What Anyone Can Do Scott Monty 1012

Welcome to our new show, What Anyone Can Do Podcast with Leo Bottari and me, Randy Cantrell. Our new show picks up where the last show, Year of the Peer, left off, highlighting the simple truth that who you surround yourself with matters, and that if we enlist the support of others, give back to those who give to us, and pay it forward for the next generation, we can do anything. Author and keynote speaker Leo Bottari and I will interview a diverse group of thought leaders who will share stories and insights that will help you succeed in business, and in life.

How?

By doing the things anyone can do, but most of us never will. You know him, you love him. He is Scott Monty, an internationally recognized Fortune 10 leader whose background in classics positioned him to see through the shiny objects and drill down to understand the common human needs that drive us all. Scott speaks to and advises businesses and groups on how to move at the speed of customers online. Scott spent 6 years as an executive at Ford Motor Company as a strategic advisor on crisis communications influencer relations, marketing, customer service, innovative product launches, and more. He also has another decade and a half of experience in communications and marketing agencies. Scott Monty writes about the changing landscape of business, technology, communications, marketing, and leadership at ScottMonty.com. He produces a widely acclaimed weekly newsletter and the podcast, The Full Monty. We welcome Scott Monty to the show.

Scott Monty, welcome to What Anyone Can Do. I can't tell you how pleased we are to have you here on the show. Um, If there's anyone who understands the whole concept of who you surround yourself with matters and community and building community, it's you. So we're so pleased to have you on the program.

Well, thank you very much, Leo. And it's great to be surrounded by you guys today.

There we go. Hey, one of the things that, um, and now we chatted just before we get started here was I had mentioned to you that I've been conducting a lot of workshops over the past, um, 12 to 18 months, and talking about the fact that it's, I think we're at a point in time where the people who surround us maybe matter to us more than ever, particularly when we have declining trust in institutions and we look to one another for advice and counsel, even people we may not even know, right? People who we perceive are like us, who may have read the same book that interests us or driven the same car or want to send our kids to college. We look to these people and take that as a powerful data point for how we behave and how we act. But I think when we look at kind of the evolution of how we've engaged others from the standpoint of listening to what the company tells us about their product and service, to wanting corroborating evidence from like the New York Times or Consumer Reports, to now wanting advice from people like us, because that's in many respects, those are the people we trust. I'd just love to get some of your thoughts on that and get us started today.

Yeah, well, I think, uh, it, it's certainly, uh, very appropriate to bring that up, uh, in, in today's day and age because, I mean, there seems to be an extreme lack of, of distrust of so many different sources right now, um, whether it's the media, whether it's companies, whether it's even individuals that you happen to come across either online or in person. And I think the more assurance we can give people, you know, the more resources that we can give them, and that means putting ourselves out there in more places and participating more from a variety of perspectives, we give them the ability to go out and fact-check themselves or to double-check with a source that they trust, not that we're telling them they have to trust. That becomes of the primary importance at this point. And ultimately, it's not about— jeez, I wrote about this recently. What did I call it? It's not about shareholder activism. It's about stakeholder activism. You know, we have so many different stakeholders within our organizations, whether it's employees or customers or suppliers or on and on and on. And yet in the news we hear about shareholder activists that can take over a board. Well, really it can be a group of people with pitchforks and torches on Twitter that ends up taking over your business if you're not actively giving them the information that they can trust, that they can double-check, that they can discuss with their own community. You know, it really becomes giving people a range of options so they can decide for themselves.

It's interesting though, because even with that, people tend to choose their own truth. You know, we know that we can turn on the TV today and we can, you know, watch whatever channel we believe aligns with our worldview, where the ad hominem attack has become so commonplace now that it no longer becomes a conversation about ideas and people listening to one another. It becomes attack on the individuals expressing them or the companies expressing them. How are we going to get past that?

It's, I think it's a, it's a really good and tough question. And it's one that the, I think that the media landscape makes even more difficult because when we were growing up and I'll lump us in as peers here, uh, there were 3 networks on television. And that was it. And maybe 2 papers in our hometown, a morning and an evening paper. And that's where you got your information from. And now, with television alone, you know, with the explosion of channels, with, you know, the cord cutting going on, I mean, there's people that are just being driven down into their own bunkers, if you will, sticking with the information and the networks that matter to them. And the same thing is happening online. You know, you're seeing people just moving toward people that are like them, which, you know, that's human nature. Of course you want to be with people that like you, but what that does is it creates a filter bubble where you don't see the reality outside of your own bubble. Um, and that is inherently dangerous. And, and I think the only way past that is to is to, at least from a brand perspective, insert ourselves in more conversations, do things less about the, you know, the way social and digital has become a broadcast mechanism for brands, a reach tool, and use it as more of a community platform, which is really what these started out as when you think about it. You know, back when I was at Ford, part of the magic behind what happened is I got out there and I commented on discussion forums and blogs and on Twitter and on Facebook and wherever else the conversation took us. And it was about putting yourself in those communities where you might not be welcome sometimes. But guess what? It was an outside perspective that forced conversation. And through conversation, if done in a civil manner, you can actually achieve better understanding.

Well, I think engaging that conversation in the way you did it was very powerful because, you know, the conversations are going to take place with or without you. So you might as well be in there, you know, weighing in, right? I think the other dynamic though, that you bring up kind of reaching back to the days where there were, you know, basically 3 networks, it was, and just a few newspapers really in our local area that we paid attention to, was also the difference between what was clearly news and clearly editorial, right? So your newspaper was pretty clear on news, sports, weather, obituaries, comics, and the editorial page pretty much covers it, right? And then on TV, you'd have that rare occasion where the general manager of the station may get on in the last 2 or 3 minutes. And it was flashed across the screen in bold, you know, that this is a commentary and this is not about news. Today, of course, that is all blurred for the average viewer, listener, you know, they turn on the television and there is no clear distinction between what is news and what is opinion, what's commentary, which I would imagine just clouds things to another level.

Yeah, I mean, it absolutely does. I mean, it's even to the point where you see some links from, I guess, the Borowitz Report. In The New Yorker, that people don't realize that that's satire. You know, so it's, you know, between real news, fake news, editorial, I mean, it's all getting swirled in together. And people just seem to be shouting from the rooftops at this point, and not taking the time— excuse me— not taking the time to truly understand each other. You know, we spend so much time waiting for a gap in conversation to reply rather than truly absorbing information, processing it, waiting, and then replying with something that is contextually relevant, that's responsive, that actually meets the other person's need, not just our own. And I think we've really lost that art of conversation in the process.

Yeah, I know Randy's got a bunch of questions for you too. I just have one more because you kind of prompted a a thought that I had just regarding, you know, for me, I guess it's been really tough to watch the media be so accepting of being called fake news. You know, I mean, I don't, I'm not sure they've really pushed back very hard on that. It's almost like they have, you know, by their own, you know, inability or passivity or whatever to directly address this in a way that has any power to it. I feel like this notion of fake news has kind of won over a lot of the people's perception of mainstream media in a way that I'm not sure they didn't give up that ground a little too easily. What do you think about that?

Yeah, I mean, I can see what you're saying there. I think it could have been helpful for them to do that. I know CNN took an advertising-based approach where they have an apple and a banana or something and they tell you which fruit it is, which great, it's clever advertising, but the day-to-day reporters are the ones that need to be speaking out if they in fact feel like they're the ones that are being damaged. I think overall it's done much more harm than good to society because many people are buying into this line now that fake news is simply what someone deems it rather than being something that is actually fact-checked and proven to be false. You know, just because you don't like something doesn't mean that it's fake. And that in turn cascades down, not just with the media, but with how people interact with brands. Just because a brand does something that you don't like doesn't mean necessarily that they're wrong. It doesn't mean that they've got a bad product. It's just a difference of opinion, and people have lost the ability to discuss and to process opinion, you know, just as we were saying before, versus fact. You know, is it editorial? Is it fact? This is going to take a long and enduring national dialogue about how to discern truth from fiction and how to apply that in the media. And the media has to do an incredibly hard job to clean up their own act because there are times when they're offering opinion where they shouldn't be, and that's clouding things as well. So, you know, this is not nearly over, and it's really just begun.

We've got, I think, finally too, just quite a conflict too, I think, in many respects between— I think we're at a point in time where we've never— it's never been more important that we rely on one another, and yet at the same time, we find it so difficult to engage in constructive dialogue. And that is, that is, that is pretty tough.

It is. It is. There's, there's actually a, um, it's, it's just started out, but it's a small movement, uh, right now. My friend Harry Cohen is starting. Harry's a leadership coach and a trained psychologist. And he has been going on this speaking tour talking about Heliotropic Leadership. And Helio, of course, Helios is the Greek word for sun. And there's more energy from the sun than there is from, you know, like salt in the earth. And he started a site called BeTheSunNotTheSalt.com. And it's all about being kind and having a positive outlook and doing things to lift people up, not tear them down. And I think it just, it comes at the perfect point in society right now where we need to hear more messages like that. I mean, like the Mr. Rogers movie that everyone's talking about this summer. It's the same kind of thing. There was a time in every child's life, if you grew up in the '70s or '80s, where you probably thought Mr. Rogers was a cornball. You probably thought he was too simplistic and you didn't like it. In between The Flashy Electric Company and Sesame Street. But as a father, I know over time I've grown to appreciate Fred Rogers' approach to life and the simple messages and the kindness that he teaches. And the movie doing so well at the box office, even though it's a documentary, seeing people yearning for that, back to the simpler times, back to focusing on kindness over caustic behavior. I think we need more of that, and I think that's going to be what's going to pull us through.

Scott, we've never, at least in my life, I'll qualify it, in my life, I don't know that we've ever seen such widespread and mass, mass comm, which obviously now includes all this digital content, the preaching and the advocacy for tolerance, and yet practiced it so little. The congruency or the incongruency of that. I mean, what's your cultural take on that?

I don't know if there is one. I mean, it's the definition of irony, really, right there. And it's almost like it's a stalemate, you know, like the old Mexican standoff. Somebody's waiting for the other one to blink or to make the first move. And it seems to me that the prevailing attitude is that if you make the move toward kindness, toward more understanding, toward giving the other person the benefit of the doubt, that that is seen as a weakness. And I think that's what's preventing a lot of people from taking that first step, from feeling like they've lost an argument. You know, there's that old New Yorker cartoon where there's a woman coming from the bedroom and her husband's hunched over the computer at a desk. And he said, yeah, I'll be to bed soon. There's someone wrong on the internet right now. There will always be someone wrong on the internet. There will always be someone wrong somewhere. That's not the point. The point is to find common ground. The point is to find things that we can agree on, even if we know we're coming from two diametrically opposed viewpoints. And I think it takes great courage for someone to stand up and say, hey, you know what? You may be right. Or I never thought of it that way. Or thank you for helping me understand where you're coming from. We don't see enough of that. And I think when somebody actually takes that step, it just, it brings the temperature level down so much that suddenly people go, oh, you're just like me. You're another human being on the other end of this screen, on the other end of this keyboard. And there's something we can accomplish together.

I was part of the generation, I entered journalism school at the— really at the conclusion of the Watergate fiasco. And prior to that, my perspective of the world was that my parents, grandparents, they trusted the government. Watergate changed that in a pretty magnificent way and made us skeptical. And so you talk historically of those 3 networks and a couple of newspapers And we trusted those sources. And today, with anybody with a microphone, we can podcast, which you do, we do. And there is, Seth Godin says, there's no permission required anymore. And so the rigor that we may have thought once took place with traditional media and now may not take place, coupled with the fact that we by and large are headline readers living in a clickbait kind of a world. Are you optimistic that because there is no permission required and we see every day, we see some leader, some corporate titan or someone in power and authority get taken down with some poor behavior that might could have easily, when I was young, easily been hidden, and now it can't.

Well, I think that the journey you described, Randy, of there being distrust in the government after Watergate— I think we're at another inflection point now where, you know, we've already seen so much distrust sown in the media And you think, you know, to Leo's earlier point about the Edelman Trust Barometer, the government and the media are two of the big areas that are measured in the trust barometer. I know corporations and NGOs are the other two categories that are typically looked at. So that leaves us with where do we actually place our trust? If not in the government, if not in the media, if not dependably in each other, what have we got left? Corporations? They've got a long way to go right now because they've been seen as entities that have not been worthy of our trust in the past. And I know there are a lot of brands, and we've seen trend in brands taking stands where brands are putting their foot down with regard to social issues or political issues or religious issues or whatever they may happen to be, gender issues, and saying, this is not acceptable. This is what we stand for, at the risk of alienating customers, right? So are we ever going to be able to put our trust firmly within companies? Probably not, because there's no consistency there. You know, your mileage will vary, as we used to say in the auto industry. And that leaves us with NGOs, you know, the nonprofits, which, you know, by their very nature should be the great salvation of mankind. They haven't necessarily, again, been consistent or, you know, top of top of the mind in owning some of these things, and maybe it's time for them to step up.

Talk to us a little bit, if you would, just you personally. I'm taken with, with your tagline of finding the humanity between digital and analog of customer experience. But let's talk about our own humanity. And we've, we've often asked our guests, and these are some of the most compelling stories that that people have shared with us. So as you started out and go back, however far you choose to, the people that you put your trust in, the people that you intentionally, purposefully, or even inadvertently found yourself surrounded by, who made an impact on you and kind of set the course, and your life would have been drastically different had they not surrounded you.

Well, I, first and foremost, uh, I would say my parents, uh, who were incredibly supportive of with me no matter what direction I wanted to take. They, they made so many sacrifices for me and made it possible for me to do, uh, even what I'm doing today. Um, they filled me with the confidence that, you know, I had, um, certainly financial backing, but more importantly, the moral support of them, uh, and their, their confidence in me. Um, interestingly enough, A lot of the folks that I've surrounded myself with in my career have been typically a generation older. And I don't necessarily know why that is. I've just kind of, maybe I'm an old soul internally. You know, I think I would have, I would have done pretty well in the 1930s for some reason, which is, you know, part of the reason that my life has this dichotomy to it that, yeah, I'm online all the time, but I have a fountain pen collection and I appreciate receiving and writing handwritten notes. I just think there's a human touch there. And this kind of old soul within me, I think, has gravitated towards some of those older folks in my life that have been well established, that have been able to share their their life lessons along the way. I'll never forget Andy Ferrara, who was the CEO at Boston Healthcare Associates years ago. He gave me one of the best bits of advice I can remember. He said, look, stop telling yourself that you need to achieve more, you need to get yourself to a certain position. Just tell yourself, I have arrived.

Right?

Because once you accept that, once you accept that you're in a position where you're an authority or you have influence, you'll start acting accordingly rather than trying to constantly act like you're trying to get to the next level. Simply have that confidence and have that ability to know that you matter where you are and that you're making an impact to the people around you. And I'll never forget that.

Do you suppose that some of the venom that we may see, especially online, may stem from people who didn't have that, who didn't have the advantages that you have? I mean, I'm not a psychologist and none of us are, but it's interesting. People get behind the keyboard of their phone or their laptop or device and that lack can often come shining through loud and clear.

Yeah, I think there's something missing, and I don't know exactly what it is, whether it was in upbringing or in present day, but those people seem to be searching for something.

What was it about communication particularly that kind of struck your fancy? Because that's That's really where you've spent your life's work by and large.

I backed into it completely by accident. You know, as an undergraduate, I was a humanities guy. I was a classics major. And there was one course I took when I was at Boston University where I cross-registered to the College of Communication from the College of Arts and Sciences. And the course was oral presentation. And I just, I knew from that moment that I needed to be speaking with people. I needed to be either up in front of people or, you know, interacting with them in some meaningful way. And truly, I didn't have my first official communications job until I got to Ford Motor Company. I was working in sales and marketing roles previously, but I just knew when I got to Ford that that's where I belonged, in a communications kind of setting, helping executives understand things, helping customers understand things, and, you know, really trying to bridge the gap, trying to bridge that divide that I saw more and more.

Leo? Yeah, I would, you know, what struck me, and I think is really helpful to think about is this idea of, as a society, trying to do more to seek common ground and to act with kindness and all. And I do worry a little bit that the lessons that we're taught, the lessons our kids are taught every time they look at any kind of media, is that compromise is never celebrated. It's not about common ground. It's about who won, who lost, who caved, you know, who are the victors, never is it celebrated where people come together who may in fact want to do something that's good for the country or do good for their community. And instead of the compromise being celebrated, it becomes one that is often, um, uh, you know, just poked at and picked at and ridiculed even to a certain degree. And I think it's going to take people with really great courage to rise above that and really try to do what's right for their communities and for their states and the country in order for things to improve in that regard. And they're going to have to. I think we are all in the same boat here. And still we realize that, you know, and still we start colonizing Mars. This is our planet. This is where we all have to live together and exist together and hopefully do so in a way where we can kind of peacefully coexist.

So, well, we'll find a way to argue on Mars if we get there.

Yeah.

But I think your point, Leo, where it's a we versus they attitude, it's become so deeply ingrained. And I think part of the responsibility there lies again at the feet of the media who cover politics like they cover sports.

Yes.

Right? There's a winner, there's a loser. And when you're associated with a losing side, that doesn't feel that great, you know. And then, you know, that like the classic Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees rivalry, it's just about how much the other team sucks, you know. And I've been at Fenway Park where people are chanting, Yankees suck, And we're not playing the Yankees. You know, I mean, it's become that ingrained. And I'm afraid that as a society that we're taking sides against each other when there's so much more common ground. And I think there's kind of this false patina over the divisiveness between people that the online world is contributing to. But when you sit down with somebody, you know, we talked about earlier in the program about how people are braver behind the keyboard to say things they wouldn't say in person, because when you do sit down and in person, there is that common ground. And to your point, it's not celebrated, it's not showcased, it's not shown in any specific or appreciable manner by the media.

Well, I think to your point too, when, when people are sitting down in front of one another. And that allows us to become in touch with someone's humanity. They're no longer just a name or a job title. They're actually a human being who may have kids or a dog or share the same, the favorite song you do, or love to drive the same car or whatever that happens to be. And once we kind of get that, we're just, you know, all doing the best we can to try to raise our families and do, whatever we're doing, and we realize how much we have in common, then hopefully that can open dialogue to— and I want to learn just from, you know, there are people who, you know, obviously we disagree maybe on certain issues, whether it's politics, whatever it happens to be. But I think trying to just understand it from a, you know, they grew up under certain circumstances, which, and met certain people or had certain experiences, which shaped how they see the world. And to understand that, I think is extremely powerful as opposed to just, dismissing points of view that we don't really understand where they came from. And I think we just need to do a better job of that. Hopefully we can do a better job of teaching our kids to engage in those kinds of conversations at a younger age where it's about learning and not about judging. And so—

Scott, let me ask you, let me ask you about, as we kind of wind down here, about history as a classics guy. Years ago, I read a book by a gentleman named Jeremy Rifkin called Time Wars, and in it he made an observation, and this was at the advent of the digital watch. And I'm old enough to remember, you know, it was the red LED. And his observation was that the analog, you can see the past, you can see the future. But when we look at our digital watches right now, it's always now. Now, now, and I'm wondering from your perspective as a person who studied this and the place of history, and we're all parents, Leo and I are grandparents, and for me, legacy and significance is a huge thing. I'm just at that phase of my life. So history matters, the lessons of history matter? I don't know, your thoughts?

Yeah, I think it's more important now than ever because— and I'm actually looking at a bookshelf just across the way here. There's a book by Seymour Hersh, it's called Cultural Literacy. It's basically about all the things that are part of common knowledge, things that we should know. And again, thinking back to 3 networks growing up, you know, I've got peers that I can, you know, be having a beer with or be on the phone with, and we can reminisce about the cartoons that we watched on Saturday morning. Well, you know what? My kids don't watch cartoons. On Saturday morning, what do they do? They watch YouTube, right? And to them, there's going to be no sense of shared experience with their peers as they move forward because they're all watching whatever YouTuber is appropriate. And there may be, you know, the superstar YouTuber that everybody knows about, but everybody's got their own set of programming. And it goes, it goes to adults too. I mean, when you think that the last episode of M*A*S*H had 106 million people watching it, You'll never in a million years get another show like that happening in the media landscape today. So when you couple that with, you know, all of the trials and tribulations we've just been talking about, that there's no fundamental appreciation for the past, and the past is really where all the lessons are. There's people that have made these mistakes time and again. There's patterns that you can pick out. Over the course of history, and you can determine where we are as a society today with respect to those kinds of patterns, right? It works with the market, it works with societies, it works with religions. I mean, all kinds of things. And I think the more we can focus on the true fundamental human lessons that are common to us all, and share those in a communal way, I think the better off we're going to be because the media consumption landscape is not allowing that to happen today. And the focus, like it or not, has to be on books, on the things we can still put our hands on that we can point to that are literally printed in black and white. That are truths or that are experiences that happened before that can inform us today and tomorrow.

So Scott, I know that you're working on something that we'd love to maybe hear a little more about that absolutely touches on that very point about the value of history, the fact that we find ourselves as a society constantly having to relearn some of the same lessons. Is there a particular lesson that you hope that you can bring forward in your book, that if you could imagine, this is one lesson that I would really, really hope that we don't have to continue to relearn, that this is something that somehow can be embedded into the fabric of our society generationally that you would find particularly powerful.

Oh, there are so many. I know. So tentatively, the book is called What's Past Is Prologue: Timeless Business Wisdom from Poets, Philosophers, and Authors of the Past. And the title itself, What's Past Is Prologue, that's a line out of Shakespeare. And it's also interestingly carved in a sculpture outside of the National Archives in Washington, D.C. My senior thesis as an undergraduate was about classical architecture and sculpture in the Federal Triangle in Washington. So much inspiration there that the founding fathers and the architects of that city had, and they realized that there was so much wisdom throughout the ages. So in terms of some of the lessons that we can take from the past. Where to begin? I think one of the most important ones, and we've touched on it here throughout without really naming it, is the notion of empathy. Call it, you know, walk a mile in my shoes or, you know, whatever you happen to call it. And I think it's stated best by Cicero, who 2,000 years ago said, if you wish to persuade me, you must think my thoughts, feel my feelings, and speak my words. That right there in 3 simple lines encapsulates everything we've just been talking about. In terms of understanding, in terms of seeking the truth, in terms of de-escalating some of the anger out there. Think my thoughts, feel my feelings, speak my words.

Well, Scott, I'll tell you what, very much look forward to that book. And in addition to obviously your referencing Shakespeare and Cicero, for those of the people who are listening to this podcast, don't necessarily see that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is noted in terms of, you know, right behind you in terms of Sherlock Holmes and what we can learn, I'm sure, from a lot of those books as well. But anyway, I just want to tell you how pleased we are that you joined us today to talk about some things that I think are really important about us and about community. And if you could just finally leave our listeners with, you know, some ways that they can engage you online and learn more about your work, that'd be terrific.

Sure. I am Scott Monte on all of the social networks— Twitter, Facebook, Instagram— and you can find me at ScottMonte.com.

And The Full Monte podcast is definitely worth listening to.

I didn't want to put out a competing link there.

No, no. It's awesome. It's awesome. I'm a big fan.

5 minutes a week. You know, I try to do it in the morning Paul Harvey style where, you know, he just, he grabbed you for 5 minutes and that's all you had to commit.

No, you do it. You do it well. I'm a huge fan. So the full Monty.

I like it. All right. Hey, well, you all have a great day. Thank you so much. And thanks for listening, everyone.

Thanks, Scott.

My pleasure.

To learn more about our show and what we do, to submit questions to us, and to subscribe to What Anyone Can Do Podcast, please visit our website, whatanyonecandodo.com. What Anyone Can Do Podcast is hosted by Leo Battari and me, Randy Cantrell. Music provided by Kevin MacLeod is Vibe 8. Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0 license. Thanks for watching or listening. We hope you'll share the podcast.