Turning Values Into Action

0:00You know, over the years, you've heard me talk a lot about marketing systems. Today, I get to share something really special. My daughter, Sarah Nay, who also happens to be the CEO of Duct Tape Marketing, just released her first book. It's called Unchained, Breaking Free from Broken Marketing Models and How Small Business Can Finally Take Control of Their Marketing, Lead with Strategy, and Scale with AI. I know, a mouthful, right? But it's everything we've learned taken to the next level. In fact, we're even calling it Duct Tape Marketing 3.0. As a dad, I couldn't be prouder, but I want you to check it out at dtm.world slash unchained and get ready to take your strategy to a whole new level.

0:53Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantz. My guest today is Robert Glazer. He's a bestselling author, keynote speaker, and founder of Acceleration Partners, a global partner marketing agency. He's widely known for his Friday Forward newsletter, which reaches hundreds of thousands of leaders weekly with stories about leadership, integrity, and personal growth. Robert's been on the show before for his previous books. I think Elevate was at least one of them, if not more. But today we're going to talk about his latest book, The Compass Within, a little story about the values that guide us.

1:31So welcome back, Robert. Thanks, John. I promise I'm going to slow down after this. This is my project for the next few years. You're like those rock bands in the 70s, you know, putting out albums. I'm lacking quality. I make up in quantity. So for a book on values, I'm just going to cut right to it because there are thousands of books on values probably and leadership. What's something in the Compass Within that you think says about values that most business books get wrong or miss completely? Yeah, I think there's two things. It's really clarifying personal values from company values and what those are.

2:08And this was the problem I was in. first of all, there's a lot of talk about values, but I don't think we've defined them. I don't think we've really known, shown people how to sort of solve it for themselves. It's kind of like Simon Sinek did. Like, yeah, start with why. And then go find your why. Like, not that easy. But like, solve it definitively and in a way that makes them actionable. You know, so I can go out in the world and make better decisions than otherwise. And I have been working on this framework that sits behind the book for almost a decade now. It sort of was the solution for me.

2:39I started leadership training. I brought it to a course to 2000 people. I was like, I want to get this to more people. And so the story, the book's a parable, but the story sits on top of this framework. And then it tells you what the framework is. And I think if you follow the framework, you can get to real actionable core values and away from a lot of the one word platitudes that people call values, but that don't really help you make these key decisions in life, which to me is the whole point of having values. yeah and i want to circle back to that there's a lot in what you said there but i did want to also ask other than the fact that it's a proven format why'd you choose i'm curious probably as an author as much as anything why'd you choose the parable with the dude named jake uh yeah jimmy yeah i was like wait jake there's a jake in there too the the i actually didn't think it would be an interesting book to read if I was wrote a book like on values and I'm like, I don't know, value.

3:36So I'm like, I got to kind of show this. And I love Pat Lencioni's books. He read it for me. He helped me with the title. Bob Berg's a friend. He also kind of read it and gave me feedback. And I was like, look, this is a big risk. But to me, this is a let's show it. Let's get rid of the readers. I've had multiple people who've read this book, like friends who've gotten a pre-copy be like, I thought you were writing about me and the circumstance, right? So it just, the character allows people to reflect on their own life, their own decisions, see how it looks. But then again, you're explicitly told at the end or what you're seeing.

4:12Did you find it harder to write? I mean, it's like the difference between nonfiction and fiction almost. Yeah, I think in terms of writing, you need less of an outline, like a little bit. The free flow writing is a little easier and it's fun. But the structural... So one of the things is I have in this book, I have some time sequence stuff. And I screwed it all up. People reading the things and you say a year ago and 12 months ago and looking back. And then you forget, what did I say about this character? And did they come in? And I'm like, is there software you keep track of your character's development and what you've said and the timing?

4:54That's actually a whole different skill. And so to me, that's why you have good editors and people kind of look at it. That's the software is a good editor, right? But if you're actually really developing characters, you've got to somehow keep some character profile as you go through the book and remember what you said and what you kind of didn't say. But it was hardest thing I've done, but it was fun. Is there a place in the book or a value or a lesson where you're just like, I'm not going to sugarcoat this. Everybody screws this up. Here it is in your face. Yeah. I think I said it in the book, or I think Jack says it in one of his lessons with Jamie.

5:32I don't think family is a core value. And I think a lot of people say, oh, family is a core value. So for me, again, if it's a core value, it shows up in your family, in your leadership, in your work, and in your friendships and all that stuff. So I think family can be your top priority. But when I really push people on this, I'm trying to figure out how do you show up for family? Because how you show up for family is probably how you show up for employees or friends or you don't, frankly, right? If one of your values is a little more like skip the emotion, right? That's probably how you show up for your family.

6:06So when you get people to realize that, that maybe the value is something like always be there or be the first one there or something like that, then they're like, oh, like, that's really cool. Now, I actually see that in multiple areas of my life. But a lot of the things I think the If you ask most people, my values are family and integrity, and those both fail the tests that are in my book. I have at least six definitions of integrity that I've heard. And again, this was one where there is a discussion in the book. What is the behind that integrity? What is it? Your word is your bond. There's something deeper that sort of drives your behavior.

6:43And that's more helpful to understand that. Yeah. And you certainly take the one word answers, the values as PR, you know, kind of to task. Well, they're just not helpful enough for you to make a decision. Yeah. Right. If I say process or discipline, like I, you know, that's different a little bit than always maintain discipline. I can say, oh, in the same way with company values, I say you should be able to sit down with John and do his performance review and review the values. same thing personally. I remember arguing with a company in the nonprofit space. They were like, our values celebrate diversity.

7:20And I was like, I don't like that value. Why? I'm like, I get what you're... Because I'm not going to sit down and be like, John, you did a really bad job yesterday at celebrating diversity. It's just not a natural conversation or in hiring. What you might have said is, hey, you didn't include all perspectives or you didn't really listen and make people feel welcome. That is a much more, both companies and individuals fail this. One of the tests of the value is, can I objectively rate myself on it? Because that's how you know if you're doing it or not. And that's how you know whether you should make a decision or not.

7:56Yeah. So you're attempting to actually make the word tangible. It's almost like, how do you measure it if you can't make it tangible? A concept that's, I know when I'm doing it, it's measurable. I talk in the book about the big three, the most important decisions we'll make in our lives or our partner, our community, and our job or vocation. The community, I think, is one that's really overlooked by people when they don't realize. If you live in a community that does the opposite of what you want to do, and not that you can't. I can go hike every day out of my house, but there are communities I can live in where that's the default behavior.

8:31And in my community, the default behavior is everyone goes to the bar, right? I'm much more likely to do the default behavior. So I think those big three will not work and you will have failure if they're not aligned to your values. And so they've got to be understood in a way you can do that. I was recently helping an employee through leadership thing, the values, they were going through sort of a relationship breakup. And after we sort of solidified two of her values, she was like, God, I just, my, my ex was the opposite of both of these. And I was like, yeah, that's, that's hard. Like that's a really, you can be off like maybe with one value, like with your partner, if it's like an opposite magnet on all five values, that's a lot of stress energy in your relationship.

9:16You know, over the years, you've heard me talk a lot about marketing systems. Today, I get to share something really special. My daughter, Sarah Nay, who also happens to be the CEO of Duct Tape Marketing, just released her first book. It's called Unchained, Breaking Free from Broken Marketing Models and How Small Business Can Finally Take Control of Their Marketing, Lead with Strategy, and Scale with AI. I know, a mouthful, right? But it's everything we've learned taken to the next level. In fact, we're even calling it Duct Tape Marketing 3.0. As a dad, I couldn't be prouder. But I want you to check it out at dtm.world slash unchained and get ready to take your strategy to a whole new level.

9:59So I think one of the challenges people really have, I've seen this is, you know, if I put somebody in a room and say, you've got 25 minutes, go write all your values down. Most people can't do it because a lot of what we do, because so much of what we do is either, I think, driven by our circumstances or driven by our default reactions. So how do you, I mean, is there no room, it's like, here you are, you're fully baked, that's your values, you know, good luck. Or can you actually identify them, become more self-aware and then adjust them to maybe what you want to be from a value statement? So yes, no, yes.

10:37That was a really long question, wasn't it? No, but I got all the pieces. So yeah, I don't know if it's no, yes, no, yes, but I'll go through it. So I think your values are actually mostly baked at transformational periods of life. And for most of us, those are our young, teenage, childhood formative years. And actually, when you really double click into it, most people are going for or against as a value. They are trying to double down on something that was important or there was something they hated. They had a parent that ran away or whatever, and they are going to be always there, what I said before.

11:13So I actually think when you figure them out, you go back and you're like, oh, all this stuff makes sense. Now they can change, priority can change, like some things happen, but it has to be something pretty significant that happens, like maybe a health scare or something that changed or reprioritized one of your values. And I think that, so that's kind of that context. And the process I build is to design like behavioral-based questions to look across these life experiences, look at all the things that are consistent when you're happy, when you're in flow, when things are going well, what is frustrating, what is always hard, who are the people you fight with, and start to pull those DNA things out.

11:56So they can't really be aspirational. In some ways, it's who you always have been. And to your last point, and I think it really ties to leadership, these drive who you show up as a leader. And it can be a strength or it can be a weakness. And the difference is you've got the wheel or like there's a second wheel in the car and someone's driving it. So here's, you know, a common one I've seen in some leaders. They have a core value or why of relationships based on trust. And if you dig into that, most commonly, there's been a huge violation of trust in their life. So so this person's orienting factor is to figure out whether people can be trusted or not.

12:34This is true in work and leadership and friendships. and if they don't know that, what happens is a mess that you see of like with HR where they're constantly like putting people in the penalty box and not telling them you're a few minutes late for something, you missed a presentation, suddenly you're not being talked to, you're not getting any assignments. This is someone who it's driving their behavior and it's not doing it in a good way, right? Now, the same person who understood that and it hadn't been like, oh, geez, like trust is really important to me. We'd go back to their team or people And they said, look, John, welcome to my team.

13:09I'm Bob. Just so you know, trust is really important to me. And when it's lost, it's really hard to get back. And here are the types of things that actually showing up to meetings, not being able to find you, missing deadlines. They sort of trust. If at any time you're feeling me being sort of aloof or distant, there probably has been a breakdown of trust. And like, you should come talk. That's. Yeah. Who has that much self-awareness? there's a small level of leaders look in our company when the people did this work they would go back and they would give a presentation to their team and they would kind of say this is who I am like unabashedly and they're kind of happy about it because we're not asking them to change we're not asking them at 40 years old or whatever like you're pretty baked at that point but no to your point most people don't and so they are leading from these things I can't tell you John how many times I have seen in.

14:02So because we do a lot of this work, a lot of core values. I know people's childhood stories, all this stuff. We like pretty deep stuff over the years. Can't tell you the time I've seen two adults in a business context arguing about something. And I'm like, this is both of your childhood shit. Like I know it is like you, you're, you didn't feel heard. This person grew up poor and thinks like you should watch every penny. And this fight over the budget is because you think he's not listening to you and you think she's wasting money. Like, and I've just seen how much of this stuff we bring into the workplace and our leadership.

14:37So the question is, again, are we going to, do we want that awareness and drive the wheel? Because I'm not telling you to change. I'm just telling you to understand it. Yeah, I think that's, I mean, I really think that is a key. I think getting somebody to change is sort of a. No, you can't get anyone else to change. But it's a kind of cool thing. You're saying, look, this is who I am. That's okay. It's pros and cons, but I'm going to own it. Right. And I'm going to I'm going to just go with it. But also understand how you show up to other people and why they're reacting to you. I mean, that's that to me is what, you know, like early on when I started, you know, running my company and having employees, you know, I thought that they needed all the answers from me.

15:16And so anytime somebody asked me a question, I would just blabber the answer. And at some point in time, I realized that was actually hurting the relationship by not empowering them. It was like, but that awareness actually changed my behavior. Yeah, that is really at the end of the day. Are we aware any strength can be a weakness, right? And I think that's the, if you overuse it, it'll become a weakness. Okay, I'm going to ask you a terrible question. Yeah. Are there any default values that you're just like, you're not a good human being if you don't have these and you have to bring them to your leadership or, you know, you can't play?

15:51I think, look, so this is why integrity is not a good value, because these are kind of the table stake things, which inherently no one wants someone who's not integral. Right. But there's some things we could argue about. Like, do you want someone who's who's grateful or not grateful or self-reliant or self-reliant? Look, in our business, Acceleration Partners, we were a fast or are, but we are fast moving ad agency that requires sort of decisiveness and decision making a willingness to do that. It's actually not a great fit for someone who probably has a value of that's always like always get everyone's perspective and take it slowly and carefully.

16:31those aren't bad values but those are take it slowly and carefully is better for someone wanting to work in like a nuclear facility than in a digital marketing agency like I want someone who wants the ability to make a decision and I own it and like those are the things so I think these things are context specific in some cases obviously there's some like liar like there's some things we could declare generally bad but it gets a little more nuanced yeah Yeah. So I know there's some examples. In fact, I think in the book specifically, the storyline has, you know, like big event that like somebody who's like, oh, I now like this was a life changing moment.

17:14But I would say it's more common that you even call it compass drift, that that people kind of slide slowly down and then eventually go like, how did we get here? How do we avoid that? Was there a moment that, you know, even in your own business where you feel like your company drifted off course in a similar fashion that gave you the ability to write about it? It actually it was kind of the opposite where like we were kind of growing fast, but it felt rudderless and all over the place. And actually clarifying my core values and then coming back and narrowing the company core values and aligning our policies around that was really like the gasoline on the fire.

17:55In fact, my pretty unique core value of respectful authenticity is a direct line. I think the last time I was on talking about our whole initiative to eliminate two weeks notice, you know, and sort of change that process. Like, I think like I think you should tell people the truth. I think you should be direct. But I also think you should support people. Right. So that that sort of was the the connecting factor. The big moment for me, actually, the epiphany was three years ago, someone was reading my bio for speaking. And I realized that every single thing they said in my bio came after I had figured out my core values and made all of those changes.

18:35So it was it really pulled all the pieces together. And I just felt a lot more confident and doubling down on certain things and saying no to certain things. Are there some like historic failures, values gone wrong, business sagas that you think could have been righted? You know, Theranos, Enron, you know, those types of like. Yeah, look, that's just people saying the famous thing about Enron is like the things that they were saying, like integrity, we're a team, whatever. That's not what they, this is company values now. It's not what they actually rewarded. You actually at Enron, you know, probably got promoted for being as aggressive as you could, making as much money as you could, stabbing someone else in the back.

19:24Similar at Theranos, like, like whatever it takes to get it done and cheat and steal. Like, that's probably the value. So, you know, had those people been a little more clear? But look, their values were probably, you know, Elizabeth Holm value is very like, like be famous. Right. I mean, I think she had a deep desire to be famous and well-known. And she's still a narcissist to this day. I mean, having a baby to stay out of jail and getting married while she's just all about her. So if she was super honest with that and told people about that, a lot of people would probably be like, I'm going to work at a different company.

20:01But you've got a lot of people saying something different. My actually better example of personal core values, this is an HBR post I'm writing, is the two founders of Basecamp. You know, they Jason Fried and David Heinemar Hansen, DHH, they have just always done things their way. They have not raised VC money. They have stayed in a small segment. They work remotely. And they've called SAS stuff stupid when it needed to be called stupid. And they have a hundred million dollars, probably make 10 million dollars a year. They call the hustle culture dumb. But in 2002, in the peak of, we'll just say, kind of woke and corporate activism, they decided no more politics at their company.

20:44They personally felt they don't like things that are divisive and arguing. They just were like, we don't even want to work here. This is not what we want. And this was a very personal decision that aligned to their personal values where they said, this is not what we want. And so they made this decision. They told people that they could leave. And a value's decisions usually cost you something. I think this is the piece that we leave out. And so they lost 20 % to 30 % of the company. This is before Elon Musk bought Twitter. Everyone was using Twitter to try to cancel them, put them out of business.

21:17Funny thing happened though. Their business kind of stayed stable. The 30 % of the people took the buyout and left who wanted corporate activism at work. And they're like, we just want to be a software company and build good software. applications went really crazy from people who didn't want politics at work and didn't want to be sort of forced into positions. Everyone told them they were on the wrong side of history. Fast forward now, they have their best engagement ever, highest revenue, super happy, all going great, companies doing well. A lot of the companies that veered into this for virtue signaling years ago and made a mess, like not doing so well, right?

21:59Boeing comes to mind. They were spending a lot more time talking about all kinds of other stuff, but safety as their planes were falling out of the sky. So now everyone's, they're on the right side of history and they have tons of goodwill, but those decisions are usually really scary in the moment and to be proven right. That's why people put them off or don't ultimately make them half the time. You don't get any credit when, I like to say, when your values and the stream are going in the same direction and your boat, you don't get any credit, right? You get credit when your values and you turn the boat upstream of the current and you're willing kind of to say the opposite of it everyone else is saying.

22:40Robert, I appreciate you stopping by. Again, the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there anywhere you'd invite people to find out more about your work, connect with you? Obviously, pick up a copy of The Compass Within. You can do all of that at robertglazer.com or compass-within.com. I know some people like doing this work is, you know, there's a course that seems like a lot. What I said is I've taken the six questions from the book. So at robertglazer.com slash six, there's six questions like just go there. You can get it for free. Answer them. Look at those answers for half an hour and see if like, huh, there's some stuff I didn't expect to see here.

23:15And maybe that gets you a little more curious about kind of doing the full process. it's always fun again appreciate you stopping by hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road robert john thanks for having me