Never Fly Solo With Waldo Waldman
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Every day of our lives, whether in our personal lives or in our careers, we work our way towards conquering fear. Conscious or not, conquering fear is an essential part of paving our path toward success because if we live our lives continually held back by fear, we never truly accomplish anything. Keynote speaker and leadership expert Waldo Waldman is the author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, Never Fly Solo. Waldo joins John Livesay to talk about the critical importance of conquering fear and choosing passion in our lives. Let Waldo and John help you choose to put passion before fear.
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Listen to the podcast here
Never Fly Solo With Waldo Waldman
Our guest is Lieutenant Colonel Waldo Waldman, who is a decorated fighter pilot and expert on leading through crisis, a Hall of Fame keynote speaker, an executive coach, and a New York Times bestselling author. He has amazing stories of how he took his childhood dream and challenges of both being afraid of heights and claustrophobia that still allowed him to become a pilot in an F-16. He talks about the need for appreciation for being the fuel of performance and how we can all start using that to fuel our life. He talks all about what it takes to become a wingman and how we all need one. Finally, he said that passion trumps fear. Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is Lieutenant Colonel Waldo Waldman and he’s been inducted into the National Speakers Association, the Speaker Hall of Fame. He’s also known as the Council of Peers Award for Excellence. The award that honors those who have reached the top echelon of platform excellence. It’s been bestowed in less than 200 speakers worldwide since 1977, including Colin Powell, Zig Ziglar, and Ronald Reagan. Waldo is also a certified speaking professional, the highest earned designation recognized in the professional speaking industry. At least 7% of the professional speakers hold this exclusive designation. He’s a decorated fighter pilot where he’s led missions worldwide. He then went on to earn an MBA. His leadership and real-world business experience provided him the insights and skillset to consult with the largest and most diverse companies in the world. Waldo, welcome to the show.
It’s great to be here, John.
You and I met through some mutual friends, which we’ll get to in a bit but you’re known as The Wingman. Growing up in your family, who was the general? Who was the wingman between your mom and dad?
My dad was the Flight Lead and my mom was the General. She cracks the whip, was the enforcer, and sets the standard in the family. I grew up in an old-school, conservative New York household. My dad was a mechanic. My mom raised me and my identical twin brother, the ultimate wingman, and then my older brother and sister. We’re a tight family but blue-collar. My parents didn’t go to college, old school ethics, morals, conservative upbringing, hard work, integrity, get an education, and differentiate yourself. That’s what my parents always preached because they grew up poor. My grandparents were from Poland and Russia. They came over during World War II and experienced a lot of poverty. My parents worked their way up and were fortunate to have four crazy kids running around.
You have an amazing story of origin about this a-ha moment you had when your dad took you and your twin brother to the airport. Would you tell us that story?
My dad was a mentor in many ways to my brother and me and the family. He’s a workaholic. That’s why my mom tips the rain and doing a lot of the home disciplining and all that. My dad always spends time at work. One day, he took me and my twin brother, Dave, to Kennedy Airport on the first tour. We’d never been there. I’ve never been on a plane before around ten years old or so. I jumped onto that tarmac and heard the rumble of the jet engines. I watch those floating 747 in the sky. I smelled that JP-4 jet fuel and I was hooked. It was a defining moment. When it’s time to get on the flight line, he’d popped my twin brother and me into the jet 747. We sat in the cockpit. I remember it like it was yesterday, John. I’m sitting there and playing with the throttles, the switches, and making fake radio calls on the headset. I said, “Dad, what is this place for?” He said, “It’s the cockpit, Rob. It’s where the pilot flies the plane.” At that moment, I knew that I didn’t want to fix the planes like my dad, who was the mechanic on them. I wanted to fly them. There’s a lot more to that. He said, “Rob, you’re afraid of heights, it’s probably not the best career choice for you.”
Never Fly Solo: Lead with Courage, Build Trusting Partnerships, and Reach New Heights in Business
You have this amazing story of one of the things that you have to do is jump off a high diving board with a 35-pound bag strapped to you. Tell us about that moment because you’re talking about overcoming your fears.
I always grew up afraid of heights as a kid but I had this maniacal passion for becoming a fighter pilot. I wanted to be in the air. What forced me to think about what I needed to do with regard to my education, my relationships, and working hard at school because we all know that being a pilot is not easy. I wanted to go to the Air Force Academy. To get into the Air Force Academy, you needed to have high grades, top of your class, well-rounded fitness, X, Y, and Z. It pushed me. That goal compelled me to stay focused and work hard. Unfortunately, the culture of my family was they embrace that environment.
It was relatively easy to have that guidance to stay on that path. I got accepted to the Academy, freshman year, I show up, everything is going great until we go to swim class. That swim class was this 33 feet high fiving board stare me down. I looked to the instructor and I said, “Excuse me, sir, do I have to jump off that thing.” He said, “As a matter of fact, Mr. Waldman, you do.” You don’t even graduate the Air Force Academy unless you complete the water survival training and jump off that diving board with a 35-pound pack on your back. I remember thinking as my mouth got parched dry and I freaked out that this was not in the marketing brochure.
That reminds me of Goldie Hawn when she’s in the movie about getting into the military and she’s like, “Where’s the glamour? Where’s the resort? Where’s the spa?” That little bait and switch sometimes when you think you’re getting into the one thing and it turns out to be something else. That happens a lot to people when they take a job, for example, or they get into a business relationship with somebody that wasn’t “in the brochure” or that’s not in my job description. Waldo, I want to double click on that because what you said there is worth so much for everybody reading. At that moment, you have a big decision. You can get mad, take your toys, and go home or you can reframe it and get back to your original purpose of how maniacally passionate you were to have your goal.
Passion trumps fear. When you look at what’s going on in your life, if we’re dealing with the economic downturn with COVID-19, the turbulence, challenge, stress, we’re facing 33 feet high diving boards, every single day. We’re facing missiles, headwinds, and turbulence. When I got into the F-16, I wasn’t jumping off diving boards, I was in the war in combat being shot at every single day. The fear was there but the key to peak performance, which is what I discussed, being that wingman and a trusted partner, realizing that you’re not flying solo and realizing that people depend on you. They’re not dependent on your philosophy as much as your performance, not your attitude as much as your actions. We, as leaders, emulators of excellence, partners, parents, friends, or whatever, we have to say, what is it that I need to do to jump? How am I going to step out of that comfort zone and realize that life is not in the brochure that on the opposite side of fear is growth? This was the key that I learned at an early age and it stayed with me. We could talk about my claustrophobia, combat, and all the turbulence.
Before we get into that, you mentioned that your dad said, “Rob, this is the cockpit, but you’re not good for this because you have a fear of heights.” How did you get to be called Waldo if you were born with the name Rob?
[bctt tweet=”The opposite side of fear is growth. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
My last name is Waldman. You could see the correlation there but every fighter pilot gets a call sign. You use it as a differentiator, as a brand builder. My brand was built in the Air Force when I finished pilot training. They said the great Waldo and I had a couple of nicknames as well but Waldo Waldman stuck. When you’ve been in combat and war, you normally get to choose your call sign. In the Air Force, there are a couple of other etiquette things you have to follow. It usually involves a lot of drinking and public embarrassment for you to earn that call sign. I’ve been called other things but I got the cool call sign or the one that I liked. It’s a cultural thing and you’ve got to earn that call sign. You’ve got to earn the respect of your peers, your wingman, your trusted partners, the men and women who you work with every single day. It happens in business and in life every day. We may not have a call sign, but our brand, name, reputation, how we show up, how we care, and prepare our critical assets and attributes to winning these days.
How we care and prepare because I am a big proponent of preparation, especially in the world of pitching and selling. In this story, we’ve got a picture of this determined young man who’s got a fear of heights overcoming that. From listening to one of your talks, it’s extremely competitive, not only to get in but to get that one slot. You said somebody else had slightly higher grades and that slot was taken. You have those key life-turning moments like the hero’s journey, you’re a hero. What’s going to happen next? Do you give up on your dream or do you say, “I’m going to go do something else and figure out a way to make still my dream happen.” In your journey, you did teach. Tell us what that was like.
For people that may not have context on it, when I graduated the Academy, I was fortunate enough to be ranked high enough to go to pilot training and there’s a wash-out-rate for all these training like at work but 33%, 1 out of 3 people normally wash-out or fail to make it through any of the higher-end aviation programs in particular and route to being a fighter pilot. Pilot training is competitive and stressful, as you can imagine. I graduated number two in my class. The number one pilot, Andy Toast, got the fighter slot and I wanted the fighter. He got the slot but I got my second choice, which was to be an instructor. That’s going to be teaching men and women how to fly in pilot training. I didn’t want to fly a big transport plane, the big cargo jets, tankers, and big Boeing. I wanted to be an aerobatic, high-G maneuverable aircraft. The next best thing was to be an instructor. I was high enough in my class to be an instructor.
What happens is we compete after the 3 or 4-year instructor toward duty for the next assignment. The higher you are ranked amongst your peers, the better your chances of choosing the jet that you want. For me, I wanted that F-16 and there were few slots. I made a commitment to work hard and be the best instructor I could. When it came time after 3 or 4 years to compete, I would maximize my chances. What happened was what happens in life en route to any journey that’s compelling and worthy of achieving is I almost died in a scuba diving accident. What does that have to do with flying? Long story short, I went scuba diving for the first time right towards the end of my last 6 or 8 months of my instructor tour and I almost died, 35 feet under the water, I had a panic attack, and the lungs filled with water. It was the first time I’d ever done.
I wasn’t well-trained and I freaked out. For those that are reading that ever had an anxiety or panic attack. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, John. It’s an enlightening and fearful experience. I got out of the water and said, “I’m never doing that again.” A few days later, I’m back in Oklahoma, where I was an instructor, flying a training mission, the weather was terrible, and socked into the clouds. I couldn’t see the sun and the ground and I had that same panic attack that I had a few days prior. Instead of being 30 feet under the water, I’m now 30,000 feet in the air. I realized in a moment of terror that I had claustrophobia. That’s not the best thing for a pilot to have when they’re flying.
You had to overcome a fear of heights that you knew about, and then from a scuba diving experience, you realized you might have a little panic attack claustrophobia going on, which two big things that are heights and claustrophobia in that small cockpit. The thing that impresses me about your story and who you are as a man is a way you handle rejection. Number two, you have this choice. It’s no now but not no forever if you’re willing to put in the work for 3 to 4 years. A lot of people get to know in sales, particularly like, “I’m out.” It’s going to take you not to give up and keep going back. It might even take some time but you were committed. You’re like, “I’m going to be the best instructor ever so that I get another shot and had my dream coming true.” To me, that’s one of my favorite things about you and your story, because that is what inspires me to go, “If I’m committed like Waldo, then the no now doesn’t mean no forever.” You have a story to back it up.
Conquering Fears: Passion will always trump fear, no matter what’s going on in your life.
We all deal with rejection. We all have a dream. A jet we want to fly. A goal and something is going to bump into us. It’s going to be a headwind. It’s going to be a situation. It happens in our marriages, every day in sales, and it’s going to happen in your relationships, whatever it is. What I talk about is finding your why before you fly, the meaning to your mission. You’ve got to tap into what that passion is. What’s on the edge of that diving board? What’s at the end of that 3 or 4 years of training that’s going to compel you to keep stepping out of your comfort zone, to keep evolving and growing as a human being, as a parent, as a partner, and as a business person?
If we look at what’s going on with COVID-19 and the pandemic going on, the fears, and issues or maybe in your personal life. Also, some people reading have had cancer or went through a divorce, dealt with some intense rejection, going through some health issues, trying to lose weight, or whatever it is. You’ve got to have that compelling why and we’ve heard this before. It’s about taking action, investing, earning your wings, and saying, “I’m going to commit and grow.” It may not be now but I’m going to earn it. I’m not going to put my jet in the hanger and fall away in fear. I’m going to stay airborne. I’m going to keep getting in the cockpit of my life and eventually go for my dreams and hopefully have another shot, which I did at the end of that pilot training.
You talk about those moments of stress that sometimes we have to push up on the throttle when all of our instincts and our fears are saying, “This is a time to pull back.” Tell us an example of that in one of your combat situations. You’re good at taking your own story and then telling us how we can apply it in our own life. You’re trying to lose weight or you’re trying to whatever, and this situation that we’re all-in, how do we find that inner strength to push up on throttle when we want to carry our head in the cover sometimes?
It goes back to that passion, drive, and that innate goal that you have, a compelling goal that’s keeping you moving forward. If you’re an entrepreneur or if you’re in sales and want to get that big promotion, you’re vested in a relationship and want to take it to the next level, or you’re entering a bodybuilding competition and you say, “I want to overcome this insecurity.” Whatever it is, you need that to push you forward. I want to get back to the story about choosing my next aircraft because this was the first combat story for me. It was almost done and scuba diving, which was PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and some of that Post-Traumatic Sales Disorder after dealing with rejection or whatever. When it came time for me to finish that assignment and we compete for that next slot. I’ll never forget what my commander said, “Waldo, you did great. Congratulations. You’re at the top of your class. You can choose anything that you want.”
A big heavy tanker, C-17 transporter, brand new plane, four engines, big roomy cockpit, be bored out of your mind flying eight-hour missions and cool spots but that’s not what I wanted. I wanted to be challenged. He also said, “By the way, you can choose your F-16, Mach 2, weapons and sensors, going fast and breaking the speed of sound, getting shot at in combat on nine-hour night combat missions.” I chose that F-16 but it was difficult for me because I had to look and say, “I’ve been dealing with these panic attacks.” Because for people that don’t realize, I would jump into a plane and have these panic attacks for a minute or two at first, that I’d breathe through it. I got focused and had to overcome this claustrophobia, this anxiety that held me back. I got used to that discomfort and chaos. I built resilience in that cockpit in the trainer, where it was one-hour missions over Oklahoma.
I knew I would be stretching by volunteering that next assignment to fly that jet, but I didn’t want to have to look back on my life and say, “To my future wife or my son, your dad played it safe. He quit on his dream when things were right in front of him.” I chose that F-16 knowing well that I was going to be going into the tiger’s mouth, face my fears in combat, fly eight-hour night combat missions, deal with my claustrophobia, crush it and defeat it. That’s what I did. There’s a long story behind that because I don’t think your fears and anxieties ever go away. The noise of fear must be drowned out by the music of your life. Your relationships, wingmen, partners, friends, fitness, what you read, what you ingest into your ears and eyes every day, especially when we’re dealing with those combat missions and now with COVID-19 and the uncertainty of the day.
[bctt tweet=”The music of your life drowns out fear.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Part of the message that I want to share with you people and guys like you because you and I have spoken, you have such amazing experience, top sales, travel, this and that, and now you’re getting into this amazing niche that you’re in. Doing these shows, creating Zoom webinars, becoming a coach, building revenue, and more significance in your life is what pandemics and fears force us to do. That’s the key. When you get up out of bed, choose the F-16 or hit the snooze button. When you got a donut or a green smoothie, choose the green smoothie. When you’ve got the opportunity to have a truthful, loving, heartfelt conversation or a board and say, “I’m going to hold off on another day.” Choose the road less traveled. Don’t take the easy way out, which is what my dad always used to say. You’ve got to go deep in your life to find out that meaning and not give up on your dreams because regret is a big poison in people’s motivation.
You talked about the choices we make and all kinds of things, flying the dream or not, the green smoothie or the donut. Everyone knows that to be a pilot, you have to be top fit because of the demands flying all night. You got to be ready to respond and defend yourself. You’ve kept this fitness. You could hop in that jet with your fitness level. Do you have tips that are transferable from the same discipline and focus that has allowed you to keep your fitness almost like an Olympic athlete that stays fit even after their Olympic career is over?
I’m a driven person. I’m a performance consultant and coach. It’s how you’re performing. That’s the true metric. Once again, it goes back to why. You need a reason to lose the way and reinvent yourself. You need a reason to have the conversation, jump out of bed early, sacrifice, hit the gym, and watch your fitness. For me, a huge component of it helps me deliver my best as a person. It helps me create. When I’m in the gym, I get creative. My heart’s pumping, I feel good, and when I’m done, I come out with ideas. I’m inspired. I want to serve other people. I’m more energized for the day. I can be an example to my son and wife. It’s not just about fitness, feeling good, and living a long life. I want to be in an environment where I can give and be my best. If you’re slacking off, not in shape, and losing that energy, other people, your clients, family members, or your friends may be impacted by that in a negative or positive way. A contagious example. The example that you said is contagious. We had ended energy or fitness or whatever.
This concept of appreciation being the fuel of performance which is such a great visual. How important is it for people to feel appreciated that keeps them going? How do you recommend people incorporate that concept of yours?
When I overcame my fears and became a peak performer, I realized a lot of the time that I was going up was that my fee was able to dissipate because I knew I wasn’t flying solo. When we went up in the to combat, I knew there were men and women on my wing supporting me, having my six, or checking my blind spots. I needed them, they needed me, and we were able to create this collaborative culture of mutual support like, “This is how we are able to win together.” Part of the key to being a peak performer, building resilience, and courage in life is to realize that others need you. You commit more for others than you likely do for yourselves. Any parent that’s reading or anybody who truly loves another human being, you know that you would jump off the 50-foot diving board for somebody that you love, whatever it takes because you’re not thinking of yourself. This was how I was able to be a great instructor pilot and a solid fighter pilot.
I wasn’t a great fighter pilot. I was good. I was a great instructor because it was always about focusing on my team, wingman, who needed me, who can I support and help? When I distracted myself from myself, I got out of my head. When we distract ourselves from our fears, anxieties, panics, and just say, “Who needs me? Who can I help? Who can I serve?” Now, we’re no longer selfishly thinking about ourselves and worried about our anxiety. We’re just in service mode, that’s how we can be fully present in life. That’s why you’re such a great communication pro and storyteller because it’s truly putting yourself in the hearts, minds, souls, that drives people. Back to the appreciation, it’s the fact that you can have your team and support them but what I learned is that what happens on the ground is just as important or even more important than what happened in the air.
Conquering Fears: It always goes back to whether or not you have a compelling goal that will keep you moving forward.
I wouldn’t say abusive but not kind and appreciative of all those other wingmen, the maintenance officers, the backend people who were in my squadron who I needed to get my jet airborne and be a part of the squadron. I learned a lesson about chewing out a young airman about appreciation. I’d be happy to share that story briefly but realizing that we have to appreciate our teammates and all those other men and women who fly with us. When we do that, we lift each other, we make them want to be around us more and make them feel good about who they are, and then they’re going to give more in return. I learned a hard lesson because I was a butthead as a fighter pilot, I was great with my fighter pilot buddies but I took for granted all those unsung heroes in my squadron.
After your military career, you went on to get an MBA and you went into sales management for big companies like UPS and Panasonic. You took some of that appreciation as well as this wonderful phrase here about, “Lose sight, lose the fight.” I’m sure that applies in selling because if salespeople don’t have a vision of who they want and what their goals are, they’re never going to make their quotas. What were you able to take from being a fighter pilot around this losing sight, losing fight into your career in business?
You always had to stay visual with your wingmen when you were flying. Part of mutual support is always having your eyes on your teammates, on the target, your eyes were everything. If you lost sight of each other, you would lose mutual support. The key to flying constantly was staying visual. In combat and a lot of scenarios, I would mess up or my flight leads will mess up. It was common because there are many moving parts literally and figuratively. It was difficult to stay visual, but when you had the visual, when you had the support, you were unbeatable. If you apply that concept in life, keeping visual of your teammates. If you’re a sales manager of those people who was working with you and for you. If you’re in a relationship, keeping visual, and keeping sight of your partner, your children, what do they need, listening, connecting, finding out what other people’s goals are. Also, staying visual about what you want, what your compelling goals are, what’s driving you forward is so important, especially when chaos happens, missiles come, and you’ve got headwinds.
My challenge for the people reading is to continuously keep your radar sweeping for those key elemental relationships that are not just important in business but in your personal life. We all know that our comrade of courage, our wingmen, the men and women in our life who lift us up rather than dragging us down who see the good that we have, the greatness in us, especially when we’re feeling deflated and out of fuel we’ll appreciate us for our gifts. That’s how we can come out of a tough situation by staying visible with them, communicating with them, checking in with them, and truly creating this context of support. Stay visual and I write down my goals every day. I’ve got items on paper. I want to stay visual with it. If you lose sight of your goals, key relationships, the people who need you, you’re going to lose the fight. It’s not easy to do. You got to be diligent and intentional with those key relationships and key drivers in your life and stay focused on them.
You’ve given us so much to think about in terms of accountability, what’s our personal commitment based on our why, executing and taking action, whether it’s getting fit or being a good wingman for the people in our lives. I wanted to recap it. You’re in great demand for companies wanting to have you come in and teach this whole concept of never flying solo. When we find the inner courage to be our best selves, we transform the way things get done. You’re also working with certain executives and one-on-one coaching. Who’s the ideal coach that you do your best client that you do your best work for?
We all know that when you’re strapped into a cockpit flying Mach 2 and pull 9 Gs, it’s difficult to see the big picture all the time. We all have blind spots, we have insecurities, things that were unfamiliar with, and we’re innocently ignorant with certain areas. A wingman builds our picture and improves that perspective. We call it checking six in the fighter world. Check six means if you can imagine, if you’re strapping into your jet, we’re sitting in our seat and 12:00 is out front, behind you is the 6:00 position. That’s the spot that’s vulnerable. It’s where the missiles come. It’s where the enemy sneaks up on you. In an F-16 strapped in, barely able to move, you can’t see that spot but if your wingman or wing ma’am is at your left 9:00 or right 3:00, if they’re a beam U, they can look over your shoulder, look behind your jet and see what you can see. Tell you to take action and hopefully, you’ll be approachable and coachable enough to take that action necessary to avoid getting shot down.
[bctt tweet=”Lose sight, lose fight.” username=”John_Livesay”]
That’s a metaphor with life and why people need a coach, mentor, or good friends who are brutally honest with them, not a yea-sayer who’s going to say yes to everything, but somebody who’s truly going to tell you what you need to hear and not what you want to hear. I coach sales leaders, transitioning managers, or going into executive positions, high potentials, and some CEOs who are looking to have somebody tell them what they need to hear and not what they want to hear. Create insights, give assets and tools on how they can be better than they were yesterday. That’s what drives me more than ever.
I love coaching people because I’ve invested in a lot of coaching myself because you can’t see the picture while you’re in the frame. You can’t see the missiles while you’re in the jet. It’s important to have that either formally or informally. You can hire a coach, you can invest in a coach and get training but there are also a lot of great coaches out there on the web. You can read shows like this. You’re their wingman or coach. They’re investing in this time by listening to us. We can finish on this note with regard to coaching is that I believe your coaches should be your friends in life and your mentors should be your friends. I have a saying, “Make your friends your mentors and your mentors your friends.”
You’ve got that mutual respect going on. If people want to reach out to you for either coaching or booking you as a speaker, what’s the best place for them to go to?
My website is YourWingMan.com or Google Waldo Waldman. You’ll find me there and I’m also all over social media, Waldo Walden. As far as coaching, if you want to email me at [email protected], even me or my assistant will get it. We can have a conversation. I want to give a gift to your audience. My book Never Fly Solo was in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. It’s $20 on Audible, the audiobook, but I’m going to give it to you for free to your guests in particular during the pandemic. People need some good fuel, energy, and passion. If they go to YourWingMan.com/NFS, put your name in there, I’ll send you an audiobook, and you’ll also get six videos on building resilience in life. I’m creating trusting relationships and partnerships with people so that when you strap it to your jet and a missile comes, you won’t quit. You’ll stay resilient. You’ll keep pushing it up and serve those who need you and love you.
Thank you, Waldo. What a generous gift. I can’t wait to listen more and watch all those incredible videos. I want to thank you on behalf of the whole country for your service and for being such a great guy.
Conquering Fears: People need a coach, a mentor, or good friends who will be brutally honest with them instead of being “yaysayers.”
Thank you, John. It’s been a pleasure and I’m thrilled to be your wingman and develop a relationship with you as well.
Thanks.
Important Links
- Lieutenant Colonel Waldo Waldman
- Waldo Walden – Facebook
- [email protected]
- YourWingman.com/NFS
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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Hiring The Best Leaders with Jeanne Branthover
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Episode Summary
A company of effective leaders is an effective company. Jeanne Branthover, one of the most influential people in the world when it comes to executive search, talks about hiring the best leaders to run your organization or company. Shes opens up about her unique background of how she was taught the importance of relationships and how women can do anything, including making a difference in the world. As she reveals the four secrets to winning a new job, she also highlights the importance of patience and having genuine empathy and transparency to success.
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Listen To The Episode Here
Hiring The Best Leaders with Jeanne Branthover
I’m honored to have Jeanne Branthover with me. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her in person when I was speaking to her company, DHR International. She is a cohead and managing partner for the New York office. She works closely with the partners and her global clients on senior-level searches, personally managing assignments. She is known for her hands-on approach where she consults with clients on succession planning, organizational change, precision hiring and talent management. She’s recruited across industries and functions, identifying boards and C-Suites and senior-level decision-makers. She is a leader in the firm’s CEO and Board Advanced Technology and Financial Services Practices. She specializes in placing women on boards and in senior leadership positions, as well as ensuring representation of diversity on every assignment and in all industries. She frequently appears on television to offer her expertise on current trends and human capital. She’s regularly quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Forbes. You can see why I’m so honored to have her with us. She’s been named one of the world’s Top 50 Most Influential Headhunters by Business Week. Jeanne, welcome.
Thank you so much. That is one entry into the program. Thank you.
It’s all true. I’ve seen you in action. I’ve seen your energy and your dynamo force. One of the things I like to ask my guests is can you tell us your own story of origin? You can go back to childhood, high school, college or whatever it was when you started to get a sense of, “This is what I want to do with my life,” or “This is what matters to me.”
My story is unique because there are a couple of things that are important. First of all, did I grow up knowing I was going to be an executive search? The answer is absolutely not. I didn’t even know what executive search was. Growing up, I had a very unique and special childhood having parents that were pretty awesome. My father was the first person in his family to graduate from law school, even get a college education. He was at the right time, right place. He met Morita, who started Sony. They became close friends. That’s where I learned for the first time about relationships. Morita asked my father to open up his own law firm and my father was Sony’s lawyer for my entire life. My mom was a fiercely prominent woman of her time. She was the first woman on the Board of Ed in the town that I grew up in Manhasset, Long Island. She was the person that made sure that segregation ended. I had a bodyguard somewhat during school because things were changing so rapidly and my mother was the person making it happen.
I had the woman leadership from my mom’s, looking at her and watching her, and then my dad was this big lawyer who believed that a woman could do anything. I was taught from a very young age that, “Whatever you want to do, Jeanne, you’re going to be able to do, just put your mind to it and you’ll be able to do it.” That combined with I’m very lucky that I’m naturally athletic. I played every sport. I was the captain of different things. I always wanted to be in charge. That combination became who I am. I was going to be a teacher. I love kids. I love teaching. I love educating. I love making people the best that they can be. I went to school for elementary ed, which seems odd with what I’ve become. If you can believe it, elementary ed probably taught me more than many things. It taught me how to hold hands. It taught me how to build relationships. It taught me patience. It taught me lesson planning down to the second and it made me the most organized person in the entire world.
I love what you’ve already said. It reminds me of that book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. This concept of your dad teaching you the value of relationships, which I know is a key success to your career. Your mom teaching you the impact of making a difference in the world, social impact, combined with your athletic background, teaching you teamwork. That is a recipe for success. For everyone who’s reading, even if you weren’t fortunate enough to have a background like that, you can still take a look at those three elements, relationships, social impact and teamwork. You can say to yourself, “What do I need to parent myself in? What do I need to teach my coworkers about one of these three areas?” I may not have had this great foundation in, but I need to study it or become friends with somebody or model that behavior. There’s been this concept of patience. I want to double click on that as you continue your story. I don’t know about you, Jeanne, but as a person with a sales background and a career, we are so challenged on being patient with, “Why isn’t this happening? Why isn’t the sales closed? Why hasn’t this person made a decision yet?” I’m fascinated that you learned patience with elementary children, please continue. What did you end up doing after getting your focus with elementary education?
I graduated in elementary ed and had every intention of teaching for the rest of my life. I graduated from the University of Maryland, which I loved Maryland. I loved my experience. I was a sorority girl, which was fabulous. I graduated and started teaching right away. I taught third and fourth grade. I taught back then in something called a POD System, which was all the classes together. It was chaotic but fun. I actually loved it. I was probably the only teacher that still had braces on, so kids loved me and it was an incredible experience. My husband wanted to move to New York and felt strongly that he wanted to live in the city. He thought that teaching was not utilizing the best of my skills other than that I loved it.
I was very lucky where my sister, who had been a headhunter, had fallen into executive search and said, “Jeanne, this is perfect for us.” Growing up with a dad who exposed us to high-level clients from a very young age. My mother would have Sony men to our house and I had to serve them. I learned that the word maybe means no. It was an incredible experience and it did teach us that we’re fearless as far as level of people, cultures and trying something new from a very young age. I then fell into head-hunting, which now people go to school for this and it’s much more of a focus of HR. Back then, I fell into it and loved it. This is a job that you know in a very short period of time if you’re going to be able to do it and also that it’s your passion.
[bctt tweet=”Don’t give up a long term relationship for a short term profit.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I found out in three months that this was my thing. Building relationships, meeting new people and working hard to make them happy. It was just me. I am the luckiest person in the world that I found at 22 something that I love. After doing it for six months, the company that I was working for was a very large company and the head of the office sat me down and said, “Jeanne, you’re so good at this. We’re going to give your clients over to these other people and you get more clients.” I may be blonde, but I am not dumb. I sat down with my dad and I said, “Dad, I think that this is not a good thing for me. I think I should open up my own company.” I was 22 years old. I’ve been doing this for six months.
That’s the definition of fearless, Jeanne.
I borrowed $6,000. My mother was my secretary. My first space was at 49th in Madison in New York City. It had a card table, two phones, my mother and myself. My mother had her jewelry on. She was in the office. She didn’t know how to type. It was hysterical. She answered the phone and she was awesome. That’s how I started at the time Branthover Associates. I have to tell you a funny story that tells you as the years go by. During the ‘80s, partly the ‘80s and the ‘90s, it was very cool to have big parties for your clients. As I became more successful, my mother was my secretary for the first year. She’s happy that I replaced her with a real secretary and then she became my mother again. Years later, I was having one of these parties. I would have a holiday party at the King Cole Bar in New York City. My mom was at the party. The party was about 250 people and it was my clients and my candidates and it was a wonderful way to celebrate our relationship.
One of my clients from way back then said to my mother, “Weren’t you Jeanne’s first secretary? It’s amazing you stayed in touch.” My mother said, “I’m her mother.” That always brings a smile to my face because my mother was good at helping me. The client, the fact he remembered her was awesome. That’s where I began and started the roots of my company. With clients and things, I learned very quickly that I was good at what I do and I’m very blessed that it is me. I formed my own process. I had never worked for someone else truly doing the search from beginning to end as if it was retained search.
Hiring Leaders: Screening is necessary when you meet and talk to someone about being leaders in their field.
One of my first clients was GE and I became very close to the head of human resources. He resonated with me. He saw that I loved what I did. He taught me the GE culture, what GE looked for and we worked very well together. One of my first incredible opportunities as a businesswoman and as an entrepreneur is I was called in to meet with Jack Welch at a very young age. I was asked to meet with him because Jack was starting a division called CIG, which was Corporate Initiatives Group. That group he wanted to form where I was to recruit from Booz, Bain, McKinsey, the top consulting firms to find exceptional young leaders, dynamic leaders who would be forming this group. They would be shadowing the presidents of the divisions and then eventually moving into that division to be the successor to the president.
I met with Jack Welch and this is what I learned from him. Whether you liked him or not, he was an incredible man in person, charismatic, a leader and a force. The people that I put into GE totally looked him up too as an incredible leader, driving the business and driving the company. One of the things he was exceptional at was finding incredible talent and leadership and recognizing what a leader was. What he taught me with this. He said, “Jeanne, you’re going to find me exceptional leaders. How you do it is this. When you meet with someone and you talk to someone, I want you to screen them that they are from the right firm and they do the right things. More importantly, I need you to recognize that they’re leaders and this is how you do that. I want you to find out from the person, from a very young age, what did they do that was them leading? What did they do? Did they start a lemonade stand? Did they do something that was for charity? Were they an Eagle Scout? Were they captain of their cheerleading squad? What was it that made them what I call a natural leader?”
He taught me and this is what I do to this day. I go back to the person’s very young time and I say to them, “Tell me about yourself. Tell me what did you lead? What did you head? What did you start that made you maybe a little bit different than someone else?” It’s incredible. When you do that, you can differentiate someone who is trying to lead and learn how to lead and someone who is a natural leader. Management is different. You can learn how to manage, but you can’t learn how to lead unless it’s natural. That to me was a gift.
That’s a huge gift. Let’s explore that a little bit. I want to take a pause and let that sink in because first of all, you got it from someone who clearly has a lot of success. I love the way you described him as charismatic. That alone is a quality in a leader and valuing the importance of attracting good talent. One of the things we mentioned in your introduction is the importance of creating a succession plan. He’s looking for young people to take over and the values of things like that. You and I are very similar in our appreciation and love of these stories. That’s why I asked you to tell me your personal story of origin. We now have such a much better sense of who you are and what your values are, your chutzpah if you will, to start your own company at such a young age because of the background that you had that allowed you to be fearless and not be afraid of failure.
[bctt tweet=”Be fearless when you try something new.” username=”John_Livesay”]
This concept of anyone who’s reading this who maybe has an interview coming up. Be prepared to tell your story of something you did in your childhood that made you unique or showed some natural leadership or some entrepreneurialship. That kind of thing resonates because as we talked about at your event, when you’re going up to compete against other people, whether it’s for a job, to get hired, to find people for the company’s talent pool, those stories are what make you memorable, not what order you happen to be interviewed in or presenting. The better storytelling you can become and clearly that’s one of the reasons I’m so honored to have you on is you’re such a great storyteller.
This concept of tell me something from your childhood. I talk about in my own little childhood of being a paperboy and how I had to knock on doors and convince people to subscribe. I had to get up early, deliver it, and then I had to go at the end of the month and collect the money. That’s a great lesson as an entrepreneur. Being on a swim team and the lessons learned there about teamwork and the discipline that’s required. All those skills are what you’re talking about is a natural leader. The willingness to do what other people aren’t thinking of doing. I also hear you saying the discipline that you learned as an athlete, applying that to your career and being so organized and focused. Let’s talk about a story in your own successful career and I’m sure you have so many to choose from. What did you do that got Business Week’s attention that said, “She’s one of the most 50 influential headhunters in the world, not just in New York.”
That’s fully something I don’t even know. I do know as a young entrepreneur back then, remember women didn’t have a lot of opportunities to open their own businesses. I was very lucky and fortunate that my dad gave me the seed money to do it. I was also lucky that it was executive search. If you were good at that job, you were accepted whether you were a man or a woman. For me, it’s about my life and what my success has been built upon is having relationships. It’s not hard to build a relationship and keep a relationship. That can be a very natural thing. When I look at people and I judged them on how good they are with relationships, I look at, “Did you stay in touch with your friends from high school? Did you keep in touch with your friends from college?”
This is very corny and it’s something that people laugh at. My team that I built a long time ago, my core team, one of the women has worked for me for 29 years and one of the women’s father was my first boyfriend in life. My father mentored him and now his daughter has worked for me for thirteen years and I mentor her. Another person was my son’s best friend and he’s known me since he was very young and he’s worked for me for twelve years. Relationships are, in my opinion, what makes your life successful.
Hiring Leaders: The most important thing is that the candidate researches where they’re interviewing.
If you can form relationships in personal and in business and you’re the same person whether you’re doing work or whether you are dealing with friends, it means that you’re genuine. It means that you’re transparent. It means that you care. It means that you have empathy. It means that you have the ability to have trusting, loyal, deep relationships that lasts for a very long time. That truly is what a relationship is to me. I believe that clients understand me seeing this team. People will say to me, “You still have Lisa with you?” Without Lisa, I don’t even know if I’d have my right hand. I always say the Lisa lasted longer than my marriage or my mom or anybody. The reality of it is if you can have relationships, you can have much more in life than other people have and you have trusting relationships and then people want to help you because you’re helping them.
People want to help you when you’re helping them and the best way to build a relationship is through empathy, being authentic and being transparent. That consistency of who you are, whether you are talking career or personal stuff. When you’re talking to someone at the level of the executives that you’re placing at the C-Suite, these people need to know you have their best interests in heart. “Will my family like this if I move to another city to take this job?” You care about them being happy in the job, that their whole family is involved as opposed to, “I don’t care. You are qualified for this job and it’s more money, take it.” That’s a very different relationship than, “Let me express some of my fears and concerns about this.” You’re the great person, a trusted friend, the empathy. I’m sure that would be scary for everybody in your family. Your kids have to change school, whatever. That’s what I see is your secret sauce.
Not only are you right, but it’s funny because when you’re doing it and you’re someone like myself, you don’t even think that you’re doing it. I look at myself not as a headhunter or someone moving somebody into a job. I look at myself as a career consultant. When I am talking to someone about uprooting their family, I’ll give you an example. I had a candidate that moved from Seattle to New York City. That is a huge move for the family emotionally. A big difference between hiking on the weekends. Even the grocery store, they freaked out. At the end of the day, I have to understand that I’m not just moving this person. I’m not just changing this person’s career. I’m changing this person’s entire family and what the future is going to be for them. It’s critically important to me that they’re happy because my client is not going to be happy if my candidate and the family is not happy.
I know this sounds very strange, but I have told clients even if they love someone that it’s not going to work because I know for a fact that the spouse cannot move from their mother living next door. There are things that I find out that I cannot make the person move because it’s not right for them. It’s so important in my role and in the role that I do that I know we have empathy, but I’m also realistic to what can be done and what can’t be done and what’s better for everybody. At the end of the day, it’s going to haunt us all if it’s not the right thing. That candidate comes back to me eventually when they’re hiring and they use me. My client is thankful because we always find the right person, but the wrong person would be a nightmare.
[bctt tweet=”Confident people are good listeners.” username=”John_Livesay”]
It seems like you put long-term relationship value ahead of short-term profit.
Short-term profit is never going to help you in the long run if you stay in a business that you need your relationships to work.
Let me ask you two questions about what advice do you give a candidate so that they have a successful interview or a successful pitch if you will? Is there anything you tell people who might get nervous or they don’t interview that often, it’s a different experience for them? Because you’re such a career expert, is there a tip that people can listen to whether they’re looking for a job now or their next interview that you would say, “When you’re interviewing, you need to do,” what would you say?
First of all, you know my list is long.
Give us your top two or three.
First of all, the most important thing is that the candidate researches where they’re interviewing. I once had a candidate, the client said to the candidate, “Why are you here?” This was a very senior level person and the person said, “Because Jeanne told me it’s a good job.” That is not the reason to go into an interview. It’s critical that the candidate does their research. What is the company? What are their earnings? Know what you’re walking into and who you’re interviewing. The candidate should also find out as best to their ability who are they interviewing with, the background and the experience of that person.
Research the company and the person you’re talking to.
That means that you’re prepared. I’ll give you an example. I’m going to meet a CEO. When I researched that CEO, that CEO had gone to the University of Maryland. That CEO was in a fraternity that I hung out with all the time. This was a long time ago. It still gave us a common denominator of something that I could bring up and also he then knew I understood his background and where he came from. Researching and having a common denominator or at least educating yourself so that you know what you’re dealing with when you walk in is critically important. It also gives the candidate a comfort level that they’re going to be more ready than not ready. Number one is doing the research on the person or the people you’re meeting with as well as the company. The next thing is what are you there for? Understand what are you interviewing for and what makes you qualified to interview for that.
[bctt tweet=”If you can have relationships, you can have much more in life than other people have.” username=”John_Livesay”]
In advance understanding, what you are exactly teaching. What’s your story? What’s the story that brings you here? It’s not just, “I’m good at this and this.” Tell stories of why I got into this field. I’ll give you an example of even my own son. Unfortunately, one of my sons became very sick and he’s fine now, knock on wood, but he went to a major operation. His brother at a young age saw all this. It impacted him greatly. He decided that he wanted to do something that was going to help the world and was going to help people physically. When he was interviewed at Vanderbilt with the dean, the dean said to him, “Why do you want to go into mechanical engineering?” My son told the story of his brother and that he then walked through the hospital talking to all the other kids and he came back to me and said, “Mom, who invents all this equipment?” I said, “Engineers.” My son said, “I want to be one.” That story so resonated with the dean that he said to my son, “I don’t care if you qualify grade-wise. You’re going to be in this school.”
There is a great example of the power of storytelling. The emotional connection that explains your why and your passion for something brings you to life in an interview and separates you from all the other candidates who may have more experience. I’m guessing, Jeanne, that you take your own advice. You walk your own talk. In other words, you’re competing against another firm or maybe two other firms for, “Why should we hire Jeanne in DHR to find our next CEO and your specialty?” You do the research on the company. You do the research on the person you’re interviewing. You have a story of what makes you memorable and unique. You paint a picture so that those people can get experience through your storytelling of what it’s like to work for you.
What you said is critical for every person that’s making any interview or pitch. What differentiates me from the next person that’s walking in or the last person that just left? What is it that when I leave, they’re going to remember me? That’s critical for everybody to think about. Whether it’s an anecdote, whether it’s a leadership story, whatever it is, there has to be something that you leave them with that somebody else doesn’t have. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a skillset. It can be a personal thing. You have to find it for yourself so that you can utilize it. There are two other things that are incredibly important when you are presenting in an interview or in a presentation. One is don’t talk too much. People get nervous and when people are nervous they chatter and they go off into tangents. You have to make sure that you’re answering the question, you’re staying on track, you are succinct, you are concise, you are answering the question and having a personality but you are not going on and on. My clients will say to me, “They are great person, Jeanne. They’re perfect for the job, but they will drive us crazy here if they talk that much.”
I have a statement that I would love your input on if you agree with this or not, “Confident people are comfortable with silence.”
Hiring Leaders: It’s imperative to have a diverse pool of employees of leaders.
Talking a lot is a nervous person who’s not confident and people know that. People that listen and are able to explain themselves in a way that is clear and done and then you move onto the next thing are much more highly regarded and come across as confident but not arrogant.
You’ve got to research, know why you’re uniquely qualified, and don’t talk too much. What’s the fourth insight, that wisdom of nugget?
This is going to sound corny, but what do you wear, how do you look and what is your personal presentation? One of the things that you know and I know and I’ve done and you’ve done, but many people don’t understand, you want to have your own personal brand. Part of that personal brand is who walks into the room that this person that you’re meeting with, whether it be a presentation, whether it be an interview, and what are they seeing? The minute they see you, they form an opinion of you before your mouth opens. Are you put together? Are you fitting into their culture and their environment? Are you wearing something you feel good at?
That is so important. If we feel something is too tight or we haven’t put the suit on in a while and it’s a little out of style, just that confidence and how you fit. Here’s a little analogy because you inspired me to think of it. If you’re interviewing a company and they’re interviewing you and you’re also interviewing them, what you’re looking for is to see if there’s a fit here. If your clothes don’t fit properly and you’re not comfortable in your own skin, that comes across too. I love what you said there.
[bctt tweet=”Diversity brings on brainstorming and creativity.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I’ll give you a story. One of my clients is a very big Fintech firm. It’s very well known and it’s a techie company. One of my candidates who was a techie guy from California said to me, “Jeanne, what am I supposed to wear? I don’t wear suits anymore, but I had got out my best suit, I got out my tie.” I said, “Before you go crazy, let me talk to the CTO who’s going to be interviewing you.” I called up my client and I said, “Candidates are asking me what they should wear, give me advice.” This is what he said and this is the advice that I give every single candidate now. My client said, “Jeanne, tell the candidate to wear what they are comfortable in, what they wear regularly to work and where they feel they’re going to be at their best.”
What that means is if somebody is in a techie company and they were t-shirts or golf shirts to work, the chances are they’re going to be interviewing at a similar company. If they walk in with the suit and tie on and nobody else in the company wears a suit and tie, they’re going to stand out and look weird and culturally make a huge mistake. That also shows that the client is saying to me and to the candidate, “You have to feel good about you.” That’s what we’re saying. At the end of the day, it’s imperative that you take the time well before the presentation, well before the interview, what am I going to wear? What is my hair going to look like? Do I need a haircut? Do I feel better when my hair is pulled back than when my hair is down?
All those things are being prepared no different than when I did my research on the company or that I reviewed my resume in advance. Making sure that you look the way you want and are calm when you walk out that door, that you do not rush, that you gave yourself enough time to get ready in the morning, that you ate your breakfast. Whatever your mood is, make sure of it. The sad thing is I’m the one that gets the feedback from the client on how the candidate was interviewed. There are candidates that I believe are so right for the job. I have gotten to know this candidate so well and they bomb.
The reason they bomb is they had a bad morning. They didn’t get themselves to the train on time. Their spouse didn’t make sure that the kids were ready. There are many reasons in our lives that things fall apart on an important morning, but it’s imperative to try your best to prepare for it so that if your daughter has to go to daycare, that’s planned in advance and it’s not dropped on you five minutes before. There are so many things that you’ve got to think about to make sure that it all goes as well as it can go. These are the things that a lot of people think maybe five minutes before or think, “No problem, I can do it tomorrow.” Take presentations and interviews as seriously as possible and be sure that you do it the best you can.
How can you be calm and confident if you’re frenetically running out the door and you were going to wear something and you realize it’s at the cleaners because you haven’t planned?
That’s a perfect example. It happens all the time.
I want to talk about one final topic, which is diversity and inclusion in the workplace because I know that’s near and dear to your heart. You told us your story at the beginning of this interview about your mom’s impact on segregation ending, it’s no surprise to me that you’re continuing the legacy of that. Tell us what do you think needs to happen and what people can do besides awareness? Is it setting certain goals like, “By this year, this percent of people will be hired?” What’s your philosophy on this?
First of all, especially with the #MeToo Movement, companies are waking up to how backward we are when it comes to diversity. Personally for me, I opened up my own company a long time ago, but where some women are now, it’s not anywhere near as far as it should. The things that I am excited about, the laws that are changing, that we can ask anyone anymore what they’re making and that it’s coming much more equal. If you’re at a certain level, you should be making a certain amount of money. These are things that are all, in my opinion, going in the right direction. What I do believe and I work at the board level and at the C-Suite level, one of the things that I’m trying to get across, but I’m seeing happily that the CEOs and the boards are starting to understand. It’s imperative to have a diverse pool of employees and leaders because diversity brings on brainstorming. It brings on creativity.
[bctt tweet=”It’s our responsibility to make sure we do what’s in our power to get diversity and inclusion across when we can.” username=”John_Livesay”]
People think differently, so when they speak to each other, when they bring their ideas together, differences are coming up that are good. Therefore, when the end solution comes up, it’s from a lot of ideas and a lot of different viewpoints. Everybody is the same, they grew up the same, they went to the same college, they did the same things. You need diversity to be the best that you can be. I think we’re getting there. I know this sounds crazy, but one of my clients, he is an incredible person. He’s the CTO of Bloomberg. He gave the commencement speech at Columbia where he went to school and he addressed the technology, the engineering school.
In that speech, it gave me chills and you should all watch it. He addressed the audience and he said to the audience, “Look around you and all the women that are graduating as engineers. Look at how many of them there are, but there should be many more. Every man here should make it their goal to make sure that when they’re in a position of hiring, they made sure that there was an equal number of women surrounding them as men.” Our leaders are recognizing the imperative message that they need to give out and to give to the world. All of us should believe it. The good news about, in my opinion, diversity and inclusion, many companies now have a human resource person that this is their focus. Every search that I do, we make sure that it’s a diverse slate of candidates.
I get asked when there are no women on boards that they now want women on boards. The most important thing is it’s hard to educate everyone, but I do believe that if you believe in diversity, if you believe in inclusion, then it’s our responsibility to make sure we do what’s in our power to get it across when we can. For instance, I’m part of the University of Maryland’s advisory board. I make sure that women are spoken to. I talk at colleges. I make sure that there are entry-level positions that we’re looking at equally men and women. I look at the pay that I’m getting for the candidates. It’s up to each one of us and make sure we move the needle, but the needle has to move more than it did from when I was 22 to where I am now. That is a personal goal of mine, but it can become a personal goal of many more people.
You’ve certainly inspired us with a reason to do it about creativity and innovation. Listening to you, as busy as you are, doing other things outside of your work and your personal life to make your own personal passion of wanting this to happen, from speaking and even being here as a form of doing that as well. I can’t thank you enough. Is there one final thought you want to leave us with or a book you like or a quote you like?
This is what I’ve told my children all their life. Be the best you can be. No one else can do it for you. You have to do it for yourself. That to me makes you better. It pushes you daily to be your best and it also helps you to want to learn to improve. That to me is what makes us different, makes us better and makes us always looking to be the best we can be in life. That’s what I’ll leave you with.
Be a lifetime learner so you continually grow and be your own best because nobody else can do you. Thanks again, Jeanne.
Thank you for having me. You’re awesome.
Links Mentioned:
- Jeanne Branthover
- DHR International
- All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
- #MeToo Movement
- https://www.DHRInternational.com/consultants/about-global-executive-search-consultants/jeanne-branthover/
- Quantmre.com
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Business Elevation with Chris Cooper
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Episode Summary:
It takes a brave leader to listen to feedback because often, leaders are scared to face the reality of the situation and forget how engagement must start with them. Chris Cooper, author, speaker, and host of the show Business Elevation, talks about an employee engagement program that allows employees to give anonymous feedback so they can be heard, moving the management to take action. In return, employees will become more engaged, productive, and loyal while the overall business becomes elevated. Furthermore, Chris gives us a peek into his book, The Power to Get Things Done: (Whether You Feel Like It or Not), which contains techniques and strategies focusing on what’s essential in getting things done.
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Listen To The Episode Here
Business Elevation with Chris Cooper
Our guest is all the way from the UK. His name is Chris Cooper. He’s a business engagement and elevation specialist, a speaker, an author and a broadcaster himself. I’ve had the pleasure of being on his show called Business Elevation. His real specialty is helping big brands to small and medium enterprises for the last few years. He’s got an employee engagement program that helps you measure and achieve a higher rate on engagement. He helps people make sure that they’re getting good employees and keeping their stress levels down. He’s written a book called, The Power to Get Things Done. Chris, welcome to the show.
John, it’s a pleasure to meet you.
You’re in the UK. I always want to ask people their own story of origin and I know you used to work for a big company called Mars. Is there anything in your background before that that led you into this world of business elevation and engagement that you want to share?
[bctt tweet=”If people are happy and engaged, productivity soars. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
There are a lot really. I was brought up in a steel town in the North of England. I didn’t have an opportunity to travel. My father was a steelworker and my mom worked for the local newspaper. My dad used to go to the steelworks and he was an electrical engineer. Sometimes he would look after a very large steel plant when senior management was away and manage workers and schedules and people doing the right sorts of things. I remember he never seemed to be very engaged with it. I don’t think he’d found his passion. I remember one day, I was probably about thirteen years old and my father took me on an open evening to the steelworks. I got the opportunity to look around because where I lived, the natural thing because the steelworks was such a big employer, was people went from school and they went to work in steelworks.
We went around this plant. It was like hell on Earth. There were molten metals flying around and it was dark. It was noisy. It was smelly. We went afterwards into a little room and had a few sandwiches and a few crisps. I remember this very tall man walking in and my dad suddenly straightening up. He must have been the CEO. My dad had never actually ever met the CEO. We don’t ever see him in pictures. He walked straight over to me and he said to me, “Have you enjoyed yourself?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “When you grow up, do you want to come and work for us?” I said, “You must be joking.” My dad was fuming. On the way home, he was really angry with me, “How could you do that? One day you want to go and work in the steelworks and you fancy say that to him. I’ve never even met him before.” I said, “Dad, you aren’t happy, why should I be? Why would I want to work there?”
The Power to Get Things Done: (Whether You Feel Like It or Not)
At that point, I realized that I wanted more than to live in a steel town when I was older and I went through my career. Eventually, I worked in the motor industry and then I worked for companies like Mars. I saw how people really engaged in the work in some companies, less so in others. When I look back on my career and I ended up becoming the Director of a very big company, looking after logistics for 5,500 pubs. Then I set up a procurement consultancy which grew quite quick. Many years ago, I decided that my passion is people. Looking back through over that career and over the several years of working, I think one of the things I’ve realized is that when people are happy and where they’re engaged on in their work, you achieve so much more. Therefore, it makes every sense that every employee should give the best of themselves but want to because there’s an environment that supports them and cares for them and enables them to realize their full potential. In that way we all benefit, the company prospers and the individual prospers. Hopefully, having a good life at work leads to a good life at home and it leads to good health. It’s an important message, John.
Your childhood story is fascinating. It reminds me of some of those movies we’ve seen of the steelworkers and certainly here in America with a generation after generation working for the car companies and factories and finally people saying, “Either the job is not there anymore or I want to do something else with my life.” I can get that in a big way. What I love with what you just said is, “If people are happy and engaged, productivity soars.” That’s such a great soundbite for what you’re doing. Let’s go back to when you were working at Mars, you told me that you heard hundreds and hundreds of people pitching you to buy their marketing services because you worked for a big company that had the budget to do that. What are some of the tips you have from hearing all those pitches that people can take away of how to get good a pitch, so they get people to hire what you’re selling?
I had the opportunity with Mars. I went to a sales job. I was a salesman and business development manager. I spent in marketing and training of people. I thought from the salesperson, “Wouldn’t it be really helpful to understand what goes on when people buy and how does the mindset of the buyer work?” I moved on having had a sales and marketing background to look after the buying of marketing services. I literally arranged sales promotional pictures, big PR pictures and in one instance for over £1 million. I got United Biscuits and all the advertising spend. I had the opportunity to arrange these events with the marketeers who are the clients. I would facilitate those events and we would introduce some suppliers. I manage the rosters of suppliers.
To answer your question, you get to a short list of maybe three suppliers. On one occasion for big Mars or big Snickers, we launched Celebrations. I launched that with a big PR campaign with a train that was branded with different celebrities and different characters and people getting married there and TV shows being filmed and all things. The first thing I think people have to do is it’s not just about the pitch. It’s about that relationship that you established beforehand. I know there’s this process where people formally can be asked to come in. Marketing can be quite an expensive and creative process, but what goes on outside the room is important. If you can establish a really good relationship and rapport with people outside of that pitch, that will also help to influence the buyer.
[bctt tweet=”People buy emotionally and then back it up with logic.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I also noticed the marketeers that sometimes it wasn’t always the most rational decision they got through. It was the one that struck the emotions of the marketeer and they can do something. If you think about a marketeer or many people in roles where they’re buying, particularly in marketing, they’re often only in a job for a couple of years. Quite often they were motivated by doing something different and doing something creative, as opposed to maybe continuing something that had been successful before. They want to make their mark in their job.
They’re looking for that creativity. Where I worked, it wasn’t always about costs because they did have some quite big budgets. You could give some options with some different cost options. The thing is it’s got to be creative, it had to connect emotionally. The other thing is that with companies often, we’d see these amazing people who would be the lead of an agency and they’re full of engagement and enthusiasm. On one occasion, I saw one jump up on a table and stopped moving on the table when the PowerPoint suddenly broke. It was all captivating. However, what we knew was that we also had to see the people who work for those individuals because sometimes it was the sales pitch, but afterwards you get the real team. You need to make sure that the team who support the projects or the activity and the campaign is also of good quality. We’ll be measuring creativity, we measure the quality of accounting. We’ll be measuring how well it was thought through and planned and how it could execute. Also, somewhere in the next two would be the price.
My big takeaway there is that people buy emotionally and then they might back it up with some logic. Whoever comes in with an emotional hook is more likely to get a yes then the emphasis on selling the team. It’s not just the razzle-dazzle people who sell it and then you never see them again, but painting a picture, if you will, of what it would be like to work with these people and why they would want to work with them. I see that time and again myself when I work with clients who are pitching themselves whether it’s an architecture firm or any firm that it’s really, “Do we like you? Do we trust you? We’ve got to work with you for a while. Are you going to be easy to work with? Are you going to have our back? Are you good listeners?” Things that people tend to not mention in a pitch, but what I hear you saying is these are all big criteria that people should address.
Business Elevation: Employee voice is important. A lot of companies don’t give employees the opportunity to share how they feel.
If we’ve not worked with them before as well, knowing that they’ve got some good case studies and good testimonials. One example I had quite a significant pitch. I was actually asked to give no credential to talk and to turn up without a PowerPoint and facilitate the session which was quite interesting to understand the training and development needs of this organization. About ten people turn up, some quite senior ones. What I did was I broke the ice with some storytelling and I told a little bit of fun stories about my past rather than going into detailed credentials. Some of them really connected with them.
I noticed it was somebody’s birthday as well. I made something of that and then opened them up. There was great rapport in the room, and then I could start to facilitate this conversation around training needs and working a route forward. As I walked out, I remember getting an arm around my shoulder from the HR director who said, “That went so well.” I got in the car and I have to say, I actually had a few tears because I just felt I was in there on my own. It was almost like I was being supported by somebody guiding me through the process. It went so well and it probably did my confidence a lot of good as well. I won that and then I won another big piece of work with them almost immediately afterwards. Engaging with the storytelling with a heart that you support is important. I even talked about a girlfriend who dumped me, which moved them but that was perfect and they related.
A little vulnerability makes people feel connected to you and that they want to spend time with you. I love the title of your book, The Power to Get Things Done: Whether You Feel Like It or Not. That’s a big a-ha for a lot of people because they’re like, “If I could get motivated to get this project done or do my expenses, things I don’t really want to do and I keep procrastinating.” What is your secret sip there? How do we get things done if you don’t feel like you want to do it or motivated but somehow that’s still not working?
[bctt tweet=”Having a good life at work leads to a good life at home, and it leads to good health.” username=”John_Livesay”]
When I left the corporate world to set up my own business, I hadn’t realized that there was an important support network, line managers, board meetings, events and finger-pointing at times. There was a whole mechanism that held me to account, but when you set up your own business, that infrastructure doesn’t exist. You have to create it yourself. Therefore, what you tend to do in a corporate job often is a good system, the things that are important to getting that job done. You may forget about your health or people forget about the relationships. When you set up your own business, the whole lot has to have some structure around it. What I realized in the corporate world is that in good companies like Mars, there is an infrastructure that is actually, you might not like it but it’s your friend. It helps you perform.
When you’re out on your own, you’ve got to create your own structure, what you have to do, if something’s really important. It’s very important to ensure that you create situations that mean that you have to act whether you feel like it or not. It’s almost like you’re sitting on a seesaw and there’s a very heavy weight on the other side. If you’ve got on the top of that yourself, you wouldn’t be able to press it down. It’s an elephant sitting on the other side, you need to put weight on your side to be able to lift the elephant. It’s important to get very clear about what’s important in your life so you don’t get too many things and take them very seriously, but then create situations that mean that you act whether you feel like it or not. I’ve quite a lot of examples if you want me to share any.
Please share an example of how we could create a situation or maybe even talk about how you were detoxifying dreaded tasks. A specific story would be great.
Business Elevation: A lot of leaders think they must get all the people, troops, and employees engaged; what they forget is as a leader, they need to engage themselves.
With that particular story and the thought came through for that is the detoxifying, sometimes something might seem just too big a step. For me, I started off by asking some of my clients to come along and I did some book study groups. From the study groups, I started interviewing a few people and another audience came and with social media then. That stepping stone gave me the confidence to move to my radio show and hosting that. Where I really thought about this was I remember my children, I’ve got two boys, Matthew and Daniel. We went to a wildlife park on the South Coast of England while we were on holiday. They had this reptile and book show, but I don’t like snakes.
We walked into this place and there were lots of seats. There were quite a lot of people in there. My kids tried and went to the front row but I managed to carefully guide them to the back without them realizing I was a complete coward. We sat on the back row. This guy from the front said, “Is there anybody out there who’s scared of snakes?” I ducked down and my kids started pointing at me, “Him,” and my wife was looking at me and they all started pointing at me. This guy said, “That gentleman on the back row, would you like to overcome your fear of snakes?” I kept my head down and then people started joining in and there was a little bit of a clap that started. I had to get up and I went out to the front. It was me in front of about 60 people. I basically passed around this snake, which was quite a nice-looking thing actually. I passed it around a few people but I had to hold the snake.
He passed it over to me and my heart was pounding, but I held the snake and it moved around in my hands. I thought, “It’s not as bad as I thought it was.” I felt reasonably comfortable with it. I gave it back to him and I started to walk off. He said, “No, stop. I thought you wanted to overcome your fear of snakes.” Suddenly, two people walked out with this huge box with a rope handle on each side, and they gently placed it on the floor. He opened this lid and there was this enormous Boa constrictor in it. He picked the thing up and pulled it over his shoulders and said, “That wasn’t a snake. This is a snake.” He said, “Are you going to pick this up?” People were like, “Go on.” I put this snake around my neck and held it. I’ve got this photograph of it looking at me straight between the eyes. I’ve never been scared of snakes in that way since and that really helped me. Therefore, if you break up tasks into little sections, it becomes easier or you can do like a friend of mine did. She is a Tennis World Champion from Denmark. She’s a speaker and she wanted to add more comedy into her speaking. What would your strategy be if you maybe talk some small steps towards being able to add more comedy into your speaking, John?
[bctt tweet=”It takes a brave leader to listen to feedback.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I’d start to watch comedians and improv situations and maybe even try to get up and do a couple of minutes.
I think that’s a good strategy and it will be my natural strategy. Read about it, watch it on the TV or maybe do some improv, but what she did was she booked a 1,630-seat conference hall in Tivoli Gardens. She paid the money in advance which is about $18,000 and she advertised that she was going to do a one-woman stand-up comedy show because she’s a celebrity in Denmark. She sold it out entirely and then had five months to learn how to do stand-up comedy. That’s creating a situation that means you have to act.
Let’s go into your formula for success and Business Elevation, which is the name of your company. It’s also the name of your show. You talked about engaging leaders plus an engaged team, plus getting things done gives elevation to a business where absentee goes down, well-being and productivity go up and the turnover goes down. That’s a big problem out there especially with Millennials as a lot of them enter with a mindset of, “I’m only going to be here a couple of years.” The cost of turnover is so huge. You’ve got some solutions that you talked to me about that I got so excited that I want you to share with me what you are doing with something called an Engagement Multiplier.
I was referred to a gentleman called Stefan Wissenbach as a guest on my radio show. Being interested in this side of workforce engagement, we do programs around elevation which might be working with a leader to help them develop and grow their business and being a mentor to them, a coach to them. I may be doing team development with their team and helping them through that evolution. I’ve got many clients I’ve helped grow their businesses. In this area of engagement, what I wanted to do was have a methodology whereby we could actually survey and get some real data on the company. You could use a thermometer to take a test of the temperature of the company.
When I interviewed Stefan, I realized that he was onto something pretty amazing. He invested £11 million in terms of developing some software, which enables you to measure engagement. He created a great book and a great story around this book. It was heavily researched. He had a vision that he wanted to help eleven million people become more measurably engaged. In America, your engagement level is a bit higher than over in Europe. It may only be 30% tops of people who are really engaged in their business and then about 50% of people who are coaching and then the remainder would have had sabotaged your company or they’re definitely looking for a new job. If you could turn that around, what could you do?
This survey enables you to take a test for your company. What we’re able to do through the survey is to offer an entire survey for free. I know you love this as well. You could go to John and he will be able to help you do this but you can utilize this amazing online tool. There’s an anonymous dialog in there. Your staff will give their feedback and comments and share how they feel. Getting an employee voice is important. In a lot of companies, employees don’t get the opportunity to share how they feel. You can also respond anonymously. You’re looking at how engaged people are with your purpose, how engaged they are with your leaders, how engaged they are with the owners of the business if that’s different? How engaged the customers are and how engaged are they personally and sharing all sorts of wisdom and insight?
[bctt tweet=”Engagement starts with the leader.” username=”John_Livesay”]
You get this amazing report but you do this quarterly. What the company showed is that if you take this survey quarterly and you developed some action steps each quarter, someone like John or in the UK, someone like myself can help you by looking at that information and helping you with the action steps. Engagement shifts from maybe 60%, 70% in the company to 90% they found over a twelve-month period. In ten years, it’s the best survey tool I’ve come across. I love the principles behind it as well. I shared it with you and you felt passionate about it too.
One of the things that I think is really interesting about this concept is that the leaders have to have a level of courage to be able to hear anonymous feedback as opposed to just pretending that they think they know what people are thinking and feeling. Can you speak to that a little bit?
The company always talks about you want a business with brave, identifiable and caring leaders. Often, people are scared of what the reality of the situation is. They’d rather not know because we often don’t like getting feedback and knowing how people perceive us in case we come up in the survey. It takes a brave leader to be prepared and to listen to that feedback. I sat with the company as they went through their first survey. I was sitting with the CEO and the leadership team. I did say to him, “Remember, this is just a perception. Those people out there might not be relative but those people out there, that’s what they believe. Once we know that perception, then you’re in a situation to be able to do something about it.” Firstly, he was a little bit defensive and then he said, “Chris, you’re absolutely right. All that feedback is valid.” I’m not going to make it mean anything but now we’ve got that information we can act and he said, “This is the biggest no brainer. It’s amazing to have this. If we can do this quarterly and it’s not that inexpensive. It’s cheap as chips really for what it does for us. We understand some real data about our businesses.”
The problem of flying blind, if you will, is all the things like disgruntled employees and people feeling like they matter. The opposite is when they do feel like they have a voice and most importantly, I would imagine that the leaders take action from the survey. That’s when the real magic happens.
I’m thinking about the other company where we use the survey. Initially, there was a learning and development person and he said, “We need to go with something called best companies.” The board was about to go and they’ve got this new person on board and they changed their mind and went with this other survey and methodology. They just found it so unwieldy that within six months they came back to us with the learning and development person kicking and screaming and said, “We want to do one of those surveys that you talked about because it sounds more like it meets our needs.”
When they did the survey and within one hour of the results coming out, the CEO and this is quite a sizable business, he got the report. He scanned it and he immediately went to his PA and said, “I want every director in the company who’s available in my office in an hour.” They went through the report and started to put in place some actions actually. It was mind-blowing for them. This is astonishing. Very sadly, the L&D person lost their job as a result of refusing to budge and getting in the way rather than supporting what was really needed. That was a shame but they missed an opportunity because it’s proving so valuable for them.
It’s not enough anymore to just be dictatorial especially for the Millennials, which are the majority of the employees now. They want to be heard. They want to be acknowledged and they want to feel like they’re making a difference and that they understand the vision of the company. Clarifying any of those issues is going to help productivity, employee retention and engagement. I remember Starbucks starting out and Howard Schultz gave part-time employees health benefits when nobody else was doing that for part-time employees. Those people feel like they matter and so they go the extra mile. If you come in every day at the same time, they would say, “Chris, do you like the double whatever latte?” That person is so loyal to Starbucks. You can’t pay people to go that extra mile because their job is to take your order and serve it, but if they’re engaged and feel like you care, then that’s when you get extra service out of people. Would you agree with that?
I do agree with that. I think it was Starbucks where they used to have it. It’s one of those little cards and people would come in and you get a card and it gets stamped each time. You get a free latte or something once you bought seven. They decided to get rid of that and they just said to the staff, “You can give so much coffee, tea and whatever away for free to people when you think it’s most appropriate.” What they did is they gave the discretion to individuals to give the odd cup of coffee to somebody who may deserve it, who looked a bit harassed because they got the kids running around their feet or people who came in regularly. That autonomy and that discretion make a big difference. I know people about places like Zappos, they allow their customer service staff to send bunches of flowers and things like that to people if they think it’s important. That trust gives someone that ability to empower some of that and you feel more special when you can do that.
Besides hosting this successful show that you have, Business Elevation, helping people with their employee engagement, people hire you also to speak. Tell us about what speaking opportunities are best-fitted for you?
I speak about the power to get things done whether you feel like it or not. I do that fairly regularly and I’ve spoken at big companies like HSBC and various others. I also speak about engagement. One of the areas I like to talk about is Engagement Starts with You. A lot of people think we must get all the people, all the troops, all the employees engaged and what they forget as leaders are that they need to be engaged themselves. It starts before you get into the office. It starts with how you prepare your mind and prepare yourself mentally and physically so that when you step into the office, you are absolutely engaged. Therefore, you can spend your time in showing your team’s engagement is higher. Unless you’re walking the talk, then it’s not going to happen. That’s one of the keynotes that I love to share actually is engagement starts with you.
Time goes so fast with a guest like you, Chris. You’ve done so many interesting things and you have so many wonderful stories. Thank you so much for sharing. We all know a little bit more than we did on how we can get things done whether we want to or not.
Thanks, John. It’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you.
Links Mentioned:
- Chris Cooper
- John Livesay on Business Elevation
- The Power to Get Things Done: Whether You Feel Like It or Not
- Mars
- Engagement Multiplier
- Stefan Wissenbach on Business Elevation
- http://ChrisCooper.co.uk/
- https://www.EngagementMultiplier.com/partner/johnlivesay/
- https://www.Amazon.com/Power-Get-Things-Done-Whether/dp/0399175849/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=the+power+to+get+things+done&qid=1554137130&s=gateway&sr=8-2
- Quantmre.com
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