The Man Who Proved Me Right with CEO Bob Chapman and the Barry-Wehmiller Team

27:25That stress comes out at home and that affects kids' grades, kids' self-confidence. And it's an amazing concept. The logic is so simple. The logic is there, which is... It has to be simple because it's occurred to me. It has to be simple. Which is if you're teaching these people how to listen, empathetic listening, so that they can better communicate at work, those skills are the skills. They're going home. Not only do they feel better at work, they're taking those skills and they're raising their kids better. I mean, that a good job and a good place to work is good for my family occurs to nobody.

27:58And that a company would say, come work for us, it's good for your family, other than just the money we're going to pay you Because that's usually how we measure if it's good for your family. How much can I provide? In my education, undergraduate accounting, MBA, Pricewaterhouse, then running a family business, I was never taught, never told, never made aware that the way I would run this company would affect people's personal lives other than the compensation and the benefits. We think that is the exchange. You give me your gifts, I'll pay you fairly. But the most powerful thing we do to people is validate their worth.

28:30And the greatest source of happiness is a good job doing meaningful work with people who enjoy it. I get in front of CEOs all over the world and I say, you're all worried about the cost of health care? You are the problem. 74 % of all illnesses are chronic. The biggest cause of chronic illness is stress and the biggest cause of stress at work. Jeffrey Pfeiffer at Stanford wrote a book, Dying for a Paycheck. And he doesn't mean anxious to get it. He estimates we're killing 120 ,000 people a year, die of work-related stress. Can you imagine if we taught in our MBAs, in our MBA classes, that how you lead will directly affect someone's health and that if you're a bad leader, there's a very short chain of logic that you're actually killing somebody.

29:11Increase in cortisol hurts the immune system, this slow, steady drip of cortisol because of the stress at work. I mean, to your point, which is people don't feel responsible for the lives of the people in their span of care because nobody's connected the dots for them. Yeah, I mean, seriously, Simon, you can't ask people to care. You have to teach them how to care. You can't ask people to speak Chinese. You have to teach them how to speak. We found that caring is a teachable skill. And the good news is that with your encouragement and support and the evolution of this, that we're working with a number of major universities now to transform business education, to create tomorrow's leaders who have the skills and courage to care, to bring these human skills in with academic skills.

29:59So when they leave our education system, they're ready to live in the beauty of diversity, not the conflict of diversity. They're ready to be good stewards of the lives at home, in their community, at work. But it's a teachable skill. But we have always felt academic skills are the key to success, and we forgot the human skills.

30:23We interrupt this podcast with an ad with authenticity. This episode is sponsored by Porsche and their new Macan, which is actually my car. I had it before they called. It's actually my car and I love it. There is an entire team in Germany that just focuses on how material feels or what the cadence of the buttons are or how they feel when you release them or what sound they make. And I think that's one thing that really speaks to me with the brand is that it comes all the way back to its roots of engineers and designers within the Porsche family. And when you have those two, it really comes back to the senses.

31:01My God, it works perfectly. Yes. It's the other reason why I have to say I love having a German car, which is everything works always. Exactly as it was designed. Yeah, well said, well said. And I will tell you that although the stereotype is, well, it's just about efficiency, it's just about perfection, it's just about mechanical ability, the people behind these product developments, they are lifelong Porsche owners, lifelong Porsche fans, racing fans. And they dedicate years to the smallest decisions in how this whole car comes together. And that part is so fun for me on the inside. It says a lot when the people who are making the car that you drive are fans of the car you drive.

31:44There's passion and love and you feel it. I totally agree. You feel it. Totally agree.

31:57There are some people who are cynical that this is all fine and good and hippy-dippy when the economy is great. But when the economy dips, you know, you've got to tighten the belt and focus on the numbers. And we see it all the time, even well-intentioned companies. As soon as something dips the numbers, the first thing to suffer is the people. They cut the recognition programs. They cut the spending on the leadership programs. They lay people off. It's the first thing we do. So it sounds like these things are all nice to haves if you're thriving. What do you have to say to those companies that that's the first thing they cut people and programs when struggle happens?

32:36I mean, what does Barry Wehmiller do? Well, it starts with we have a constitution of our culture, the guiding principle of leadership. And the overwhelming vision is we measure success by the way we touch the lives of people. So we kind of have a constitution that guides us like our country does in terms of the responsibility of leadership. So if you embrace that and you end up with an economic situation, what do we do? In 2008, when the housing market collapsed, it sent the economy into a financial crisis. Savings were wiped out, companies collapsed, and lives were shattered. As the economy went into full recession, most companies thought that they had no other option but to lay people off in order to survive.

33:23BW was also hit hard by the recession. But Bob refused to let anyone go.

33:34our orders dropped by 30 percent and i was taught well you know what you got to do is you got to let people go because you know that's what just what you know it's not personal it's just what we do we i once as you know in the air force asked some of the generals how do you teach these young men and women to kill and they said we don't we teach them to take out targets that made bad decisions they try to dehumanize the hurt they're going to infect and dropping bombs we do that in business We say, well, we right-sized the company. We organized the company. We gave the shareholders what they want.

34:04We dehumanized. Reduce headcount. Yeah, exactly. We dehumanized the impact. The psychological studies show that when people are let go, I walk up to you and say, sorry, I know you just bought a house. I know we just, but I'm going to have to let you go because we got to make the numbers work. It is a major failure of stewardship because I tell our people around the world, My primary responsibility as the leader of this company is to have a business model that you feel safe. You can raise a family. You can have a home. Layoffs are a broken part of our society. It means your business model failed.

34:40You let people down. Okay. I got to go deeper on that. You see, if you embrace layoffs, it means your business model failed. Yes. Most major public companies, and unfortunately a lot of private companies, but most major public companies have fully embraced layoffs as a regular mechanism to balance the books. Have their business models failed? Yes. Well, their leadership failed. Remember, very profitable companies. Jack Welch taught us years ago, you can always probably let 5 % of people go and you'll actually do better. Not just to reduce cost, but it's good to kind of take the low performance out.

35:18So I was taught from very early, layoffs are a positive thing you do for a company because you improve profitability. And investment advisors will come to your company and say, you want to improve your image in the market? Lay off some people and say, we're going to make more money in it. So part of it is the investing public rewards companies that do this. Their share price goes up when they lay off people. To me, it should go down because they, I mean, I guarantee you when a board considers, a public company or private company, considers a layoff where you're going to hurt people. Okay? You're going to hurt people.

35:52They don't talk about the consequences of those people. It's just business. They'll find another job. How many weeks should we pay them for? I've never heard, ever in my 50-year career, ever heard a human way of talking about layoffs, downsides, but we're taught just one of the things you do, it's not fun, it's not pleasant. So my responsibility to our people is to say, my main responsibility is to make sure you're safe in my care where we can create economic and human value in harmony. And when people feel safe, they will share greater gifts with you. You will attract greater talent. There's no downside.

36:27Again, some people think it's just about being nice, okay? It's much more profound, like parenting is being nice. Parenting is not being nice. It's being a good steward of the child in your care. Leadership is identical. And part of it is having a safe business model where they can raise a family, they can count on you and put their trust in you and have a career with you. That is a foundational responsibility, and I've never heard that said before. I think a lot of leaders forget about the ripples, right, which is they understand that, you know, even though they don't talk about it or think about it, the impact it has on people's lives when they get laid off, they also forget about the people who didn't lose their jobs, but they watch their friends get laid off.

37:04You know, now fear is injected into the system. Am I next? You know, and one of the craziest things I've seen is companies announce, We're going to lay off 20 ,000 people. We're going to do 1 ,000 a week. And you're just like, how on earth do you think that risk-taking and entrepreneurship and sticking your neck out for the greater good is going to happen? People are going to retreat. They're going to keep their heads down because the unbelievable fear that I'm next. Not to mention the fact that it sucks to see your friends get laid off for no fault of their own. It wasn't a meritocracy. and you said boards aren't talking about the impact on the lives of the people that lay off and they're also not talking about how it'll affect the culture for many many months uh beyond if not years you know simon some people say to me how do you justify this investment this cost of caring for your people your university your classes and i said i look at them i say i don't need to justify caring.

38:06How do you justify not caring? Okay. Because people really struggle going from using people to care about people because, you know, it's, it's really, it's, it's a major bridge to cross for most people. But I say, I, you know, nobody has to justify safety. In other words, safety glasses, hard toe shoes, safety, no, no company. Why? Because we have work, once compensation insurance and we want to manage the cost of it. So it's a cost. okay so i would say to you we don't have to justify safety why do we have to justify caring because this caring is the safety of your soul i don't need to justify this because you know our company we've had a 25 year growth in our share price for like 12 percent compounded for 25 years so we're trying to prove 12 percent compounded growth for 25 years in our share price okay in your share price because we have a very technical way of creating share price that emulates the market.

38:59And so I'd say to you, we have exceeded almost everybody you know for a long period of time. We take a long-term view, but we, again... So anybody cynical who says no, but performance, performance, performance, okay, fine. What you're demonstrating is that your leadership strategy outperforms the market. So if you just look at the statistics that you've heard me say, that 88 % of all people feel they work for an organization that doesn't care about them. And if you hear the statistics, three out of four people are disengaged in what they're doing. When you look at the 12 ,000, 5 ,000, 200 people who work for you, and you know these statistics say that they're doing what they need to do to keep their job, they're not giving you their gifts, and you're sending them home damaged because you were not good stewards of that life.

39:47And that's why I say business could be the most profound source of good in the world if we simply knew how to care for the people. We have a society right now based on money, power, and position. It doesn't matter how you get it as long as you get it legally because then you can write a check to charity and they'll have a banquet to celebrate your goodness. They won't ask you how you got your money. They'll celebrate you. And I say to CEOs around the world, the greatest act of charity is not to check you right. The greatest act of charity is how you treat the people you have the privilege of leading.

40:20I have CEOs on here now and then. and honestly, in general, CEOs are the worst guests because it's hard to have candid conversations with them. They're very, very media trained. They come in with their talking points. You know, it doesn't matter what I ask. They know how to get their point across. They're going to tell me about their success. They're going to tell me about their product. They're going to tell me about the quality. I mean, I'm sitting here in one of your factories and not once have we talked about your product, what this factory makes, the quality. Not once have we talked about your product.

40:59And this is completely opposite than almost every other CEO I talk to. Well, Simon, again, it was a couple of years ago that Washington University organizational development professors interviewed me for an hour and a half, normal interview. And at the end of hour and a half, they said, we have never talked to a CEO that never talked about your product. And I sat back and I said, we've been talking about our product for the last hour and a half. It's our people. Okay, I'm not going to go to my grave proud of the machinery we built because we build great machinery. I'm going to go to my grave proud of the people we built that.

41:34For Bob, it always comes back to the people and the trust he places in those who give him at least 40 hours a week of their lives. And there's one story I've been telling for years about two of those lives. Jared Nelson and Lance Johnson. It's a story of a big company trusting someone with a high school education to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy a new machine. So I got to tell you what a treat it is for me. I mean, we met briefly, you know, but I've never actually had the chance to talk to you in depth. I heard your story and I've been telling your story from the stage for literally years.

42:14So I'm going to tell it. Tell me if I get the facts right, okay? Because this is how I've been telling it, which is a bunch of years ago, Barry Waymiller, where we are, one of the machines is getting old and needs to be replaced. Traditionally, when a company needs to replace a machine, somebody in procurement puts together a budget and goes and buys a machine in the open market. That's traditionally how it's done. Some guy in a suit goes and buys a machine. But Barry Wayne Miller did it differently. They came to the two guys who work on the machine, which was you two. You're not accountants. You're not in procurement.

42:54You don't have any advanced degrees in how to do this stuff. You just work on the machine. And they said to you, we've got$750 ,000 budget. Go buy a machine. And you went out into the marketplace. You looked at new machines. You looked at used machines. and where these people who sell machines are used to people standing there in a suit and clipboard talking about the machine. You guys show up and you're climbing inside the machine. You end up buying a brand new machine. You spend$500 ,000. The company saved$250 ,000 and that machine will never break because it's your machine. That's the story I've been telling.

43:32Yep. It's really close. Really close. What did I get wrong? So Derek was an operator that we had. Jared was another operator. When I had the opportunity given to me to go purchase a machine, I knew right away that to get buy-in from the operators was probably going to be the most important thing on my side as the leader in that area. So I went to Jared and Derek, and I basically said, guys, this is what we got to play with as far as a cash amount. I don't know what we should get. You guys are the experts on this matter. So I basically used a lot of responsible freedom for these guys. And I sort of went, well, we'll see how this goes.

44:09They came to work the next morning and they had advertisement, flyers, email clipping, everything sent to me to review. And at that point, I sort of went, you know what? Maybe this won't be as hard as what it would sound. Because, you know, in my life, obviously, growing up and raising a family, you can buy a car, you buy a house, capital equipment. Like you said, that's really not anything that would have been in my realm of I'm going to do this someday. So I got Jared and Derek involved, and they were both great, you know, to work with on this process. These were the two that were going to make or break this product.

44:43And getting the buy-in with them guys and knowing that they didn't want to, you know, fail, that was a success. And going back, Derek and I, I worked second shift. Derek worked first shifts, you know, so we'd take turns. He'd go look for stuff during the day, and we'd figure out what we wanted and what kind of machine we needed, you know, what we all wanted. in that machine. And then we'd meet up at the end of the shift on first shift and we talked it over and we went from there and we did pretty good. And we had a lot of insight from guys that we worked with in the past, field technicians and stuff like that.

45:14So they kind of drove us in the right direction of what we wanted and what kind of machine we needed for capabilities and stuff like that. So this is an even better story than I've been telling because you were assigned to buy the machine and you went and said, I need help. You said, you know this better than I do. And so it's not just a story of giving responsibility. I get to talk to the person who admits, I probably shouldn't make this decision. Most people don't want to admit that in a corporate environment for fear that it's going to make them look bad or hurt their promotability. But you say, I'm not the best qualified person to make this decision.

45:48The best qualified people to make this decision are the people who work on the machine every single day. And here you're given three quarters of a million dollars. right and i think most companies wouldn't trust uh and i'll use traditional language i know that's not how we talk here but a couple of guys who work in a factory floor you know exactly yeah you know your three quarters of a million dollars go go because there's this ridiculous stupid mentality yep that somehow you're going to waste the money and they're going to save the money when the reality is is you know what things cost you know the value how many years ago was that when you bought that machine?

46:26I mean, you were a kid back then. 20-some years old in my early 20s. Right. We believe it was in 2013 we purchased that machine. So that machine was, let's do math real quickly. So 2013, 23, so 12 years ago. Correct. Right? So that machine is 12 years old. How is it doing? It's fine. It's operational and doing everything we need it to do. And I think that was one thing that we were told. We need to be able to produce parts here in Phillips, Wisconsin. and what would you guys recommend? Had you worked at different companies before Barry Waymiller? When I was in high school. So right out of high school.

47:02You're straight out of high school. I worked at a company called Philips Plating across the road, and then I came here when I was 19, 20 years old. 19, 20 years old. Amazing. So your only experience of what work is like is here. Yep. You don't realize how good it is. Right. But I do. How do you know? I just know. You know, my brother works for a couple of companies and I hear what he has to say about work every day. And you come here and it's a different story. How does he describe work? Just a punch click, you know, a time clock, you know, number on the wall and go home, go to work, go home, go to work.

47:39Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. Yes. Is he happy? Oh, ish. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he gets by. But he's not happy going to work every day. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Had you had had you worked somewhere else before here? I had part time jobs before I started here, but I actually started here five days out of high school. Also. So both of you straight out of high school. Do you know how do you know that it's good? I know it's your own experience. Only experience. I know it's good. My dad actually was a long tenured team member here. He had over 25 years. And when I got out of high school, 18 years old, you know what you want to do the rest of your life.

48:14Not so much. Right. I figured this would be a good starting point. I went to school for fabrication, worked here part-time, and, you know, once again, I wanted to move on and possibly go into engineering, but I haven't had a reason to leave yet. And the amount of opportunities that we've been given here in Phillips, it doesn't feel like it's been 30 years because I've learned so many different parts of the business. I work with a lot of great people, family-oriented facility, and I really enjoy it. My son works here now. My wife works here. My daughter-in-law works here. so Phillips is home so your dad knew what it was like working here before Barry Waymiller yes how would he describe what it was like would he tell you the stories of old how did he how did you hear about it or maybe you saw it in your dad I got to see a little bit of it myself because I started right before in 95 so I had about five years of that experience as well where you come to work and you'd be walking in with a friend a co-worker and that afternoon you'd see him carrying his lunchbox or tools out the door because he was no longer a team member just got fired just you know layoffs laid off just just a lot of fluctuation with you know who we had working and how much our business model was slow or fast yeah there was always change and that's one thing we have a lot of stability you've been here how many years now 17 so straight out of high school been here 17 years that's unusual for any in any job you know manufacturing or sort of an office job for somebody to remain in a job these days with any company for 17 years.

49:43It's almost unheard of. What's the reason you stay? There's opportunity. There's a big world out there. Well, with Phillips, I love living here. Like him, I have four children. They rely on me. And I go to bed at night and I know when I wake up in the morning, I'm going to have a job to come to every single day. And not only that, with growth, opportunity, I've done a lot here. I started, you've seen, back by the laser, took a role here in L3, and then I went to CPD and HR and was our safety leader here for four years, and now I'm in field service. So you completely changed. Yes. Is that unusual in manufacturing?

50:22You know, if somebody starts on a factory floor, you know, they die on the factory floor? Is that a, like, what's a normal manufacturing trajectory in America? I would say normal America would be that, yes. you're stuck on the floor and that's where you're going to stay. You get small raises every year, hopefully. Now I'm in field service. Field service, which means? Where we send our field guys out in the field to work. I'm actually running our PM programs. So we have preventative maintenance. Okay. So we have 116 contracts and we sell those contracts to our customers for our techs to come in and maintenance their machines.

51:02What is your hope for American business? based on what you know, based on what you've seen possible. What's your dream for American business? I would like to see, obviously, the business booms again and get these smaller towns back to being bright and vibrant and giving hope to the community to know that stability is here and families can prosper. And obviously, you know, some of us have been lucky enough to find that and stay here, but there's so much in this area that we all love, and that's the main reason why we've decided not to go anywhere. We don't want to lose. We want to keep jobs here in Phillips.

51:38You've used the word stability quite a lot. And stability isn't just having a factory in a small town in America. You're not just simply talking about bringing businesses to and opening the factories in these towns. You're talking about how they're led. Right. What is it that you want to see how the modern American factory is led? What do you want it to go from? What do you want it to go to? I think the terminology we even use, managers versus leaders, right? We've had opportunities to be led in our jobs, and I've been blessed to have a lot of great leaders. I know what a manager looked like as well because I experienced that.

52:22But if we can get companies to start leading and growing and looking at the talent that you have within and looking at the opportunities that you can present with this team member, if they're loyal to a company, we're going to grow them. We're going to make them part of our business.

52:39Language matters, and Bob knows it. He's obsessed with making sure his language perfectly captures his message. At Barry Waymiller, for example, they don't track their head count. They track their heart count. Randall and I are standing on the floor where he started as a welder back in 1988. Today, he's a production leader. The former loner now leads teams of people. The former skeptic is now one of the top-rated professors at Barry Waymiller University, teaching what he's learned about putting people first. One of the things that I love about this place is, you know, I've been to other factories before, and you've worked at many places before.

53:25They're dirty, generally. and there's signs all over the place that say safety first, safety first, safety first, and how many days since we've had an accident is like four. Here it's spotless. There's no big signs everywhere that say safety first. Where are all the signs and how is it so clean? You're looking at all the signs. Everyone in this building is part of the culture. We're the signs. It's the way that we are as team members and leaders. We support everyone. We support each other. We help each other. That's what this culture is about. And as a leader, my only real job, as I can see it, is to help my team succeed at all costs.

54:14When somebody feels seen, heard, understood, feels supported, as you said, we were all the signs, the reaction is I want to keep this place clean not for me but for you I want to keep this place safe I want to keep you safe because I care about you and so you don't need big signs marketing campaigns that let's be honest they don't work it's just a way of management saying they're prioritizing safety we're trying and what a lot of companies don't realize is take care of the people people will take care of each other and they'll take care of the space they're working it couldn't have said it any better myself.

54:56The biggest lesson from Barry Waymiller is clear. When we make people feel truly valued and take care of their lives, they take care of each other. They show up, they step up, they outperform, not because they have to, but because they want to. And all this in turn takes good care of the company. This is exactly why I love Bob Chapman. He is my mentor. He is my friend. And he inspires me. I met you because you reached out to me and showed me this magical place. I got to know you and I decided to write about this amazing place that you had built in a book I wrote called Leaders Eat Last. You're sort of a central character in that book, I would argue.

55:48and you and I have become friends over the years and and you've been a mentor to me I've learned a lot about how to improve my own leadership uh ability from you what have you learned even about yourself over these past 15 years well Simon when you came we were on this journey yeah and it was just in a just an incremental journey and you came in and you saw something that we didn't see. I mean, we thought things were going well, but you amplified our awareness that we had been blessed. And so what I have learned, because since we first met, I've given hundreds of speeches around the world. The Harvard case study, the TEDx talk you did, the book.

56:33There's no question as I sit here today, since we first met, that some higher power is using us to show the world the way he meant it to be, where people genuinely care for each other. And I feel this today, I feel this tremendous calling to take this responsibility of this message I've been blessed with and make sure it lives well beyond my time with voices like yours, your books, your talks around the world. So I feel this tremendous sense of obligation. Why would somebody pick a manufacturing company in America that makes machinery to show the world what it should be? Okay, okay. Why would he pick a carpenter to be the father of our Christ?

57:16So I would say to you, I feel a profound, and it grows because of the reaction. I mean, I speak in healthcare. I speak in the military. I speak in Congress. I speak in the United States. Everywhere I speak, I see the hurt in the world. And so I'd say to you, what has been amplified is because you've opened the door to the world, how could we have a culture here in a traditional business that the world said i've never seen anything like how is that possible i'm just a simple accountant from northst louis running a manufacturing company because we were blessed with a message that could heal the world and when i look today as we talk the issues we face in the world i see business as a source of destruction creating economic value but not human value and and i feel a profound sense of responsibility with you and our partnership.

58:02Change the way the world sees its responsibility to people they have the privilege of leading. I want to tell the story when I first went on the tour of all your factories and I saw this thing and I remember saying to you I can no longer be accused of being a crazy idealist because what I imagine exists in reality. I remember seeing the magic and then you introduced me to the culture team that was responsible for these classes and a lot of what you helping you implement what you imagined. And after I'd seen this tour and you knew my opinion of what I'd seen. I remember they were all sitting there with big smiles, thinking I was just going to say, you guys are amazing.

58:35You guys are amazing. And they were waiting with a big smile on their face. And I remember my first comments to your culture team were, I think you may be the most selfish company I've ever met, I said. And I remember them all shocked. And I said, oh yeah, I saw what you built. And it is nothing short of remarkable. And it is incredible what you have done for the lives of back then 3 000 people i said meanwhile there are millions of people struggling at work and you are keeping to yourselves something that the world would benefit from and uh i remember it was on that day you sort of said batter up and uh you started on the speaking circuit to share what you've done you've written your book everybody matters to get the word out there.

59:23You set up a consultancy to help companies learn what you're doing. You set up a not-for-profit to bring the listening courses to civil servants around the country so that they may benefit from the learning so you can help policing organizations, ambulances, nurses, all of, you know, firefighters. These are the people that you're helping with these courses. And it really is an amazing thing. it's been an amazing thing for me to watch. The small company that was very insular and doing something amazing that you really are one of the leaders of the movement to make business a force for good for the health of people, not just for the prosperity of people.

1:00:06It's been an amazing journey. Do you want to know how I've seen you change since I've met you? I got an older. Not in spirit. You had the same amazing energy from when I first met you. you are softer and I don't mean your voice is softer. I mean, I never, I took years before I saw you choke up for the first time because of what you were saying. And I see you choke up more often now. It was always personal, but it's become really personal and, and you're more willing to wear your emotions on your sleeve more than you used to. Even the way you used to give me like, you know, sort of like good to see you, Simon, sort of like a tap on the shoulder, you know, and then it became like a tap on the back and then it became a bro hug.

1:00:58And now you hug me, you know, you hug me with love. And I've seen that. I felt that. That's It's going to make me cry.

1:01:07I wish leaders took leadership as personally as you did. They see it as a rank or position. They see it as power and authority. But they don't take it as seriously as raising a child. And you take taking care of your people as seriously as taking care of your children. I mean, it is not a punchline when you say that everybody who works for you is someone's son and someone's daughter. I mean, you deeply mean it. You deeply feel it. You know, I have the pleasure of getting to talk to you when we're off camera. And what people don't understand is this preaching that you do when you're on a microphone.

1:01:55This is how you are all the time. I mean, like, you just have dinner. My wife reminds me of that all the time. Can't we just have dinner? It's like, oh my God, I heard it. But it's so ingrained in who you are and how personally you take this. It's such a source of inspiration, I got to tell you. I know people who turn it on and turn it off, and you can't turn it off. It's core to who you are. I always say, Simon, you can retire from a job, but you cannot retire from a calling. I'm sure you can imagine what it feels like when I get in front of crowds all over the world and I see people come to tears.

1:02:35I see kids standing ovations. Because can you imagine how it feels? Again, all the talks I've given in all parts of the country to have the most healing message that people ever heard. I mean, the reaction to our message universally, standing ovation, emotions, because it gives people hope. to think that some higher power selected this kid from North St. Louis with an accounting degree to show the world the way he meant it to be is profoundly meaningful. I mean, I don't know how you don't get emotional when you think I'm carrying a message that could heal the world. I mean, how do you handle something like that without emotion?

1:03:15I mean, it's not an academic feeling it is right down here and you can't say things about this message when you get the feedback the healing power of this is profound and when you look at the issues we face in this country in the world but i get this exposure to talk to people all over the world and i see the same reaction it's a universal truth in our world that people simply want to know they matter and they simply want to know they matter big joke of it all the big joke of it all is you are one of the highest performing companies in your category. You outperform the markets. Your people love working here.

1:03:55They work. People want their children to work here. You have generations of people working here. I met Lance before. His dad worked here. He works here. His kids work here. His daughter-in-law works here. His wife works here. I mean, and there are other opportunities. There are other places to work. In Phillips, they want to work here. They want their kids to work here. Like to have that level of devotion and love. I talked to people. I walked around today. We talked to some of your folks who it is a joy for them to go the extra mile for you. It doesn't feel like a burden or a task. And this is what is so astonishing to me that though you don't do it for the business reasons, the connection is so damn obvious.

1:04:45Your people are just better people than in other companies. They themselves are not better, but they're given the opportunity to be their best selves at Barry Waymiller. And the company and they are the beneficiaries because a profitable company means you can expand and take more care of your people, better care of your people. That you can expand the number of classes available. You can invest in training and you can invest in all the nice things because the business model works. And this is the thing that drives me nuts. It drives me nuts that people want us to give economic reasons why they should do this rather than…

1:05:20Human reasons. I mean, it's like, give me an economic reason why I should be good to my child. You know, if I'm good to my child, will my child increase their earning potential? The good news is that we are clearly, with your help, your voice in the world, your book, your voice, your book, is the world is validating that this is the way to go. And we are on a journey to transform and create a more caring world where people feel they matter, regardless of your role in the company that you feel you matter. And when you do that, you see this goodness come out of people. Again, I want to make sure you cannot ask people to care.

1:05:58You can't go to the CEO of a major company and say, you need to care about your people. They'll say, sure, I do. But we're going to have a layoff next week. But, you know, I care about them. Okay. But I pay them well and I get good about them. we have to change the whole perspective of our society where we are stewards of the people we have the privilege of leading i say to executives all the time the greatest act of charity is not the checks you write to cancer society or all those other noble causes the greatest act of charity is how you treat the people you have the privilege of leading yeah that is the greatest and if we had that we wouldn't need all the charities to fix the brokenness of the world you told me a story a bunch of years ago of a wealthy guy who had retired and he'd made boatloads of cash running a very, very large business.

1:06:43And he came to you for advice on how to be a philanthropist, on how to distribute that money. Yeah, this is a gentleman in traditional terms, extremely successful, had contributed$120 million to his alma mater and had heard me speak and just flew out to talk to me. He was touched by my speech. Good Christian man, good values, good Midwestern values. And again, what led to that is I said, what are you proud of in your life? And he said, this minority student athletic scholarship program. I had no idea of his company. So I just said, again, how many people work for your company? He said, 100 ,000.

1:07:20I said, so you really care about five or six people? You can help with a scholarship and you don't care about the hundred thousand people and he virtually leaned back in his chair and he said i never thought about that and again the one other story that amplifies that is i was giving a speech in a church a major church uh to a luncheon event and i did as a favor to somebody and a gentleman came up to me running a major international organization said i thought my job was to be the market leader in our industry in the world and we achieved that i thought that was my job But until I heard you speak, it never occurred to me to care for the 130 ,000 people in our organization.

1:08:03Then he added, you've given me a whole different purpose to my role. And again, we have a society where we celebrate financial success, market share gains. And again, we don't look at how you treated people. So again, the biggest message, Simon, is the way we treat people affects the way they go home and live. If we're worried about kids today, what's wrong with kids today? Where do they come from? They come from our families, okay? What's wrong with their families? Parents come home from work exhausted, okay? TGIF, thank God it's Friday. Get out of that place. I imagine a day with the work we're doing together, we're going to go to TGIM.

1:08:45thank goodness it's money, get away from the kids, the spouse, and be back to a place where I really enjoy being a part of the team. So I would say to you, the vision that we've been working on for 13 years, we have made tremendous progress in bringing this message to the world and to make sure that it will not die with me, that it will live on well beyond our time with your work, your book, your talks, and our new book, Everybody Matters, a new edition. We have a chance to shape the world that desperately is looking for hope right now. Well, I promised you I sent you an email years ago. I know.

1:09:17It's framed in my office. I know, I know. I promised you years ago in an email I sent you that I will carry your torch

1:09:37for all the years I have left. and then I'll pass it on to the next person. Thank you for your stewardship.

1:09:48I love you. I really do. I'm so grateful for that crazy one-hour lunch that became a three-hour lunch and this crazy adventure you've taken me on, you know, because we've said it a thousand times to each other. We validate each other's work, you know, I validated your work by saying, you know, in the marketplace, in sort of in my work, that's the right way. You know, I know I validated your theories and your ideas at scale. And you validated my work because it's, I'm just an idiot idealist who writes about these, what could happen. And you made it real. This is a very large company. Make no mistake of it.

1:10:33This is thousands and thousands of employees, billions of dollars worth of revenue, international global company. I mean, this is not some little mom and popcorn store that takes care of its people. You know, this is a large operation at scale. And you prove that not only are the people happier and their families are happier and their communities are happier, but it is a phenomenal recipe for prosperity. Healthy people make for prosperous companies and healthy people make for prosperous nations. Bob, thank you for being a light, a beacon. And thank you for being who you are. We should probably turn it off right now.

1:11:13It's just a blubber fest. But yeah, I love you. Simon, what you're doing, I see your soul when you talk. Because we've touched your soul. Not your mind, your soul. This is the way the world was meant to be. And when you see it, you know that this is the way it was meant to be. That we learn to care for each other. Amen. Amen. Thank you.

1:11:45a bit of optimism is a production of the optimism company lovingly produced by our team lindsey garbenius phoebe bradford and devin johnson subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts and if you want even more cool stuff visit simonsynic.com thanks for listening take care of yourself take care of each other