140: The WD-40 CEO Who Proved Any Dumb-Ass Can Build a Great Culture | Garry Ridge

0:00

welcome everybody to this live let's try that

0:06

again welcome everybody to this LIVE edition of the learn itall podcast I'm

0:11

your host Damon lmy I'm the CEO of learn it a live learning platform and we've

0:17

got a tremendous great guest for us today but before I introduce Our Guest what I'd like everybody to do is please

0:24

in chat or in comments share with us where you're coming from um Gary got a

0:30

brand new book out and I'm going to be raffling off and giving some uh free copies away so it' be great if you could

0:35

put us in uh where you're coming from so with that I want to introduce Our Guest

0:41

uh he's an amazing leader and culture expert his name is Gary Ridge and he

0:46

spent 25 years as CEO and chairman emirus which is a tough word for me to

0:52

say I've been practicing Gary of WD40 you know transforming it into a globally

0:57

admired company with a high trust High per performance people first culture now

1:03

his organization is the learning moment and he's helping leaders create workplaces where people feel valued they

1:09

could learn and grow and Thrive uh the main focus of our conversation today is really G to be about his brand new book

1:15

I love the title any dumbass can do it and it's coming out I believe Gary next week welcome to the show how are you yay

1:23

Dam it's great to be with the year the book is out uh next Tuesday so uh we do

1:28

have real copies I got my first uh copy so I know it's real it actually has

1:34

printing in the pages so it's ready to go well I appreciate you sending me the advanced copy and I read it and there

1:41

are several topics that that I I really want to go through but before we get into your book if you don't mind share a

1:48

little bit about your history as a leader at WD40 because you know it's a company that we everybody knows and

1:54

they've used and they've heard of um but I think a little context will help about

2:00

your leadership style and then we'll jump into some of the key themes from the book yeah thank you so much I'll be

2:07

as brief as I can because it's probably boring but I was with WD40 company for 35 years 25 years as CEO later chairman

2:15

and now I am chairman emeritus um so that's a distinction that they gave me

2:21

to recognize my contribution to the company so I'm very grateful for that I started in Australia I'm an Aussie and I

2:27

opened our Australian subsidiary and 10 years l later I was asked to move to the US or eight years later which I did to

2:34

help head up our Global expansion program and then a little soon after that the then CEO retired and for some

2:41

silly reason the board of directors of a US public company thought that this dumbass from Australia might be okay at

2:47

this so I got the opportunity to lead and you know the real goal was how do we take the blue and yellow can with a

2:53

little red top to the world the brand was a very uh established brand in the

2:58

US and in Spring around the world but there was a huge opportunity to expand it around the world you know we knew

3:05

squeaks existed everywhere so why shouldn't we be there and honestly you

3:10

know I I did know with the help of my friends at the company how to make the brand famous or make it aware to people

3:17

but the thing that I I found really interesting is how do you build cultures in an organization that are

3:24

alive 24 hours a day because we were going to be everywhere around the world and I didn't quite know how to do that

3:30

um anyhow in uh in 1999 I was on a qu 747

3:36

flying from Los Angeles to Sydney and as you do when you travel you take stuff to

3:41

read and I was reading something that was written by the Del L and he said our

3:46

the pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work I thought well no I'm sorry he said our purpose in life is to make

3:54

people happy if we can't make them happy at least don't hurt them and Aristotle said pleasure in the job put's perfect

4:00

in the work and I thought you know that's so true and so many organizations that I see around me I see people

4:07

leaving work not really satisfied not happy I still didn't know how to do that

4:13

and I got back to San Diego and I read about a master's degree in leadership at the University of San Diego that was put

4:20

together by USD and uh the guru of servant leadership Dr Ken Blanchard so I

4:26

went to an information session and I heard Ken speak and he said you know most MBA programs get people in the head

4:33

we got to start getting people in the heart because it's the heart that matters and I thought wow so now I am I

4:39

was CEO of a US public company I went back to school and I learned from Ken

4:45

and the professors over time the the power of servant leadership and I started to execute that um at WD40

4:53

company and the rest is history we built a an amazing culture and you know I

4:59

believe that success in business is made up of um you know really really great cultures and really really sound

5:06

strategy and we had both and you know we were able to grow the company significantly over that 25 year period

5:13

the brand now is in 176 countries around the world and importantly enough we had

5:19

uh employee engagement at over 90% uh 90 something per of our PE I think 98% of

5:26

our people said they love to tell people they worked at the company and interestingly enough we were very

5:31

financially successful we took the market cap of the company from just over 300 million to close to 3 something

5:38

billion when I when I ref fired so uh that's the journey and if if my uh research is

5:46

right when you first started the outside of the United States was about 15% of

5:52

your business and you took that all the way to 65% correct yeah about 65% of revenue

5:59

for the brand now comes from countries outside of the United States and and as

6:04

I said we six or 7x the revenue over that period of time and so we we our

6:09

goal was to take the blue and yellow can of the world and this wonderful group of people with a great culture absolutely

6:15

did that and you know I I was the dumbass and now you're the the DEA

6:21

dumbassery right I am and uh you know dumbassery is your superpower so I I

6:27

titled myself I could give now that you know I have my own Consulting business called The Learning moment I can call

6:32

myself anything I want so I called myself the culture coach and now the dean of dumbass so dumbassery certainly

6:40

is your superpower yeah and I'll uh I was going to mention at the end but I uh

6:45

on Gary's uh website he's got a dumbass uh quiz and I took it and I and I scored

6:50

it a 90 percentile so I'm right there with you so I feel good I'm a a dumbass as well you know one of the things that

6:57

I that I heard you say which I think is awesome is that two years into being CEO

7:02

you went back to school uh to to learn and grow and how great that is to model

7:07

the behavior for the rest of your team that if the CEO is willing to do that and be humble enough to say hey there's

7:14

more I can learn there's more I can do um that just sets a great standard for everybody out there to kind of follow as

7:20

along as well yeah and not only did I go back to school that after completing that

7:26

program I thought the content was so valuable Val we at the company sent 30

7:32

people over 25 years through that same master's degree so we had you know we're

7:38

embedding the the the real power of servant leadership so we had 30 plus

7:43

people with master's degrees in in leadership all based on you know the servant leadership principles throughout

7:49

the company and a lot of times it's really tough you know we're in the Learning and Development world and it's

7:55

really tough to connect Roi with uh investing in in in leadership training

8:00

and but this is what a great testimonial right there that uh it had such an impact on you that you put 30 people

8:06

through it um one thing I wanted to mention before we go on is for our audience if you have questions put them

8:13

into the chat or the comments I've got a wonderful producer Katie who's helping out with me and she'll be sharing those

8:19

I'm not going to be asking all of them but I will ask some of them so Gary when

8:24

you sat down to write any demos can do it what was really the core message you wanted to get across to

8:31

people that culture in an organization is simple it's not easy and

8:38

time is not your friend but if you understand the ingredients that need to go into creating that culture any

8:46

dumbass can do it and I truly believe Damon that business not only has an

8:53

opportunity but it has an absolute responsibility to make a positive

8:58

difference in the the world we're going through crazy times in the world right now and have been for some time and you

9:05

know people are looking for that Refuge where they know they belong and they know they matter and great cultures do

9:11

that so my my whole objective behind the book was if I could share what we proved

9:17

to be successful with as many leaders as possible and they were brave enough to

9:23

be a dumbass and actually execute against those elements they could great

9:29

cultures where people go to work every day they make a contribution to something bigger than themselves they

9:36

learn something new they're protected and set free by a compelling set of values and they go home happy and happy

9:43

people build happy families happy families build happy communities and happy communities build Happy Worlds and

9:49

we need a happy world and business can do it and leaders can make a positive difference in the world if they're brave

9:56

enough to actually execute what needs to executed to build great cultures in

10:01

organizations and look at the ri ripple effect it has right you know we're talking about how it's starting at work

10:07

and how it carries on to the family and goes over to society and so let's stick with brave for a second what is what is

10:14

it that leaders need to be more Brave about to be able to create these great types of cultures you know I have a dear

10:21

friend his name's Ron KUSI he wrote a great book called to be honest but he

10:26

says most leaders protect their own comfort zone at the expense of other

10:33

people's development so leadership is not for the is is about

10:39

bravery you have to be tough-minded and tenderhearted you have to have a harder

10:44

gold and a backbone of Steel so you know a lot of people think that building great cultures is you know popcorn

10:51

pizzas and Margarita parties it's not you know um you know I have another friend his name is Charlie Maloof he

10:57

owns a chain of Ashley Furniture stores out in North Carolina he describes it

11:03

very beautifully he says creating culture is not a microwavable event you have to take a

11:10

crock pot approach so I guess again it comes down to it's not about you it's

11:16

not about your ego it's about what are you doing to create this environment

11:21

where people know they belong know they matter and can make choices and are you brave enough to do that um and it takes

11:29

time consistency is so so important it's not something that you can do overnight

11:35

exactly right I mean it's not like a a hack that you can just Implement and that's why I love about the crockpot you

11:40

know you have to be consistent you have to be transparent with integrity and and you can build that trust over time you

11:47

know chapter three of your book uh one of your cornerstones of your leadership

11:52

philosophy is learning moments um and for those of you out there I uh I follow Gary and I get a learning moment every

11:59

every every day that he he sends out to everybody so I highly recommend that you check that out but do me a favor Define

12:06

what a learning moment is and where did you come up with the idea yeah thank you for that Damon um so

12:13

one of the biggest you know things in organizations that really hinder

12:20

performances fear you know we do not act well in fear yet in organizations we

12:26

seem to be fairly comfortable talking about failure you know I I don't ever

12:31

think I've seen anybody run down a a corridor and yell out hey I failed today

12:36

I'm happy right but when you think about it every success is built on something that didn't work so in in my Master's

12:45

Degree uh that I did I started to think about the power of learning and as you

12:51

said at the beginning you know I went back to school to learn more and I

12:56

thought wait a minute you know let's reframe this instead of calling it

13:02

failure let's call it learning moments and the definition of a learning moment is a positive or negative outcome of any

13:08

situation that needs to be openly and freely shared to benefit all people and

13:15

interestingly enough the brand WD40 is the result of 39 learning

13:23

moments for those who don't know WD40 was invented in 195 53 by a little

13:30

company in San Diego called Rocket Chemical Company there was a problem with condensation and corrosion in the

13:36

ambal cord of the atlas space rocket so the chemist got together and started to

13:41

formulate something to solve the problem and you know Formula 1 didn't work and

13:46

25 didn't work and 32 didn't work and nor did 39 so they had 39 learning

13:52

moments and then formula 40 worked that's why it's called WD water

13:58

displacement 40 formula so I am so grateful they didn't give up at 39

14:03

because if they did I would I wouldn't be talking to you today and Damon finnally enough I'm really happy 39

14:09

didn't work because I don't think WD 39 sounds anything as good as WD40 no I

14:15

think sounds better that's the background yeah that's awesome so how do you know for for listeners out there

14:22

well one thing I think is important is that learning mons you defined it as both positive and negative uh or you

14:29

know things go well or don't go well so that's important and what a learning moment is really is you take these but

14:34

then you share them out with everybody else so everybody else can benefit from them right correct yeah if we're doing

14:42

something and we have a breakthrough in San Diego why shouldn't we tell the

14:48

people in Sydney London you know we're we're Global that this is what we learned so they can benefit from it and

14:56

if we happen to have a negative learning moment in in London why wouldn't we want to make everybody aware of that just in

15:03

case someone else is you bumbling down the same learning moment path and they don't need to have it so we have to be

15:10

generous with what works and we have to be generous with what didn't work and you I'm sure you've asked this question

15:16

a million times but I'm going to ask it anyways do you have any specific learning moments I'm sure there's thousands of them but that stand out for

15:23

you personally oh absolutely you know one of the ones that was really you know hit me

15:29

hard early in my career is I remember one of our tribe members as we call them at that time came to me with a you know

15:36

with a an issue or or something that they wanted to get feedback on and they

15:42

started to tell me what they wanted and you know instead of being a really good

15:47

listener I I started I I moved into solving mode as you know um Marshall

15:54

Goldsmith said I was wanted to add too much value my huge learning moment was I

15:59

was not going to benefit and the person wasn't going to benefit if I didn't become a really good listener so one of

16:06

my huge learning moments is shut up um you know become a great listener and use

16:12

that interaction to encourage people not necessarily to want to solve their problem and that's one of the negatives

16:18

of you know toxic leaders they want to be micromanagers hang on a minute I got a special guest just walked into the

16:24

room here he is this is Alec or it could be Alec is the soul sucking CEO of fear

16:32

Inc and one of the many bad habits that this soul sucking leader has that

16:38

creates these toxic cultures is there're a micromanager other habits this person

16:44

has is they're they have a big ego their ego eats their empathy instead of their empathy eating their ego they think they

16:51

think they're corporate royalty they love a fear-based culture they're a master of control they have all the

16:57

answers even wrong ones they don't value learning they must always be right they

17:04

hate feedback and they don't keep their commitments so um you know you want to

17:09

get rid of the Alex in your life and I'm going to tell you early in my career I probably had some of those no I

17:15

definitely had some of Alec in me in some level of abundance and and until I became aware of the negative impact of

17:22

that on the people that had the privilege to lead um I wasn't able to change that behavior

17:29

yeah I think throughout our careers I know I did too you know Alec is like the smart alec right the know-it-all smart

17:36

right the smart Al um but I think what's key Gary that you said right there is that you became aware of it now when

17:43

you're working with uh CEOs or other leaders right now how do you help them

17:49

become aware if they're exhibiting any of these toxic behaviors so you know in the coaching I

17:56

do and I coach a number of CEOs right now both of public and private companies the first stage of my coaching practice

18:03

is awareness and actually I use the work of Marshall gosmith to do that he wrote

18:08

a great book what got you here won't get you there and in that book there are 20 habits that over his many years of being

18:15

the the number one CE coach in the world he recognized in people so you know I

18:21

have that as my platform and we go through those and we talk about you know are you adding too much value Are you a

18:29

listener you know what are what's going on in and these these I've found these

18:34

behaviors to be very common so once we identify those then we can then go into

18:40

the next step which is in which is intention which is I'm now going to practice not having those

18:47

habits yeah it's so important I mean I coach some people as well and and a lot of times they just don't see some of the

18:54

behaviors that they have you know and uh you just got to kind of get it out there for them so then once they realize that

19:00

they can actually move forward and grow and learn from them yeah you know it's there's a thing called the jari window

19:07

and you may have be aware of that but if the people with us today aren't um you

19:12

know it it's it describes what we see in ourself but then the window opens what do other people see in us and as as part

19:20

of my practice uh in my coaching I actually interview their peer group or

19:26

their stakeholders as we call them and I asked them what are what of these

19:31

behaviors do they see in the leader and then we do a heat map and usually there's a disconnect what that the the

19:37

leader thinks they see and what others see there's usually a disconnect yeah and many of you out

19:43

there and Gary you probably see my uh my camera doesn't seem to be working dumbass move right um yeah I just saw

19:49

that is that a that that was a trick to show dumbassery yeah that's that's uh yeah that's a trick um but you know

19:57

we'll uh we'll we'll see we could work it through uh otherwise um people will just get to see you and you're much more

20:03

handsome than I am anyways so we'll go no way I have a great no way I have a great face for radio I know that yeah

20:10

apparently I do I I do as well um so anyways let's just keep going so I want

20:15

to go back to learning moments for a second um and you know if if I'm a

20:21

leading an organization and I'm saying to myself hey this sounds fantastic but you know uh maybe we don't necessarily

20:28

have a fail um culture but we're not going out there and sharing learning moments the way we

20:34

should what is one step people can do uh or leaders can do to start implementing

20:39

uh being more open about sharing learning moments well what you need to do really is again psychological safety is so

20:47

important in an organization so you know what what are you doing to create an

20:52

atmosphere where people feel like they are free to be able to share without the

20:59

you know the concern of being criticized so you know I write about it in the book and Amy Edmonson does wonderful work on

21:06

this is if you create an atmosphere where people feel safe psychological

21:13

safety and a lot of that comes from you know the behaviors of the leader you know if you think about you know great

21:19

leaders what are they doing you know Le great leaders involve and love their people so they're they're creating that

21:26

bond that they're always in servant leadership mode so they're there to serve the people they're expected to be

21:32

competent that builds psychological safety and one thing that I always talk about they spend a lot of time in the

21:39

stinky locker room and what I mean by that is don't have corporate royalty

21:44

when was the last time you asked people in your organization how are you what's on your mind and that's the first you

21:50

know chapter of my book is you know are you okay um it's it's you know a great

21:56

coach in an organization is someone who is there to help the other person win to

22:01

build trust so the first thing you do is build do what you need to do to build strong psychological safety within your

22:08

organization yeah because that helps build trust right which makes people

22:14

feel more comfortable about saying things and and failing and and sharing those fa uh those failures and I and I

22:20

believe really in the next chapter of your book it kind of leads up to you know the four pillars of um of a

22:27

friction free leadership can you kind of walk us through a little bit of I know it's uh cander is one of them right yeah

22:34

yeah there are four pillars uh the first one is actually care uh which is so you know which is again where we just

22:40

started in that you know do what do we do um as far as our people are concerned

22:47

so care is we love and care our PE care about our people enough not only to reward them and applaud them for doing

22:54

great work but are brave enough to redirect them when they are not playing to get an A in the book I wrote with Ken

23:01

Blanchard many years ago which is called helping people win at work our tiine was I'm not here to mark your paper I'm here

23:08

to help you get an A so our job is to Define what that a is and again as I said not protecting our own comfort zone

23:15

at the expense of other people's growth you know great leadership is about having those Brave conversations that

23:21

are about redirection not reprimand uh but only redirection once you've become

23:27

very clear on uh what an a looks like the next one is cander no lying no faking no hiding I

23:33

believe most people in organizations don't lie I believe they fake and hide

23:41

and they fake and hide because of fear so you know one of the great you know antidotes to that is execute the

23:49

learning moment the next one is accountability are we clear what do I expect from you what do you expect from

23:54

me and are we you know are we having that conversation and accountabil ility is you know what do we agree that needs

24:01

to be done to what standard does it need to be done too and and what's our

24:06

timeline when do we need to complete this task and then responsibility equals accountability and ownership and we

24:14

created something really special at WD40 company it was called the maniac pledge it was the Pledge of responsibility and

24:20

the maniac pledge says I am responsible for taking action asking questions

24:26

getting answers and making decisions won't wait for someone to tell me if I and I if I I am responsible for asking I

24:34

have no right to be offended that I didn't get this sooner and if I'm doing something others should know about I am

24:40

responsible for telling them and this is the antidote to a a a anep an epidemic

24:47

in organizations I call it the na na na na disease the finger pointing

24:53

disease I can't tell you you know I've had the great Fortune of interviewing hundreds and getting to know hundreds of

24:59

great leaders I've never seen any great leader who's got the victim mentality you know

25:05

who's pointing fingers blaming other people and what I really liked what you talked about earlier as well was you

25:11

know uh getting in the stinky locker room right you not not being somebody who's sitting in your glass office on

25:16

the 57th floor you know you're actually rolling up your sleeves and you're getting to meet with people you're

25:22

helping them become more comfortable and you're caring about them and and and being accountable and so that's all uh

25:28

that's all fantastic now going back to culture a little bit I mean you basically say that culture can be uh

25:34

really the competitive advantage in today's world what what then are most

25:40

organizations getting wrong well number one is they don't

25:45

believe that culture is a competitive Advantage because they they don't think about it that way and here's why it's a

25:51

competitive Advantage we can write the best strategic plan in the world we'll

25:57

take it belong to some smart professor and they say great strategic plan you know your marketing position is really

26:04

strong you've thought about distribution you know you understand the economics of your business you've identified a a

26:10

clear need um with with the target you know end users of your product really

26:16

good um you know really great plan but if only you know 30% of the people who

26:23

go to work every day are engaged and dedicated to executing that plan you're

26:30

only going to get 30% of the result of that great strategic plan now what's

26:36

really really disturbing is gallup's workplace analysis in January in the US

26:45

Employee Engagement dropped to 31% the lowest in a decade and 177% of people

26:51

who go to work every day are actively disengaged so if you've got an organization with a great strategic plan

26:58

but but only 31% of your people or 30% of your people are engaged your

27:03

deliverable is going to be much less than if you've got an organization where 80% of your people go to work every day

27:11

and they're engaged and enthusiastically executing against your strategic plan so

27:17

it's simple the will of the people time strategy equals outcome and I don't

27:22

understand why organizations don't get it I do a little bit though because in a lot of cases you talked about

27:29

ROI ROI of building culture is a longterm investment you're not going to

27:36

change the momentum of your business in 90 days but it's if you do it

27:42

consistently and that's what you know the book is all about I guarantee you

27:47

because we've proven it that you can over time build a sustainable

27:52

organization that has amazing Financial rewards that Delight

27:58

ites its customers and has a very very high Employee Engagement and importantly

28:05

it sends people home happy so they're building better families and better communities how much of the

28:12

disengagement do you believe is around you know ever since covid you know the

28:18

the the vast change into virtual remote work you know where people aren't uh

28:23

building strong connections or or seeing people as as much as they used to is that a a big part of

28:30

it I think it's a huge alarm Bell I you know I talk about listen to The Alarm

28:35

bells one of the chapters in my book I think this solitary

28:41

confinement that we're you know really forcing in organizations where people

28:47

are totally virtual is a huge alarm Bell the most significant drop among employees with disengagement were the

28:54

people under 35 highlighting a growing trend of of of Detachment so I think as

29:01

Leaders we've got to reframe this it's not about saying to people come back to

29:06

the office because I don't trust you or you're not productive where you are I'm sure that most of them are but human

29:12 29:12

connection Dam Damon is so important so you know we have to find a way of

29:19

balancing now it's going to be a balanced workplace where sure let's have

29:25

some people who can work from home when they can or wherever but we have to As

29:31

Leaders be brave enough to bring people back together clearly saying to them the reason we're coming together is not so

29:38

you're coming in here to do boring work we want your brains and your enthusiasm

29:43

and your you know you all of what you have in person and we want you to Interchange that with others that are

29:50

with you your great ideas happen over time so you know I I challenge leaders

29:57

out there bring people together in a meaningful way I often say you know

30:05

Damon's running out of the front door of his house this morning he gives his wife husband or significant other a high five

30:11

and says I am so excited to go to fill in the blank today because we are going

30:16

to fill in the blank today what is your fill in the blank that has people running out of the door being excited

30:23

that you're going to be together then as Leaders also tell me how you are going

30:28

to choose those that you want to that you want to lead at a higher level in your organization if you don't see them

30:35

perform in person I don't know how I would have done that in my career if I didn't see how someone actually treated

30:41

someone if I wanted to put them in a leadership role how they presented in person so I think this is a huge alarm

30:48

Bell and we have to we really have to be serious about how we're going to fix that otherwise we'll be looking back 5

30:53

years from now going wow look at how you know that really negatively impacted the

30:59

business environment yeah I mean we we deal with this all the time with a lot of our customers and you know and what what I

31:07

what I see sometimes or a lot of the times are one of the biggest mistakes are you you push people back to the

31:13

office without giving them any any clear reason why you know it's the same work that they can do from home right um

31:19

without sending directions and they keep switching up the plans all the time uh and the and the other one is asking

31:26

everybody to come back to the office Gary like you just brought up and then leaders don't do it themselves you know they're out in their they're out working

31:32

from their yacht and or whatever wherever they're at right so they're not modeling the behavior but I couldn't

31:39

agree with you more and partially it's because I'm a outside of learnet I have a investor in a commercial real estate

31:44

building I'd love to see people back into the office more in San Francisco um but I really don't think and I've had

31:52

conversations around this I don't think you can get the same innovation in entrepreneurship uh everybody being

31:58

remote than getting together at least every once in a while brainstorming being with each other and really learning from each other absolutely 100%

32:07

you have to do it and you know and also it you know it it creates divides you know I'm privileged enough to and

32:13

grateful to be on the board of Gorilla Glue a great company based out of Cincinnati and you know I go back there

32:20

four times a year for board meetings and interacting with the leadership and the people there and I walk out onto the

32:26

factory floor and there's hundreds of people out there that are making these wonderful products you can't do that

32:32

from your loung room so why should they look inside the office and see the office area is empty you know leaders

32:40

and and managers have to show the way they have to show the way so I got a

32:46

question here from Mary and her question is what specific things can leaders do

32:51

to create a culture of accountability when face-to-face interactions are

32:56

limited well I think you've got to go back to the start and I I think that's building

33:01

the foundation of a great culture so how do you do that well you know as Leaders you have to have a per a people first

33:08

mindset you have to be coaches not managers you have to have Brave accountability and behavior how do you

33:14

have a clearly defined authentic purpose in your business what are the values in your business that drive Behavior

33:21

protect people and set them free um so have you have you put the foundation in

33:26

place number one because a lot of people go to the execution without the

33:32

foundation of what a great culture is and it starts with as I said people then

33:38

purpose and then values so what is the purpose in your organization is it clearly defined and it's not your

33:44

product I wrote about that in the book a great purpose is not your product it's what you create in the business outside

33:51

of your product by the behaviors of your people and your product I like what you talk about how it's not product and

33:58

maybe you can elaborate on this SC but how you're creating memories yeah so you know and if I was

34:05

to ask someone what's the purpose of WD40 they might say to stop a squeak well that's what it does but what is the

34:12

outcome of that and what we learned was that we as an

34:18

organization our purpose was to create positive lasting memories solving

34:23

problems in factories homes and workshops around the world we solved problem problems and we created

34:28

opportunities and that became our purpose as an organization because our second value in the company was we value

34:35

creating positive lasting memories so we wanted to create positive lasting memories for the people who came to work

34:43

every day and the families that they supported for the consumers and then users that bought our product every day

34:49

and used it in their homes and factories around the world for the communities that were kind enough to allow us to

34:54

operate in you know for the shareholders who invested in our products and in in

35:00

our company and even for our competitors we wanted to make sure that we didn't see them as competitors but as worthy

35:06

Rivals so you know if you ask someone what our purpose was our purpose was to create positive lasting

35:13

memories and the product helped us do that but it was all those other things that were so important as

35:19

well and so you know you have purpose and then we're we're talking about people and one of the big things for you

35:26

is looking at your team as a tribe now a a lot of the conversations I always hear

35:32

is you know should you treat your team like a like treat your organization like a team or like a family and so you're

35:40

all about tribe where does that fall into it is that is that more like a team a family or is that a little different maybe you could describe it well you

35:47

know I if we think of mankind the beginning of mankind was tribes and if you think about what is the what are the

35:55

the just cause of a tribe it's a group of people that come together to protect and feed each other so why shouldn't

36:01

group of people come to work with one thing to protect and feed each other but more importantly and or equally

36:07

important is the the the responsibility of tribal leaders going back to you know

36:12

the caveman and ug the caveman was to be a learner and a teacher so one of the

36:19

key attributes of tribal leadership as I describe it and this is not aligning with any indigenous group is we we we

36:27

are as Leaders as tribe members there to learn as much as we can

36:33

and teach it to those that we have the the members of the tribe a part of um so

36:39

yeah it's it's a bit like a family um I guess families are probably even

36:44

sometimes more volatile than tribes but um you know teams teams exist within

36:50

tribes one of the things I did learn from when I spoke to tribal leaders in Fiji is that you know even though have a

36:57

tribe there's teams within tribes they have teams of people who are better Fisher people they have teams of people

37:03

that are better you know better Constructors of of of buildings they have teams of people that are better at

37:09

other things so but the whole essence of a tribe is a place where you belong and

37:15

you matter and you know when it comes down to the basics of great cultures

37:21

people want to go somewhere where they know and feel like they belong and where

37:27

they know and they feel like they matter and unfortunately a lot of organizations

37:33

don't create an environment where people feel like they belong and they don't show them that they matter they don't

37:40

show them they matter by applauding and rewarding them for doing great work but more importantly they don't show them

37:46

they matter by investing in them helping them to be a better person a better

37:51

better at their job you know increasing their competency if you do that you win

37:58

so if I'm a leader today listening to this and I'm thinking to myself well you know Gary's probably right I I probably

38:05

Focus too much on the bottom line shortterm goals and numbers but you know

38:12

I I I've learned a lot today I want to I want to turn this around what is the very first thing that you recommend a

38:19

leader could do would it be investing in the their people how do you how do you make them feel like they really belong

38:25

more and that in the meaning the first thing they do is look

38:31

into themselves are they being the leader that they should be because it all

38:39

starts with you it all it's not about you it starts with you so you know

38:45

leadership you know starts at the top so what are you doing have you looked

38:50

inside yourself and identify what you need to do to be a better leader for the

38:56

people you have the privilege to lead or do you have some of these attributes of Al then after you've done that then what

39:04

are you going to do to create an environment where people know they belong and feel like they

39:11 39:11

matter because at the end of the day a lot of the culture um comes from

39:17

leadership and how they're modeling it and Leadership also starts with self- leadership yourself I mean if you're not

39:23

leading yourself how are you going to lead the rest of the team yeah leadership is a you know culture and

39:28

Leadership is a is a shadow of the leader and you remember the fish always rcks from the

39:34

head yeah I love that what you know one of your chapters is um having dumbass be

39:42

your superpower uh let's talk a little bit about that yeah well you know it's it really

39:48

comes back to the fact that you know if you get comfortable with the fact that in most situations you're probably wrong

39:55

and roughly right you get comfortable with the three most important words ever I don't know and I talk about a story

40:02

about that in the book about learning the power of saying I don't know you open yourself up to the support of

40:08

people around you so your dumbass definitely is your superpower your

40:14

vulnerability showing you're human you know if you're the smartest person in the room you're in the wrong room so you

40:21

know I could never ever have done what I did and in fact I didn't do it without

40:26

the the the the wonderful contribution of the hundreds of people in the

40:32

organization that you know brought so much to the table because we allowed and

40:37

encouraged them to use their brains and bring their self to work and do that so

40:42

you know your dumbassery is your superpower so we work with a lot of new

40:48

leaders new managers you know people I know you don't call them managers we'll get to that in a second um people who

40:53

get promoted from Individual contributor to a leader for the first time and sometimes they they struggle with

41:00

not being able to say I don't know because they don't want to come across as weak uh do you have any tips or

41:05

recommendations for them on on how they dive into not being afraid to say hey look I don't have an answer to

41:11

this yeah I don't have an answer to this I don't know but I'm sure if we work

41:16

together we can find an answer that's great for all of us so not knowing doesn't mean you know you're you you you

41:24

don't want to learn not knowing is opening the door to learning so the answer is hey I don't know but I tell

41:32

you what I'm sure there's enough brain power in this room and and enough resources out there that we can find out

41:39

um but why do you want to know the answer to something and have the wrong answer it's not about you it's about you

41:47

know that power of bringing it all out and you and one of the uh through

41:54

lines of your book you talk a lot about is you know the importance of getting out of your comfort zone as a leader the

41:59

leaders need to get out of their comfort zone because that's really where disruption and Innovation happens right

42:06

yeah I mean Whitney Johnson you talks about it a lot in her work in that disrupt yourself and I know in my career

42:14

my greatest opportunities came when I disrupted myself you it doesn't get much more disruptive than you know uprooting

42:20

a family and moving 8,000 miles across a big ocean to a country where people

42:26

drive on the road WR side of the road um in an environment that you've

42:31

never been but you know be be prepared to disrupt yourself and get on comfortable a little

42:37

bit so you know I'm just curious where your humility came from you know um and

42:45

and how through all the success that you've had you've been able to remain so humble because a lot of times you see

42:52

that people have incredible success you know they they they're they leaders they to the senior Executives and they feel

43:00

like maybe they have all the answers that they know it all how do you think you've been able yourself to be able to stay so humble over the

43:06

years I have to remind me well it all started with my mom you know she lived

43:12

till she was 99 years and N9 months old and there's a chapter in the book called even the queen sits down to pee where I

43:18

talk about you know my mom reminding me that you know don't get too big for your boots Gary you know it's we're all human

43:25

but you know at the end of the day we're just these basic human beings bumbling our way down the the pathway of life and

43:32

and don't be ashamed of knowing you have to continually remind yourself I'm just going to grab something off a shelf here

43:38

to show those that are watching because I think it's important that um you know I have a a notebook that I carry around

43:45

and this is it and um on the front of this notebook is this tattered little piece of paper and it it reminds me of

43:53

who I want to be when I think I'm my best because whether I like it or not the world will drag me into places I

44:00

don't want to go so this little note says am I being the person I want to be

44:05

right now and then it says who is that person and it says I want to be grateful

44:10

caring empathetic reasonable a listener fact based have a balance opinion be curious be a learner and throw Sunshine

44:17

not a shadow now I don't know how many times a day I look at that because I

44:22

also have it on a little notepad on my sticker on my computer screen on my

44:27

other computer on my other desk but when I was you know in full-time work at WD40

44:33

that was so important because you know you could be in a meeting with someone or have an interaction with someone um

44:40

where you know you get out of balance and now you're going to your

44:45

next interaction and and it's not right for you to take your leftover self to

44:51

that next interaction because that next interaction deserves the full bot of

44:57

yourself and many times I would remind myself and say okay Center myself if I'm

45:02

going into this next meeting or this next interaction I I'm not taking what what's left over I owe that person my

45:10

full bottle I owe I don't want that impact of what just happened to me to interact with and interfere with the

45:18

person I want to be for this next interaction so you know we're just these

45:23

basic human beings bumbling our way down this pathway life and in the bushes are

45:28

these thieves that run out and grab us and they take us into the bushes and we

45:34

feel okay a minute for a minute most thieves are pro you know sometimes their greed and anger and impatience and all

45:40

these things get out of the bushes remind yourself where you want to be on this path and walk to your destiny of

45:47

who you want to be I think what you said right there is so important you know there's there are

45:53

so many times where you come out of a meeting and you're frustrated or something just doesn't go well at all

46:00

and then you have to switch gears into another meeting and what you're saying is hey you owe it to that person or to

46:07

that group of people or to the the audience that you're speaking with to be able to give it your all and and put

46:13

that other stuff behind again is there any practical advice for somebody to be

46:19

able to do that it's hard to shut that off especially if you just had a failure in your mind deliberate take a deep

46:26

breath s to yourself be deliberate and do not take your leftovers take the full meal

46:33

you just have to think about it it's not easy but just do it I mean you can if

46:41

you really think about it you take a moment send to yourself okay that's passed I'm done with that I'll deal with

46:48

whatever as Marshal I love what Marshall Goldsmith says he

46:53

says Let It Go and it's amazing how impactful that is when you've just had

46:59

something happen you go let it go well you know what's great

47:06

about that is you just gave me a a personal two-minute uh coaching session right there because obviously I'm not

47:12

thrilled that my cameras out right and so but there's the end of the day there's there's nothing you can do about

47:18

it right and so you you could learn from that see if there's anything that you know either technology happens or

47:23

whatever but when this is over I got the rest of the day the rest of the week and some important things to do so take a

47:29

deep breath figure it out and move forward Let It Go it like this like the

47:35

song my seven-year-old daughter loves from Frozen oh I don't know the song yeah let

47:42

it go let it go now oh yeah I do Let It Go absolutely because you got a couple grandchildren you better get used to it

47:49

they're gonna they'll love Frozen yeah they probably do my my the littlest ones

47:54

are in Australia but my my Grands son who's 13 and my other grandson who's 10

48:00

they're probably past Frozen but I'm sure my little granddaughter who's three or four is big into frozen you know

48:07

going back to your book one of the one of the things that I really like is that at the end of every chapter you have um

48:14

best worst and uh first let's talk about that a little bit because I think that

48:19

that is something that when when somebody goes out and gets your book you know there's some great advice right

48:25

there yeah as you know and you've looked you know you've you've read the book each chapter has a learning in it

48:32

usually with some sort of story that relates to you know that learning but at the end of each chapter we talk about

48:39

you know what are the things that you should if you would to go and do something now you know what should you

48:46

do and for example the four pillars of a friction-free culture we say the best

48:51

thing you could do is decide how important having a friction free culture is to you personally and how essential

48:58

it is to achieving your organization strategic go that's the best thing you can do the worst thing you could do is

49:04

assume that the that interpersonal conflicts uh momentarily with no lasting

49:11

negative impact on the culture the first thing you can do is watch how people interact with each other and quietly

49:19

assess the strengths of each of these four pillars in your culture consider how much work must be done to shore up

49:26

the pillars that need attention so you know those are the three things at the at the back of every chapter to give you

49:33

something to think about and as you know you've done the dumbassery quiz once you do the dumbass quiz on my website you

49:40

actually get a Playbook with four things that you could start thinking about related to you know things you could put

49:47

into action in your in your organization right now so if anybody is wants to get

49:53

you know in early go to my website www WTH learning moment.net on the top

49:59

Banner it says take the quiz take the quiz you'll get a fun assessment back and then you will get email to you a PDF

50:06 of a Playbook of stuff you could start working on right away and we'll uh this

50:11

this interview it's live but we're going to put put it up immediately as a uh as an episode and we'll put a link to that

50:18

in there as well around that so I got a I got a question here from Eddie and he says what do you see as the most common

50:26

self imposed barriers that hold people back and how do you suggest they break

50:31

through them to realize their true potential ego without doubt it's ego your ego gets

50:39

in the way of your empathy so you know it's not about me me me so I and you know some ego is is good

50:48

it drives people's but um it's certainly uh check your ego at the

50:53

door and here's a question from Courtney what are leaders doing well at a place

50:59

like gorilla gorilla Glo that's a tough one for me to say as well that is unique to a friction free

51:06

culture oh um they're a culture of belonging um they actually have you know

51:12 a true desire to treat people with so

51:18

that they know they belong and they know they matter um it's a place where people have fun um you they they recognize

51:25

achievement um and they have a great framework of accountability so um again it's you know

51:32

they they really are a a banner organization of great culture because they think they they do have those

51:39

elements of a people first culture they do have you know a very clearly

51:45

defined um authentic purpose they have values that protect people and set them

51:50

free they they they Embrace learning moments there's belonging acceptance and

51:55

connectedness and they care about people and they're candid with them and they certainly are focused on accountability

52:02

and responsibility so they have they have really taken on all of the as all the the ingredients that build great

52:09

cultures and from Nick he says Gary I'm a new manager I'm in my first 100 days

52:16

what advice do you have for me as a new leader well I'll go back to the besides

52:23

reading your book yeah I'll go back to the first thing Nick is it was it Nick

52:28

was it yeah Nick yeah Nick Nick have you really taken a look at who you are as a

52:35

leader what what do you stand for as a leader take a look at yourself you know

52:41

have a don't buy my book by Marshall go Smith's book what got you here and won't

52:46

get won't get you there and have a look at those leadership attributes that he talks about and and look at which ones

52:53

of those may be holding you back as being a great leader that's great and um I got one

53:03

more question for you yeah WD this is from Skyler WD40 is fascinating for me because it

53:10

breaks conventional marketing rules it's maintained a single product

53:15

within um you know maintain a simple a single product uh Min minimal what does

53:23

it say here minimal the extensions but the huge brand recognition how much of this was deliberate a deliberate

53:28

strategy versus happy accident yeah I see the question there I've got it so yeah it was very it was

53:36

very deliberate um you know we we have one or WD40 had one core product but

53:43

really it it appealed to such a wide range of consumers and then users so we

53:50

didn't position the product as an automotive product or a hardware product or a marine product or an industrial

53:56

product it was all of those things and then we made it easy for people to buy

54:01

it was very driven by distribution so we never positioned it uh so that that was very

54:09

powerful that's wonderful and and Gary I want to be respectful of your time I got one more question for you

54:16

looking back over your career at WD40 is there anything that stands out that you wish you would have done

54:23

differently oh I'm sure there was thousand of learning moments um you know

54:29

I I guess there were in there were individual things that I probably should have done differently but I think the

54:37

core to it was um I I think for a long time I wasn't

54:43

quite the person who didn't protect their own comfort zone and I I had to

54:49

learn the fact that if I love the people the way I say that I love the people

54:54

then I had to be brave enough not to protect my own comfort zone and um I

55:00

wish I would have probably learned that a little earlier I did learn it in the end um but I needed to to make sure that

55:07

I was brave enough to to have those redirecting conversations or make those hard

55:12

decisions yeah and you talk a lot about that in your book which I think is so important you're talking about you don't

55:17

want to be a leader who protects your own comfort zone you want to be brave enough to step out of it have those

55:23

difficult conversations make those bold moves and and try to to do things differently yeah

55:30

absolutely well this has been an amazing conversation you know we talked about uh

55:35

learning moments people first culture why culture uh can be your competitive

55:40

Advantage uh I love my my buddy smart Alec and some of the toxic behaviors

55:46

that people have uh we talked about your brand new book coming out and taking the

55:51

quiz where else can our audience connect with you at uh follow me on LinkedIn um

55:58

as you know I post uh on LinkedIn a couple of times a week sharing learnings and some of the exerts from the book but

56:05

um yeah please follow me on LinkedIn and um and that's probably the the best

56:11

place well thank you for your time Gary I'm glad that you're the the dean of dumbassery and you uh you're a great

56:18

leader for all of us other dumbasses out there and and want to be dumb asses so thank you very very much and I wish you

56:25

the best of success with your book because I think a lot of people can get a lot of value out of it and help make

56:31

the world a happier better place and so everybody out there um as I always like

56:36

to sign off I I want to say stay curious keep learning until next time have a

56:42

great day thank you and don't forget about the free books right don't forget about the free books and get ready

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍