188- Courage to Leap & Lead with Michael Gelb, part 1

You've got courage to leap, courage to lead.

Be brave and be bold. Whoa, let it roar.

Welcome to the Courage to Leap and Lead podcast, where each of our guests share the stories of courage that helped them become powerful leaders. Before we start today's show, please remember to visit courage-consulting.com. Where you can find all the episodes and other excellent resources, all at courage-consulting.com. Now here's your host, Leadership Courage Coach CB Bowman.

Hello everybody. This is CB Bowman with Courage to Leap and Lead. And as you know, we now have 3 sections for Courage to Leap and Lead. Is this, and this one is the book interview series. So I'm not actually interviewing a book, I'm interviewing the author of the book. And so we are interviewing today Michael— Michael, pronounce your last name for me again.

Gelb. Michael Gelb.

Gelb, who's written several, several books on how corporate America can humanize their offerings. And so today we speak about 2 books. Would you hold them up, Michael, so we could see them?

Sure.

The first one is called The Healing Organization, and the second one is called How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci. Now we're going to spend a lot of time on the first book, And it's not what you think it is. It's talking to you and sharing with you how corporate America can better profit by focusing on the actual need and customer service of their customers. So we talk about organizations like Amazon, Apple, Costco, who are famous for their customer service. And also, they keep in mind the customer need. Like Apple building amazing computers that don't go down as soon as the warranty is over. The second book, The Da Vinci Code, talks about how Leonardo thought. He had a very unique mind in connecting science and art together. To allow you to be an amazing thinker. So without further ado, let's talk. Michael, so glad that you are here today.

So wonderful to be with you. Thank you.

Thank you. So, so my dear, we're gonna talk about the similarities but differences in our work.

Yeah.

So your focus is on the humanistic side of work. Am I correct?

You could say that. You could say that.

What should I be saying?

I mean, that is a true statement, as opposed to the mechanistic side of work.

Right.

The quality of human life, the purpose of business in in my view, is to alleviate suffering and elevate joy. And the thesis is, and the data supports the notion, that if you do those things consistently, you will be highly profitable.

So if you look at the Fortune 500 companies, do you feel that they do that?

Not as much as I'd like them to.

Um, and, and I asked that because this has actually turned it into like an interview. Um, I asked that because I come out of Fortune 500 companies.

Yes.

And I have to say, I've never really truly observed as number one, the humanistic side of those companies, at least the ones that I work for. And I was just interviewing a company, the CEO of a company in Canada, and through a member of my association, the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches, This man had such humility and such a focus on people, and the organization is extraordinarily successful. They deal in natural gas globally. And I asked him in a roundabout way, what other companies does he feel have that focus on values-based leadership? which is really a way of talking about the humanistic side. And he said, he referred to Jim Collins' book, Good to Great. And he said, and I don't remember the exact number, that all of basically 90% of those companies were value-based driven. And I said, okay, I'll buy that. And his sequel, talked about how very few of those companies still existed X number of years later. I said, so what does that really tell you about values-based leadership? Well, it's—

but they're not really— they weren't values-based leadership companies. That's incorrect. That's BS. So my— so, you know, I wrote co-authored this book called The Healing Organization: Awakening the Conscience of Business to Help Save the World. And my co-author is Professor Raj Sisodia, who is the co-founder of Conscious Capitalism. And I met Raj in 1996, I think it was 1996, '97. He was the director of the Executive Leadership Program at George Mason University and the Executive MBA. And he engaged me to do a series of 3-day seminars on developing your creative power, which is my first area of specialization. And we made a friendship and stayed in touch. And a couple years later, he sent me a copy of a manuscript of a book he was working on called Firms of Endearment. And it was a profile of companies that genuinely are values-based. And they were tracking the financial results from the perspective of business school And they have done a study since then comparing the firms of endearment companies who really are values-based and look after the welfare of all stakeholders and have a higher purpose against the original companies profiled in Good to Great, whose— the way Jim Collins says lots of nice things, but the way you What is good? It's purely financial performance. What is great? It is purely financial performance. So he put those companies in that book purely based on the numbers. And then he says all sorts of great stuff about how you get there, about big, hairy, audacious goals, et cetera, et cetera. But it's purely a financial metric on the good to great companies. Whereas the Firms of Endearment companies, how much do your people love to work for you? How much do your communities value you and feel that you are enriching the community? So, if you look at the performance, just the financial performance of the good to great companies versus the firms of endearment companies, the firms of endearment companies outperform the good to great companies financially. Not to mention that People love them and, and they make a better— the world a better place. I mean, some of those good to great companies were Wells freaking Fargo. Are you kidding me? How many times, how many billions of dollars they have to pay in fines for cheating, lying, and stealing? Uh, Circuit City went out of business, and before they did, they cut everybody's pay to the absolute minimum you could pay people. They had no values.

That—

it's just nonsense. But don't get me started.

Oh, I want to get you started. So what are some of the— because I've not heard of this book, Firms of Endearment. I love it. I'm going to look it up. What are— who are some of the companies that he puts into this category?

Well, I believe one of them was Southwest Airlines.

Okay.

I'd have to dig out my copy to see who else was in it because When we focused on the— this is the next version of Firms of Endearment. We profiled 25 companies in this book. And they were all leaders that we knew. But the— do you know Bob Chapman? He's a great example. Bob Chapman, the Barry-Wehmiller companies.

Yes.

He's one of our classic healing leaders, and what he's accomplished is just amazing. And they've made a 17% return year after year after year after year by saving these industrial businesses— not fancy, not glamorous— in Midwestern, you know, Rust Belt towns. And Bob turns around the culture, gets people to care about each other, And it looks like a miracle, but we could replicate that miracle. And that's, that's what we try to teach people how to do in the healing organization.

Yeah, Bob Chapman wrote a great book on this. I can't remember the name of it, but I have it downstairs.

Well, he also co-authored that book with Raj Dasodia, my co-author.

Okay.

Yeah.

When, when Raj—

Everybody Matters. Everybody Matters. That's the name of it.

Thank you. Yes. And when Raj wrote this book, Terms of Endearment, did he consider the effect of the company on the public?

Yes.

Because I have to say, Southwest Airlines, uh-uh. How long ago was this book written?

In the late, uh, I think like 2000 it came out.

Oh, okay, okay.

It's only recently that Southwest Airlines has run into some major turbulence. They've been a great company Up until recently, people love working for them.

You—

nobody ever left.

Well, I'm thinking more of the— of their customer base.

Well, you know, their original purpose was to democratize air travel. So they were competing against United, American, so on, whose idea was just make money by going from our hub, uh, to our next hub. You remember, you've had the experience, you're flying somewhere on United, you're 2 hours out, they have, you know, some engine trouble, they turn around, fly you back 2 hours because it's more convenient for them. They don't care if you live or die. Southwest, the original concept was we're not competing with United or Delta, we're competing with Greyhound and Trailways. We want to take people who, who can't get to see their relatives, who can't go where they want to go, and make it affordable for them to go there. And we want to be nice to them and treat them well when they're with us, which, you know, they, they did a pretty good job of doing for a pretty long time. I, I haven't flown them for a while, and I know they've been in the news with some very difficult things in the last few years, but For, for a couple of decades, my impression is that they were fulfilling their mission and people loved to work for them, and most of their flights were full, and they made money every year too.

Um, I'm— I happen to be not a fan of theirs, but I'm not a fan of very many airlines anyway.

Yeah, well, I'm a fan of making enough money so we can all fly private, but that's another story.

That would be I'm, I'm all— I'm with you on that. Totally with you.

Let's make a deal between us. Whichever one of us reaches that status of wealth first to have our own private plane, we'll pick up the other one.

You got that. You got that. Um, you know, as, as I forget the guy's name who wrote in, um, Blue Ocean Strategy, you know, what, what to do different in, in the red ocean versus the blue ocean. So let me ask you, what causes a company, i.e., Southwest— not to pick on Southwest— to go from treating their customer or their client like gold to treating them like cattle? If this is a good model for running an organization, then what causes the shift? And by model, I mean they're profitable and they're treating their customers. Yes. Yeah.

Well, it's a great question, and it's one I've thought a lot about, because in many cases, these firms of endearment, these healing organizations, are generated by the loving vision Of one charismatic leader.

Yes, true.

And when that person departs, either through retirement or death, it is very challenging to have the culture that was created continue.

And the question is, why?

Well, part of it is greed because as enterprises become more successful, they attract more greedy bastards. So when this book first came out, the first foreword was by Tom Peters. But then we did the paperback, and the foreword to the paperback was by Paul Polman from Unilever. So Polman is another unbelievable healing leader, transformational guy, and he told us the story of the corporate raiders who tried to destroy Unilever, who tried to, you know, just chop it up Screw all the employees. Just treat it as a vulture treats carrion. And he, he says the battle to fight off evil was like the toughest thing he ever did in his life. And amazingly, he rallied everybody and kept Unilever going. Now he's moved on from Unilever.

Uh, uh.

I hope it's doing well. I think he, you know, set things in place that made it a really great company with a sustainable culture. But there's no magic formula, obviously. You know, you can apply everything in every book I've ever written and everything you've ever written and still screw it up. So there's no simple, easy formula or simple, easy answer. And But one factor, to answer your question, is just a charismatic founder with higher values, higher purpose gets this thing going. They bring out the best in everybody. It gets really successful. Greedy people wanna take it over for their own purposes. That leader and champion leaves. And that's a whole other phenomenon is how do you, how do you make the culture self-sustaining? And I have ideas and strategies and techniques that I think are helpful in that, but I don't pretend that I could magically do that. Marshall Goldsmith can't do that. None of the genius, brilliant colleagues, none of them, anyone who says, I guarantee this will all work. And look, I think stakeholder-centered leadership coaching is a great tool that makes that more likely. It's one of the best tools. But there's, you know, you could be doing all that, giving feedforward to everybody, and everybody's performing and improving, and they're checking in with the 6 things every day. And then some raiders come in and take you over and buy you out or just fire you, whatever. So there's nothing that guarantees it.

Yeah.

And having said that, I'm working, you know, my view is to work on the, like, we're at a point in human consciousness where there's more possibility that people can see that we're all interconnected, that your environment is not a, like, an environmental policy is not a thing you have to do to fend off the activists. It's the air that you breathe, your children breathe, your grandchildren breathe. And if you screw it up, you're destroying yourself, your family, and everything you've tried to do. So we're— I'm attempting to help people see and experience for themselves their connectedness so that they will be better stewards of everyone that they interact with.

So, Michael, first of all, show your book again. This wasn't meant to be an interview, but I love where it's going.

Sure.

Healing Companies.

Yeah. It really depends on the company. Depends. I'll give you one of the examples I can give you. Union Square Hospitality Group.

I know it.

Right? You've eaten at Union Square Cafe?

Yeah, when I lived in New York.

Pretty consistently fabulous food.

Yes.

For the quality of the food, Very fair price, family kind of service.

Mm-hmm.

Lovely ambiance. So this is the creation of Danny Meyer, who's an amazing person. I mean, he came from a sophisticated family that had a lot of conflict at the dinner table. And he thought, you know, people who work in the hospitality business, if you work in the restaurant business, you're there. So, I mean, you're that— you're going to be at your restaurant more than you're going to be home.

So true.

Right? He said, what if we could create a healthy family environment for these people who are just working crazy hours under amazing stress day after day? What if we could help them feel Connected, because if we can, if they can feel basically love and being cared for, then they're going to care for the guests, and then the guests are going to love it, and they're going to want to come back, and they're going to leave bigger tips, and they're going to order more expensive wine because they're feeling happier and more expansive. So, you know, long before I. I wrote this book, you know, when I was single in New York. So I was single in New York from 1998 to 2005. So if I was dating somebody and I wanted to make sure that it was an ambiance where nothing would go wrong, where we could have a get-to-know-you kind of conversation, Where I could rely on the food being good and being everybody being treated kindly with respect. And another thing I really like about restaurants, if I— is I want everybody to be feeling good. You know, you can tell right away you walk into a restaurant, everyone's happy, as they should be. You're going out, you're spending money, you should be happy.

Yes, yes.

I would always invite a woman to a Danny Meyer restaurant.

Damn, I wish I was dating you then.

Well, I have to say, I created lots of loving, happy, beautiful experiences for lots of people during that time.

Yeah.

And so later, when we were writing this book, which is, you know, much later, it was really fun to interview Danny Meyer and write this chapter in the book. Because I realized, oh, this is already something I've experienced over the years. I'm already a customer for— so then when I, you know, and Danny wrote a book about the nature of hospitality, which is brilliant. And then the pandemic happened. So you can imagine the stress on the restaurant business. He had to let go of a lot of people, which for him was incredibly painful because he cared. He genuinely cares about everybody. Mm-hmm. But he navigated through the pandemic, and the first restaurant I went out to in New York post-pandemic was the Danny Meyer restaurant, the Union Square Hospitality restaurant, Ci Siamo, in the Hudson, New Hudson Yards. And we met the chef. She was delightful. She was stand. She's she gets ready for the. It was it happened to be the chef's birthday. Hillary Sterling is her name. Fabulous lady, and I recognized her right away because I'd watched one of her videos on YouTube. But there was you know this harmony in the restaurant. There were people coming in and being. greeted appropriately. And she was like standing by the open part of the kitchen with this caring hawk-like view of everything because it was her birthday and they were giving her the night off and she was gonna go home and, you know, be with her partner and have, have fun. But before she left, you could see she was just checking on everything. Like, you know, in her checklist. And, you know, she came to our table. We had a lovely chat. I think I might have— I think I gave her a copy of The Healing Organization.

Uh-huh.

Because I wanted her to know that the Union Square Hospitality Group is featured in this book that's about What she's actually doing. So, you know, Danny, Danny's still there. Will will it continue when he's gone? I don't know. I'd say I'd say odds are pretty positive because he's done an amazing job. Like people like Hillary Sterling, she could rise. She could be an executive that could probably run the next level of this. Because she doesn't know just how to cook an amazing, you know, slow-cooked lamb dish. She knows how to orchestrate a culture and a community, which, by the way, is also particularly welcoming of people who aren't just the standard people who dominated the restaurant business. It's the best. You know, when we talk about diversity, we're not, you know, political correctness, that is a freaking nightmare. But when it's really this wonderful rainbow of—

Yeah.

It's just, you know, that's— it's beautiful. So that's— you get that feeling there as well.

Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about because the first time I went to one, it was— I had just come back from Cuba and I wanted a mojito. And the first one they brought missed the mark. And I said, well, it's not exactly the way they make it in Cuba. And do you know, they took that drink back and they kept bringing it until they got it perfect.

Oh!

And I was like, yes! And you know, they didn't know me from Adam, and I was being polite but a difficult customer. And it was just— it was fine. It was fine. It's filming. You're good. We're gonna do this.

You're not Jewish?

Hey, I was brought up on the Lower East Side of New York. What can I tell you?

That's so hilarious, because before I met you, I heard your voice before I met you. And I said, oh, this is some really cool Jewish lady from the Lower East Side.

Oh, I want to tell you a story. When I was in New York and I first started dating, I was dating a guy who was Jewish, and I would talk to his mother on the phone. We dated a long time, and, um, one day he decided to take up photography, and he took pictures of me, some great pictures. And he showed him to his mother, and his mother said, that's not the lady I've been talking to. And so his name was Aaron Schneider, and Aaron said, what are you talking about? This is the woman I've been dating. And she said, no, no, the woman that you're dating is Jewish. And I'll never forget that story. It was hysterical.

That's really bad.

She would not believe him at all, because I knew all the terms and everything, and I'm like, Well, you know what, if you grow up on the Lower East Side, you learn.

You learn. That's too funny.