daunting task of managing the company's debts as banks demanded repayment. Demonstrating remarkable leadership, Chapman managed to not only stabilize the company but also achieve its most profitable year within months of taking over.

Notable Quote:

"In hindsight, it was, I learned more in that crisis than I ever learned when I was growing dramatically."
— Bob Chapman [07:26]

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4. Growth and Challenges in the 1980s

Under Chapman's leadership, Barry-Wehmiller experienced rapid growth, expanding from $18 million to $72 million in four years through strategic acquisitions. However, this growth led to operational challenges, including issues with solar panels and electronic inspectors for major clients like Anheuser Busch and Carlsberg. These setbacks culminated in a severe financial crisis in 1983, bringing the company to the brink of bankruptcy.

Notable Quote:

"When you don't have cash, it's kind of like living without blood in your body."
— Bob Chapman [10:38]

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5. Leadership Philosophy: People-First Approach

Chapman emphasizes that true leadership transcends traditional business metrics. He advocates for a "people-first" approach, where employees are treated as valuable individuals with inherent worth, likening them to "somebody's precious child." This philosophy is not just about fostering a positive work environment but also about ensuring the long-term sustainability and success of the organization.

Notable Quote:

"Leadership is giving people a grounded sense of hope for the future so they can believe in you."
— Bob Chapman [10:58]

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6. The Three Revelations and Cultural Shift

Around 1997, Chapman experienced three pivotal revelations that fundamentally transformed Barry-Wehmiller's culture:

1. People as Individuals: Viewing employees not just as functions but as unique individuals with personal lives and responsibilities.
2. Impact on Personal Lives: Recognizing that how employees are treated at work profoundly affects their personal well-being and relationships.
3. Responsibility as Leaders: Understanding that leaders have a profound responsibility to cultivate a workplace that supports and nurtures employees.

These insights led to the development of a human-centric culture that prioritizes the well-being and growth of employees alongside business success.

Notable Quote:

"The responsibility of a leader is to give those people in your care a grounded sense of hope for the future."
— Bob Chapman [23:23]

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7. Defining Leadership and Impact

Chapman defines leadership as the stewardship of the lives one leads, emphasizing dignity, respect, and the provision of a secure future for employees. He contrasts this with traditional management, which he critiques as often manipulative and detached from the human element. His approach has not only transformed Barry-Wehmiller but also positively impacted the personal lives of those involved.

Notable Quote:

"The stewardship of the lives that you have the privilege of leading."
— Bob Chapman [31:45]

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8. Practical Steps for Aspiring Leaders

In response to a listener-submitted question, Chapman offers actionable advice for those looking to build a people-centric culture:

1. Education and Awareness: Begin by educating your leadership team through resources like his animated TED talk.
2. Reading and Learning: Delve into his book, Everybody Matters, to understand the practical implementation of a people-first approach.
3. Engagement and Implementation: Partner with organizations like Barry-Wehmiller to adopt and adapt human-centric practices in your workplace.

Chapman underscores the importance of embedding these principles into the very strategy of the organization to ensure both personal and organizational success.

Notable Quote:

"Our guiding principle is we measure success by the way we touch the lives of people."
— Bob Chapman [35:55]

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9. Conclusion and Final Insights

Bob Chapman's journey with Barry-Wehmiller serves as a powerful testament to the transformative power of people-first leadership. By prioritizing the well-being and personal growth of employees, he demonstrates that businesses can achieve remarkable success while fostering a supportive and fulfilling work environment. His insights challenge traditional notions of leadership and offer a blueprint for creating organizations that thrive both economically and humanely.

Final Notable Quote:

"Until we embrace the profound responsibility we have when we have people in our care for 40 hours a week, we are going to continue to self-destruct for economic gain."
— Bob Chapman [34:36]

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Key Takeaways:

• People-First Leadership: Prioritizing employee well-being leads to sustainable business success.
• Stewardship Over Management: Viewing leadership as stewardship fosters a more humane and effective workplace.
• Cultural Transformation: Fundamental changes in company culture can drive both personal and organizational growth.
• Practical Implementation: Leaders can adopt people-centric practices through education, engagement, and strategic partnerships.

For those seeking to enhance their leadership skills and cultivate a positive organizational culture, Bob Chapman's insights offer invaluable guidance.

Transcript

[Bob Chapman]

Foreign.

[Joe Hart]

Welcome to Take Command, a Dale Carnegie Podcast. The show where we seek to uncover what leadership means in today's world. I'm Joe Hart, CEO of Dale Carnegie, and we will be talking to diverse leaders with stories to tell across various industries to help unlock your potential for success. We will be sharing real life insights into leadership which in turn can help spark the next level of your growth as a leader. Our guest today is a pioneering leader celebrated for his dedication to people focused business practices. He leads a $3.6 billion global firm with his truly human leadership approach, guiding the company through over 120 successful acquisitions. His Wall Street Journal best selling book, Everybody the extraordinary power of caring for your people Like Family highlights his innovative leadership. Named Tharsio CEO of the Year by SHRM and a Top 10 Social Capital CEO by International Business Times in 2022. He continues to inspire leaders worldwide. Please welcome chairman and CEO of Barry Wehmiller, Bob Chapman. Bob, welcome to the Dale Carnegie Take Command podcast.

[Bob Chapman]

Appreciate the opportunity to share our message with your viewers.

[Joe Hart]

Well, thank you so much and I'm excited to have you here. I heard you speak at the Dirt World conference about a year ago. We were both keynoting at that event and you gave an extraordinary speech that led me to read your book Everybody Matters, which I've got to say is one of the very best books I've read. It is so deeply aligned with what we teach in Dale Carnegie about valuing people and appreciation Is really neat about this book. And what we'll talk about this in the podcast is you had a chance to operationalize this over your years as the CEO of Barry Wehmiller. You're a $3.6 billion company headquartered in St. Louis, global operation. So really looking forward to hearing your insights about this. Let's just start with, I mean, you took over Barry Wehmiller, troubling circumstances. Your father had passed away. You're 30 years old. It's an $18 million company. Talk a little bit about, first of all, the business and how you took over the business and how you came to the philosophy that you have about people and leadership for your audience.

[Bob Chapman]

You have to understand my background. I made a decision to be an accountant. I have no idea why. So I got a traditional business education with an accounting major from Indiana, passed my CPA exam in the summer and then decided I wanted to get a graduate degree and Michigan was one of the top schools and I was able to get in the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I call it a very traditional background and my goal Was to be a partner in a public accounting firm. The greatest compliment somebody ever gave me is, I can't believe you're an accountant. Educationally, that was the experience. And my dad had bought into this company in the 50s, spent $30,000 to buy a small portion of this old company. And in the mid-60s, the family was trying to sell it, Couldn't find a buyer. So the old receivables factoring company out of chicago Made an offer to my dad to lend the company the money to buy the family out. And my dad' $30,000 would be controlling interest. So that's how the company, Barry wehmiller, which was Mr. Barry and Mr. Wehmiller, became the chapman family. We still respect the name of the heritage. So started in 1885. So I was working in public accounting. My dad was still trying to run this company. He now was controlling interests. He was struggling under the debt, struggling with the technology. We never even talked about me joining the company. And then he saw, all of a sudden, his son passed the cpa exam on the first sitting, which took him three. He saw me get a job with a top accounting firm, which started impressing him. And all of a sudden, this kid that he didn't know what was going to do with his life Started to have a common language with my dad, which was business. And so he'd say, hey, bob, at lunch, why don't you come over to the plant? We're talking about setting up a plant in arkansas, Non union plant. So we can do this. Could you join us in conversation? I said, sure. So, you know, very casual, no intention of going to the company. And then In February of 69, my dad approached me and said, would you consider working for the company? I need somebody I can trust. And I was going into my second year, so I was repeating my clients, which intellectually is not as challenging as new clients. And my dad opened a door that he and I never discussed, ever. So we had a conversation. I decided to join the firm with my title as somebody he could trust. And let me give some context to that at the time, 18 million in sales, old technology serving the brewing industry. My dad would go into the office every morning with his secretary and go into the mail room and open every piece of mail to see if somebody was trying to cheat him. That's how bad it was. And the beauty is, my title was somebody he could trust. So there was no limits to my ability. So I started in the engineering department, Coordinating projects, Worked in international license agreement. Turns out to be a six year Period Where I just worked in customer service, you know, never. My dad's pushing me in my intellectual interest. So it's kind of a chance to see what makes the clock tick. I made a big impact and again, the company was pretty weak. The leadership team was pretty old and weak. And so walking in with a fresh MBA and experience in Michigan, it was like if you didn't have a brilliant idea every day, you knew you'd miss something. Okay, so that's kind of the environment I started. So worked with my dad for six years, was put in a position, VP of Finance. And I think it was October of 75, he had a severe heart attack and died. And the next day I was president of the company at age 30. And the first person I met was the bankers who pulled our loans. Now in hindsight, I would say in my book, my messages, from my greatest challenges came my greatest growth.

[Joe Hart]

I want to make sure everyone understands the magnitude of what had happened. Because you had these loans and all of a sudden the banks bas said to you, you got to pay these all by the end of the week, right?

[Bob Chapman]

In this case, they want their money back. There was no timeframe. They just wanted out of the relationship because it's one thing to deal with a 60 year old guy they knew to 30 year old kid that they didn't know, okay? So they just didn't like the risk profile. And the company was pretty weak. The beauty is. So that happened in October of 75. The combination of my dad suddenly died and the banks pulling. It was like a mother seeing their child in high risk. And they rise to the occasion beyond their physical ability because they see their child. I saw my dad's legacy, I saw the future of the company in crisis. I was either going to make it or die, okay? And I grabbed a hold of that company upon my dad's death and I turned it around on a dime. We were three months into the year in October when dad died. So we had nine months under my leadership, three months under his legacy, and we had the most profitable year in the history of the company. The first year. So thank God, to some extent the banks did that because it called me to a level of leadership that I hadn't experienced. Okay.

[Joe Hart]

And you pay off the loans.

[Bob Chapman]

Paid off the loans. And the banks all of a sudden love me, they love me, okay? Now I paid off the loans, all of a sudden the company had the most profitable year in its history. And now my MBA from Michigan, I said, you know guys, we need to develop some new product lines. Had an opportunity, long story short, to bring an Italian filler in that Miller Brewing company wanted. Had a chance to develop solar energy with Anheuser Busch. And so all of a sudden, that $18 million company started growing from 18 to 72 million in four years. I mean, I was hiring people all over the world because we couldn't deal with all these new initiatives. And Anheuser Busch loving our solar energy systems and Carlsberg really loving our electronic inspection. Long story short is it seemed like everything I touched turned to gold until about 1982, when the solar panels that we developed for Anheuser Busch started warping. The electronic inspector for Carlsberg didn't quite get all the defects, so they couldn't rely on it. And the filler that we were getting from Italy started and having some foaming issues when you filled Coca Cola at a higher temperature. So all of a sudden it started imploding on me. Now the banks kept saying, bob, just make sure you got enough money. They loved me. We were the talk of town in the industry. We peaked at 72 million. We started dropping to 55 million. And in 1983, Arthur Anderson came to me in the fall and said, bob, we got a problem in the audit. You've got some big inventory and warranty issues from all these initiatives, and you're going to lose three and a half million. I said, well, I better sit down with my bankers because, you know, that's a material difference than we thought in the budget. So I go down, meet with the senior credit officer of one of the largest banks who loved us. Made sure you have enough money, Bob. And I said to him, john, we got a problem. You know, we got to write off some inventory. We got to provide some warranties. But we paid down our debt from 22 to 17 million. We're on the way. And John said, bob, look, we thank the world of you guys and just be sure you learn from this so you can address it. Walked away feeling really good. Senior credit officer of one large banks. About a week later, Arthur Anderson came to me and said, whoops, we found a couple of more items. It's now going to be five and a half million. And I went back to John. I said, john, Arthur Anderson just advised me that they found some more issues. Not a cash issue, you know, writing off assets and it's going to lose five and a half million. He said, this is what you don't want to hear from your bankers. Let me call you back tomorrow, Bob. The next morning I got a call from the same guy the week ago held me up as one of their finest clients said, bob, we want our winning back tomorrow, and your line of credit is frozen. This was even dramatically more severe than 1975 when my dad died, because they were willing to work with us to get rid of it. In this case, they just turned off the spigot. And so I lived from October 83 to the fall of 84, day to day on cash. I learned more for that nine months when I didn't have cash than I had ever learned in my life. Because when you don't have cash, it's kind of like living without blood in your body.

[Joe Hart]

So what's going through your mind at this time, Bob? I mean, because you know, you've gone through this roller coaster where you take over the business, things are struggling, you are ascending, and now you're kind of crashing a little bit. Because I think a lot of the people listen to this podcast, they might look at you and say, oh, $3.6 billion company. But they're are ups and downs. And what is your mindset as you're going through this?

[Bob Chapman]

I teach every year at Washington University. Defining moments. So I've been for about 10 years teaching second year MBA students about my defining moments. One of those defining moments is to understand myself. I am not that smart, okay? I was an average student in public high school. I was doing average in college, but I ended up doing well. But what I am blessed with is common sense, creativity, and a positive attitude. So that helps me answer your question. My wife and kids would tell you they had no idea I was going through this. Now, I wasn't hiding it from them. It was just the challenge I was having at work, okay? And so I was never down. I wasn't stressed. I had to address the challenge. In hindsight, it was, I learned more in that crisis than I ever learned when I was growing dramatically. So the beauty is that both at my dad's death and the second even more severe shock in 1983, if you put those together, I learned so much from the dramatic growth, dramatic decline, financial crisis. So I don't know how you give people common sense. When I teach students, I say, and I could give you 50 stories how. But I saw value where other people didn't see it. And I brought creative thinking to deal with the crisis, okay? Because as a leader of a company in crisis, you've got to give your people a sense of confidence that we're going to get through this. You can't say, oh my God, we don't have Cash, we can't buy steel. I remember our vice president of personnel at the time came to me and said, bob, we got a problem. We haven't paid our insurance carriers for three months. They may be dropping our health care benefits. And I said, well, Chuck, if they do, then we'll just write the checks ourselves when people have a problem. I should have said what I dealt with it, but it didn't bother me. When I look back at the journey that we're talking about, it was common sense. It was not direction from my board, it was not direction from a mentor. It was just, I'm going to deal with this and I'm going to deal with the best I can and we're going to get through it. If you talk about the President of the United States, the governor of your state, our goal is leaders. And this is a statement I want to make strongly. The responsibility of a leader is to give those people in your care a grounded sense of hope for the future so they can believe in you like we want to believe in our president, like our mayors. You've got to be a symbol of hope for people because you are the leader. So when you talk about leadership, leadership is giving people a grounded sense of hope for the future so they can leave your care with confidence. They have a job, they have a future. They can raise a family. That is a job of leadership. It's not all about me. It's about the impact I make. So what happened? I mean, God, Bob, you're nine months day to day on cash on the edge of bankruptcy. Well, it turns out that one of our gentlemen that worked in the inventory rooms, dad worked at Citicorp in Chicago in their asset based lending. He went the extra mile to figure out a way for Citicorp asset based lending, which is like a dark alley with a guy with an envelope. So we got refinanced like in September, August, September of 84. After nine months of day to day crisis with an asset based lender, which is really challenging type of debt, we had a chance for life again. And here's something I want to tell your listeners which I think is important. It goes back to my point of leadership. I had studied Emerson Electric company and a guy named Chuck Knight who built a $24 billion major St. Louis company. He's a little bit like Jack Welch, legendary figure. Everything in St. Louis is named after Chuck Knight. And I had studied that. I went to my financial team after we got refinanced. I said, guys, I'm proud of our history Hundred year history, but our history does not give us a future. I need to go out and look for some acquisitions to get us into markets and products that give us a future. And my finance team looked at me and they said, Bob, I understand what you're saying, but let me remind you of something. We have no money. Bob, do you understand that? I just want you to stand, Bob, we have no money. I looked at these people and I said, I didn't tell you I needed money. I told you we need to do acquisitions to create a future. And I walked out of that room unencumbered by the fact that I didn't have any money. And I began looking at acquisitions. So what do you buy when you have no money? Shit, nobody else wants serious, they'll almost finance you to buy the company. So I started buying companies with zero experience, no money, and the core business was still sick. But we had been refinanced and the company started to now grow a little bit again with the acquisitions. And about 1986, my team in England flew in and said, Bob, we have an idea. We'd like to spin off these acquisitions, which were mainly in Europe, combined with this piece that was in Florida electronics business. And the investment bankers think there's that chance kind of remote that we could actually float it on the over the counter market in London and you could pay off all your debt and have $2 million in the bank. What do you think? And I said, hallelujah, that seems like heaven. No debt and $2 million in the bank seemed like hallelujah. What happened is we ended up starting towards a public offering, thinking there was no chance that we'd actually get there. May of 87, we launched an IPO in London that was massively successful buying challenge companies that nobody want. Massively successful public offering. And instead of $2 million in the bank after the IPO, we had $28 million in the bank and people sent in $1.1 billion to buy a piece of our 28 million of equity we were selling. And at the time interest rates were over 20%, we actually made more money with money deposited from people trying to buy stock than the public offering costs list. And Harvard ended up writing a case study because they couldn't believe that I bought these pieces of challenge companies, put together this $35 million company and the London stock market through all the hoops we had to go to, to launch, loved it. So that was the end of the first phase of my career, the beginning of the next phase.

[Joe Hart]

You've had this Success. And again, so much of what we have talked about even prior to this time is your book Everybody Matters. And you've got a very distinct philosophy around leadership. I want to read something here. From the beginning of the book, I grown to understand my responsibility as a CEO transcends business performance and begins with a deep commitment to the lives of those in our care, the very people whose time and talent make the business possible. When did you come of that opinion? Was that in that first phase? Were you leading, leveraging that mindset around people? When did you come to that view? Because that's really shaped everything that followed, right?

[Bob Chapman]

So to put in context, public offering was in 87. After the phenomenal outcome, which nobody could believe, Harvard wrote a case study because they even couldn't believe it. After the public offering, just for your audience, there's now the public Barry Wimbler called Barry Wimbler International, and the private Barry Wimbler, which was still the historic business that was still sick as we sit in 1988, we had $20 million now because we had 55 million sales, 35 million went public, 20 million stayed private because it was sick. It was still the old business. And I said, oh my God, what did I learn? I went from 18 million to 72 million. Phenomenal success to traumatic decline, financial demise, and then this phenomenal recovery. A wild roller coaster ride. What did I learn? I sat down for nine months and thought about it and I said, what I'm good at is fixing companies that people don't like with certain characteristics, recurring revenue, et cetera. So I sat down and designed a company and I looked at companies that faced similar challenges to us. That I could bring that skill that I'd learned in that roller coaster ride, I could bring that to these companies that were challenged. This is the early 90s. There were plenty of companies struggling in our industry, you know, from families that weren't doing so well. I had a vision of taking the $20 million now private company to $100 million, which I thought would be a dream. The beauty is that nine months I designed a business model that was stimulated by Amherst electric balance of products, markets and technology. Don't be too concentrated in any one thing, so should something change, you get hurt. And I designed a balanced business model from my experience and to get us to 100 million, that model got us to 3.6 billion. So I would say to your audience, the leader's responsibility is a business model, that people are safe. In the old expression, you need the right people on the bus, no no, no. I think you need to build a safe bus, which is your business model, and then have leaders who know how to drive that bus so that the people who step on that bus are safe. And so I want to make sure you understand it's not just our culture. I designed a business model from that tremendously challenging roller coaster ride in my survival that would keep me from having those same problems in the future. I call it the Strategy for Growth, Value and Liquidity. So from a business standpoint, a leader's responsibility is to make sure you have a business model that gives those in your care a grounded sense of hope for the future. They can decide to raise a child, buy a home, educate their kids, save for their retirement. That is your fundamental responsibility. Not just to pay them with benefits, but to give them a grounded sense of hope. Because people live in fear of getting right sized, downsized, laid off, plant clothes. How can you decide to raise a family when they're going to walk in one day and say, we're going to close your plant down, Good luck, we'll pay you six weeks, whatever. So again, that was where I was. So we then started implementing that strategy. Around 1997 is when the culture that we're now talking about was born. And that is when I had bought a company in South Carolina that was about a $55 million company, and I flew down there. So I had three revelations, I call them. It wasn't a mentor, it wasn't somebody coaching me. It's just these thoughts that came to me. The three different thoughts that you've read in the book about why can't business be fun? Business, the most powerful force for good in the world, because we have people in our care for 40 hours a week. And people are not employees. They are somebody's precious child in our care. Those three revelations led to this truly human culture. Those three revelations that occurred sequentially. Here's the point I want to make the lens, until that day, around 97, the lens through which I saw are at that time, maybe a thousand people, two thousand people, whatever it was. I saw them as engineers, accountants, hourly workers, union workers, receptionists, accounting people. I saw people as functions for my success. I needed them for my success. And I was a nice guy and we had a nice company, but I viewed them as functions for my success. That's just what I was taught. You need them to achieve your business results, and when you don't need them anymore, you kind of let them go downsize right size that day. The lens through which I saw now our 13,000 people was reversed. Instead of seeing them as functions, I saw them as somebody's precious child. I realized the way I would treat them would have a profound impact on their health and the way they go home and treat their spouse and their kids and the life they live. That revelation, I was never taught in business school. I never heard it came from those three revelations. I had about three or four years apart.

[Joe Hart]

So you have the three or four revelations. This is incubating in your mind and you start to operationalize it. And part of what you say in the book, we envision a new kind of business culture. Part of the reason why this touches me so much, Bob, is because I think it's so consistent with what we teach at Dale Carnegie. It's a culture that puts people first and where true success is measured by the way we touch the lives of people. You want to touch the lives of people. You want to have this positive impact. But that first thing, you have to have a successful business model.

[Bob Chapman]

When Harvard introduced this case, they invited me up to the session where they had 160 global executives in for a special program. And our case was being launched with this. 160 global executives from all over the world, average age 48, from outside the United States, you know, from all over. And they did our case. At the end of it, the professors asked a question to the class after they'd studied the night before discuss it said, is Barry Wehmiller's success its strategy or its culture? I had never thought about it until that day. I listened and at the end, after maybe 10 or 15 minutes discussion, Jan had a vote. 75% of the people voted. Our success was our culture. And so Jan looked over at me, he never said I was going to say anything. I'm sitting in the corner of the auditorium and said, bob, would you like to comment now? Again, I never thought about this question. I got up in front of this group and out of me came, I understand why you think it's our culture, because you're really studying our culture. But let me tell you how I would answer this. The foundation of our success is our business model. And think of this analogy. If Ferrari designs the ultimate high performance engine with their expertise of the Italian race car designer, and you put 85 octane fuel in that engine, it'll start, it'll run down the road. You can get it going fast, but you probably won't win the race. If you put 91 octane in that Ferrari engine, which it was designed to drive, it will perform to its Potential. So think of it this way. The engine of our company is our business model. The fuel is our culture that allows that business model. But you can't put premium fuel in a Toyota and think you're going to race a Ferrari. Okay, so that analogy really helps people think. The foundation of our success, our stewardship of the lives entrusted to us, is to make sure that you have a business model that will give your people a grounded sense of hope, a sense of safety, that they can count on you and their job, to raise their family, to feed their family, and to have a future. I have never heard anybody say that to me. Nobody ever said that to me. It's, you know, what's your ebitda? What's your margin with your growth, you know, et cetera. So that brought a whole different way of me thinking about my responsibility to make sure I have a good business model. And then the culture activates the potential of that business model. It can't make it better. I learned that the hard way, but that was one of the lessons. So as a leader, whether you go through your program or our program, your foundational responsibility is to give your people a grounded sense of hope for the future so they can live a reasonable life in your care.

[Joe Hart]

That makes complete sense. It's going back to the point of strategy or cultures now, one or the other, it's both. So you clearly need those. And at the same time, so much of this then ultimately comes down to leadership and to leaders. Again, I'm thinking about the people who are listening to this, because whether they are CEOs or VPs or entry level leaders or people aspiring to be leaders, there's a role that they have to play. Maybe more in the culture than in the strategy, but probably in both. This is a quote from one of your team members, but you put it in your book. There's no such thing as an underperforming team, only underperforming leaders. Look for the problem in concentric circles. Around your desk.

[Bob Chapman]

When companies fail, did the people fail or did we fail as leaders? You know, too often we blame it on others, then own the responsibility. One of the things in that context to , Joe, about 20 years ago, a young man named Brian was having dinner with us out in California. He just joined us from his MBA program. We were meeting with an author who wrote a book, and he said, bob, what is your greatest fear? Eternal optimist. So I had to think a minute and I said, you know, Brian, now that you asked me, my greatest fears, we've been blessed With a vision of the way the world was intended to be, where leaders genuinely care for people. You know, not just being nice, but make sure they have business model and that it would die with me. And we got up the next morning. I said, okay, Brian, you've surfaced the fear. What are we going to do about it? I said, well, we can't send people back to universities to learn to be leaders because we teach management and not leadership. And so we're going to have to start a university because what do religions do to survive over decades? They articulate their beliefs and they have disciples who tell stories that keep those beliefs alive. So we need to create disciples like you, Joe, I hope, who will take this vision of a world where everybody matters and keep it alive beyond our time. So we start a university to take managers and make them into leaders. So to me, from my experience, the word management means the manipulation of others for your success. And leadership means the stewardship of the lives that you have the privilege of leading. Dramatically different. I always say we use words in business that I think are broken. We call people managers. I say in my speech, name anybody that wants to be managed. Name anybody you can manage. But I thought when I came out of business school and MBA that, you know, I was smarter than everybody else. And people came to me with problems and I told them what to do, and they did it, and it felt good. I didn't realize if you do that with raising kids, you are destroying the future of their life because they need to learn to make decisions. What I realize is that leadership and parenting are identical. It's the stewardship of the lives we have the privilege of leading that is the key. And so I would say to you, Joe, that my journey from management, which is again the word we use, management classes, management degree, management of title is part of the problem because then we try to do what our title says. Words matter. We want leaders, coaches and mentors. We don't need managers, bosses and supervisors. So the language of business is broken. It's been broken since the industrial revolution when we thought taking people off of farms and putting them into Ford motor company assembly plants where they'd make more money and have better benefits, would be good because they'd make more money, have better health care, better education. And century later, we have the most prosperous economy in the world. And we have the highest level of depression, anxiety, and suicide because the industrial revolution forgot one critical element. As we gather together larger and larger organization, we need leaders know how to be stewards of people's lives. Because we're going to have them in their care for 40 hours a week and the way we treat them. So the astounding thing to me is when we designed these classes where we would create disciples about leadership, 95% of the feedback was how it affected their marriage and their relationship with their children. Children. I was blown away. You would sob if you heard the stories I heard. We thought we were teaching them how to be leaders, and they told us how they were better husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, which amazed me, because what we taught was human skills that make sense.

[Joe Hart]

It does, because I think there can be a tendency to compartmentalize parts of our lives to say, well, this is business or this is personal or whatever. But when you think about people. And one thing said Dale Carney, you believe was every person's got inherent greatness. Every person's got something to offer. You know, even in how to Win Friends, he quoted Ralph Waldro Emerson, which is, every person I meet is my superior in some way and that I can learn from him. So when we start from that kind of a mindset, and we're trying to help people become better leaders in the workplace, we're also helping them become better people, better humans who can carry those kinds of approaches and principles. You know, whether it's about appreciation or respect. Respect or whatnot, or listening and valuing, you know, to all parts of their life. So, I mean, everything you're saying makes complete sense to me and is completely consistent. What, Bob, would you say your definition of leadership is if you were to put it in a single sentence or two, what would that be?

[Bob Chapman]

The stewardship of the lives that you have the privilege of leading. Stewardship. You know, that you look at them not as functions, but you look at them as somebody's precious child. Okay. I spoke in Amsterdam, in a major business school, at the imitation of McKinsey. At the end of my speech, one of the partners, the two partners who supported me, had to leave to go to Amsterdam, to the airport, to catch a flight. And the other took me over to their offices. And we went over to their offices. I had a group round table. And we're sitting there, and the other partner walked in the room who had left. His name was McKelly. I said, McKelly, I thought you had to go to Amsterdam. He said, bob, I want to tell you something. I got in a cab right after your talk, trying to get the airport to catch a flight to Manchester, England. Young cab driver made some really bad decision about which way to go. And we got Stuck in a traffic jam, I was going to miss my flight. Irritated as hell with this young guy, I said, just take me back to McKinsey offices. Riding back to McKinsey offices, I thought about your talk and I realized that that young man was not a cab driver. He was somebody's son. And he said, I decided to talk to him like I would want my son talked to if he made a mistake. And it was dramatically different. So the lens through which we see people affects the way we deal with people. And again, when you have people in your care for 40 hours a week, and our church has us for one hour a week, we are 40 times more powerful. And remember, we have learned in this journey from major health institutions that the person you report to at work is more important to your health than your family doctor. And when I talk to CEOs, which I do frequently, I said, you're all worried about the cost of health care. You are the problem. 74% of all illnesses are chronic. The biggest cause of chronic illness is stress. And the biggest cause of stress is work. We are disturbing, destroying people, and then we complain about the cost of health care because people who experience stress experience health related issues, much less the way they go home and treat their spouse and their kids and behave in our communities. So until we embrace the profound responsibility we have when we have people in our care for 40 hours a week, we are going to continue to self destruct for economic gain. We got it all wrong. We thought when people made money with better benefits, they would be happy. In fact, today, with the most prosperous economy in our history, we have the highest level of depression, anxiety and suicide we've ever had. I speak in government, I speak in the military, I speak in nonprofits, I speak in healthcare. Everywhere it's exactly the same issue. We are not creating leaders. We're creating managers, bosses and supervisors who see people as objects, who help them achieve their goals. And they may be nice, they may congratulate them on a birthday, but they're not good stewards of those lies. So foundationally, you've got to have a good business model that makes people safe. And then the lens through which you see people, you need to look at them as somebody's precious child and treat them with dignity and respect. And we could heal this brokenness we're feeling in the world.

[Joe Hart]

Fabulous. And I think you've really done a great job of throwing down a challenge for me and for all of our listeners is to always remember that. And remember that each person that we're interacting with is somebody else's son. And really how we treat that person.

[Bob Chapman]

The lens lens to which you see people, if you see them as cab driver or checkout clerk or a union person, but if you see them as somebody's precious child, which they are, it changes everything.

[Joe Hart]

That's great. Bob, I started something in this podcast recently where I've gone to ChatGPT and I've said something like, I'm interviewing Bob Chapman today. What questions would you ask Bob Chapman? And then I might at the end say, what's one question? If you could only ask Bob Chapman one question, what would you ask? So I'm going to read you the question from ChatGPT. This is what ChatGPT wants to know. Bob, your leadership philosophy emphasizes treating employees like family and has been instrumental in transforming Barry Wehmiller into a globally successful company. For our listeners who are aspiring leaders, what are the first steps they can take to start building a people centric culture in their own workplaces? And how can they ensure that this approach leads to both personal and organizational success? So the first steps they can take and then how do they ensure that the approach leads to both personal and organizational success? And that is from ChatGPT. I can't even take credit for it.

[Bob Chapman]

Well, I would say to you, it's a question I get all the time. How do I start? I said, well, on the Internet, on YouTube, there is a animated video from my TED talk that takes a 20 minute Ted Talks and created a nine minute animated video. Sit down with your leadership team and just watch a nine minute video and talk. Is this something that touches your sense of responsibility as a leader in any company, as a citizen of the world? Because we can all say government needs to do this, new president needs to do that. What are we doing to create the kind of world where our children, our friends, our family have a chance to be who they're intended to be and appreciate for that. So you can do that. Second thing, if that resonates, you can read the book. The book was intended to be a how to do it book. And that $17 18 whatever for a book. Doug Parker, incredible individual running American Airlines, heard me speak at a Dallas church Methodist church on the campus of smu. And he came up to me and said, bob, I thought my job was to build the world's biggest airline, which I did. But until I heard you speak, it never occurred to me to care for 130,000 people. Deeply religious, great values, wonderful human being. His professional career was to build a great airline. Okay. And it really Touched him deeply. So I'd say the second thing you can do, you can work with us because it's not our message. We've been blessed with this message. We can share it through various talks, all kinds of our talks, defining moment. And finally, you can join with us to try and show in your business that we can care for people and create human value and economic value and harmony. Our guiding principle is we measure success by the way we touch the lives of people. That is our guiding principle because we touch the life of our teams, we touch the lives of our suppliers, we touch the lives of our bankers, our customers. When we take initiatives, we need to understand how we are impacting other people's lives. That guiding principle, leadership that we now teach how to do that is giving us the North Star to make decisions. We've been on this journey for 20 years, from Harvard to McKinsey to Stanton. Nobody has ever debated what I just shared and the people who have come to our operations. Nobody has ever said, you know, Bob, I know another company like that. The universal statement is, I've never seen anything like it. And again, as I remind you, for Bill Urie to tell me he saw the answer to world peace, when we think of the issues we face in this country and the world right now. And for Bill Urie to say, I saw the answer to world peace meant a lot to me because I believe when people care for each other, the conflict we feel in the world. So when people spend 40 hours a week in an organization where they feel cared for, valued, and go home feeling fulfilled, we could heal what our politicians cannot heal by being business leaders. And the lens through which you see people, are they functions for your success? Are they somebody's precious child that is being treated with respect and dignity so they have a future in our care?

[Joe Hart]

Thank you, Bob. I mean, it really is a reminder and an opportunity and a responsibility that all of us have, not just the CEO, not just the senior leaders, leadership. I mean, it's each one of us who are interacting with other people in our cultures have that same responsibility and opportunity. Thank you so much for sharing such rich insights and I really appreciate you having on the show today.

[Bob Chapman]

Well, I look forward to further conversations.

[Joe Hart]

Me too. Thank you.

[Bob Chapman]

Thank you. Appreciate it very much.

[Joe Hart]

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Take Command, a Dale Carnegie podcast. Check out our resources at www.dalecarnegie.com for more research, insight and tools that will support your success and help you take command of your leadership potential. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider rating it and following us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. For more exclusive content, subscribe to our Dale Carnegie YouTube channel and follow us on Social media Media. As always, thank you for listening and we're looking forward to you joining us for the next episode of Take Command, a Dale Carnegie podcast.