Simon Sinek visited Bob Chapman's manufacturing company after a personal letter and saw something rare: a safety culture so strong employees didn't need posted signs because they watched out for each other. Sinek challenged Chapman to share this model beyond the company's 3,000 workers to the millions stuck in miserable jobs.
Chapters
Bob Chapman, I wrote about him in Leaders Eat Last. He's a very important CEO. I'll give you the quick story. So bunch of years ago, like nearly 15 years ago, my book and TED Talk are out and I get this letter from Bob Chapman. I read, I saw your TED Talk, I built the company you're talking about. Impossible. I'm an idealist. It's not supposed to exist. Right? I talk about the strivings. So we write back and say, "Love to meet you. I happen to be in LA on a business trip." Bob flies over to LA. We schedule a 1-hour lunch together. We get along so well, we both clear our schedules to spend the next 3 hours together. I tell Bob, "Everything you're saying is amazing. I love all your words, but every CEO tells me they're doing amazing things, and I think you're incredible." I— but I want to see it to believe it. So I go back to home in New York. A few months later, Bob sends his plane to pick me up, and the two of us fly for 3 days around the country from factory to factory to factory to factory. And he opens up the doors of the factory, says, go talk to whoever you want. I'm not going to go with you. You can ask them any question. You can talk to anybody. Just go. Have fun. And after 3 or 4 days, I saw something that It blew my mind. I've never seen anything like it. I went into factories that there were no signs that say safety first because they didn't need them. Because if you ask the people on the factory floor, how come there's no signs? And we just released a podcast that said this. What, you know, how come there's no signs? They literally say to you, look around you, everybody here is a sign. We do it for each other. We do it for each other. We take care of this place. And I fell in love with this company, this blue-collar American manufacturing. They fly me back to St. Louis, back to their corporate headquarters. I'm introduced to the team that has built this culture, their culture team. And I fawn. Well, I fawned before. And I sit there with the— Bob is so excited to introduce me to the culture team. And he says, "So?" And he expects me to fawn. And I said to the room, I said, "I think you're the most selfish company I've ever met." And they were like, "What?" I was like, "What you have built is remarkable. I've never seen anything like it in my life. I didn't know it could exist. How dare you keep what you have discovered for only 3,000 people? Meanwhile, there are millions of people going to work every day." who hate their lives. You have to share what you've built.
