232: Shelby Scarbrough — The Practice of Civility

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Hello everyone. Welcome again to our Scaling Up Business podcast. Hi, Shelby.

Hi, Phil. I got copies.

Coffee. We're talking today about the business value of civility, the difference it makes to actually be nice to people, to be decent. Right. And we're joined by Shelby Scarborough. So we're going to get into that in just a minute. I'll tell you all about Shelby and all that, but civility is the topic of the day. The value of civility. It's really timely and appropriate right now. So, so before we get into that, hi, welcome again to the Scaling Up Business Podcast. I'm your host and scaling coach, Bill Gallagher. We, we do shows like this at least every week and we have more actually on the way, so stay tuned for more. We're dropping a whole series of tips that are coming every Tuesday and now and they'll be here and on YouTube in video form and in all places, wherever you get them. And then we'll be adding a new series as well, interviews with people about how they grew their business. You've heard shows like this before, but this one is called Getting Real where we'll actually like have a little another cut of authenticity, not that political like happy face kind of thing, which is a great segue into, of course, today's topic. But we've done over 230 of these episodes now. So if there's anything to do with Scaling up that you would like to know and learn about, we've spoken to authors and experts on everything in the world of people, strategy, execution, cash, the big four decisions of Scaling up, as well as a lot of things on what I like to call the fifth decision, the kind of leader that you want or need to be to deal with the next phase of your growth, the fifth decision. And all those shows are@scalingcoach.com so that hold back catalog downloads of the tools, things like that for free copy of our book. If you're looking for a coach right now, we can also help to connect you to somebody, appropriate the fit for you personality style, that kind of thing and in your area, all that@scalingcoach.com if you are looking for something like that so you can find us there with everything that you might Want to know scalingcoach.com all the back catalogs. You can also drop us a line infocalingcoach.com if you're looking for some help or connection with something. So so onto the subject of the day, let me introduce Shelby Scarborough. So Shelby, the things you should know about Shelby is that she really started her career as a very young woman right when most of us were still trying to find the next party. She went to work at the White House under President Reagan and she was part of and managed his advance team. Right. I think. And she had events with Gorbachev, the Moscow Summit, economic summits in Germany, Italy, Japan. She was then a protocol officer in the Department of State and she founded this company in this thing. She's done events with Nelson Mandela, Pope John Paulinsa, you know, just a whole range of extraordinary human beings. And I've heard her share about them. We're also personal friends for a long time through what was once known as yeo, today known as EO or the Entrepreneurs Organization that we've both been involved for decades. Shelby has a BA from UCLA where I was born very good and did the owner president management program at Harvard. And so anyway, Shelby is a friend, more than just an ordinary guest and more of a friend to my wife today than anyone else. But so I'm happy to talk here as well in a public setting, not just on our deck.

But it's been nice to be sitting on your deck in the time of.

COVID or or your yard up in Yonville. So welcome Shelby.

Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

Now, where are you today? Are you in the East Bay? Are you up north?

I'm in Danville today, yes, East Bay. But I'm heading to Yorkville today, this.

Afternoon and hopefully there again now and like that kind of thing, right?

Exactly.

So let's get into a little bit. But before we do that, why don't you give folks a little bit of this arc of your career because I think some of the stories start naturally to come from that and then we can, you know, get into the book and how you've Written the book and like that kind of thing. So we didn't even say that. Right. So you got coming up, which is the place that we always want to or we often talk to folks about civility rules, timeless tools for creating a practice of civility. So take us back then.

Sure. Well, many, many moons ago, I started my career, as you said, in Washington, D.C. i was right out of college, and I had great opportunity to work in President Reagan's White House in the advance office. So what that office does is go around the world and set up the visits of the President to anywhere he goes, whether it's actually across the. Across the yard or across the street, across the city, country or town, or even in foreign countries. So we had great opportunities to be part of a lot of historical events and such as I didn't actually work on this. I was working on the Venice Economic Summit and went from there with the entourage and flew into Tempelhof Airport in Berlin and watched President Reagan give his memorable speech where he said, tear down this wall in front of the Berlin Wall. So it was just really indelible memories and experiences, actually, because the work was nothing less of perfection was expected. But it was a great example of how we had to work with all different people all the time and come away as an ambassador, in effect, for the White House, for the presidency and for the President of the United States. And it was a really good framework and base plan for the rest of my career. From there, as you said, I went to the State Department, where we had the exact same work, basically, but just for. There's Molly. We had the great. Hi, Molly. We had the great expectations of handling the visits to. Of the. To the president. So kings, queens, prime ministers and foreign ministers. That was the lowest level we ever dealt with, was foreign ministers. And then, as you said, I started my business, Practical Protocol, where my first client was, very fortunately, fortuitously, was Nelson Mandela right after he was out of prison, not when he was president. This was the minutes after he was out of prison. He came and did an American tour. And the African National Congress, who hosted his tour, hired me to handle the visits to the White House, the State Department apartment in Capitol Hill, which because clearly, based on what I just said, I. I knew my way around those digs at that point. So we had. I had some really, really interesting personal experiences with Nelson Mandela and his then wife, Winnie Mandela. And he taught me every one of these clients, every one of these experiences taught me something about civility in one way or the other, and sometimes good Sometimes bad, sometimes what not to do, and sometimes what, what. What we really need to be focusing on, at least that's my personal hope, is that we focus on civility and the execution of it and a practice of it in our lives. And each one of those experiences with any one of these dignitaries really helped feed that base of knowledge.

You know, I had a friend, actually a son of one of my old mentors, served in a, a different administration, and we went to the White House to tour the West Wing with him and he walked us around and he had a great title and it sounded very policy oriented, that kind of thing. But in fact, what he said is his whole job was figuring around how to move people in and around the White House and the West Wing and make them feel comfortable, not to ruffle feathers. And I was struck by how they did that for both parties because they didn't want to antagonize someone from needlessly antagonized. I mean, maybe they might sometimes do something intentionally to take a dig at someone, but not unintentionally, right? So like, oh, let's make sure they don't have to see face to face, or let's make sure that they do connect. Like, I was fascinated by that. Like, how much of it comes down to personal, like feelings and connect and.

Courtesy and consideration of the, of your guest or of the person you're dealing with or anybody beside yourself. That's really the, the focus of civility is to think about the other people or person first, put somebody else first. And that doesn't mean you sacrifice all of your standards or your values or anything. It doesn't mean anything like that. It just means thinking about somebody else before for yourself for one moment and trying to figure out what the best way to connect with that person is or what would be a great experience for that person. If we care about civility, if we care about connection, which is really what civility enables us to do is develop relationships. You said we, I used to do that. We had a thing called admin time. And in the West Wing, I would come over on Thursdays and the President had about, you know, an hour, an hour and a half or something of admin time on Thursday, where they sort of lined up, you know, Miss America and the Boy Scout of the Year and a staff member who was leaving and their family, a Secret Service member who was leaving their family, that kind of thing. And we would stack them up, literally, you know, so it was one after the other. The President would be at the Oval Office, his Personal aid would brief him. I would put the guest who was supposed to be next outside the Oval Office door. The door would open, the President would say, oh, Shelby, nice to see you. That kind of thing. Right. He'd know exactly what was happening. But in order to make that go smoothly, we had to stage people. I staged them all around the West Wing. And my perspective on it was to give them. Instead of just have them sit in a waiting room and wait with everybody else, we separated them all out. Except when you said it would be nice for them to meet each other. Right. So we gave them their own experience. And we would put the Miss America, we'd put her in the Cabinet Room, and then I would have somebody else in the Roosevelt Room, and then I would have somebody in the West Wing lobby and somebody. Right. Than outside the Oval Office. And I would rotate them so we. One person would come in and out, and then we'd take two minutes while he was being briefed, and I'd move the next person into place. So they all kind of had this mini tour and I would tell them about the room they're in and that kind of thing. But it was all, you know, they didn't feel like they were being rushed through something. They had a very personal experience, but it was all like clockwork so that we could get in as many people to meet the President as possible in that one hour time period. Yes, it was a rotation. What we talk about as a protocol officer, we talk about looking like a swan. You know, swans look very graceful on the surface, but. But underneath, in order to, you know, go through the water so gracefully, they're paddling like crazy. So that's sort of what our, you know, our inside motto was, was to work like a swan so that everybody looked. Looked at us. We were nice and calm, but we were constantly thinking about the next steps.

Sound interesting? So, you know, my leading value is courageous authenticity. So. So, and it's no secret, but I'm going to include the audience in. I, I disagreed with Reagan on almost every policy thing that you could possibly imagine. But. And I'm sure, and you and I have very different political backgrounds. But I always was impressed by two things. One, his communication ability, his ability to speak right and to convey a feeling and to deliver something, which I'm sure comes from his performer background. But then also that thing that you point to, the civility, the gentlemanliness of that, that we could use a lot of more of in both parties and around the world today, which is, I think, your message to us but like, you could respect somebody for that. You might disagree with them, with their perspective. And I did very strongly. But I miss that gentlemanliness and I miss that inspiring thing that, you know, a new day in America that the beginning commercial. I'm like, wow, that's really moving.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I don't know, you may disagree with this, but perhaps I might speculate that you could listen to him and you could hear what he was saying a little more clearly because of the delivery, because of his approach versus some of the more antagonistic styles that we have today and where if you agree or disagree strongly right now we want to throw something at the television set. So it's. I mean, we're getting visceral reactions now. And I really, I mean, I just, again, this isn't. Civility isn't about being weak. It's not a weakness to be polite to people. And it's also, civility isn't just about being polite. It's really about being able to say what you need to say and in a way that people can hear it. And so much of what's happening right now is people aren't hearing what's being said one side or the other, when we're talking specifically about politics. But we can talk about it in business. We can talk about it in our family relationships. Whatever you want to do. We can see, say, look, how do we communicate better so that we can move forward together on a positive plane?

So let's bring it to business for just a second because I. Or just as a placeholder, if you have to let somebody go, right. That can go really badly and cost you a great deal of money and time and emotional energy. Like bad firing. Like I've seen it destroy companies of people that, that I've advised and of friends and foreign mates and things like that. Just like literally no company left after 50 years because they mishandled the hiring within a year. So that's one. You also think about bad partnerships, customer relationships, vendors, things like that, that can go really ugly because instead of dealing with a breakdown, look, breakdowns happen, right? We have missed expectations. We do. And then we have to resolve them. And when you're in uncivil with someone. Is that the word uncivil?

It gets complicated how to use it. But I think it's basically how you. How it best sounds to you. Uncivil and civil.

Incivil and civil. That. That can inflame things and it can get needlessly contentious and expensive. If you are not civil with people.

Right, yes, for sure, for sure. I can think of an example of somebody I knew who was not doing well financially and they were having some issues with the bank. And so they ended up telling the bank, just telling the bank what they wanted to do and it ended up not turning out so well. The relationship with the bank soured. And instead of working with the bank as a partner, and sometimes, you know, banks aren't always really great, but these days, lately in Covid, a lot of bankers have been pretty, pretty willing to talk to their clients because they know that it's better to work through it than to just be so hard down on the covenants or something that you have some agreement that you have with the bank, with your loan or with whatever it happens to be. And so the relationship. So the relationship is very important with your bank. And I think there's some people who would differ with me on that right now when they say they thought they had a good relationship with their bank and then they couldn't get a PPP loan or something like that. But that's a slightly different issue. It's still important to have a good relationship with your bank if you care to be able to, in times of trouble, come to them and ask them for forbearance on something or to work through something. I think of an example in firing. You were talking about hiring and firing. I know that I hate firing people. It's like the worst thing. And yet I've had to do it a few times in my life. And in the end, I can tell you I'm thinking about it right now. I'm getting a little verklempt because I can think about it. The people that I fired are actually very close friends of mine to this day. And that to me is a testament probably to both personalities, but to the idea that, you know, it doesn't have to be an ugly thing. And it, and it can be. You don't always have to be best friends with somebody that's fired because that's may not be possible in a more structured corporate engagement situation, but that it doesn't have to be an ugly thing if, if it's handled correctly with civility, professionalism, civility, dignity. The point of civility is to help someone keep their dignity, to show people respect. So from an HR standpoint, what's more key to that than those things? So even if somebody has done something egregious, that doesn't mean you have to be egregious in return in the termination.

Yeah, I think that's a really useful boundary. If you can bring respect and dignity to someone, even if it's outside your bound, like, they have to go, they don't fit, and even if you don't like them. I find if I bring some and coach someone to give some dignity and respect to that person authentically, not like the lying thing, but find something that you can sincerely say to them in that process, look, this just doesn't. There's going to be a better place for you. There's a better time. I don't know this, I'm sorry this ended this way, but that, that makes an enormous difference in how things are going to go. I mean, I've literally had people take my hand as I'm firing them and say, you know, it's going to be okay. I understand. I appreciate you as you, as you.

Break down in tears.

100%. And even also in, in or whether you have to. We've had a lot of people have to lay people off right now. Look, I'm sorry I have to do this. I, you know that, that giving people some consideration and not treating them as bad or evil or positionally. Right.

I was in Switzerland once and they have a lot different rules for terminations, but we had somebody who did something really, not really bad. And so, and I had to be the one to fire her. And basically I couldn't fire her. She worked in the hospital, but she was working in our department, so. But I had to be the one to walk her out. Literally walk her out with her things in a box kind of thing, you know, with no notice. And, and she was, but we hugged and we, I said, look, you know, I'm sorry, this is just the way it is and you know, you're going to find another spot, etc. But I hope you've learned a lesson. And, and this is just. It was horrible for me too. But I think we left it on, on the grounds that it wasn't. It wasn't. I tried to make it as gentle as possible and under the circumstances, despite the fact that she did something that was really a violation of trust and, and, you know, she, her behavior, but she was a sweet lady. And, and I just tried to, you know, match that as, as we said goodbye.

Yeah. It's funny. I, I've had to fire people who, who stole from me.

Yeah.

And I'm like, you know, I know they love their kids and that kind of thing. I'm like, look, this, it's not excusable. There's no going forward. You have to go and doesn't mean you're evil. You know, what you did is inexcusable and it's time to move on. And I wish you the very best. In the next thing, talk to me about your personal experiences, interactions with President Reagan. What was like, what did you notice? What can we learn from that?

Well, I have kind of a simple story that I talk about a lot that I call the after you story. It's just more of an illustration than really the deep down stuff. But, you know, we would walk down the hallway, say in the, in the, in the building next door to the White House. It's called the oeob, the Old Executive Office Building. And he would come over there for speeches in a, in a, there's a big conference room there. And so he would come, we'd get, I'd pick him up as he was coming into the building. We'd get into the elevator and before we get into the elevator, I would say, after you, Mr. President. And he'd say, oh, no, after you. And then I come back, no, no, it's okay, go. Because I'm supposed to be the last one in and therefore the first one out. It's easier logistically, right? Because then you're right there to, you don't have to dig people or jump ahead or scramble so much. So it's just, it's just a simple thing we always did. President goes in first, everybody else comes in after, everybody else comes out first. But, you know, I mean, he was a gentleman and I was one of very few females in doing that job. And so it was a different time and it was a different space. And I would like to think at this point, if I was with him now, I could just say, you know, we're going to have to just like get, not do this because we're going to do this dance every time. I really appreciate your civility to me, but it's okay. I, you know, it's okay. And, but he was just such a gentleman. He was such a kind person. And in general, he, he treated everybody with the same level of dignity and respect and kindness and civility that whether he was your, your an adversary or foe. You know, now with Gorbachev, with Tip o', Neill, these are famous relationships that we know through history. They both, they were adversarial at first as far as their, well, I would say their, their positions were. They didn't agree. But as you and I have said, you said here today, we don't agree on a lot of things, but we're friends and we care about each other. And so Tip o' Neill and he were friends and they disagreed on things and they fought vehemently for their positions, but they did it with respect to one another. I mean, they might have had a few, you know, you son of a gun. I mean, they could have done sort of colorful language maybe, but in general, they, they, at the end of the day, it wasn't personal and they were able to turn around and go out for a beer and have laughs. And they both had an Irish heritage, so they would talk about being Irish. And they had that. They found that common bond that kept them together. They had, they, they knew what their common bonds were. And that's a really important part of all of this, is finding where you have commonalities and not differences so much. There's so many more places that we are common, have commonalities with any other human being than we have differences. And if we start there, it's a lot easier to take on a difficult conversation because we want to show respect for the other person's point of view, even if we vehemently disagree. And it's okay to disagree. That's my biggest point here, is we have to be able to disagree. Think about it politically, think about it in business. If all you have is somebody who says that's nice and says nice things to you in your business, where's the growth? Where's the opportunity for exploring and expanding your horizons and learning something new? Unless we push the envelopes here, unless we're able to talk to each other clearly and directly, we don't get much done. It just, everything is in a stasis. So this is a way for us to learn and grow in our businesses. Is learning this, this way to communicate with one another that allows us growth.

Why don't you share also the story you were talking in prep about a Canadian student who did something. Because I think it illustrates actually taking a specific action to cultivate that. So tell that one again.

Sure. It's a really good example of how an individual can make a difference. And I think that's one of the biggest places that we seem to be a little despondent these days is I'm just one person. What can I do to change the world? You know, we can have, as entrepreneurs, we all entrepreneurs have big ideas about changing the world and we all want to.

You mean my social media posts don't change the world?

Oh, yeah, exactly. So there, there's a, there's a lot of, you know, we can have aspirations, but when it gets down to brass tacks. We know it's hard for one person to change the world. Well, this one kid in, In Canada, he. He was. He'd been bullied a lot as a kid, and he. He made a conscious decision to not feed into that, to not take that mantle on and to repeat history by becoming a bully. And so what he did was he decided to. And he had a. He had a little. A few issues. He was, I guess, I don't know what the, you know, politically correct term of things are these days on all this stuff, but he was, he. I would maybe call him special needs or some. I don't know, he just had some, Some issues socializing, being socialized, I guess. So maybe it's autistic. I don't really even know. But these are things that we see in our society. And people tend to stand back and especially kids tend to tease people. And that's. Obviously, we know that's not right, but it happens. So this young man in high school, he gets to high school and he opens the. The door of the high school and people start coming in. He starts greeting people. And at first, you know, he gets a little chuckles. People are like, what are you doing, dude? You know, what's the deal? Okay, that guy's a little weird. But, you know, every day he started doing it, people started really liking it, and eventually it was expected and he, he started. And people started opening doors for each other and he. And it got some media reports and, you know, buzz in the school, buzz in their town, buzz. So eventually he did change his world. He changed it for the better by just being courteous and holding a door open and greeting people with a smile and how are you? Good morning. What a simple concept. I mean, we can't all do that, but if you just take the basic concept of that, of what that can do, to just reach out into someone else's heart by showing a good faith and showing humanity to somebody else. Imagine what you could do. So can we do that in our office space? Yes, of course we can. You know, when you're going to get a coffee, can you ask the, you know, now we don't even have doormen because we're not in big office buildings anymore. But, you know, can you ask your co worker, if you, if you can get them a coffee or now you're at home, can you be more courteous to your family and your spouse and set up systems so that you can have your own respected spaces? I think you guys have done that at your home right now. During COVID to. To create those spaces that are conducive for good work. And you. And you respect each other's boundaries. And you've probably had. I think you've had conversations out how to do it, because this is the right way to do it and to be able to create that mutual area, area of mutual respect for one another. Instead of the passive aggressive who left the, you know, coffee in the coffee thing? Or the who stole my lunch out of the refrigerator? Or, you know, let's. Let's get it a little more proactive.

About treating people civilly, doing something nice and intentionally. Well, you know, in most mornings around town and. And evenings for that matter, there are crossing guards as kids walk to or arrive at school, and maybe less so today with differences in school right now, but normally that's the case. And I remember when I used to take our daughter to school, there was a particular crossing guard at one of the intersections who very clearly and intentionally made eye contact and waved. So rather than just doing something or being in his own world, he looked at each person, he said, oh, hey. And you could see, like, the little shift from just looking out into the world to looking right at you and waving and smiled, and it was like, good morning and that kind of thing. And oh, my God, we love that guy. I don't know who he was.

I don't know.

A little sunshine in the day. Was someone just being connected, just reaching out, just offering a smile, Right?

Absolutely. Absolutely. I was doing an event in Poland with Pope John Paul ii. He was consecrating the wing of a children's hospital that my client at the time, who became my business partner, actually, that he had built. And we had this set up in the inside, there was a big rally or big speech outside with thousands and thousands and thousands of people, because, you know, the Pope draws millions of people. In Poland, Pope John Paul did. And he was standing there inside the hall and consecrating this new wing, and at the end of his short speech in there, all these fancy dignitaries flanking him on either side. But we brought in children from the hospital and we had them. They were all on little wooden bent blocks, basically stools. There were maybe 40 of them, and they were wearing their pajamas, and some of them were bald from chemotherapy. I mean, just. Just, you know, heart wrenching, these. Having these kids. But they were so cute sitting there, so patient, tiny little kids. And the Pope walked over to them and touched every single one of them on the head, blessing them as he went. And just like the eye contact that you mentioned to me, just that literal physical connection. It was electric in the room and I'm not Catholic. And it was just kind of overwhelming, you know, that, that to. To see that again, the humanity and the bringing it down to why we're there to bring your attention to the point of it all. He was masterful.

I hear in that and in many of these stories generosity and. And then. And some humility which is. Seems lacking.

Yes.

And need it like, you know, like it would make a difference now to be a little generous and a little humble. And.

We'Re talking generosity of spirit. Right. It doesn't have to be a physical tangible thing. Although that's always nice when it's possible. But just, even just generosity of spirit. Spirit of giving people the benefit of the doubt on something that instead of assuming the worst, you know, come in with hoping for the best and, and just leaving the. The defensive mantle at home. And the humility is a big part of my. That and humility is a big part of the book I wrote because to me that's one of the key elements. That's the gemstone in the middle of all this is intellectual humility, which goes to the point of we don't have to be complete amoebas without any kind of backbone or any kind of position on anything to be humble. You don't have to have no self esteem or no, you know, no self awareness or self appreciation. What we have to be is sort of more in the middle of it all, which is the ability to walk into a room and know that we could be wrong and not always assume that we are right in everything we do. Everything. We may be dead right. But. But to just come in with the attitude of I might be able to learn something new here. I might. There might be a new twist on this. And we're just human. And so. And the person standing before me is just human. And so if we. But not assuming the other person needs to be humble. This is the mistake I think that we make is we're. We're hoping that everybody's good. If we come into this and try to have a practice of civility, which is what I've sort of put together for myself is I can't expect somebody else to do it right. I can't expect them to live by that. I hope that my behaviors will rub off and we can either have a literal conversation about it or by my behaviors it will positively impact the person in front of me. But I can't expect them to come. That's not the point, it's my own personal responsibility to take responsibility for my own actions. So my own practice of civility. And so I'm going to come into a conversation humbly. I hope that that will affect the conversation in a positive way. But if the other person isn't humble, doesn't show me respect. It doesn't. That's not that. It's not my job necessarily to admonish them or correct them. I can stand up for myself, but it's not my job to make them a different person, because I can't. They have to make themselves a different person. And hopefully my behavior will help them if they need to change a little bit, hopefully my own behavior will help them. And I learn constantly from other people how to be a better person. And I watch for that.

Yeah. I'm struck by, and reminded by a story, you may know it, of the blind men and the elephant. Do you know?

Yes, but go ahead, tell the story.

Like, so there's a. There's an illustration and a story and there's many versions of this. I find it really helpful. I show it with my, the teams I coach and stuff all the time. That. So it's like, I believe it's an ancient Indian story. And these blind men are led to see, to quote, unquote, see an elephant for the first time. And as each of them touches the elephant, they describe the elephant in really, really different terms. One touches the leg and describes it, it's like a mighty oak, and. And the other touches the. The trunk and describes it as like a snake. And then I forget the tusk and the tail and the ears and, you know, like that kind of thing. So. But they each see it and report.

It.

Factually from their own perspective. And each of us sees the world a particular way, acts a particular way because of the way we see the world and shares our perspective pretty faithfully. Now, we may be dishonest at times or lie to try to gain advantage or manipulate something, but even that is rooted in a perspective. And all of those perspectives are valid. And when I hear that story, I remember that we all see the world a little differently and we all act completely consistent with the way that we see the world in what we think is appropriate given that perspective. And we're all looking at it from a slightly different angle.

We are. And so, you know, our beloved group EO has fantastic tools for us that we can use in our businesses. And I talk about this a lot. You know, some. The basics of our forum moderation and how we behave actually Even outside of forum where we don't. We don't should all over people. You know that one that we don't give advice, right? We don't give advice as much as I've been sitting on this podcast, basically sharing my experiences, though I hope more than giving advice and trying to inspire some thought processes in that way. But we don't give advice to each other. Entrepreneurs don't like to be told what to do. We love stories. We like to hear people's stories because we learn from that. And the way we learn from those stories is to ask clarifying questions. So once we hear someone's story, we ask, now can you go a little further into this? Can you tell me more about that so that I understand more of your perspective and your experience? And I think those are amazing tools to employ in every aspect of our lives in the most complicated relationships we have, is to be able to say, tell me, tell me more about that. Tell me why you, why you've come to that conclusion. Did you touch the tail of the elephant or did you touch the tusk? You know, it's still an elephant, but, you know, where are you in this journey? And that's a great way. Then what we do, as you know, we turn around and we share our experience that might be relevant to them, but it doesn't tell them what to do. It doesn't tell it. We say, you know, here's something to consider. I saw this one time, and this is how it affected me, and this is what I did. Whether it's positive or negative or I wish I hadn't done it, or I was glad I did. And then the, the other person can listen to that and hear it much more than if we start right in with, oh, you know what? You should do this. And I often say it's like a marriage and, or a divorce. Marriage or parenthood. I mean, pick any of those wonderful, huge, magnificent topics. And marriages, divorces, and parenthood, okay, we think we all know what that is. But is any marriage the same? Is any divorce the same? Is any parent, child, relationship the same or parenting experience the same? No, not one. Not one.

Yeah. So I think it's a great segue to this notion of sharing your story versus sharing something else. And you talk about, about our first president and his rules of civility. Talk about that one. Because I think people are sharing a lot of stuff that's not really their own stories, and it's more manipulative than anything else. So talk about that one.

So George Washington as a kid was probably given a school assignment, we think, and he took a French etiquette book that was actually designed by monks, a monk or monks, a Jesuit monk, trying to groom. Intended to groom noblemen in France. Okay, so that's a whole. I mean, the context is just sort of interesting to me. George Washington then wrote those rules in English, in this sort of early English that we have in this country. That sounds funny to us these days. Thou shalt not stand so close to a man so as to bedew a man with one spittle. Well, that seems funny because why would you do that? But we know now in the time of COVID that that's exciting, exceptionally, and especially good advice. What he did with those, they were 110 rules. So they've now become known as George Washington's Rules of Civility in their public domain. You can Google it and they'll come up anywhere on the Internet. What I did with those rules is I looked at them over a number of years. I was thinking of writing a children's book about it. And then it evolved into this book that I have now, the Rules of Civil or Civility Rules, based on flipping the switch on George Washington's Rules of Civility. I call it Civility Rules, with the idea, with an exclamation point, that this is something that we want. We wanted to rock. We want civility to be popular again, I guess. And in those Rules of Civility, he. He basically lived most of those rules most of the time. You know, he had a temper. He was known as having a temper. So he, like us, like me, imperfect person, but tried really throughout his life to kind of employ those as much as possible. And he employed them in his leadership with people. He treated people with respect. He lived with his employees, so to speak, with the soldiers. He didn't go off and, you know, he camped right with them, and he went among them and said, how are you feeling? Tell me your. Tell me your experiences so that he could understand more and be a better leader. And that's. I think those are really great tools to be able to use these days. And again, his stories, you know, he. He, again, he was an imperfect person, but he learned throughout his life and he grew throughout his life, even in this essence of he was a slaveholder, which I know is a big important topic these days. And. But. And so how do we listen to somebody who held slaves? Well, he also, the Marquis de Lafayette, became a close friend and was very influential in showing him that abolition, the abolition position was really the better one. And he released his slaves at the end of his life. And he was, he just knew that at the beginning, his position was at the beginning of the country. It was a very complicated situation. And he was right. It led to civil war eventually. You know, he knew that it wasn't going to be easy just to turn the switch off on that, but he chose to turn the switch off on slavery in his life. So.

We'Re gonna go to a couple more things about the book and all that in a second, but I just wanna give a shout out then to some of the folks that helped. So Lucy Summers does all the scheduling. She's our show producer. She prepares the guests and promotes and does all that kind of work. So big thanks to Lucy for helping to put us together in this time. Even though we're friends, there's always work to do getting ready for these shows. And I wanna let everyone now know if the to you, please pass it along. The thing you could do for us is give us a rating and a review on itunes or wherever you get your podcast. You can of course, go to scalingcoach.com, subscribe to them for free, get a copy of the book Scaling up for free. Just pay the shipping and handling and of course, all the back catalogs. You can also drop us an email if you want to contact us or anything like that. Scalingcoach.com infocalingcoach.com I want to give thanks also to Vern Harnish, who created the Scaling up framework, who distilled the original Rockefeller habits that led to that, who we both know and trained us at different times, and to Albert Burge at Podfly Productions, who edits our show audio each week. And the show notes are compiled by Ein Codena and then proofread by Tim McGowan. So back to, back to this topic. I think there are a few big things that I'm hearing to kind of tease out, and that's that like there are these small things that we can do that make a difference in each moment. Right. It's not about a big initiative, but about bringing a little bit of dignity, some courtesy. I heard with Reagan, opening your trust, respect, humility. We talked about honoring the other person. And, and then I notice in some of the things you said, you didn't say it so explicitly, but this notion of noticing what other people need.

I say noticing the needs of others without needing to be noticed, it's, to me, that's a, that's a life choice, you know, that it's a, that brings the humility in. And it also brings the courtesy in and the compassion and empathy that it's. Let's try to. Let's. Let's try not to worry about credit. And President Reagan really taught me that. When I left the White House to go over to the State Department, there's a. It's on YouTube somewhere. It's a little embarrassing because you can find it on YouTube. I don't know why it's there, but it's. It's me in the Oval Office saying goodbye to him. And even though he says, well, we'll see you next week because you're coming back with the head of state, you know, he gave me a gift for my service in the White House and said. And it was a. An engraved crystal or, you know, plaque, glass plaque that said there's no limit to what a man can do or how far he can go, as long as he doesn't care who gets the credit. And that was another president, I think, who said it, but he had it on his desk because it was a motto that he lived by. And so I took that to heart. And, you know, it's really hard sometimes I've, as a. Just to play the. The woman card here. You know, I'm. I'm of a certain age, and I started my career at a time when women were coming into the workforce, but there were still women's jobs and men's jobs and, you know, lots of. I mean, I got in trouble for asking for business cards, which I thought was kind of humorous. So I was told I was a troublemaker for asking for business cards for the women in the office. So we had. Yeah. So, you know, some of those simple things. Right. So. And we, we got them, by the way. But was. It was about this aspect of not worrying about who gets credit. And there's so much that could be an entire show in and of itself is talking about credit and credit taking and credit giving, and I prefer to give credit. I'm. It's not, I'm not, you know, it's not like I've never tried to take credit for something. I'm. I'm sure I have, but I deliberately try not to. And I try to give credit away because I just think it's a much more powerful. Just like you did with all the thank yous for your team that's helped you put this together. You're the one on camera. But there's a lot of other people who are involved in the success of your program, and this is the same. There's a lot of people who are, who are involved in the success of our lives as well. And so to give credit away is a point of grace. And I just would rather live in that world than live in the one where I'm trying to get the pat on the back all the time that seems like a lot of energy that I just don't want to expend.

There's an old saying, I think it's of Arabic origin that success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan.

Yes.

I think the leadership correlate to that has to be give everyone else credit and take responsibility for the failing. Yes, yes, absolutely generous thing to do rather than saying, you know, I alone solved whatever.

Well, it would be the noble thing, right that the in, in the end if you think about the rules of civility made for noblemen. But George Washington saw these as something that, what it influenced him is to believe that in our new nation that we could use civility not as a, as a method of differentiating ourselves class wise and saying, I'm more, more mannered, I'm more educated, I'm more sophisticated, I'm better than you. But to actually bring it into a democracy where we could show our common humanity and work together and show our egalitarianism and to be there to, in this. And he really, I think he really believed that. I obviously hadn't had the conversation with him, but in my research on it, it seemed to affect him quite a bit. And when you take all of those rules and you boil them all down, it gets down to the concepts that you just mentioned and including one more which is empathy. So humility, honor, duty, trust, courtesy, those are the fundamental concepts that all those 110 rules that were in George Washington's Rules of the Civility really, really mean. That's what they're about, no matter what they say. And it's, that's where I feel like that was the jumping off point for me. It was a great anchor for me to explain what I feel about civility and what I feel that we could do as a country, as a world to make the world a better place. One person at a time, one interaction at a time. And I'm hoping that, you know, I call it caught in the act. I'm making these things cards that I'm gonna give them away and sell them, etc. But a package of cards like credit card type cards that you would keep in your wallet that when you find somebody who you find to be, you know, civil, that even just basically civil to reward that and Say thank you for your civility. I just caught in the act of civility. And pass it on. And on the card it says, pass this on, don't keep it, hand it, find somebody else. Now, we're actively looking to reward someone for a kindness, a courtesy, a show of respect, exceptional humility, that kind of thing. And to be able to say, I want you to know I noticed and thank you, and to pass it on.

Yeah, that's really great. It's really, it's, it's. I, as you're telling that I. I kept thinking about last year, about this time we did a show also with a woman, Kat Hoke, who has a program to help people in prison, to coach them, contribute, develop them. And Lori and I went with some of our friends and coached in a maximum security prison. And I was terrified of just being behind bars, like, and then the idea that I'd be behind there with people who could hurt me, who have some background of violence and that kind of thing, that was all right there and really confronting. But I like to do things that are uncomfortable. So I said yes, because I thought it'd be fascinating and uncomfortable, like a growing experience. And I was sure, like, oh, I could do something of valuable something. It's a contribution. But when I went there and I met the people and I saw the humanity that I didn't expect and I heard their stories, you know, and I, and, and, and you know, that most many people, maybe even most had committed murders that we talked to.

Yeah.

But I heard their stories and what their family life and where they grew up and all of that kind of thing. And I suddenly understood, like, the empathy that you speak about. I could feel and appreciate their world and where they came from, and it made sense and they didn't hide it or they're like, look, I did this thing and they told me all of it, not just the event of the moment. And we hugged them and we danced with them. One of the most powerful things that I have ever done in my life was to go spend two days coaching people in a maximum security prison. And I was left with, nobody is irredeemable. Nobody is a monster. No, nobody is lacking humanity. These are all people. And some of the things they did were just terrible.

Yes.

That doesn't make them a thing other than human. You know, I.

Love our own humanity at the same time and appreciation for the blessings that we have on a daily basis.

100%. The book is Civility Rules. Timeless Tools for creating a Practice of Civility. Our guest has been Shelby Scarborough. Shelby, thank you so much for joining us today. If you guys want to get in touch with Shelby, you can see the crawl on the screen there or go to the show Notes and find Shelby scarborough@practical protocol.com and the book is where.

Now it's on Amazon presale. I just got word that it's over almost a thousand copies on pre sale sold. So I'm I'm.

Civility Rules. Timeless tools for creating a practice of civility. Shelby scarborough practical protocol.com Shelby, thanks so much for talking with us today and with all of our listeners and viewers.

Loved it. Love you. Love your family. Thank you.

Bye bye.

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