Culture Is Everything With Garry Ridge

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof. Hey everybody, welcome

back to Unbound. Another episode of the Change Proof Podcast. Today, I've got a great guest. I've got somebody that is just an exceptional leader. He provides such tangible example of what great leadership is, what it looks like, and he can articulate it clearly, which not everybody who's really great at something that has tremendous acumen is also able to communicate what it is they do, how they do it, why they do it, and all that stuff that helps to make it clear to other people to under. for, for their own understanding. Gary Ridge is one of those people. Gary Ridge is a purpose-driven founder, board member, advisor, professor with an impressive 35-year track record of leading, growing, transforming global businesses and brands, including WD-40. His purpose: I help leaders build cultures of belonging where love, forgiveness, and learning inspire a happier, more connected world. You're gonna Absolutely love. Speaking of love, you're going to love what you hear Gary share with us today. So sit back and enjoy. Okay, Gary. So I know this is not anything new for you to hear somebody read your bio and share your CV with the world. I mean, that's not exactly new, but maybe this is one little question is new for you. What is something that is not not included in that bio? that right now in this moment you would love for people to know about you?

Oh, I have a new grandson. Isn't that wonderful? Which is really fun. So that's 3 grandsons and 1 granddaughter, and that grandson is in Australia. So I haven't met him personally yet, but I will.

And I feel like I have inside knowledge here to say this too. You share a birthday with your grandson, don't you?

Yeah. Well, the US date of his birth was the same as my birthday. It was a day later in Australia as As it is, you know, that if you think the world's going to end, Adam, you just call Australia. And if they answer the phone, you know that the world's not going to end.

I'm going to track back. I don't think this is dating us too much, but the whole Y2K nonsense, I say nonsense now, right? But remember this paranoia, hysteria. I don't even know, literally thought that the world potentially was going to end when we struck a second past midnight at the turn of the millennium. Right. So, which we know it didn't happen, but what was interesting then was the fact that there were people, well, there was like sort of the news cycle was at the time was looking at folks in Australia to see whether or not what happened to you all.

Yeah, exactly.

And whatever happened to you lot was gonna happen to the rest of us. Right. And then when you were all safe, then we all knew we were gonna be safe. And yeah, the rest of it just sort of fizzled out like so many hysterias. I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. Well, I wanna dive right into the fact that you've got a new book and I wanna understand it, but there are some people perhaps that we need to create some context. So if you don't mind, just, just share a little bit about your history as a leader. WD-40 is a company that many people have either heard of, if not have their products in their homes, et cetera. So I think it'd be good just to create a little context around your leadership of that organization has informed you are now sharing your ideas and your wisdom with, and I say wisdom because I know you, so I can say that, but the wisdom that will be in this brand new book that's going to hit the shelves in just a couple of months. So if you would.

Sure. So, you know, I think my biggest learning moment for the 25 years that I was CEO, and I was actually with the company 35 years, but I now say I've just completed my 25-year apprenticeship in leadership and now I need to put it to work. And when you reflect back on the 25 years, it really is an apprenticeship. You learn The basics, but the basic thing that was so powerful to me was to learn that leadership's not about you. It's about what you can do to bring out the best in others. And when I was given the privilege to lead WD-40 as the CEO in 1997, we had a dream and that was to take the blue and yellow can with a little red top to the world. I and our marketing and folks in the company knew how to identify markets and then we knew how to build those markets. But what we really needed was an organization that could operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, because the sun was never going to set on the can once we went out. I was unsure how to do that. And the story starts on a Qantas 747 flying from Los Angeles to Sydney, 38,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean at 2:00 AM in the morning. And as you do when you fly, Adam, as you know, you take stuff to read and I read a quote that was attributed to the Dalai Lama and it was, our purpose in life is to make people happy. If we can't make them happy, at least don't hurt them. And I thought, that makes sense. And then no more than 30 minutes later, I read something else and it was from Aristotle who said, pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. And I thought, now that even makes more sense. And I reflected on how many organizations that I knew where people just really didn't enjoy what they were doing. Now, here we are, this is 1999 now, 2 years after I was given the role. And that kept swelling in my head. So then I came back to San Diego and I read an article in the Union Tribune and it talked about a master's degree in leadership at the University of San Diego. And this program was put together by Dr. Ken Blanchard, the One Minute Manager, the guru of servant leadership, and USD. So I went to an information session and Ken Blanchard said, most MBA programs get people in the head. We've got to start getting people in the heart. And they outlined what this 2-year master's degree would do, and I enrolled. So here I am, CEO of a US public company, and I'm going back to school. And it was the best decision I ever made because I learned the power of what it is to be a servant leader and consequently my dedication to bringing out the best in others. Now, as you probably know, we wrote a book, Ken Blanchard and I, called Helping People Win at Work. And the byline was, I'm not here to mark your paper. I'm here to help you get an A. And our role as leaders is to help people get A's, not mark their papers. So my big learning has been it's not about you as a leader. It's about awareness of how your leadership behaviors impact others. And our role is to help those we have the privilege to lead play their best game. So that was the journey. And hopefully in the book, we've taken those 25 years into 26 chapters and talked about the significant parts of that journey over time, because I'm hoping— that's why I've called it Any Dumbass Can Do It, because a lot of leaders, I think, think that building great cultures is overwhelming.

The new book, I just want to again clarify for the audience, the new book is called Any Ass Can Do It. Because some people might be looking at this on YouTube and they see the book in the background, but others are listening to it. So the new book is Any Dumbass Can Do It, which I love the title. That's why I just keep saying it. And

I am the Dean of Dumbassery.

And you're the Dean of Dumbassery.

Yeah.

Well,

and as I said, it's because a lot of leaders think that building cultures is overwhelming. And, but if you know what the ingredients need to be and you're consistent and dedicated to it, You can do it. And the results of doing that are incredible, mostly because you end up with a highly engaged workforce who really enjoy what they do and they go home happy. And happy people build happy families and happy families build happy communities and happy communities build a happy world. And we need a happy world. So, amen.

Yeah, we need a happy world. We need a happier world. I

would say happier world.

I don't know that anybody's going to push back on that statement at all. I want to dive into culture then. I think we all, I think we know what it means. We got a sense of it for sure. And yet it's a bit amorphous in some respects as well. But I wanna get a take on this because you created a culture, and I don't mean you, you and your team collectively, collaboratively curated, crafted a culture at WD-40, which was unique to that organization, has performed well. I mean, just for the people that wanna know from where the advice is coming from, how would you describe the culture at WD-40? And now you're not in that seat any longer. I mean, it— Yeah. And obviously I know you probably had some hand, a big hand in the succession. Yeah.

Yeah. Culture to me is a group of people that come together to protect and feed each other. And it's based on culture is values plus behavior times consistency. So people want to know and feel like they belong in an organization. They want to know and feel like they matter, and they want to be able to make choices to be able to have the independence, but they also want to be with a group of people that are there to protect and feed each other. It's why I named our culture a tribal culture because we were there to just do that. But if you think about culture, there's a number of elements or a number of ingredients. When I was a young lad back in Australia, I went to a boys' high school. And one day I was in a science class and the science teacher said to me, we're going to grow culture in this Petri dish. Sure. And there are 2 things that are important. What are the ingredients that you need to put in the Petri dish? And then how are you going to care for that Petri dish? So caring for the Petri dish means you are going to feed the good elements, but you are going to be, and I'll put it in view of being a leader, you're going to be brave enough to treat the toxins. So if we think about what needs to be in that petri dish of culture, well, firstly, you have to have a people-first mindset as a leader, and you need to be a coach, not a manager. You're not there to manage people. You're there to coach them into their best game. You have to have brave accountability and behavior. You have to have a clearly defined authentic purpose. You have to have a hierarchical set of values. Your vision needs to be transparent and simple. You have to reduce fear by taking the word failure out of the organization as we did. And we said, we don't make mistakes, we have learning moments. So you become a forever learning organization. You have to have belonging, acceptance, acceptance and connectedness within the organization. And you have to care about your people. You have to be candid with your people. You have to hold them accountable and you have to really, really be responsible as the leader. Now, if all those ingredients are in the Petri dish, your job as the leader is to feed the good ingredients and then don't protect your own comfort zone at the expense of other people's development by not being brave enough to treat the toxins and redirect behaviors when they're actually polluting that Petri dish. I have a good friend, his name's Charlie Maloof. He owns Broad River Retail, a retail organization over in Charlotte, North Carolina, Ashley Furniture Stores, has a great saying. He says, culture is not a microwavable event. You have to take a crockpot approach. And that is so true because it's gotta have the ingredients and it's gotta cook it up over time.

Yes. Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you'll ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience, but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. I'd love to talk about the toxins. I know that's— it's not— may not be the thing that we spend the most time talking about. In fact, I think it's It's the thing we would least want to talk about if given our choice. But having coached as a CEO and building people up and looking after the culture at WD-40 for 25-plus years, you must have run into quite a bit of toxin, or maybe not quite a bit, but you ran into that. I'd love to get your approach where it is that you made some mistakes when it came to that and where it is that you ended up in the end knowing and understanding it better when those things, when those things are present. I mean, I just would think On some level, you're the last person I found it as in my role as a CEO. I was often the last person to really, and I think this is both was a sign of certain things that are weaknesses in my own leadership, but also just a sign of the way that I saw the organization that I was running. I was the last person to see the toxins often. I didn't want to see them, not because I was looking to avoid seeing them, but I was always positively promoting the things that we wanted. Sort of the saying of put your eyes and your focus on where you want to go, not on where you don't want to go. And so that was a blind spot to me is how I would describe it until those things became so prevalent or where they became such that I couldn't ignore them anymore. And then they were bigger problems than they might've otherwise been. That was my experience. It was part of it. So I'd love to know how that was for you along the way and what were your learnings? Some of them anyway.

I think I introduced you to this person some time ago. I don't know if I have or not.

In the office. Yes, I remember that.

This is Alec, or it could be Alice, the soul-sucking CEO or the soul-sucking leader. And I invented this person to talk about some of these toxins that exist. And I'll give you some examples of what they are.

I just gotta tell my audience too that you're holding up a, like, what are you holding up, Gary?

I'm holding up a little doll with a big mouth and a big Type A on their jersey. And I invented this person or this avatar, if you will, to be able to talk about generically the toxic behaviors of leaders that kill cultures. And I talk about him in the book. His name was Al. I had to change it to Alec, which I kind of like better because it's smart Alec, because in the book, Al looked like AI and everybody says, what is this AI thing? So we had to rename him to Alec, but I do like it better because he's now smart Alec. So if I think about these behaviors, number one is ego. If you can identify a leadership behavior where ego eats empathy instead of empathy eating ego. They tend to be a micromanager. They want to have their nose in everything, which means people aren't making choices. One of the ones that really play off too is some leaders think they're corporate royalty. They think they've earned some royal status when they haven't. That's when they should be in where I call the stinky locker room more often, but they don't go to the stinky locker room as much as they should because they think they've now got some royal status they've earned, which is absolutely not true. They love a fear-based culture. They tend To drive fear. One of the toxic behaviors is let's drive fear. And we know that fear is one of the most disabling emotions we have in life. They're a master of control, not only micromanage, but they want to be in control. Here's one that's really a bad toxin in any organization. They have all the answers. If you are with someone who has all the answers, I'll guarantee one thing, they have the wrong ones as well. They don't value learning. They must always be right. They hate feedback and they don't keep their commitments. And in the coaching work that I do now, Adam, and I coach 7 CEOs right now, the first process I go through with them is helping them be aware of what their late leadership behavior is like. Because if they're not aware of it, they don't know how it's impacting people that they lead and how it's either shutting them down or actually not allowing that person to bring their brilliance to the table. So the first part of my coaching is awareness, and the second part is intention. Now, I will admit that I probably had all of these attributes at some level of abundance during my early time as a leader, but I wasn't aware of it until I really became aware of it and then said, and was aware of how negatively it impacted other people.

If you can recall, you know, one of those moments that just looking back now, it's easier perhaps to see the forest for the trees, but is there a pivotal time where your leadership changed as a result of either an awareness that came to you?

Yeah.

Or somebody held up a mirror and said, hey Gary, with all due respect, sir, which when I was a lawyer and standing in court and we would say to the judge, which I think is still said frequently, when you say with all due respect, Your Honor, you really mean the opposite.

Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. The first class that I did at the MSCL program was a class that was really about understanding who you were. And my initial DiSC profile was, I was a Turbo D. And if you'd like a definition of a Turbo D, it's be brief, be bright, and be gone. And I had to learn that that wasn't going to to do what I needed to do. So that first class at MSCL really cut into who we were as leaders and what our leadership style was. So that was the awareness. So I had to go from a, and I'll give you an example. I had someone that I was with—

Which meant that you were also impatient.

Yeah.

Impetuous.

Yeah.

Maybe quick to anger, I suppose. Piss off. Another thing.

All of that.

All of them.

Guilty. Guilty, Your Honor.

But my deposition is over.

You see, but I didn't know, I didn't really realize how negative that was. Now, I had someone that worked for me who was one of my direct reports, who was a vice president that was a Turbo I. Now, if you think about the DiSC profile, the definition of a Turbo I is they're late for meetings because they're building relationships along the way. So if the Turbo D Was to go to the Turbo I's office or to have a meeting with them. The Turbo I would want to spend the first 5 minutes kind of flourishing the relationship. The Turbo D wants to get in, get it done, get out. So me, I can't change them. I can only change me. So one of my big learning was that I've gotta fix this. I would go to that person's office with a cup of coffee and in my head was, I don't have to achieve anything here till this coffee cup is empty. Hmm. Which really gave that person to the opportunity to be the turbo I they needed to be. But I needed that reminder. I needed that prompt to remind me. Now, it took me a while to get over that. I must tell you now, if I do my DiSC profile, I'm now an I, not a turbo I, but I'm an ID. And that took work and awareness and intention.

And the word that came from me earlier when you began, when among the first things you said, you talked about being an apprentice, being in an apprenticeship. For many, many years. That felt like, to me, humility. Like that was the word that came up when I was listening to you speak about that, because people that have longstanding successful careers probably don't consider themselves still to be apprentices, to be looking at problems or looking at the world with apprentice eyes, with beginner's eyes, but rather see through a lens of expertise and acumen and intelligence and accolades and all those kinds of things, which again, you could say that's ego, but there's an element of truth in it, right? There's people who have accomplished things, they have a right to their achievements, et cetera. But to maintain that humility, even in the midst of knowing some stuff, I think that's a different balancing act.

Yeah. And I think there's a few things I often ask myself these days. Why do I believe what I believe? Because the world is changing so quickly and we have to go back and test our beliefs and test them against Is this fact, fiction, or opinion? Have I really done my homework to understand that, which I think is so important. But interestingly enough, when I was in my role, I used to introduce myself often like this. G'day, I'm Gary Ridge. I'm the chairman and CEO of WD-40 Company. I'm consciously incompetent, probably wrong, and roughly right, and I need all the help I can get. And I'd always use In 90% of the time, you know what? I'm probably wrong and roughly right. I'm not quite sure. But what you're talking about is over 25 years, you know, from learning, we gain knowledge. And when we put knowledge to work, we get wisdom. So I think what we gain over a 25-year period is I've gained some wisdom. You know, there's roads that I don't want to walk down because I'm wise enough not to do that now. I've got enough scar tissue. I've beat up enough. But I think the other side of it is that we need to be continuous learners, and organizations that are just insatiable learners are going to grow faster and be more successful than those that put on blinders and don't want to do that.

Yeah. Do you think we're in an inflection point in the world of business, given emerging from the pandemic, the changes that were catalyzed by what was necessitated by what was just forced upon the world of work? And even with the advent of AI, especially over the last year, do you think we're at a kind of an inflection point?

I think life's journey is a series of inflection points. My dad was born in 1907. He went through World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Industrial Revolution. They were just series of seasons. So yeah, we're in a new season. You talked about Y2K. That was a period of time. You think about Y2K. A friend of mine, Rebecca Homkus, she's a professor of strategy and we used her at WD-40 and she's become a good friend. And she says uncertainty is a series of future events that may or may not occur. And when you think about 'em, most of them don't. And that's what Y2K was. It was this huge Uncertainty as we went through COVID, huge uncertainty. So as leaders in those times, it's, that's when we need to center ourselves and understand, you know, what's our true north and where do we want to go? But we're just in a different season now.

It reminds me, it's some Mark Twain quote that approximates, I've had many, many problems in my life, some of which actually happened. Yeah. So we make up the narrative, we often do, And frequently make that narrative about the worst-case scenarios that don't materialize. And there's an element, I think, of resiliency that comes from being able to game out the what-ifs and all that kind of thing, for sure. But it feels like there is a sea change that's in process right now. Let me be more specific. The culture that got people through the pandemic, I feel that that was the culture of those organizations that were able to be resilient in the midst of that sudden an immediate change, that the culture coming out of the pandemic has changed by virtue of a number of things. And I just want to get your take on that because again, this word culture is, it's a perfect sort of umbrella term for a lot of things, as you say, that allow people to collaborate, work together for a common cause and a common good, hopefully. But what is the culture now?

There was a lot of conversation around the pandemic about the great resignation. Do you remember that?

Sure. Quiet quitting, you know.

I wrote an article. It wasn't the Great Resignation, it was the Great Escape. People were escaping toxic cultures. They were saying, I'm not putting up with this anymore. And now the organizations that had strong cultures, people are wanting to go back there and be with their people again. Now, sure, we've learned that we can split our workloads. Some stuff can be done virtually. And some can't. But I'm really concerned about this because people can't lose connection. We're human beings. We've got to be connected. And it's also very divisive because if, you know, I'm on the board of a company in Cincinnati called Gorilla Glue and great company, great culture. There's 300 or 400 people working on a production floor making glue. They can't do that in their bathroom and their bedroom at home. They've got to go to work every day. Yet there are people in the office who are given the privilege of not coming to work anymore. So what's the great divide? Now, fortunately, they have a great culture and the people are coming back or did go back to the office because they valued collaboration. They valued connection. Our role as leaders is to be able to kind of what I say, fill in the blank. Adam's leaving home this morning. He's running out the door. He gives his husband, wife, or significant other a high five and says, I cannot wait to be together with this group of people today because we are going to fill in the blank. So what is the fill in the blank? But we can't lose this connection. It's something that we've really got to think hard about. And that's where some leaders have gotta be brave. And I think the narrative has been wrong where they're talking about, well, people aren't as productive when they're working at home. Well, they're more productive, but what they're not, they're not more entrepreneurial working at home, not as innovative as working at home.

Right.

You've gotta get together with people and you've gotta have that conversation and kick the thing around. And what if, and this and that and whatever. And also as leaders, I think about when I was in WD-40, I wanted to see my leaders perform. How did they interact with people in person? How did they motivate? Because that's what they needed. So yes, culture is more important now than it ever has been. There's more positive conversation around it. And I think organizations are understanding how important it is because if you come down to the dollars and cents, Adam, You and I could get together and write a really good strategic plan for an organization. And we, you know, we might take it to a smart professor and say, mark this up. And he says, Adam, Gary, good strategic plan. You've got a very clear path to where you want to go. You looked at the market, you looked at the kickers and the killers. Go and execute. Thank you. 70 out of 100 for your strategic plan. But if only 30% of the people that are in our organization, Adam, go to work every day, And positive about executing against that plan because they know they matter, they know they belong, they're making choices, they're getting developed, 30 times 70 is 2,100. But if 80% of the people motivated, belong, blah, 80 times 70 is 5,600. So all good leaders are spending a disproportionate amount of their time on what's our strategy, but not enough time on how do we increase the will of the people to ensure we have a very effective execution. That's it. It's that simple. And we proved it. I'm not an academic, I'm a practitioner, and we proved it. We had 93% employee engagement. 98% of our people said they'd love to work at the company. We 6x'd our revenue and we took the market cap of the company, a public company, from about $300 million to about $3.5 billion, a compounded annual growth rate, a total shareholder return of 15% a year. We never laid off one person over a 25-year period.

I want you to say that last line again, Gary. Not because anybody missed it, but because I just want to hear it again.

We never laid off one person over a 25-year period.

Yeah.

Because we're a group of people that came together to protect and feed each other. And we took the brand to 176 countries around the world. And we, it's not said, we just sell oil in a can. Duh. Well, in fact, that wasn't true. Our purpose was we were in the memories business. We existed to create positive, lasting memories. By solving problems and helping people. And again, I'm the dumbass. I am the dean of dumbassery.

Yeah. I'm going to ask you a question and you can punt on this one. I'm questioning my mind even if I want to go here, but I'm going to ask anyway. I'm curious whether you think CEO compensation or comp packages for more than just CEOs, for other senior-level executives gets in the way of taking care of putting people first. There's a lot of companies who have part of their values, their mission, vision, values, They talk about the importance of their people. And yet when things, when markets change, when they contract, when there's headwinds, as we hear from time to time, the first kind of thing that happens is that there are exercises. Sometimes they're called reorganization exercises that amount to people losing their jobs. And they know that back in the day when I was an attorney and practiced in the employment space, they were called reductions in force. I don't even know that they use those terms anymore. Frankly, they're constantly changing these terms to describe this, the incidence of people being brought on board, being told that this is your home here, we're a family, and again, we're all gonna collaborate to create a result together. And then we go through these cycles where people are routinely let go of and then rehired. And I think it's incredibly inefficient and ultimately tremendously more costly to those organizations because of what they lose in the way of innovation and engagement. So many other things, not to mention the cost, just the cost of, of replacing people, good people. But yet it goes on all the time and it's going on right now. I'm just curious whether you think somehow or another there's something structurally wrong in the way organizations are. I'm speaking of ones that have shareholders, that have stakeholders, public stakeholders in particular, that, that gets in the way of putting the people first when ultimately to keep people. I don't know whether you ever went through a period, Gary, where keeping that record intact of not letting anybody go, that I'm sure you had disciplinary issues and things at times too, but to not have done it the other way might've gotten in the way of the bottom Might have impacted shareholder value temporarily. I gotta believe that was true. And how'd you navigate that with your board of directors? You know what I'm getting at here, and I don't know whether we should go here, but it's just one of those things I think about from time to time.

Yeah. So we were there to build an enduring company over time. We never gave quarterly guidance. We gave annual guidance. We are not going to run our business on 90-day intervals. I can't do that. I'm not that smart. But we went through times And in 2008, 2009, the Great Recession, right?

Yeah.

So option A, we lay people off because we don't know what's going to happen. Or we took a stance. We said we would much prefer that all of us suffer a little than a few of us suffer a lot. So we're all going to do something to protect all of us. So we did. We had a salary freeze. We did certain— and we all did it from the top down. Everybody did And in fact, we had our top leadership probably suffer a little more than everybody else, but that's okay. But we all kept our jobs. And when it was all over, we thrived. We came out of that and we were on fire because we were ready and we didn't have to do what you just said, which is reeducate, reequip the brain drain that we would've lost.

And regain trust.

Trust. Yeah. I was criticized, or I got the most negative feedback I ever got at the company from our people were, we don't have enough people. I said, we may not have enough, but we have enough to guarantee that we can go through good times and bad times and you are safe. So yeah, we are going to do a little bit. Maybe we are doing a little bit more than we need to, but I think a lot of leaders get out over their skis and they over-equip their people or the people. So one of the things that I did, I had to approve every new hire because I said, I am not going to let us be responsible For exactly what you just said. Someone's joined us and 6 months later we've had to let 'em go 'cause we couldn't afford them. We have no right to mess with people like that. No right whatsoever. So if I thought we were gonna go through a period of time where we may not be able to support the number of people we had, I would put a hiring freeze on and say, okay, we're gonna stop here for a minute and just make sure we're okay. But at the end of the day, if we go through a hard time, everyone's still gonna be here.

Do you think Wall Street would put up with that, or how do you think that would be met today? Because you— how long have you been out of the seat? What, 4 or 5 years at this point, or is it not that long?

2.

2 years.

2 years.

Okay.

Well, I think you've got to pick your shareholders. We picked people in the end. I have sat across from fund managers and said, please do not buy our stock because what you want, I can't give you. We're going to be in conflict. But if you look at the shareholders of our company that ended up being long, long, long, long-term shareholders, they were the ones that did accept what we were doing. A couple of our largest shareholders said, I never look at quarterly results. What I'm looking at is strategy, culture, and execution over time. Now you better deliver, otherwise they're gone as well, right?

Yeah, exactly.

But they give you the time to do it. But yeah, if someone, if I was sitting with the fund manager and all they want to know is, you know, are you going to meet the quarter by a penny? I say, don't buy a stock. Don't buy a stock.

I think the latest thing that made me think about this and why I asked the question was I finished the book Shoe Dog. I don't know if you've read or heard about that, but it's a memoir by Phil Knight and the founder of

Nike.

Yeah. Well, I still think of it as the name that, and I won't give it away. It's really part of the book that it wasn't called Nike first 12 years or something. And I recommend the book, but at the end of the book, it's almost a postscript. He says, you know, of all the things that they did right, Plenty of things they did wrong. The only thing he sort of has any, and I don't remember he used the word shame, felt ashamed, but he definitely felt like this was a regret of his, that during his tenure he had one layoff that was substantial, like 1,500 people or something. And even to that point, many, many years later, that was the thing that he looks back on and regrets that. And he took responsibility, at least in the book anyway. He took ownership of the fact that he'd been a better manager. He'd been able to operate in a more effective way that that might not have needed to have happened. I think not being in a role as with that many employees, but having a number of employees, I think the hardest thing in our business was not a publicly traded one, but there are times when you literally wake up in the middle of the night worrying about a lot of stuff.

Every day, you know, every day. I mean, you know that your actions can affect thousands of people and Remember what Dalai Lama said? Our purpose in life is to make people happy. If we can't make 'em happy, at least don't hurt them. And do you think that didn't ring in my head every day?

Yeah.

Which means you had to make hard decisions. You know, leadership is a heart of gold and a backbone of steel. No good deed goes unpunished. You have to be like that. And it's interesting that, you know, on September 1st, 2022, the day that I was not CEO anymore, It was that day that I actually realized what a huge responsibility I had up until August 31st. Because I woke up that morning, it's like, oh, it's different. It's different. And I did it for 25 years. Most CEOs don't last 25 years. It was because I was a dumbass. So,

nah. All right. Well, we'll all beg to differ at this point. The last question I just want to ask you, I could keep you here all day and I'm sure people listening wish I'd do that too. Gary, you're coaching CEOs. Our company Workwell works on the organizational development side of things. And so we work also with senior leaders. Many rarely do we work directly with the CEO. That's— we're usually brought in by CHRO or in the learning development function or some other areas. But I'm curious because we're always working at the level of culture. When you are speaking to a CEO, when you're coaching one and you're trying to keep it simple for them, I know you have That beautiful list of ingredients that go into the Petri dish. I mean, if there's one thing that you tell a CEO, you just, this is the not negotiable here. You have to make sure you are looking in on this, that you have to be impeccable in this one area. Is there one thing that just you harp on, that you remind, that you are redundant with them about?

It's not about you. It's not about you. It's about how you help those you have the privilege to lead. It's not about you. And be comfortable with being consciously incompetent and probably wrong and roughly right. And realize that you need all the help you can get.

Indeed. Indeed. Well, thank you for helping us out today, Gary. I just so appreciate your time and your thoughts, your insight, just who you are. So we appreciate it.

Thank you so much. Thank you for what you do and you're helping getting the word out there that culture is so important.

Yes, as promised, Gary Ridge. What a good human, as my dear friend Janine would say. Got to talk about culture at a deep level, a personal level, really dove into the way Gary sees culture, his philosophy, and why it matters. These ingredients that go into that petri dish to create a culture, what that looks like, and ultimately the through line, of it all, I think, is making it about others. They— it's not about you. That being the sort of the statement that he made to himself that he learned along the way, not initially perhaps, but in his own experiences and making mistakes as a leader, as a CEO of a massive organization, global enterprise, publicly traded company that really took care of its people, but also took care of its stakeholders. So it really fulfilled its mission on all levels, I would say. During his 25-year tenure and 35, I think, years in total with the company. But really that place of humility that it's not about me, it's how I help other people as a leader. How do I help other people be better? I think that's the crucial question for all of us in our roles in any organized enterprise, whether it's entrepreneurial, whatever it might be, whether it's for-profit or not-for-profit, whether it's inside an organization. of some size or even one that's quite small, we have to focus on how do we make other people better. I love the way he described this, that we're looking to bring out the best in others, not to mark their paper, but to help them to get an A. It's a very simple distinction, but one that for me anyway, I, I hear that and I understand it in an instant. The difference between marking somebody's paper, grading somebody's paper as a part of your style of leadership or management and working alongside them next to To help them to get an A, to get a better grade. Just the difference there. And ultimately how we do that and how we bring that to life, even through challenging times, is an art form. It's something that requires practice like any other art. We must practice it and to ultimately perform it. So I absolutely just loved this conversation. I'm sure you did as well. And if you did, in fact, please share it with friend or family member, colleague, et cetera. Let us know what you think by going to adamarkel.com. And leave your comments there. Give us a rating on the platform that you're consuming this podcast. 5 stars is fantastic. We love that as well. All of these things are helpful. We appreciate you for taking the time to do them, to provide us with your absolutely invaluable feedback. And I'll just say once again how much we appreciate you being a part of this community. We'd love to support you in any way that we can. Let us know if you'd like to get access to any of our curated assessments. They're very, very unique and special one in particular. The culture assessment is one that we don't make available in, uh, just sort of publicly. But if you want to gain access to that culture assessment for you or for team or organization, just reach out to us at team@workwelllabs.com, team@workwelllabs.com, and we can give you access to that. And the resilient leader assessment is made public. So if it's for you, if it's for a member of your team or others, feel free to share that as well. All you need to do is go to rankmyresilience.com. rankmyresilience.com, and you'll get a confidential report. Takes just 3 minutes. It's truly remarkable. And you'll even get to see some changes, some trajectory changes perhaps over time where your resiliency levels are mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually speaking. For now anyway, I will just say ciao. And once again, thank you so much.

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