What is Servant Leadership? How to Lead Through Giving?

Well, thank you for joining me this morning, Bob. I, I really— an honor and a privilege to be able to speak to you. And I know when I reached out to you, you were a little bit confused because you're most famous for your awesome books, The Go-Giver, Endless Referrals, and you're known as a sales expert. And here I am reaching out about a podcast about human resources and you're, you're like, what on earth does this guy want? And so after reading The Go-Giver multiple times and reading through some of your philosophies, I understand that the things that you preach and the things that you know and the things that you embody every day are what great leaders need to embrace. And those can be applied in the human resources world, particularly with the folks that listen to our show. And those are small business owners, small business leaders. And so I wanted learn a little bit today about specifically how the Go-Giver philosophy, how you think it can be applied to small businesses and what leaders can do to help to lead by example, to lead by giving, to lead by giving, paying it forward, if you will. And so I'm excited to hear a little bit about your, your, your 5 laws. I'm also excited to hear more about Ernesto. I've got a story later that I'll tell you. I actually connected some dots about Ernesto over the last couple of weeks. So in The Go-Giver, let's go ahead and get started. In The Go-Giver, you talk about the 5 laws that, you know, that will bring you both personal effectiveness and professional success. Can you share those with our audience and what those mean to you?

Sure.

In the Five Laws, which are the laws of value, compensation, influence, authenticity, and receptivity, uh, they all come from a basic premise, right? And that is that shifting your focus, uh, and this is by the way, whether you're in sales, whether you're in leadership, whether you're in HR, it doesn't matter, uh, that shifting your focus from getting to giving. And when we say giving in this context, we simply mean constantly and consistently providing immense value to others, understanding that doing so is not only a more pleasant way of conducting business, it's the most financially profitable way as well. And not for some outlandish or woo-woo, way out there kind of magical, mystical reason, right? It's, it's, it actually makes logical sense when you're that person who can take your focus off yourself and place it on others, okay? Uh, doing what you can to help them, um, thrive, to help them solve their challenges, to help them get more of what they want, to help bring them closer to happiness, what have you. When you're that person, people feel good about you.

People want to get to know you. They like you. They trust you. They want to be a part of your life, of your business, of your world. They want to be your personal walking ambassador. And, you know, so again, whether it's leading a team, whether it, it really just doesn't matter. This is how you connect with people. So the, the 5 Laws are based on that. And the first one, the Law of Value, which says your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment. Yeah, that's going to sound a little counterintuitive because it sounds in the, in the business world as though you're going to lose money, right? Give more in value than you take in payment. And so it's important to understand the difference between price and value, where price is a dollar figure, it's a dollar amount. Value is the relative worth or desirability of a thing. Of something. What is it about this product, service, concept, idea that brings such worth or value to another human being that they will exchange their— whether it's money, time, energy, lost opportunity, followership, or, you know, whatever it happens to be. Right. And of course, while doing that, you would also make a very a hefty profit. And again, profit can be measured in money, but it can also be measured in other, uh, other areas in terms of productivity, in terms of loyalty, in terms of, um, retention, in terms of— right. So, uh, so that— so what it really is, what the law of value is really about, is just making the experience for the other person wonderful. Yeah, you know, that's, that's really the law of value. Now, the law of compensation says your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them. So where Law Number 1 says to give more in value than you take in payment, Law Number 2 tells us that the more people whose lives you touch with the exceptional value you provide, the more money with which you'll be rewarded, or the bigger the organization, or the more your job will be, you know, where you will be valued for, you know, for in terms of your employment and so forth. Law number 3 is the Law of Influence. And the Law of Influence says your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people's interests first. Now, again, this sounds counterintuitive when you first hear it, maybe downright counterproductive. But then you think about it, Matt, you know, the, the greatest leaders, the top influencers, the highest money-earning sales professionals and entrepreneurs and small business people. This is simply how they run their lives and conduct their businesses. They're always looking out for the other guy, not looking out for the other guy, but looking out for the other, other person. But let me also clarify and qualify this, if I may, because I think the statement itself can be misinterpreted. And it's very important when we say place the other person's interests first. We certainly don't mean you should be anyone's doormat or a martyr. Or self-sacrificial in any way. Absolutely not at all. It simply is— Joe, the protégé in the story, learned from several of the mentors, including Ernesto, who you— we're going to talk about, I think, later— that the golden rule of business is that all things— and we could say of sales, of leadership, what have you— is that all things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to— we could say also— and allow themselves to be led by those people they know, like, and trust. And there's simply no faster, more powerful, or more effective way to elicit those feelings toward you in others than by genuinely moving from that I-focus or me-focus that most people live in to that other-focus that makes it all about them. Law number 4 is the Law of Authenticity. This says the most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself. In the story, Deborah Davenport was the, the mentor for that portion, and she said that all the skills in the world, the sales skills, technical skills, people skills, as important as they all are, and they are indeed all very, very important, they're also all for naught if you don't come at it from your true authentic core. But when you do, when you show up as yourself day after day, week after week, month after month, well, people feel good about you. People feel very comfortable with you. People feel safe with you. And why shouldn't they? They know who they're getting. And, you know, the desire for consistency in another human being, it goes back to the cave person days when every day was a matter of life and death. And, you know, It was surviving the day and you had to know what every signal meant and it had to mean the same thing all the time. That sound in the wilderness, that, you know, the bent twigs and the footprints in the ground, right in the mud. I mean, it had to mean the same thing.

It was survival.

Well, we certainly don't have that issue today, but it's been hardwired into our DNA, as the saying goes. And so it's very difficult to elicit trust when you're not consistent. And it's very difficult to be consistent when you're not authentic. So authenticity is very, very important. And then Law Number 5 is the Law of Receptivity. And this one says the key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving. And this really means nothing more than understanding that, yes, you breathe out, but you also have to breathe in. It's not one or the other. You breathe out carbon dioxide, you breathe in oxygen. You breathe out, which is giving, you breathe in, which is receiving. And unfortunately, the world around us gives us not mixed messages, but just very negative messages regarding prosperity, regarding abundance, regarding business, regarding wealth and so forth. And so it really, on an unconscious level, we take in all this horribly negative information and can really sabotage our ability to receive that which we have really, you know, come to earn. So what we like to say is that despite the messages you get from the world around you, giving and receiving are not opposite concepts. They're simply two sides of the very same coin. And they work in tandem. Okay, you're not a giver or a receiver, you're a giver and a receiver. But what you know is that, you know, in the laws of life, the laws of physical nature, the laws of human nature. You know, what they say is you've got to give that value first. We give first, and then what that does is it creates that benevolent context for your success. But then you've got to be willing to receive it. It's why John David Mann, my, my excellent co-author, uh, why we say that money is simply an echo of value. It's the thunder, if you will, to value's lightning, meaning only that the focus must be on the giving of value. The focus is on the giving. The money you receive or the loyalty you receive, the followership you receive, the retention you receive, the new— you know, all these things that we, that we'd like to receive is simply a It's the result of the value that we've given.

That's tremendous. So much to unpack there, and thank you for that wonderful overview. And I will echo, if not to piggyback on your echo term there, but if you have not read the book yet, The Go-Giver, you have to read it. I just went through it for the third time in preparation for this interview with Bob because it's such a great book. I love it. It does talk a lot about some of these things that you mentioned that are a little bit counterintuitive for people. Just to understand, I mean, I know that you're a Zig Ziglar guy. I saw it in one of your recent episodes talking about Zig Ziglar, and I think you had some of the Zigglers on, but he has a famous quote from many years ago that's, "If you want to be a billionaire, serve a billion people." And it's something that I talk about all the time. And if you're providing value to people and if you're providing, you know, insight, information, etc., then you're going to see the return on that. You're going to see that come back to you, but it's hard. It's like We always say you don't walk into a bank and take money out without putting in the deposits first. You have to go in and put the deposits into the bank before you can make a withdrawal, and value operates much the same way. And so when we look at some of these concepts that you've talked about here, influence, you know, the people that are typically most influential are not often the people who are up on stage screaming about how great they are and kind of talking about all these things about what makes them wonderful. They're lifting others up, which makes other people feel good and want to serve them. Want to walk alongside them, want to grow in their career with them, which is when we take this back inside of our organizations, when we lift others up and make them the heroes of the story, that's when we can become their hero and a great leader. So wonderful points there. And obviously, you know, maybe even too much to get into here. That's why I recommend folks go ahead and get the book. And I was kind of joking with Bob before we jumped on. He, on his website, it says he's at 975,000 copies sold so far of The Go-Giver. So that means in 2021, he's certainly going to pass over a million copies of The Go-Giver sold. Just incredible, and I think speaks to the immense value that he provides in the book. So let's look at one of the things I was not as familiar with prior to preparing for this interview were how you've taken these principles and turned them into some leadership principles as well. What's different about the, the 5 key principles as they relate to, to reader leaders, and how can we use that in our day-to-day as leaders of organizations?

Yeah, that's such a great question. And, and so many people after The Go-Giver came out wrote to John David Mann, my co-author, uh, and, and me, and, and just asked, you know, okay, we see how this applies to salespeople, entrepreneurs, you know, even people who are employees, but what about leaders? Yeah. How does a leader take these principles? Well, they're pretty much the same in a sense. You're, you're outwardly focused, right? And so what John and I call go-giver Leaders are simply people who take their focus off of themselves and they place it on others. You know, Jim Collins wrote about this in his book Good to Great, and I thought he did such a wonderful job when he talked about the difference between level 4 leaders who are very, very good and level 5 leaders who are just absolutely outstanding. And the difference between the level 4 and level 5 leaders that Mr. Collins talked about, and I think we've all seen this everywhere, isn't that the Level 5 leaders have any more talent than the Level 4 leaders. They're all very, very talented. It's that the Level 4 leaders, it tends to be about themselves. It's that person you were talking about being on stage talking about how great they are. They may not talk about how great, but they'll accept the credit and they'll, you know, they're the right— where the Level 5 leaders were the ones who they lived for the success of those around them. And we would say that's giving leadership. And giving is both an adjective and a verb. You know, you're, you're giving leadership in terms of you're actually empowering others. You're, you're helping leaders to become leaders and you're giving them the credit. You want them to have the credit. You're putting them out there. But it's also giving leadership is a form of leadership. It's that type of leadership, leadership that says it's not about me. It's about all of you. It's about the leadership team. It's about the rank-and-file team members, if you, if you will, to use that term. And ultimately it's about the customers. It's not about the leader yet. Those Level 5 leaders are the ones that they are beloved. They're trusted, they're respected, and they're sustainably successful. And, you know, that's really what it comes down to. And I think when it comes to, well, how does that kind of thing work? What is the characteristic, if you will, of someone who's able to exercise that kind of influence? Right. And say, well, so what is influence? OK, what is influence? Well, influence on a very basic level is simply the ability to move a person or persons to a desired action, usually within the context of a specific goal. That's influence, which is leadership. Okay. But that's the definition. That's not its essence, though. The essence of influence, meaning also the essence of leadership, is pull. Pull as opposed to push. Right. We've, we've heard the saying, how far can you push a rope? And we know the answer is not very, right? At least not very fast or very effectively, which is why great leaders, great influencers don't push, right? They don't push their ideas on others. They don't push their will on others. They don't depend on compliance, which is push. They're not pushy. No, they do the opposite. They pull. Pull is an attraction. Great leaders, great influencers attract people to themselves and then to their ideas. So how, how do they— what's the key way they do this? Well, it goes right back to that shift in focus, right? Great influencers ask themselves questions to make sure that their focus is in the right place. I like to say be internally motivated but externally focused. And so they ask questions of themselves first, such as, how is what I'm asking this person to do? Okay, this person I'm leading, how— or it could be people or whatever, but let's just make it easy. How am I— how is what I'm asking this person to do? How does it align with their goals, with their wants, with their needs, with their desires? How does what I'm asking this other person to do, how does it align with their values? You know, how am I helping them to get to where they want to go? Now, when we ask ourselves these questions, Matt, thoughtfully, intelligently, genuinely, authentically, not as a way to manipulate another human being into doing our will, but as a way of building everyone in the process, now we've come a lot closer to earning that person's commitment as opposed to trying to depend on some type of compliance, which, you know, at best is ineffective. You can comply, you know, you can make people comply, but you're never going to have a loyal team that way. You're going to have people doing the bare minimum and even sabotaging the process, you know, consciously or unconsciously. On the other hand, commitments— my great friend Don DiScumaci, who's one of my mentors and a great leadership teacher practitioner. She, she teaches leadership and mentorship to companies all over the world. I love what she says about this. She says when it comes to leadership, when it comes to compliance, she says, or when it comes to leading, when it comes to influence, excuse me, she says compliance will never take you where commitment can go. Clients will never take you where commitment can go.

So beautiful.

One of the things that I think is the biggest challenge for small business owners is getting past that mindset that we've already talked about. And that's, hey, I need to invest in these people. They need to be better when they leave my organization than when they came to my organization. And that's a, that's a, that even right there, I use that bit of a juxtaposition where I see this sometimes in poor leadership where it's my company, my team, my, my, my, my, my, right? Right? Like, anytime I sit down with a leader and they start saying, if you want to work at my company, and I just got myself doing it there, but it's more about that intent of, look, when you leave here, you're going to be better than when you started because we're going to invest in you. Because too often we get hung up in this mindset of this individual is only going to be with me for 2 years, a year, 3 years, you know, how much time and energy do I want to help them to really achieve their goals? Bob, I've got a company to grow. We're worried about the team. We're worried about the organization, how we grow. And I think about it's analogous to a professional football team. So if the New York Giants decided that, you know what, this is a contract year for this player, so we're just not going to let them practice, we're not going to invest any time, they're not going to come by the facilities, they're not going to allow to be able to train here, they're not going to get better, we don't really care, they're going to be done with us after this year anyway. Kind of a mindset would that be? And when they win a championship and they've got that banner up on the wall and the picture of the entire team, they don't take it down the next season because not everybody's there anymore. They relish in that championship that they had and the people that they developed and the chemistry that they created, even after those people are gone. And I think sometimes as leaders, we get hung up on the fact that, oh, you know, I've heard organizations say, we don't talk about the dead. They'll say, like, when somebody leaves your team, like, oh, we don't talk about people that left because they're no longer part of the team. Well, that's not the way it works in real life, right? People come and go, and it's our role to invest in them in such a way that they want to be a part of the team even after they're gone, which is a really unique thing to have. And they wish the organization success and and that's our role as a leader, is to continue to help people to grow after the fact. And I think an integral way of going about that, Bob, is mentoring, which I know is something that you're an expert on. What are some of the mistakes that you see people, people do when seeking out a mentor, but also organizations when they're trying to implement mentoring internally?

Well, I think mentoring is a great idea because with the right mentor, you can cut your learning curve time by years. And an organization who's able to put in place great mentorship protégé relationships, obviously, you know, it's a, it's a chance for the mentor to continue to grow because we know how better we get when we teach, right? As well as the newer person to be able to grow. So it works out for everyone. But I think it has a lot to do with the culture of a company. You know, as you talked about so terrifically about the, you know, sort of the lack mentality of not wanting to invest in people because someday they may not be here, which, you know, I don't think anyone ever grows a great business, a great sustainable business with that thought process. It just, it doesn't happen because how we do anything is how we do everything. So it's not like you can just focus on the people who are going to be here and kind of act miserably or not as though the other people don't exist without that kind of infesting the culture. So, so it's really a culture issue when someone— it turns into a culture issue when leadership approaches things that way. So I think that you really set up a mentor-protégé type of culture by rewarding it and encouraging it. And it doesn't mean the reward has to be financial. It's just in terms of other ways in which rewards can be measured. And I think it mostly has to do with encouragement and gratitude. And when leadership shows gratitude for those who are mentors, and when the protégés show gratitude for those who are mentors, and the protégés grow and, you know, and they're able to then add value eventually to their mentors in those ways, I think you create that rising tide, you know. For all the boats. And so, you know, again, I think it's a culture issue. If the mentorship-protégé relationship is treasured and is honored and rewarded, well, it's going to grow. You know, otherwise, obviously, it's going to be lip service and that's it.

Bob, let's talk about Ernesto. So Ernesto, first, I would like for you to share a little bit with everybody about Ernesto and his restaurant and what is different about about going to get a meal at Ernesto's restaurant versus maybe the other places in town? What's the analogy there? And then I'll share a little bit about how we've adapted that mentality internally and a dot connection that I mentioned I had just recently made this week when rereading your book.

Well, Ernesto had a very, very, I mean, very successful restaurant, Ia Frate's Italian Cafe. And when he was asking Joe, the protégé, you know, why Joe thought it was so successful, and Joe said, and you know, they were eating at the restaurant, and Joe said, well, the food's great. And Ernesto said, you know, mila grazie, you know, thank you, I'm so glad you feel that way. But there are a lot of restaurants that have great food. There are restaurants that have as good of food as we have. It's good food, but it's not the food that's the key. Okay. It's the experience itself that they provide. And, you know, one of the things Ernesto said is, you know, at a poor restaurant, they try to give as little value as they can in terms of food, in terms of service, in terms of ambiance, in terms of experience. Try to give as little as you can for the most money. Okay, that's a poor restaurant. A good restaurant tries to give the most value for the most money, okay? And, and you can understand that, that they give a great experience, the food's fantastic, the presentation, you know, everything about it's great. But an outstanding restaurant, an outstanding restaurant tries to just defy expectation, okay? Everything about it is exquisite. And by the way, that doesn't mean it has to be a high-class restaurant. I go to a, a diner um, uh, every weekend here in, you know, where I live. And it's, you know, well, the food is good, but I mean, the thing about it— but it's packed, by the way, it's packed all the time. I get there very early because I don't do lines, so I, I get there very early, but it's packed by the time I leave. Um, the food's good, the food's really good, but that's not it. That's not it. It's just, man, you go in there and, and you just feel like a million bucks. They know you, they know your name, they know what you like. Uh, my gosh, uh, you know, I, I, my mom and I usually go in there, uh, Saturday morning. That's our, our, uh, this is pre-COVID, of course, um, and, uh, and eat. And we take home two giant oatmeals from my dad. Okay. So that's our kind of Saturday morning date. I pick up mom, take her to breakfast, and then we get, we get two oatmeals for my dad. Nancy, one of the waitstaff, she signs it every time with a personal handwritten note to my dad. You know, he can't really leave the house anymore. So it's, hi, Pa, this is Nancy. We love you. You know, See, that's that extra touch, you know what I'm saying? And that, and that's why it's almost hard for me to even describe this restaurant that I'm talking about. It's just such a wonderful experience. Um, that's Ernesto's, only that's the diner version of, you know, of Ernesto's Cafe. How you make people feel.

And I think we've all been to the opposite, right, where you start to notice that the side of fries keeps getting a little bit smaller and that, oh, they changed the quality of the beef in the patties and the burgers aren't quite the same as what they used to be. And, uh, you know, I noticed that, oh, there's no more free refills on the drinks. Right. And so that scarcity mindset starts to take over and just, you know, nickel and diming and things like that. And that's pervasive. And that can be, you have to be careful with that as a leader of an organization, not only with your people and talking about how much time can I invest in this teammate to make sure that they get better, to make sure that they can execute their role, to make sure that they're fulfilled. And that this is a place that, you know, not not only attracts, engages, and retains the top talent in the industry, but also allows them to operate at their highest level, but even in how you deliver your service. So I hadn't realized I've been talking about the analogy of those three types of restaurants for probably the last two years. It's been several years since I last picked up The Go-Giver. And so in rereading it for this interview, I was like, oh, it's Ernesto's I've been talking about this whole time. I've been, I've been, you know, because we, when we're talking about our mentality, when serving our clients, we say, look, we want to be the place where the food is flowing. Going off the side. We know your name. We welcome you. We want to study organizations like the Ritz-Carlton, like Chick-fil-A, like places that are known for excellence when it comes to customer experience. But conversely, we want to do that for our people too. We don't want our people to leave here and feel like they're a piece of meat, like they're just a cog in the machine. We want to make sure that we're investing time, energy, and resources into their development and into the ability for them to execute their job and do so in a way that's, uh, that's, that's, you know, compatible with how it needs to be done. Exactly. Bob, this has been tremendous. Uh, I, I urge everybody listening in to check out burg.com. That's burg.com. We'll link out to that as well as several other things in the show notes. And make sure you go read The Go-Giver. Granted, 975,000 people across 28 countries have already read it, so probably everybody listening has already read it. Bob, I don't know if I can get you over the, the hump here for the last, uh, 10,000 or 25,000 people you need, uh, but, but really, really appreciate your time. Any parting thoughts you'd like to leave our audience with today?

No, I mean, I just think what we've, what we've talked about is real.

And what in many of the points you brought up, you know, have just been so terrific that it really is about making sure we focus on those we're serving. And again, there's nothing self-sacrificial about it. It first just feels better.

It's congruent with our values and it works. It comes back to us. It's just, it's understanding human nature that people are going to be much more responsive to someone who, again, genuinely and authentically is investing their time and their energy in there, in that person's success.

That's awesome. Thanks, Bob. Appreciate your time today.

Thank you.

Thanks, man. That was awesome. I appreciate it very much, sir.

Oh my