Ken Blanchard: Leadership Expert and Best-Selling Author of One Minute Manager

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I'm Guy Kawasaki and I'm on a mission to make you remarkable. This episode's guest is one of my heroes, Ken Blanchard. He's the author of the One and Only One Minute Manager. This book is available in over 45 languages and has sold 23 million copies. Ken is also the co founder and Chief Spiritual Officer of the Ken Blanchard Companies, a leading international training and consulting firm. His newest book is called simple truths of 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust. In it, he explains the concept of servant leader, which you might consider an oxymoron, but it is Ken's guiding principle of leadership. Ken received his Bachelor's and PhD from Cornell University and a Master's degree from Colgate University. He spends time as a visiting lecturer at Cornell, where he is also on the Board of Trustees. In 2005, Ken was inducted into Amazon's hall of Fame as one of the top 25 best selling authors of all time. As an added bonus, and something that I did not anticipate would happen, Ken tells a couple of great inside stories about Peter Drucker and Norman Vincent Peale, two more legends in management theory and writing. If you're interested in becoming a better leader, this is the episode for you. I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is remarkable people. And now, explaining the simple truths of leadership is the remarkable Ken Blanchard. I want to take you back A little bit to 1982 or so. And my hypothetical question is, if you wrote one minute Manager today, would it be longer or shorter than a minute? Would it be a one minute Zoom call, a one line email, a one line text message? What would it be today?

What we would do if we were talking about it today is talk about you can give a one minute praising or redirection, you know, online through Zoom, or you can do it person to person. And what we recommend is that you not avoid face to face meetings, but recognize that there's great advantage of Zoom because you can be in contact with your people so much more now than we could ever when we waited for them to have to come into the office and meet us person to person. So I think that's one of the great advantages that's come out of the pandemic is that we can communicate so much easier. I did a session the other day with some people from South Africa, Europe, South America, India, all on the same Zoom call. I mean, it was ridiculous.

But it's not all pixie dust and unicorns, though. Zoom and virtual meetings like that present a different set of challenges. So how do you optimize a one minute meeting for Zoom?

I think that what you need to do is make sure you're communicating with your people and, and be yourself. Don't act like you're somebody else because there's a Zoom camera on you. And so I just figured talking to you now, but it doesn't seem to me that you're up in Northern California and I'm here. No, we're right here together. And so let's talk.

What motivates you in your life?

Well, you know, people have asked me, why don't I retire? I celebrated the 61st anniversary of my 21st birthday just recently, and I ended up writing a book with Bort Fit Shavitz, who passed away recently, called Refire. Don't retire. Make the rest of your life the best of your life. Because I saw my parents and people, when they would get in their 60s, they'd head to Florida and sit around on the beach and drink and all that. And I just think if you're doing what you love to do and having fun doing it, why not continue to do it no matter what your age is? I'm not gonna retire. I'm refiring and having a ball doing it. And this book is really fun. And then I'm working on a book with my son Scott, who's the president of our company now, called Leadership Legacy. It's A family affair. And that's gonna be a fun project to do.

There is no question that you can definitely coin a great book title. You have got that wired. How would you simple truths of leadership have changed since 1982, if at all?

Well, I think the big changes is that in 1982 when we were talking the one minute manager, it was still top down leadership. The one minute manager, he was making sure he set the goals and he was deciding who to praise and all. And now young people, and I think the big change is they want side by side leadership, not top down leadership. And we wrote a revision of the one minute manager a few years ago and we changed the 1 minute reprimand to 1 minute redirects because that's much more of a collegial kind of thing than a reprimand. And so I think that's the big difference is that people want side by side leadership, not top down. Doesn't mean they want your job. It's just that they get excited that they're going to be able to participate and give their input.

But what if somebody pushed back on you and said two of the greatest modern leaders in business aren't exactly side by side servant leaders, that is Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. Are they just outliers and you shouldn't pattern your life after them?

Yes, I wouldn't. I think they're brilliant people. But you know, if you talk to people in Apple and all, with Steve, he was not a great loved manager. I think he still would be an important part of the team, but I wouldn't make him president.

What if somebody says to you, breaking all protocols of politeness, ken, how do I know that your ideas will work? Because you've mostly been a writer your whole career. You haven't run an organization. To which you respond with what?

First of all, I'd say he's wrong because we have 250 people working for us in our organization. And it was my wife Margie, years ago when I started to write, she said, ken, we should start our own organization for two reasons. One, we can test the concepts with our people. And secondly, we'd have the same problems and issues that the people we're trying to consult with have. We did a zoom call. My son, the other day with our company, we had 220 people from around the world on a zoom call. And so I would say to them, we are running a company and we've learned a lot from doing it.

That's a Ken Blanchard, drop the mic moment right there. So if you were to tell most people the two words, servant and leader, they would say that they are in direct conflict, if not oxymoronic. So how do you explain the concept of servant leader?

Well, I tell you, when I talk to people about servant leadership, initially they think I'm talking about the inmates running the prison or trying to please everybody or some kind of religious movement. But they don't understand that there's two parts of servant leadership. The leadership part has to do with vision, direction, values, and goals. Because leadership is about going somewhere. People need to know where we're going, what we're being held accountable for, what are the values that should drive behavior. And that's the responsibility of the hierarchy. It doesn't mean that you don't involve people, but it's your responsibility. If people working for you aren't clear on what they're being asked to do, what good behavior looks like, what's the values to drive their behavior, shame on you because it's your responsibility. So now involve them, but it's still your responsibility once that leadership part is done. Now you turn the pyramid upside down and we get to the servant part. And now your job is to work for your people. Your job is to help them do anything that they need to do to accomplish their goals, to live according to the values and the vision. And so it's a great one two punch. One of the simple truths in the book, in fact, the first one, is that servant leadership is the only way to get both results and relationships. And Randy Connelly, my co author, a lot of times in his sessions, he'll write on the flip chart or up on the screen, results and relationships. And he'll say to the people, raise your hand which words you think are most important. And about 50% will say, results in 50% relationships. And a few people will say, I think this is a trick question. I bet Ann is the right answer. And he says, you're absolutely right and is the right answer. Because what you need is all great organizations. They realize their number one customer is their people. If they take care of their people, train their people, love on their people, build relationships with them, they will go out of their way to take care of the second most important customer, which is the people who use your products and services. And then they'll become raving fans of your organization. And that takes care of the bottom line and the profit. See, a lot of people think that the reason to be in business is to make profit. No, profit is the applause you get for creating a motivating environment. For your people so they take good care of your customers.

So what's your theory about all the companies and leaders who say we are a customer focused organization? Because did you not just advocate that we are a employee focused organization?

No, I think it's all right that they say that we are a customer focused organization, but the question is, how do you get there? Where you get there by first taking care of your people. Obviously all of the money that comes into your organization comes from your customers. So you want to be focused on your customers. But organizations that act like it's only the customers that are important and they treat their people badly or ending up losing all their good people and eventually going to be hurt their relationship with their customers.

Now in this servant leader paradigm, I understand the leader comes up with the vision and then becomes a servant in order to help employees realize that vision. But where does the leader get the vision to start?

The leader is involved hopefully in setting the vision and direction and values for the total organization. Then what you do with your people, you say, okay, here's what we're trying to accomplish in the organization. Let's look at your job responsibilities and see which ones of these could help in a positive way impact that vision and direction. And that's what we'll start to work on. Now there's some other things that are maybe unique to your particular job, but once you look at that and you set the vision with them, then servant leaders use different strokes for different folks. You know, you don't want to use the same leadership style with everybody. And then another simple truth is servant leaders use different strokes for different folks on different parts of their job. So it's analyzing, okay, here's what your goals are. Let's look at your development level. What's your competence and your commitment to be able to do that on your own. So if you can do it on your own, we can delegate to you. But sometimes people are enthusiastic beginners. You know, they're excited about a particular task, but they've never done it before. They need direction. Sometimes they're disillusioned learners. They've worked on this for a while, but they're really frustrated. They need both direction and support. Sometimes they're capable but cautious, meaning they don't want to be left alone. They really want you to. You check in with a while and then obviously you hope that people eventually will become self directed achievers so that you could delegate to them. So once that's done, now you move to day to day coaching. It's interesting. There's three parts of managing people's performances. Performance planning, where you set goals and objectives and analyze their development level and determine appropriate leadership style. This day to day coaching. And then there's performance evaluation. And when I ask people around the world of those three things, where do you spend the most time and what do you think the big answer I get is, which of those three you think they spend all their time on?

Not the first one, I'll tell you that.

It's evaluation. They're filling out forms on their people. Why are you filling out forms in your people? That's the stupidest thing I ever heard of. Let them fill out the forms in themselves and you agree or disagree with them. Your job is to help them win. And Gary Ridge, I don't know if you know gary. He's a CEO of WD40 now. He's the chairman and he really ran with a lot of our concepts. I was a college professor for 10 years and I was always in trouble because the first day of class I always handed out the final examination. And the rest of the faculty would say, what are you doing? I'd say, I'm confused. They say, acted. I said, I thought we were supposed to teach these students. You are, but don't give them the questions in the final. I say, not only am I going to give them the questions in the final, what do you think I'm going to do all semester? I'm going to teach them the answers. So when they get to the final exam, they get a. Life's about getting A's, not some stupid normal distribution curve. And Gary and I wrote a book together about what he's doing at WD40 called Help People Win at Work and listen to the subtitle. A business philosophy called Don't Mark My Paper, Help Me get an A. And he's taken that whole concept where he sits there with his people, shows the organizational goals, goes across their job description, sets goals with them. And now his job, the manager, is to help them accomplish their goals, help them win. And Peter Drucker told me years ago, nothing good happens by accident. Put some structure on it. So Gary's taken a concept that we talk about called one on ones. And all of his people meet with each of their direct reports at least once every two weeks for 15 to 30 minutes. And the manager schedules a meeting and the direct report sets the agenda. So if you met with your people 26 times a year at a minimum, you would know them and they would know you. Most people don't even know their People, you ask them, does this person work? Do they have any kids? Gee, I don't know. I'm not even sure if they're married. I mean, what are you doing? You know, you don't even know anything about your people. Get a life. And so at WD40, they do everything to get people an A. And the last time they did it, they got a 92% employee engagement score. Can you imagine that? This book. I initially wanted to be called Duh. Why isn't common sense common practice? But our publisher said duh doesn't translate in a lot of languages. And also that's how the simple truth came out.

Ken, I am not making this up. So when I started this podcast two and a half years ago, I swear to God, the first name that I came up for my podcast was Duh.

Is that right? Yeah, right.

Seriously. So when I read that you wanted to name that book duh, I said, oh my God. Yeah, I took it as great minds think alike. But like you, I was convinced that Duh is not a good name. But there's a part of me that regrets not naming this podcast Duh.

I know. Particularly if you put our subtitle was going to be why isn't Common Sense Common practice? The dull makes sense. But I still wonder why. Because people will say to me, well, who uses the concepts you talk about? Well, only the winning companies, like WD40 and the airline business. Right? Nordstrom's in retail, Wegmans in grocery, Synovus and financial services. Chick Fil A and fast food. I'm going Duh.

Maybe I'll change the name. I want to back up a second though. I buy into this concept of servant leadership, but if I'm a leader listening to this podcast, I say, okay, I got it, Ken. I know what I should do once I have the vision. How do I get the vision? Up next on Remarkable People.

There's two ways your ego gets in the way that stops you from being a servant leader. One is false pride. When you think you're more than, you're brighter than, I'm smarter than. And the other is fear or self doubt. When you have a less than philosophy and a lot of people think, well, the less than, that's not an ego problem. It is so. Because you're thinking about yourself.

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You get the vision off of the vision of the company. That's the first thing.

But who made that?

Hopefully it's the top management team. What does it say in the Bible? People without vision perish. And there's a lot of organizations. I say, what business are you in? They go, duh. They don't know what it is. You know, what are your values? I think they're around here somewhere, maybe on the wall, and they either don't have it or they don't ever use it. But the great companies really have it in Southwest Airlines, what business they're in, they said, we're in the customer service business. We happen to fly airplanes. And what's their picture of the future is that they want everybody to realize that if they want to fly, you should fly with us because we're the most friendly, cost effective, you know, all that. Then they have really clear values, including a good sense of humor, which came from Herb Kelleher. I was on a Southwest Airlines plane recently that kind of a rough landing. And the pilot came on there, he said, embarrassed for that rough landing, but it wasn't my fault. It was ash fault.

We've discussed what it takes for the leader in a servant leadership relationship. What does it take for an employee to make that work?

The employee needs to be part of the team, but they're invited to be on the team by their boss. It's we, not me. When you look at the figures, I think it's 65 or 70% of the employees in America really don't like their job and would like to don't like their bosses. And I'm going, duh. Why is it so stupid, you know? Well, it's because they don't treat their people as if they're important. They act like all the brains are in their office. What you need to do is say to your people, we're a team. I don't have all the answers. And a lot of people say, well, boy, you would admit you don't have all the answers. They'll wonder why you're the manager. They will not. They will say, wow, this is going to really be fun. I wrote a book with Colleen Barrett, who stepped in as president of Southwest when Herb Kelleher stepped down. She has a great saying is, people admire your skills, but they love your vulnerability. And so when you really admit that you don't know everything, rather than people go, well, I already knew that he or she didn't know everything, and neither do I. But together, one plus one is a lot greater than two.

And what if this employee has been suppressed for years? How do you break them out into this new kind of leadership employee relationship?

I think you spend more time with them. You say to them, this is what I'd like to do. What's been your experience in the past? Was there anything that we need to help you get through because you might have been mistreated in the past? Because most people have been Again, another one of my favorite saying is that when in doubt, confront. And when all else fails, try honesty. Just be straightforward with your people. Talk to them as important partners and people in your life.

I don't want you to think I'm a pessimist, but I have doubts that every employee or every leader can make a servant leadership relationship work. There must be some employees who just cannot take this initiative. Cannot. What happens.

Gary Ridge from W40 has a great concept. He said you share them with your competition. So to say, obviously this isn't the right place for you, but I'm glad to help you find the organization that's perfect for you. You share them with the competition and you don't want to keep around somebody who's sabotaging what you're trying to do.

Back when I worked for Apple, sometimes companies would hit on Apple. And we had a saying that when such and such person left Apple and joined XYZ Corporation, the average IQ of both organizations went up.

So you were glad to get rid of them.

Exactly. One of the strongest characteristics of this servant leader is the ability and efficacy of offering praise. So how does a good leader offer praise?

One of the key concepts in here under servant leadership is that the key to effective leadership is to catch people doing things right and give them appraising. And what that really means is Spencer Johnson and I wrote about that in the One Minute Manager. People have said to me, ken, of all the concepts you've been teaching for years. If somebody took everything away from you but one, what would you hold onto? And it's the second secret of the one minute manager. Because so often when people see their boss coming, they see that they're going to get hit or they're going to be criticized and all. But if you create an environment where you wander around, you try to catch people doing things right and give them an atta boy or an atta girl, they're going to welcome and look forward to seeing you. Because people love to be affirmed and love to be caught doing things right. I mean, it's just a wonderful kind of environment. And it doesn't mean when you're catching people doing things right, you're letting them do anything that they want. Because another one of the secrets is that effective servant leadership gives clear boundaries. The boundaries set the goals. We say a river without banks is a large puddle. And so when you give people freedom and delegate to them, it's within the boundaries that you're trying to accomplish in the organization.

So then that's how you offer praise. How do you exercise power as a servant leader?

You don't. It's interesting. I won the president of the seventh grade in New Rochelle, New York when I grew up. My father, he retired eventually as a rear admiral in the Navy. And I came home and I'm all pumped up and Dan, I'm the president of seventh grade. My father said today, Ken, is the beginning of your leadership training. He said, now that you're president, don't ever use your position. Great leaders are great because people trust and respect them. It's not about power, it's about a relationship.

Using that theory, I can only imagine your opinion of political leadership in this country.

It's really sad. I got to talk to all the right wing Republicans a few years ago and the first thing I said is, where's your vision? You know, what do you want this country to be? We don't have a vision for this country anymore. We don't even know what our values are. I mean, I thought freedom of speech was a value. And now you can get clobbered for what you say and all that kind of thing. And I said that you ought to create a vision for the country and then go to the Democrats and say, here's our best shot at it. What do you think? Because right now you're just in a pissing contest with your opponents and, and it's all about a win lose eye orientation that doesn't make any sense. And So I send a lot of prayers to Washington.

Couldn't you make the case that back then the Republican vision was get Barack Obama out of the White House? That was there. That was there. How to make America great again, Get Barack Obama out.

Sure. And now we got to get Biden out. But the point is, who did the Republicans have? They're talking about putting up Trump again. My God. And one of the biggest problems that we have in our country, and I don't know, how do we take it on, is the press. Because would you like to run for president? When they would go into your background and find out all the mistakes that you've done or what you've kind of done in high school and all that. It takes a person with a pretty big ego to want to go into that position. And we can't get good people to run. We have to get some leaders who care about the country, are willing to take it. But the press, I don't even watch the news anymore because it's all about things that are going wrong, not right.

I don't know if you have people watching this and listening as we do this right now, but their heads are probably exploding, saying, oh, Ken, stay out of politics. Stay out of politics.

I'm not into it. That's what I see now.

Duh, duh.

Because it's awful.

You say in the book something very interesting, which caught me off guard, which is that a good leader should toot her own horn. Why is that?

We have a saying in there, too, that if you don't toot your own horn, somebody else will use it as a spittoon. And so if you're not for yourself, who it is, we want you to serve your people and all, but in the process, we want you to feel good about yourself. It's really interesting is that people say, why don't people who say they want to be servant leaders? Why aren't they? It's because of the human ego, which I say, is everything good outside or edging God out or whatever. And there's two ways your ego gets in the way that stops you from being a servant leader. One is false pride when you think you're more than, you're brighter than, I'm smarter than. And the other is fear of self doubt when you have a less than philosophy. And a lot of people think, well, the less than, that's not an ego problem, it is so because you're thinking about yourself, it's actually interesting with the people with false pride. The guy who wrote years ago, I'm okay, you're okay. He said the worst life position is I'm okay, you're not. All the research shows that they're covering up not okay feelings about themselves. And how do we overcome false pride and all that? It's with humility. And a lot of people think that humility is a weakness. Well, I guess it was CS Lewis or Rick Warren or myself who said a number of times people with humility don't think less of themselves, they just think about themselves less. So when you say toot your own horn, we want you to feel good about yourself because if you, if you feel good about yourself, then you are much more willing to let other people feel good about themselves and play a part. But if you don't feel good about yourself, you want to hide that with control needs.

I want to ask the question about imposter syndrome. So the imposter syndrome is the concept that let's say you get promoted, you get a bonus, you get appointed to the board of directors of a company and you look around the room and you say I don't belong here, I'm not good enough. I don't deserve this raise, I don't deserve this bonus, I don't deserve this accolades, I'm an imposter. These other people deserve it, but I don't. So it's the feeling that you don't deserve something you got as opposed to I have to bullshit these people.

You have a self esteem problem. And I would work on that first because as I said earlier, my mother said don't you ever act like you're better than anybody else. But don't let anybody else act like they're better than you. There's a pearl of goodness in every human being. Dig for it. And I think a lot of people need to dig for the pearl of goodness in themselves and get off of this thing that I'm an imposter. If somebody wants you to be a leader, say thank you. I'm going to try to do my best, but I can only do it with your help.

I would sure like to know the Ken Blanchard hall of Fame of these are great servant leaders. These are people you should aspire to lead. Like who's in that list? I bet it's a short list, but who's in that list?

I have to think about the people who have led the companies I mentioned with the Wegman family. I knew the founding. Wegman founded the company. Tremendous human being, Jimmy Blanchard, who was the President for over 20 years of Synovus and they won the Best run company by Fortune. So many times they asked him to stop applying. And the Nordstrom brothers, I got to know. They were very amazing, humbled people. Herb Kelleher, one of the most fun, humble people I've ever met, started Southwest Airlines. All of those people that I think about. Truitt, Cathy, who started Chick Fil a, I wrote a book with him on the generosity factor because they're the most generous group of people that I. That I've run into. And so I just think that the people who rise to the top are eventually people that are humble than people look up to.

Do you have a hall of shame that you just shake your head and say, duh, what a loser.

Well, there's a lot of them out there. We don't have to name them or where they're located.

Just give me two or three.

Okay.

What is the difference between resisting change and resisting control?

I think that resisting change means that you're not living in the world we have today because it's full of change. And if you're constantly resisting it, you have a really tough life. Resisting control is something that a lot of people are concerned about, is that they want to get involved, but they don't want to be told what to do. They don't want to be work for a boss who thinks that all the brains are in their office. And they don't want to be controlled. They want to be a partner. That's one of the things that we're talking about now more, is that leadership is a partnership relationship, not a superior subordinate. Can you imagine that word? Subordinate? Subordinary person. I mean, what an awful term. That's ridiculous. I don't feel strongly about that at all.

At an extreme, you say that's even true in the military?

Yeah. My father was really interesting. He had 12 LCIs in the Second World War in the Pacific. And. And after the war, all the commanding officers still alive would come to our house for a weekend, and they would just come and tell me about my dad and how he just made them all feel like they were a part of the team and he wasn't the smartest kid in town, that they were in this thing together and all. And so I just think it's just true. If you really want people that are on your side, it's got to be we rather than me. And one plus one is greater than two.

Just out of ignorance, what is an lci?

It's a landing craft infantry. They brought in the Marines and in those days, frog men, the seals into the Beaches of the Marshall Islands, Saipan, Kwajalein, Enowetochtinian. And so my dad was an interesting character, was a real model for me. He grew up at West Point. His father was a doctor at the military academy. He loved West Point. He sat in the back that great graduation speech. Saw Jim Thorpe run the two touchdowns, and he wanted to go to West Point. His father said, no, son. When he graduated from high school, I think he should go away to school. He said, if I can't go here, I'll go to Annapolis. And so he went to the Naval academy, graduated in 24. And they didn't need naval officers in 24 because World War II had ended in 22. So after senior cruise, they dismissed him in January 25th. He went to Harvard Business School and majored in finance and then went onto Wall street and built his career. He's about to be made a vice president of National City bank in 1940. He comes home and I'm one year old. Says to my mother, well, I quit my job today. She said, you did what? He said, yeah, I quit. She said, to do what? He said, I rejoined the Navy. She said, you got to be kidding me. He said, didn't I tell you when we got married, if country ever got in trouble, I wanted to be there. Hitler's crazy and the Japanese will be in this soon, but here he is at 40 going in, and they made him a second Louie and put him in Brooklyn Navy Yard, Pearl harbor. Happens. Looks like he's going to stay there because here he's in his 40s with no experience. That wasn't my dad's style. So one of his classmates had stayed in and was a top guy in the Bureau of Personnel for the Navy in Washington. He called him and he said, john, I got to get in the action. What do you got for an old fart in the action? He said, ted, let me look into it. A couple of days later, he called back. He said, ted, unfortunately, the only thing I have for a guy with your little experience is a suicide group going into the Marshall Islands. And my dad said, of course you got your man. He didn't tell my mother, but 70% of his men were killed and wounded. I mean, it was really right in the. In the action. So he was a pretty amazing guy and ended up retiring as a rear admiral in the Navy because of all the decorations he had gotten. I tried to follow in his footsteps, but I have flat feet. So I failed the physical in those days at the Naval Academy. Thought if you had flat feet Please, you'd be tired all the time. And my eyes were in 2020. And when I went to Cornell, I got in the Air Force rotc. Then they gave me the exam. They kicked me out of that. So I finally decided I was 4F. I was too fat to fight.

Oh, man. Okay, so what happens when a servant leader catches an employee doing wrong? We know what to do when you catch them doing right. But what happens when you catch them doing wrong?

When in doubt, confront. When all else stays, try to finally say, you know, I was observing this and. And I got some concerns about this in terms of whether that's going in the direction we had talked about. Do you agree? You know, and most people will agree at all, and you say, okay, what can I do to help you get back on track? So you redirect their energy. You don't fly in. A lot of people are seagull managers. You know, somebody makes a mistake and then they fly in, they make a lot of noise, dump on everybody, and then fly out. No, I don't think that's what a servant leader would do. They would confront and say, how can I help you get back on track?

You are the master of metaphors. I have to say. You know, a good metaphor is a sign of intelligence. That's my theory.

Well, I think another thing that we really need, my father said, is keep a sense of humor. He always said to me, ken, take what you do seriously but yourself lightly. I think that's a very powerful thing for people to learn and to laugh and enjoy and even laugh about mistakes you make, you know, and so other people will laugh. But that WD40 Gary said that there's no mistakes anymore in WD40. There's only learning opportunities. And so people will come and say, God, boy, do we have a learning opportunity. What do we learn from it? So powerful stuff.

Zooming out a little bit. Based on your theories and your 60 books, including this one. This is a four box question. Okay, I'm gonna ask you the same question for what changes if you are a female boss? What changes if you're a female employee? What changes if you're a black boss? And what changes if you're a black employee? So those are the four boxes. So box number one is your female boss. What's your advice?

I would say about all the four boxes. Let's stop putting leadership into categories. The concept of effectiveness apply whether you're black, white, female, Asian, male, whatever. And what we tried to do is we're doing a lot of training with people who want to build up their diversity and their inclusion and all that. Well, situational leadership. Our SL2 model is an inclusive model because it involves people. You don't do the one minute manager. You don't do SL2 to people. You do it with people. And that's why I think it applies the same no matter what you're talking about. So for me to say I'm a female and I should do it this way. No. If you're female, you ought to make sure everybody knows what their goals are. If you're female, you ought to wander around and catch people doing things right. If they aren't, redirect them. I don't care if you know what you are. Is that the same concepts apply. It's not sexually oriented theories.

But you don't think that a female or black employee or LGBTQ employee or leader, don't you think they face special challenges?

Well, they might face special challenges in terms of some of the prejudice that people have that they have to deal with and all. But I think that if they focus all on that and not on what they're trying to accomplish in their role as a leader and they say, you probably have a lot of different opinions of me as a woman leader. Maybe you've never worked for a woman before, but let me just tell you, we're going to have fun today. I'm going to try to be the best leader you've ever had, regardless of, you know, the fact my hair is a little longer than yours.

I have two more questions for you. So the first of two is, what makes a good apology?

What makes a good apology is first to admit that you made a mistake and say, I just want to tell you what I did the other day is I, you know, I did all the talking and I kept on cutting you off and all. And I just want to apologize for that because that's not the way I want to be. And I really need your opinions as much as anybody else. And I, I hope you'll forgive me for that. But I do want to apologize. Confront. When all else fails, try honesty.

And my last question is, you mentioned his name earlier. Let's suppose that you and Peter Drucker go into a bar to have a drink. What would you agree on and what would you disagree on?

My experience in my times with Peter is I didn't disagree with anything he said. I thought he was one of the most wise, brilliant, caring human beings, amazingly humbled person, and he guided a lot of the things that I said. You know, like I said Nothing good happens by accident. And he was a fabulous human being. And I don't think I would, you know, argue with anything. We were on a couple of programs together, and it was so much fun just to be there with him, to be on the same stage with your guru. A lot of people don't want to admit that they have gurus or leaders. Are you kidding me? I wrote a book with Norman Vincent Peale, who wrote the Power of Positive Thinking. And he was 88 years old at the time. And Norman just taught me so many things. He was the one that said, if you're not your own best friend, who. Who are you going to be? You know, I mean, feel good about yourself. Positive thinking wasn't just about your people. It's about yourself. And he and Ruth taught Margian a lot, and they really helped us take a look at our faith too, which was a non quote religious type. It was about love and about appreciation, about support. And I'm 82 now and. And he died in 95. Well, hell, I'd like to be able to have another 13 years and hope I could still make the impact that he had. He and Ruth just impacted us so much. And she died at 91. And when she was 90, she said, I understand a lot of different things that are happening in China. And she took a trip to China to find out what was going on in 90. Can you imagine? But what Norman said, when you stop learning, lie down and let them put the dirt on you. You're already dead. Isn't that a great thing to remember? Stop learning, lie down.

I will tell you that I don't. Must have been 50 years ago. I read this, but I read the Effective Executive, and I read Management, the Drucker books, and they were huge influences on my life. The Effective Executive is something I would recommend to this day. I don't think it's ever been bettered. I also want you to know, Ken, I truly do believe that. I'm not saying when you die, but I think you're going to be mentioned in the same breath as Norman Vincent Peale and Peter Drucker and Ken Blanchard. I mean, that there's no question that you're in that category.

Well, I hope so. I feel very blessed. And it's interesting. I think I told you that my college professor said that I should be an administrator because I couldn't write. And so it just turned out to be just so much fun and. Because I just don't know how to make things really complicated because I don't have that kind of complicated mind. I'm a simpleton.

I tell you, when I read this book, I was stunned. So on the left side there's a sentence. On the right side there's one page that explains that whole thought, and that's it. That is a beautiful thing, that discipline right there.

That's right. And there's 26 on servant leadership and 26 on trust. And it's been great working with Randy Connolly. He's a special human being. He's been with our company for 25 years, but he's built his own reputation in the field of trust.

Ken Blanchard, to put it mildly. Duh. You are the man. So thank you very much for doing you.

I've just enjoyed this and I think that you're a good learner. You enjoy having your own show.

Duh. This has been just fabulous for meeting one of my gurus. So thank you so much.

Thank you. And where did you get all that gray hair?

I have four children.

I don't have any gray hair. How many kids? Four.

Four?

Yep. That'll keep you going. I got two and five grandkids, and so that's. That's fun. Yeah. Wow.

Well, that grandkids, that'll be a whole nother level.

Yeah. I bet you if you got a successful marriage, you married above yourself.

There's no. There's no question about that. My theory is that behind every successful man is an amazing woman. So that's Ken Blanchard, and I hope you understand the concept of servant leader. What a great idea. May you be one, or may you work for one, or may you become one. Servant leader. Remember those two words, not an oxymoron. I'm Guy Kawasaki and I'm on a mission to make you remarkable. Today it was with Ken Blanchard. My thanks to Jeff Sie, Peg Fitzpatrick, Shannon Hernandez, Luis Magana, Alexis Nishimura, and the drop in queen of Santa Cruz County, Madison Nismer. Aloha and mahalo. This is remarkable. People.