189- Courage to Leap & Lead with Michael Gelb, part 2

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.

So my top stores to go to for customer service.

Yes.

Apple, Costco, I think those are the top ones in my book. Recently, I've noticed that Costco is starting to slip, at least at the one that I go to.

Yeah.

And I want you to know, this is probably the 4th or— no, it's the 6th Costco that I've lived near. I was moving from New York. Well, I was then in New Jersey, and I decided I wanted to get married. Yeah. I would not pick a location that was more than 5 miles away from Costco. 10 at the most. It had to be like under a 20-minute drive.

That's a loyal customer.

Well, when I left the Costco in New Jersey, Yeah. They gave me a gift certificate and a going away card that was signed by all the cashiers.

Oh my God, how sweet is that?

Just so endearing. I miss that manager so much. Then he also introduced me to the Costco manager that I have here. He recently left to open another Costco. Because what happens at Costco is that you can't stay for more than X number of years in a particular store. They switch you out. If you're really good, you get to open another store, which broke my heart.

Yeah.

We have a new manager of the Costco style, but has not trained the people. And the old manager took a lot of the people away. To be in the Costco style.

That's the tricky thing. Yeah.

And I am seeing a personal feel of decline.

Have you given the feedforward to the new manager?

No, I haven't, because I'm not sure that I can express the difference. There was just something in the atmosphere. And I've experienced that in 3 Costcos. In 2 of the Costcos, they were both managed by 2 brothers, one in opposition to the other, and you could feel the difference in the stores. Oh. This Costco, he's very caring about the store, but there's something missing in who he's selecting and how he's training.

Well, you know, it's a really interesting thing. For much of my career, I was on the road all the time. And whenever a client would ask me where I wanted to stay, I would always stay at the Four Seasons.

Hmm.

And, you know, sometimes I've also stayed in the worst places imaginable. I mean, you know, just the worst in dumps and industrial places because they were the only places. like in Beaumont, Texas.

Yeah.

A factory, just like the— that's probably my worst ever experience of staying anywhere. But I've stayed fortunately in many of the best places in the world. And my default setting was Four Seasons will be just fine, thanks very much. And what's the difference between a Marriott and a Four Seasons? The Marriott hires people and trains them in hospitality. Four Seasons hires people who already love people, whose nature is to get their joy from serving, and then they train them.

Yes.

So, you know, my guess is that's what's missing, is this new manager is trying to train them in the customer service and attentiveness and the humanistic elements of the business. But he's not necessarily drawing in the people who have that spark already within them, and they want a job, so they're jumping through the hoops, and then you feel like you're being treated like another hoop.

Yeah, you, you said it exactly. So the previous manager, if I said to somebody at Costco, do you have this item, they would say to me, Ms. B, because everybody knew who I was. Let me show you where it is.

Right.

New manager, if I ask the same question, it's over there, which is the Walmart mentality.

Right.

And, you know, how do you describe— as you described it perfectly— that energy towards, I want to be here and help you? When you walk into an Apple Store, they could care two— 2 cents if you buy something, because I know I've, I've tested it. Oh, now, you know, here, try this, try that. No, please don't buy now. Think about it. If you decide, we're still here.

It's a very— it's a much wiser business model, especially given their—

Nordstrom's. Nordstrom's has that model.

Yeah. Nordstrom's is famous for that.

Yeah. And I'm telling you, I have never walked out of an Apple Store without buying something. Because you were so nice to me, I want to buy something. That's—

but that's so, you know, wired into our brain is the principle of reciprocity.

Yeah.

And it's just our mirror neurons set us up. for wanting to repay generosity and kindness.

Yes.

Healthy, a non-sociopathic person, a non-psycho person will, if you are kind to them, wish naturally to repay that kindness. So it's, it's one of the more cynical ways that principle is applied. is free samples because they're not necessarily there to give you something. They just know the reciprocity principle is such, you take that piece of cheese, the odds go way up. If you take a flower from that Hare Krishna, the odds of you putting money in that thing go up dramatically. I mean, this has been— this is not just me speculating. This is research. This is Bob Cialdini. The Guru of Influence. This is one of the core principles of influence. It's built into most societies. And it's why, given our amygdalas and our lower brains and our— well, our craziness, we not only don't kill each other, but we mostly get along really well. And society works because of the principle of reciprocity.

Yeah, exactly. So, so my question is, why don't the other stores get it? Why don't the other services get it? If you follow this line of thinking, please don't tell me you're going to have customers that are going to spend less. Because that price tag on that Apple— now I'll tell you a mistake that Apple made recently. My husband and I were there. I wanted to buy an additional computer, right? Because I had the experience of my puppy stepping on my computer and cracking the screen because it wasn't in a case or anything. She didn't step on it, she jumped on it. So I said, I can't function in my work without a computer. It's like my right and left arm. So I went in and we overheard a conversation. This guy had just spent— it was something like $15,000, which is easy to do in the Apple Store.

Yeah.

He was buying different pieces of equipment. And so he said to the salesperson, could I have a bag? Because he didn't want to drop any of the pieces. Person looked at him and said, "I have to charge you ten cents for it." Colorado law, Colorado law, right? My husband and I just looked at each other and said, "Holy shit! What the hell happened in the training here?" Something disastrous.

I mean, imagine that the manager of that store were hearing that story like, "Are you kidding me?" I mean, the kid was following the rules of the state. Just, you know, we'll comp you the 10 cents.

I mean, I wanted to say to this kid, here, here's 10 cents, give the guy back.

Yeah.

So in many cases, the law overrules the humanistic part of an organization.

Bureaucracy in general, not just the legal— the nature of bureaucracy. The bigger things get, the harder it is to keep them humanized. And the ironic thing is we might be able to work with AI to help us maintain the human factor As we scale up and scale up and scale up, because it tends to get lost. I was talking to— so, you know, I'm in a Connect group with James Rogers. Do you know him?

No, I don't know him yet.

Well, you will enjoy him. He will enjoy you. And he— and we also have Art Kleiner in our group. And Art knows a lot about AI. And anyway, in one of these conversations, we were talking about the fact that part of what I think it was James was saying, he thinks will bring humanity together past all the identity politics and all the divisiveness, he thinks is as AI becomes more dominant, the question will not be who's the best woman for the job, who's the best gay person for the job, Who's the best African American for the job? Who's the best anything for the job? It's going to be, who's the best human for the job? Because we really need the human characteristic. It's what humans can do that AI can't. It's going to become ever more valuable.

That's fascinating.

Isn't that fascinating?

Yeah.

Yeah, talk to James Rogers. Talk to James Rogers because he's— and talk to Art if you haven't yet because They both have a lot to say about all this.

Will you connect me up with them?

Of course.

Okay, perfect, perfect.

Pleasure. Yeah, I'll make a note to do that right now.

Okay. So in your opinion, Michael, What's the next step? How can— and 2 questions. What's the next step for organizations? And 2, how can the average American help organizations understand that they're doing it wrong?

The next step is for them all to read my damn book.

Oh, we know that. But aside from self-promotion—

No, I mean, no, I don't mean it. I don't mean— what I mean is, I, I'm— what I'm expressing more is I wrote this book, it came out in 2019. I thought it would take the whole world by storm, like, oh my God, of course it makes so much sense if, if we alleviate suffering and elevate joy. Here's the data that says we'll make so much more money. Once you know that, why would you do anything else ever? And nothing. Nothing. So, I mean, I have not— obviously, I'm not giving up. And I think it's— and it's obviously not just Raj and I and our book. There's so many people working on shifting this consciousness. So, the next step is to ramp up that message about alleviate suffering, elevate joy, you'll make more money, and present the data, help to shift flows of capital so that they reach people who don't normally get access to them. And then the other big shift is a political one. So here's another way of thinking of the divisiveness in which both right and left are disastrous for our humanity. The right is obviously disastrous. It's like no regulation, the invisible hand of the market solves everything because they only read The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. They didn't read The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which he wrote 17 years before. So they have no moral sentiment. They just assume accumulate wealth, no rules, no taxes, let the poor fend for themselves, no welfare, no healthcare, no Social Security, just capital, capital, capital, and somehow everything will be all right. Well, it won't. It's a disaster. It's awful. Not to mention you're destroying the planet in the process. But the left, sorry, just as bad. The extreme left is business is all evil. Power, if you're powerful, you must be evil. So take down power everywhere you see it, as though somehow whatever emerges in place of that won't just be as corrupt as whatever was just taken down, because it will. It'll even be more self-righteous and therefore even more dangerous. So our thesis is just Adam Smith. My co-author Raj likes to say that he was both the father and the mother of capitalism. But people, as they have done with many things, left out the feminine side of his message, the Theory of Moral Sentiments. which was capitalism is the best way to uplift humanity. Capitalism is the best way to serve and bring out of poverty the people who are in poverty. And indeed, despite all its failings, it has done an amazing job of doing that. I mean, hundreds of millions of people who were in extreme poverty are not in extreme poverty, and it is because of capitalism in China and India and places that didn't have it before. But we've reached a tipping point where it has to be conscious capitalism because we can't just— this was also based on the idea that the Earth's resources were unlimited. Well, surprise, surprise, they're not. And we can just do better. We can do better. So when people My real answer is this is an idea. It's way bigger than me and my book. We're just one little part of it. But there are many. There's the B Corp movement. There's conscious capitalism. There's future capital. There are more and more movements taking place to share this idea and bring it to people so that they can get that light bulb to go off and go, aha, there's a better way, there must be a better way. There is a better way. So that to me is the big next step, is championing that idea, getting it through to more people, and a shift of consciousness around the responsibilities and opportunities that business can bring for a better world.

But I think, Michael, at least for me, when I heard the name of your book, I thought, Oh, this is going to be some Hare Krishna book about— I said, I don't know if I could deal with this. I think that when you talk about eliminating suffering—

Yes.

Somehow that's a disconnect with corporations because eliminating suffering Sounds more like you're going to go into a third world country and give food and water. And that's not what you're saying.

Well, actually, there are companies that are doing that.

Well, that may be, and we've seen plenty of those on Shark Tank or wherever.

No, no, forget Shark Tank. I'm talking about microfinancing.

Yes. Okay. But what I'm trying to get to is You're actually talking, in my opinion, you're actually talking about a different scale of eliminating suffering. You're talking about an organization, or maybe an additional scale. Let's put it that way.

Additional scale.

Additional scale of companies being human to their customer, respecting their customer, not saying things like, it's over there. If there's a price difference, Amazon is— I'm hoping they're not losing it. Amazon is another company that, for all of its defaults, I respect. Because at this point, they're still customer-driven, right? And by customer-driven, I'll give you a really good example. My husband ordered something and it didn't fit, wasn't right, and he went to return it. And it said no returns on this product. Now, I'm a bit of a nut about returns. Don't tell me no.

Mojito story.

What?

I said that was already clear from your mojito story.

Yeah, okay. Don't tell me no when I've worked 3 jobs to earn my pennies. To be able to go out and enjoy myself.

Right.

And so I called up Amazon, and I'm on Amazon Prime, and I don't think it made a difference. And I said, I don't understand why this can't be returned, because when you start the process, it said, did the product work? Was it the right size? Blah, blah, blah. And we answered the questions, no, no, no. And it was not well represented on their Page, the products page. And they said to me, well, Miss CB, we don't return personal usable items. I said, fair enough. And then they said, and we say that in the column on the right when you purchase things. Said, really? I said, let's go to that page and let's take a look. Well, Amazon had forgotten to put it on that page because now I know how to read the Amazon pages, right? I said, well, darling, I'm really sorry, but I don't see this, that statement on this page. Could you please open up the page and show me where to look? They opened up. Yes, Miss CB, we appreciate your business. I said, I know you do. My neighbor's inside of the Amazon truck in front of my house. And they said, you know what, we forgot to put it on this page. So we are refunding 100% to your husband's account and he can keep the item and donate it.

Right.

Now that is to me eliminating the suffering, eliminating the need of me having angst over this whole thing for my husband. customer service to the nth degree. But do you think that the idea of eliminating suffering or conscious capitalism or the B Corp or what have you is misconstrued in the minds of corporate America? Could that be a possibility?

Uh, people will misconstrue, you know, people misconstrued You know, the teachings of Christ and Buddha, so I'm sure they can misconstrue this.

That was a good comeback. I'll tell you, that, that was a, that was a Greenwich Village coffeehouse comeback.

I wonder where that came from.

Okay, I guess my question is, Getting companies to pay more attention.

Yes.

Not just what they're doing for other countries and what they're doing for this, but somehow sometimes they skip over the direct customer.

No question. So it's, you know, all stakeholders, all stakeholders. So that's associates, employees, whatever you're calling them this Tuesday. It's customers, it's communities, it's the environment, it's shareholders, it's the whole—

Ecosystem.

System. And it's what the research shows is that when you look after all your stakeholders, you consider the needs of all your stakeholders, not just your shareholders, But all your stakeholders, not just customers because if you mistreat your employees, eventually it's going to translate into worse customer service and less of a profit. So, the shareholders aren't happy. It's all stakeholders. When you have that holistic point of view, then you will be more successful. You'll be more profitable. And that's— so, all the other things that I teach and done for my whole career are about how do you learn to see the whole picture? How do you develop the ability to think creatively? How do you think like Leonardo da Vinci? That's my most well-known publication. How do you think in this expansive way while also paying attention to the details? So my other answer to your question is teach people the creative and innovative thinking skills that they didn't learn in school. That's a big part of what my mission has been and remains just for the last 45 years.

I've observed throughout the years that entrepreneurial companies, they start, they go haywire when they move out of this entrepreneurial mode. So if you look at, I don't know, Apple, if you look at, um, what's that shoe company, um, that was online? Sorry.

Oh, I know the one you mean. Zappos.

Zappos. Yeah, had a great reputation. Yes. and the CEO remains. Google is a prime example. Airbnb is a prime example. They seem to reach a level that I can't quite identify, that the shift, the cultural shift, is like a tornado sweeping through, and then they start to lose market share and they cannot get back. What is that?

Yeah, there's a book you would love. It's kind of technical, but it's brilliant. It's called The Life Cycle of Corporations, and it's by Itzhak Adizes, A-D-I-Z-E-S. And he, you know, just like there's a human life cycle, There's infancy and there you're a toddler and you're preschool and you're an adolescent and so on. He tracks the life cycle of corporations and then helps you diagnose whether you have the healthy illnesses of being a teenager or something that's going to kill you.

Mm-hmm.

And we all, you know, there's no growth without challenge and without various afflictions at different stages. It's how you deal with those challenges. But frequently they become quite unhealthy and can sabotage the— so there's different kinds of interventions that are needed, you know. And everybody, you know, I, I have multiple clients Where brilliant founders come in, they're super pace setters. They work around the clock. They surround themselves with a handful of fanatics who launch this thing, and then they, you know, become a certain size. And not everybody can be that hard driving. Not everybody can work 18 hours a day. Not everybody is going to make a billion dollars if this works. So they're not all quite as crazy as you are. But so how do you find those people who are nonetheless wanting to make a difference and not getting exploited? And how do you get those pace-setting entrepreneurs to have the emotional intelligence to embrace different kinds of styles of learning and being and put the right person in the right role and nurture them accordingly? Well, first of all, they have to want to. They have to be self-aware enough to reach out for help. And that's, you know, that's a lot of my work as my— when I started out my career, it was Fortune 500 people on the way up to the top. Those are my clients. I was younger than them and I was their coach. Now, a lot of times younger people who are, who frequently have sold their first business have a lot of money so they can afford me.

I love those people. I knew that was coming.

And then they're trying to do the next really great thing, but they've learned about some of the pitfalls from doing it once.

So, so, so is there a trigger point that happens, like, you know, a bullseye?

You know, one of the simple trigger points is when any company gets big enough that you can't personally know everyone.

Hmm.

So I forget the exact number of people, but it's like— and there's a lot of research on this. The Army's always been organized so that you are deployed in a group where you can know everybody so that you have a personal interest in keeping everybody else alive. But past a certain point, you just can't know everybody unless you have a savant or some sort. So that's when you need something. That's where you have to start kicking in policies and procedures and it becomes more bureaucratic. And that tends to lower the level of humanism and consciousness. And so it takes another kind of intervention, another kind of leadership, and a lot of attention to systems and building a really strong culture. So that's the way we do things around here. And all the services try to really build that in. So that you are— you have a sense that these are— these are— these other people are not others, that you would give your life for them, literally.

You know, and the other strange thing that happens, because I'm experiencing this now with ACEC, is that the people that you grew up— that grew up with you in your organization, once you reach this sort of trigger point or pre-trigger point, they're calling you and saying, why aren't you paying attention to me anymore? You know, their feelings are hurt. And, and these were your key people. So you sort of have to watch that, because you have to explain, we're going beyond that point, I still care.

Right. It's, and that's a tough transition. And so people, you know, humans haven't been educated in in all of this. People just grow up imitating what mom and dad did. And mom and dad were acting out what was done to them. And it's all been unconscious until fairly recently. We now know enough about how the brain works, how the nervous system works. I was talking to Art Kleiner, saying one of the greatest things that's happened in our contemporary life Is that we now realize that you you don't have to raise people via repeated trauma. You know, the old notion of raising a child raising a child was well life is tough. You're getting punished so that you behave a certain way. That's an outdated notion.

Yeah, but the flip side is that— I mean, I was raised that way. The military dad.

Yeah.

The flip side is everybody gets an award. Everybody's right all the time.

But that's the point. That's my point, is that is just an unconscious reaction. It's— that's not the latest, uh, research or wisdom in how to either raise child or be in the world. It's an it's an unconscious reaction to the opposite. That's what unconsciousness does. It just says, okay, well this must be bad. So we're throwing that out and we're doing the opposite. That's I would if you ask me, I'd rather have tough discipline and I'll kick your ass if you know you are rude or do the wrong thing than oh my god, you know he has to be healed. You know. Forget that. So I'm more, you know, I love you. Both of them are dramatically suboptimal.

So what does the latest research say?

We need a whole other long conversation. Oh God. No, seriously, that's, that's, that's a whole other deal, which I'm happy to go into. But let's save that for our next conversation. Okay.

Listen, ladies and gentlemen, This is CB, and this is Courage to Leap and Lead. And my guest has been Michael. Michael, please hold up your book again and hold it close to the camera because white on blue doesn't show much.

I'm going to show you the 2 books we talked about.

Okay. Oh, you know what? We didn't really talk about the da Vinci. Um, so let's talk about Leonardo da Vinci. Why do you reference him as a guru on how to think?

Well, he was probably the greatest genius who ever lived. And he was a genius of science. He was a genius of art. So we know, you know, some people are great scientific geniuses.

But art and science are the same thing.

Well, they are to the enlightened, such as yourself.

Thank you.

But, but most kids grow up in school and they're told, don't daydream, don't doodle, focus on analysis. There's only one right answer. And for many engineering and mathematical problems, there is only one right answer. But for human challenges, for artistic challenges, for system challenges, requires much more complexity, much more creativity, and the ability to shift from being really open-minded, flexible, and free-flowing, and then being really disciplined, detailed, and focused. And of any great being in human history, Leonardo is the supreme example of that integration. It's what we're just talking about actually with the discipline and the punishment versus the get a trophy for everything, you're not held accountable for anything. Those are extremes. And the harmony is the integration of the yin and yang, art and science. And what I do is take that in this book, what I did for this book was I actually read all of Leonardo's notebooks.

Whoa!

Over and over again. And then I asked the question, what is he trying to teach us? What is he trying to teach us? And what's really cool is in his notebooks, he gives advice, specific advice to his students on how to be more creative, on how to use your full human potential. on how to solve your most important problems, on how to set a goal and then make it happen. So, and how to, most importantly, how to have a beautiful life. So what I did was I abstracted what he's teaching us and I put it in contemporary terms. And because Leonardo is a hero to people around the world, it struck a chord and got translated into 25 languages. And has now been in print for 26 years. So, because it's universal. And, and I'm grateful to my grandmother who was Italian, who introduced me to Le— she was an artist, Italian artist. And she told me about Leonardo when I was 7 years old. And I thought, wow, I love Superman. This is like a real Superman. You know, how could I be like him? And then I started getting invited to, you know, speak to, uh, Fortune 500 companies around the world in my 20s, I would tell them stories about Leonardo. They loved it. And eventually, uh, I thought, why not put it into a book, which is the best thing I ever did in my career. Wow. Wow.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is Michael. This is Michael's brain. Thank you so much, Michael, for being on the show Courage to Leap and Lead. And ladies and gentlemen, I'll see you next week.