Sean Delaney and you're listening to What got you there? What got you? There is a must follow for entrepreneurs, creatives, high achievers and change makers. Each week, I sit down with some of the world's most influential people and focus on the journey behind their success. We uncover the strategy, tactics and routines that helped them get there. Now it's your journey, so it's time to learn what's gonna get you. They got there with Sean Lady.

What got you there with San Delaney? What got there with Sean Delaney? What got Teoh? You want to change the world, make your bed, make your bad and and the whole idea was Start with the little things, the things you can control, the things you could do something about. And then when you do that little thing, then you could do another thing. Another another. You make keep commitments to yourself. That's in your circle of influence. And we can't do anything about what's happening to us at large. We could do a little bit about in our environment, you know, in our world and our in our circle of influence. But we got to keep our focus in that inner circle of influence. And as we do that it will expand and grow.

Steven Covey is a New York Times and Number one Wall Street Journal, bestselling author of The Speed of Trust. The One Thing That Changes Everything. He is the former CEO of the Covey Leadership Center, which under his stewardship became the largest leadership development company in the world. Stephen personally led the strategy that propelled his father's book, Dr Stephen R. Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, to become one of the two most influential business books of the 20th century, according to CEO magazine. Making Change Transpire? That's the mission behind the most amazing tasting protein bar brand, taking the nutrition industry by storm that brand there M. C T Co. And they make the most delicious Kato friendly, all natural collagen protein bars. If you're obsessed with the quality of food going into your body like I am,

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Hey, Sean. I'm doing great. How are you?

I'm doing well, like we like we were just mentioned. I mean, this is a unique time. There's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of questions. So we're recording this on March 31st and you're someone who's been in leadership roles almost their entire life. You've been around difficult scenarios, and I would love to just get your perspective and your pulse on what you're doing right now. During these times of uncertainty, just toe have some normalcy. Just toe. Make sure you're handling this situation the correct weight. So, do you have any perspectives? Ah, or ways and approaches you're going about today?

Yeah, Well is changing by the day, isn't it? And and, uh um, because there is so much uncertainty right now, and so I'm tryingto and kind of be, uh, on optimistic realist. And, you know, Jonathan front the reality of what's happening to us in our society and and how it's impacting all of us. And yet at the same time having the hope and the optimism that we can and will get through this. And I'm reminded a little bit Sean of, uh, in Jim Collins book, Good to Great,

where he talked about the Stockdale paradox he called it, and the idea that it was Admiral James Stockdale who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam and to survive many years of the prisoner of war. And then he observed, At the end of it, he found kind of the that, you know, the prisoners of war, that we're pessimists That's didn't do as well because they didn't have hope. Those that were, you know, the really optimists. At some point, I lost hope when when their optimism wasn't realized and he said that people did the best for kind of the rial s that that's knew that we were not gonna get out immediately, but that we would ultimately get out. And that's how I feel is we're going through this is that it's hard to know how long this is gonna last and the impact of it. But I am confident we will triumph over this and we'll get out and will come out and will be stronger for having gone through it,

even though it's it's painful and tragic in many situations, with some of the illness and this suffering in the death. But we will get through it. I just don't know when. And but to keep that hope and yet the same time confront the reality of what's facing this is very is very significant and as destructive as anything that we've ever faced in our lifetimes. Yeah, that's kinda how when viewing it is Aziz Ah, as a optimistic realist.

No, I I love that framework and so many times were unwilling. I want to say to embrace the harsh realities, and this is one of those times you really need to to embrace that and understand that you bring up Jim Collins work. Have you been going back recently looking at examples throughout history of people overcoming adversities? Or is this just top of mind for you from Jim's work there

that was talking about? I am but at the same time, I have looked at some of this, and I looked at, uh ah Winston Churchill in World War Two and when he became prime minister, and them and how he, um, was very much a realist, but how? We also spoke the truth. And they confronted reality to use my trust language. You know, he rather than skirting it or burying his head in the sand or not telling the British people what was happening, he would take it head on. And, you know, he'd say The news from France is not good and,

you know, But he also said no, we will prevail and never give up in this type of thing and little fights. But he But he addressed it directly. And as I look back at, uh, some of the great learnings and insights in crisis and crises through history, um, you know, your greatest, uh uh, your greatest asset during a time of crisis for leader is your credibility and your greatest current C is the trust that people have in you. So you don't want to do anything to squander that credibility or lose that trust. And so, by being able to kind of confront the reality. Even the difficult things were tough things.

And that's the Jim Collins. You know. We're not gonna get out right away, but we ultimately will get out. You know, that was that stock go paradox, um, and then and then to talk straight about it, to be transparent about it. I like how in Amy Edmondson of Harvard Business School, she said. And during a crisis, no transparency is job one for leader. You got to be open and transparent and talk straight because if you don't do those things people start to say one of two things there say, Hey, they're not telling us the truth or they don't know what's going on And they're not capable,

incompetent ahead. You know this and we want to convey. And we're gonna always tell the truth, even if you don't like the truth, and then we're gonna bring in the right expertise and skills and knowledge to be able to navigate this and get through it even when we don't know what's gonna happen. So, yes, I have actually been looking at some examples of ah leaders, and Churchill comes tomorrow kind of one who was able to confront the reality, talk straight, be transparent and yet still have hope and optimism and perseverance.

Yeah, it's funny. The past week I've actually gone back and reopened Churchill a few of his books, But the leadership skills that trust he's in still with people around him really helps help those people during those times. I'm wondering, though, this is so unique. The people in those leadership positions we can even let's just start right now with small businesses and unfortunately, the number of leaders who have to let people go. How do you handle that scenario?

Yeah, it's very difficult. And, um no easy A through it. My experiences this how we do what we do can make a profound difference. And so we have to confront the reality, and a reality might be very difficult. And if I'm a small business and my revenues have dried up or you know or dramatically dropped sets that the business model doesn't work right now, and if my sources of cash also have bright upsets that I'm running out of cash, I might be forced to do things I would never otherwise dio to survive in orderto you know you have it ongoing business and to be able to hire great people. And so sometimes, you know, sometimes I've seen businesses collectively, uh, take pay cuts. Um, other.

In other cases, though, that's not enough. And there has to be, ah, people that go. But how we do what we do could make a big difference. And so the more we can confront reality, take things head done and then and then talk about it. Here's our situation. Here is what's happening to us. Here's why this is a problem. Here's our cash flow situation and and so and then and then. It's also a little bit of a two way process of trying to listen to your team into your people, and she'll respect for what you're hearing, and we treat and then,

you know, But we're talking straight about it, and so if yet the, you know, let people go. How you go about doing it makes a difference that you do it with respect. You do it with compassion, with openness, with transparency and and also with the with, you know, great respect for where, how you treat their contribution, and also what you're hoping for in the future can happen. It's a new world right now for most leaders, and so there's no easy way out of this. And so that would be.

My main advice is, is, uh, we have to do hard things, and the way that we go about doing those things can actually help us build trust. People may not like what they hear from us, but they can learn that they can trust what they hear from us that will keep that currency of trust. You know, a zahau were operating as a leader, and that will make a profound difference going forward. So that would be my main inbox. I is do it with great, uh, respect and compassion. But the same time we've got to be open and authentic and real and transparent versus skirting the issues of agent avoiding

that etcetera. No, this is This is absolutely fantastic. This is unbelievable insights and and feedback. And what I appreciate about you so much is I liked only have conversations on this show that are going to stand the test of time. And even though this is, you know, unique circumstance were in right now, these lessons they'll stand the test of time. So I I love hearing about this last one about the current scenario are in. But what about the people not in in those leadership roles in those leadership positions? How do they handle this uncertainty? Are there any mindsets, any frameworks that they can just be living out right now to help handle this?

Yes, I again a very difficult situation for for all of us and for people in that situation that you're describing it art in the leadership roller position and feel very much, you know, buffeted by all these forces hitting them. And and so my main advice would be, um, what I learned from my father in in his his work on the Seven habits of highly effective people. And that is that, um, that there's the circle of our concern, the things that we're concerned about, and right now, it's never been bigger or greater because of what's happening to us with this crises and and, um, all the impact that that as on us and potentially the loss of jobs to potentially less of a important things that we have grown accustomed to or used to contributions were trying to make. So the things that are happening to us is are short lived. Concern inside of that circle of concern is a smaller our circle of influence.

And those are the things that we can do something about. I can't do anything about de, you know, global situation. I can do a lot about my willingness to practice social distancing in my willingness to help others do the same. And so and I can't do ah whole lot about necessarily whether my company is gonna have layoffs. But I can do a whole lot about what I'm going to try to do to build my capabilities and my knowledge and my skills during these difficult times. And I might have some downtime in which I'm gonna try to do I develop myself and to enhance myself into groaned it up. The more I spoke us on my circle of influence, the larger my circle of influence becomes, the more I focus on the circle of concern all these temporal things that are happening to s. And right now it's hard not to. But the more you focus on that this Muller my circle of influence becomes and I feel less empowered by so much more empowered when I focus on that circle of influence. So I love how, um Animal William McRaven, former commander of special ops special operations,

how he wrote that book. He gave a talk, and then he you went viral and wrote a book on this. It was a commencement speech, university commencement speech, University, Texas. And he says yes. He says, If you want to change the world, make your bed, make your bad and and the whole idea was start with the little things, the things you can control, the things you could do something about. And then when you dio that little thing, then you could do another thing.

And that another another. You make an keep commitments to yourself that's in your circle of influence, and we can't do anything about West happening to us at large. We could do a little bit about in our environment, you know, in our world and our in our circle of influence. But we got to keep our focus in that inner circle of influence, and, as we do that it will expand and grow. And then the tendency of most of us is that we focus on our sort of concern. We can become more reactive, whereas when we focus on our circum influence would become proactive. And then it expands that in my main advice. And that's sounds easy, But it's very hard to dio. We all know that that be that's important for all of us, including leaders focused within our circle of influence. And watch that circle expect.

Yet it's funny you on that. You and I seem to be thinking along the same lines right now with regards to Churchill and then in my my weekly Momenta Monday newsletter. I actually just shared William McRaven speech just because I thought it was so pressing at a time like this. And one of the words that I want to highlight that you just brought up multiple times was empowerment. And when you're concentrating on that circle of influence, it's unbelievable. The amount of empowerment you have. I've just noticed for myself during this time of uncertainty, sticking with routines, working on some projects that have been on the back burner for months, I've really been able to dive into, and when you get those little wins, those little successes that empowerment just builds in uses. So thanks for bringing that up. But let's rewind the clock a little bit. I know we've been talking about current things. I'd love to shed some light on what you were like when you were younger. Are there any lessons? Are early things that you did that you think have just stuck with you throughout time?

Well, many and a day. I grew up in a great home, so I was fortunate. Blessed do you have, Ah, wonderful home life with a father and a mother, Um, who taught me so much and and I learned a couple of things. It's stay with me to this day. When is back to this whole idea of the circle of influence our circle of concern? I learned that from my parents and for my dad in particular. Who? No. If ever I were to complain or gripe and say, Hey, you know,

I would be in high school and I say I got the worst teacher. I'm gonna learn math. When I got this lousy teacher and my dad would say you're responsible, complained your teacher. Don't figure pointing blame is gonna be up to you. Why don't you go meet with your teacher, talk with your teacher or maybe meet with other people? But you are responsible for your learning, not the teacher. And you know, I wanted to drive. I wanted to complain and when the finger point. But he's saying no, you're being reactive. Be proactive. You,

your own resourcefulness and initiative to make things happen. There's one example another oneness is This is where this is one of the areas that I ended up going into as my life's work, this whole idea of trust and I learned the power of trust and really like you descent of empowerment, of being empowered. I learned this again from my father when I was just a young boy. Just that, um, you know, seven years old and and my my father asked me to take care of our lawn, our yard and we had a big lawn, a lot of grass toe take care of. And this is back in the day before automatic sprinklers. She had to manually do it and everything, and he said, Son, your job is green and clean,

and that was the whole idea. Those results words that I want the long to be green. I want it to be clean any any Trained me for two weeks again. I'm a young seven year old boy trying to learn how to do this. And he trained you how to do it and gave me the responsibility. After two weeks of training said, Okay, Senate, your job, your green and clean takeover. And and, um And I remember, you know, the 1st 4 or five days I did absolutely nothing on the lawn. And this was in the middle of the sun. For Sean.

It was it was a scorching heat in the longest, turning yellow by the day, even by the hour, because it was just so hot. And my father wanted to kind of just take that the responsibility from me, the trusted. He gave in to me and and say, You know what? You're too young, you know? I'll handle myself, but he didn't do it. He stayed with it, and we've built in an agreement that once a week we walk around to see how we're doing. So I'd be accountable to, you know,

the job that he was given me, and so he said, Son, while we walk around Seattle, we're doing and again this is five or six days into it. I've done nothing and and, um, I walk around and I said, You know, I started to cry and you know And I said, Dad, this is just so hard And then he said, What's hard time? You haven't done one thing yet. But Sean, what was hard was me learning to take responsibility and take initiative.

And my dad had trusted me, and I had not yet kind of risen to it. But he stayed with the trash agent. He didn't abandon it. And I said, Dad, will you help me out? He said, Hey, I agreed to be your helper By that time I said, You have time, Dad, he says, I've got time. So I went in to the house I brought out to garbage sacks. I gave one to my daddy,

went to me, and I said to my dad, Hey, will you go pick up that garbage over there because it makes me wonder bonnets. And he said, Okay, I'll do it on your help her. And at that moment I saw that my dad was responding to me. I was a seven year old directing my death, what to do, And he was doing it. And I said to myself, Wow, I'm responsible. This is my job. And I hardly had have they asked for help The rest of the summer took responsibility for that job,

and it became the yard became green and clean. And as I look back on it, you know, my dad would tell that story, uh, to talk about stewardship delegation or win win performance agreements. But I was a seven year old boy. I didn't know what those words meant. Here's what I and he was a seven year old, I felt trusted. I felt my father trusted me and I didn't want to let him down. It inspired me. He brought out the best of me and helped me develop myself for my skills and my responsibility, and I reciprocated. That tries to get it back to him, and is I reflected upon my life?

As I felt like what I had to add, I felt this press what I had been given as a gift was the greatest inside and learning to my life because of what being trusted domestic people to be trusted is the most inspiring form of human motivation. It brings out the very best in all of us. That was me as a seven year old. Imagine what trust as Wimmer trusted as 27 year olds and 37 57 77 year olds. It brings out the very best in Olive s. And so it was from that learning being trusted as well as in my own personal experience of, you know, when we merged our companies and suddenly he had low trash and they had to build that trust back, I gotta emerged from that and said, Trust is such a big idea and yet we're hardly talking about it. We're assuming that we're taking it for granted. It matters enormously, and it is learn herbal and I personally experienced it. So, you know,

those are a couple of just little inside it's and learnings for my youth that have served me and actually gave, you know, they help me choose the path that I've chosen to feel like I have something to contribute to the world, and it's all about this idea of trust, and I learned it directly firsthand

from my father. Yet it's pretty much a profound learning at age seven there. Ah, and you mentioned that That is laudable. You can prove on this. So I'm wondering all the experience that you've had around trust. How do we as a leader, how do we help those that we wanted? Still more trust? And how do we given that leeway there? There's that fine balance, right? Between giving them enough room to to fail, make mistakes and then also showing them the ways to improve upon that. How do you balance that out?

Yeah, it is a great point you're bringing up because, you know, if you trust too much too soon, too much risk, you know, you get burned, it can. It can be a disaster. You go too far and, you know, and not everyone could be trusted. So it's not a one size fits all. But also, if you don't trust enough and you don't empower your people, your team, you won't develop them.

You won't inspire them. And and and you'll be too dependent upon yourself what you can do. So you're trying to find that bounty net. That sweet spot I call it smart dressed, and the whole idea is that you're kind of looking at two different dimensions. The first is your propensity dresses, a leader, your desire, your inclination, your biased. A extend trusted people. Ideally, you'd like that to be high, a willingness to trust people because you'll see possibilities that you would never see otherwise if you have no willingness and openness to trust people, but you've got to be smart about it, and that's where the second dimension I call analysis that flows out of your your head.

See that propensity to transpose from your heart analysis? Suppose from your head. And now in the analysis, as you're looking at, what's the situation? You know what? I'm extending trust on West, the risk involved in west, the credibility of the person or the people involved. And then I'm using good judgment as to render trust and how much to trust and trying to set people up. Teoh win in this process so that I can extend more, trusted them in the future. So they developed themselves my father, when he taught me to take care of the art green and clean, you know, the risk was pretty low.

If I if I didn't do it, the lawn gets yellow and that's not a good thing. But it's not the end of the world, you know. But there might be another situation in business where you might be trusting someone too much too soon. They're not ready. The risk is too rate. If they don't do well with this, maybe it could sink the firm. That wouldn't be smart to extend trust too much, too soon to some of them where they're not ready. Maybe too risky at the same time. In many situations, people are so much more capable and ready and creative to take on more than they're given. And they don't get the opportunity because we're not trusting people. So we got to find that sweet spot.

It's not a one size fits all, but I think one of the great things right now is happening in our current environment with this, um you know, crisis with with this pandemic. But I also think like you said, in any environment you know, beyond the pandemic, Yeah, these air time is principles. The whole idea of of being able to trust people, toe work from their homes. No remote work. Right now. We're doing it because we have to do it. But it's a great extension of trust if you think about it. And,

um so we need clear expectations. Need agreed upon process to accountability to those expectations. And when you do both those things clear expectations agreed upon presence for accountability. Your ability to extend trust abundantly goes up. And right now with remote work, it's a great opportunity for leaders to extend trust intentionally and deliberately to your people and rather than just being forced into this and then still micromanaging them from afar, what if upfront you were to focus on an agreement around expectations and accountability and and then be explicit and delivered er, about saying, I trust you, I trust you to work from home not just because we have to, but because I choose to trust you and we have clear expectations. You have accounted, buddy. Here's a great opportunity right in front of us, and this could transcend this pandemic. And as we get through this,

we might find that there's all kinds of opportunities where we can extend more trusted people in a variety of situations. the remote work is just one. There might be many others, too, and we kind of grow in this process of learning how to be smart in the extension of trust and what it does to people and how did inspires them and brings the very best out of them. That's probably, you know, it's a long wave of describing this, but in short, it's the idea. It's a smart trust rather than a blind trust. So we're trying to use our best judgment, good judgment, and then we're always trying to extend trust with kind of an agreement in place around expectations and accountability. If you do that, well,

then it's the agreement that governor. And it's not you having to hover over and micromanage and quote Snoop revised. You know, their every movement activity. Instead, they are being accountable to what you agreed to when they report back to you, and it feels different to people, and that's the opportunity we have right now with what's going on in the world. But also that will transcend. As for me, emerge out of this crisis, this is a great way of leading by extending trust your people

well. That's fantastic. And please feel free to take the long winds approach here. I'm taking so many notes because there's so many amazing nuggets you're bringing up. So So please continue with that. Ah, question, though I have a around trust is say say we're young business and obviously, you know, the importance of speed and speed comes with trust. How do we balance between hiring people We know very well that we can trust explicitly over competence. So say we're choosing between two people. One we don't know it all. They're highly competent. There's someone we know and trust with everything that we have. But they might not be as competent. Do you have any advice on how to balance that and decide there?

Yeah, I am again. You're very riel, John. With that, the dilemmas you bring up because this is this is very well, You might feel like you know, someone. You trust them, You bill with them, you're not question their gender, their their motive. And yet, maybe they're not quite sure about their skills or capabilities. Their competence. And and so this is it ongoing process of learning to hire for both character and competence, both sometimes people higher for competence,

but they end up firing for character. And, you know, we just say that they get let down and that's not sufficient. But the other way is not sufficient either, if it's if someone has good character, but they're laughing the competence that might not be sufficient. Here's the thing. The competence is tied to the job to be done. None of us er, competent and everything. So we have to just say, Look, in a changing world where everything's evolving, can this person learn? Are they good learner?

And are they capable of learning, running fast and and changing and adapting because everything is changing? And so, rather than just looking at, have all this experience and, you know, because that might be something I have 20 years of experience, but it might really be one year of experience that they repeated 20 times, and you know, But you know, the real question in my mind is are they learning on the growing of the improvement of the getting better? Can they learn and the adaptive and responsive? And that's the kind of thing that we need in a changing environment in a disruptive world and even beyond the pandemic. It's a world of change and disruption everywhere, so to be agile, to be adapted to be responsive.

And when you can trust someone that they get along well with others. And if they have enough competence that they are a good learner and they can apply and learn and recreate and reinvent, then it may be that you're saying we can learn the skills and the confidence is we can develop it that as long as that's in them the basic capabilities, so the competence does matter. I don't want to downplay that because that's part of how you keep the trust ifs. Someone could be honest and really carrying and not able to deliver, and in that case I might trust them to watch my home because they're honest and caring. But I might not trust them on the key project. The key client, the key deliverable if they can't perform. So I've gotta have the competence to as well as the character you can learn to higher for both character and competence. All I'm saying is on the competence look more to their track record result books in the past and and um, and then also to their their ability to learn and their and their ability to acquire knowledge and skills and to adapt into responding to change and to work well with people as a means of saying hey, in a changing world, that they have those confidence, he's even if they're lacking some of the specific areas of expertise,

I might be able to train them that that expertise because they prove it there. A fast learner, you're a good learner, and that can help you feel in gaps and, you know, and go with people that you feel that you can trust. And so, But I might expand trust to say it's not. We don't want to just trust the character. We also need to trust the competence so both character and competence are vital to sustain the dressed.

You bring up such a group Good point there, And it's not a one sided coin saying you said a few minutes ago what none of us are competent it everything, and it makes me think of those times, even even for myself, when I've been asked to take on a role that's going to stretch me and those moments of self doubt all kick in, right? Like a my capable of this. Can I take on this role? I know you've been thrown in roles like that. So how do you handle that? When you have someone to ask you to take on a bigger role, You know, it's gonna stretch what you're capable of and that self doubt can kick in. How have you handled that?

Yes, this has happened to me a few different times. It's part of, you know, Is this it with that? Um, your podcast, Sean, what got you there? I didn't put in places. I mean, it happened to me when I was seven years old. That was a minor thing, right? But a seven year old has a big job, take care of the are green and clean, and and I wasn't quite ready for it,

but my father worked with me to help me develop myself. I've had other opportunities to where I've got put into situations where I felt overwhelmed. Like, how can I do this? And so I come back to saying if I can focus first on me, my credibility and I look in the mirror I look in the mirror first I start with myself and and I'm, you know, do I trust myself? Do I give to my team a leader who they contrasted? It's smart to trust me. And so there are focusing on Botham. My character, my competence and I'm tryingto build like myself, develop myself, feel that sense of self trust because think about it, Sean,

If I don't trust myself, how am I going to build trust with others and how, however, is gonna trust me? I've got to start with that self trust. And so I look in the mirror and I focus on my integrity and, you know, and making sure I'm clear about what I value so that I could be true to my values. And, you know, honesty is where your your where your words match reality integrity is when your reality matches you your words you are are who you say you are. So I'm trying to say Here's what I stand for Here's what I'm about These are my values is what matters to me Now I live Trudeau. That s integrity that gives me clarity in in power. That's you know Admiral McRaven make your bet. That's that's the first step. The second is I look at my intent.

What's my motive on my seeking mutual benefit when we're do I care about others and that they win? So, yes, I want to win, But I want everybody. I'm working with the wind. Mutual benefit is the only sustainable approach in an interdependent reality. And so I'm trying to just check my motive and my agenda win win in my motives, I care. I care about my people. So when I start with that integrity and that intent integrity of being true, to who I am and my values and, you know, honest, truthful and intent is, I care about people and I'm seeking mutual benefit that gives me a sense of clarity and power.

But then I then I focus on my competence, and the confidence is kind of two halfs my capabilities and my results. So my capabilities are my talents and my skills and expertise and my knowledge and my style. And the key here is that I'm always learning, growing, improving, stain relevant, So I'm constantly saying, Okay, I've been dress into a new role. Half it develops a new skills. I'm gonna need to bring in some people that have those skills. That company meant me for my shortcomings. My witnesses. I love what Peter Drucker said. He said.

Learn Teoh, Um, feed strengths and starve witnesses. And the best way to do that I know is the leader is toe. Surround yourself with a complimentary team where your strength compliments, other's weaknesses and and your witnesses air complemented by other strength, so that you you you build a team that can compensate, and then you try to get you. You try to grow in areas of weakness where it matters to grow. And again we can't be perfect at everything. But we try to build enough capability in the areas that matter for the kind of leadership were providing. And so that's kind of the third and the fourth dimension is then my results, my track record, because that gives people confidence when they see that I deliver a performer come through. If I did it in one area and it gives them confidence, I could do it in another and in another and so forth.

So I've given you four areas of what I call I call these the four cores of credibility, and I use a metaphor. But tree if you, our listeners, will envision a tree, you have the roots of the tree, the trunk of the tree, the branches and the fruits. Those 4/4 of credibility, um, are, you know, illustrate it are illustrated through the tree. Integrity is the roots of the tree intent is the track and a genuine in template form our character and we try to build that that gives us itself confidence capabilities is the branches of the tree. And the first of the tree is results our track record of performance, and and,

um, And when I have strong capabilities and growing capabilities and a track record results, I feel a sense of self confidence again. And that helps me trust myself and therefore trust other. So I always look in the mirror. I started myself. I focus on my credibility and what I can do about growing increasing enhancing that credibility. And with that, then I feel that since that Admiral McRaven talked about made my bet and I feel a sense of confidence going forward, I don't have to be perfect. I surround us up a good team. But I could move forward with confidence and see great things happen. And I find the best leaders do this. They lead from the inside out and then look in the mirror. They start with themselves.

Well, this question started around being being thrust into a role that's going to stretch you and you hit on results there. And I love learning from people with hands on experience. So I'm thinking about when you were thrust in the roles CEO of Covey Leadership Center. And during that time, what I'm so impressed by is your ability to grow profits 12 4 fold to over 110 million. So I'm wondering when you first take that roll on what are some of the other things? Maybe not necessarily these huge pillars. But are there any little things you might have changed or implemented that you thought had profound impacts?

Yes. Um, we here's our situation. When I took over, we'd being growing to add a good value proposition. But we were not very profitable, you know, very, very low margins. We had good growth, high growth. We had no outside capital. We had a lot of debt. Now do the math on that. It's not looking good. That's your hydro off with low margins, No outside capital,

a lot of debt. Our debt. The liabilities are tangible Debt. The total liabilities ratio was 223 to 1 were completely upside down, and the bank at the time was ready to pull our line of credit. And so what came to me was, you know, we needed to quickly change our business model and and figure out how to make money and what we were doing we still wanted, you know, we wanted to make sure that our value proposition for our customer stayed high. We don't want to change that. That's why we're growing. Because customers led the value were credit for them. We had not yet figured out how to make money at it in a sustainable way, and we were so mission driven. Sean,

you know, we're all about doing good and impacting people in society. It was very easy to find ourselves getting involved in all kinds of opportunities everywhere, But many of them really were hobbies. We could not never really make money at it. We couldn't get good at it. We couldn't sustain it. But we're involved in all these hobbies out there That was part of our mission, but we couldn't. But there was no margin to it. So we developed a mantra. No margin, no mission. And he said, Look, we can't make money at this.

If it's not sustainable, we can't do it because we won't be ableto have a mission. If we can't stay viable is a business. Besides, people are looking to us as a business of saying, Are you a model of what you're teaching effectiveness and building trust in the high dressed team and culture and getting results? So we had to model it and we had I'm really focused. Our business we got. We got out of a lot of hobbies, and we learned this by doing activity based costing on our business and learned where we're making many where we were not. And we had to make some hard decisions say, you know what? We're gonna get out of this business in that business, and we're gonna focus more on these other businesses where we're more profitable and where we can have a greater impact and get more margin in order to find our mission. And it was hard because people have grown a tasked A lot of these, you know,

mission driven activities. There were hobbies or we couldn't make money. But what happened is we began to improve and our margins started to go up and their profitability started to go out. We began to pay the debt off and our cash flow improves. Women after the bank, the bank liked what they saw. They ended up increasing our line of credit because now they trusted us because we're getting results and we transformed our business and became farm were profitable. And with that now, we had far greater clout and influence in a platform, really, To impact people, to have a greater mission, to do more to impact people all over the world. And so we had kind of dichotomy ized it, you know, Are we Are we all about her mission or we're just a business trying to make money And I said,

That's a false dichotomy. There's 1/3 alternative. We are our mission driven business. We are a business. We have to operate as a business. We have to make money in order to sustain our mission. But we're not an ordinary business. It's just trying to make money. We're trying to make a difference. We're trying to contribute to the world and that inspired people. And this common the start alternative, a mission driven business helped us transform our business. But we had to do a lot of hard things, including getting out of hobbies, focus on our business model, find a business model that could work and be sustainable,

while still not, you know, losing any value creation for our customers. And that was a process. But I'll tell you what. We did it as a team, and we build a high trust culture as a team we trust with our suppliers would build trust with our customers. And I talk about in the book the speed of trust. When you build trust with all these stakeholders, you move faster. There's less cost. The profits go up dramatically. They multiplied because hi trusted dividend, just like most trusted attacks and your ability to collaborate in the innovating to create and to engage your people to inspire them goes up when there's trust and with customers, you build trust with customers, they stay with you longer.

They give you the bath about. They refer business to you and referral business is the speed of trust in action because it's your customers on your prospect that they should trust you, and a transference of trust for your customer to your prospect and your prospect becomes a new customer faster and at less cost. It is a powerful, virtuous upward cycle where trust and confidence create more trust and confidence with all you your stakeholders. And that's what we experienced. It was what happened that it changed everything for a company, but it took again. As a company. We kind of had to look in the mirror as a company and say, You know, where we at what's working, what's not? And then what business is our business, and how can we do it better and still keep our mission Jack and and that was a process. It wasn't easy, but we got there and I made a profound difference.

Yet trust is one of those things that we all know it's important. But what I love is that you really codified the number of ways and the value it truly does add. And one of those value add you were talking about is building a strong culture. So I'd love to get your take as you start to scale up. Hiring is one of the more important things. What are you looking for? Ah, when someone walks in that door during an interview and you're assessing them?

Yes. Again, I'm trying to hire for both character and competence and I'm looking at, you know, do they get along well with people can. They were well with people. And I try to do that with behavioral interviewing of Tell me about situations you've been in where you had a challenge, an opportunity where you had to work with others, make things happen. How did it go and trying to see what it Yeah, they are talking. We not just I am getting credit the others and collaborating and creating versus just, you know, just heroic all about me. Because if I could get people that can work well with others as part of building a great team, a great culture is collaborative. That I'm also looking for know their resourcefulness of their initiative,

their pro activity, if you will, even more than precise technical expertise in every situation, as long as they're resourceful in it and have initiative and take it and learn and grow and improve and get better. So I'm looking for kind of those things that that demonstrates to me their character, their competence again, I can't cover everything. But I'm trying to say Can they help us build a team in a culture here? And they learn, Can they be a catalyst? Help us do this. And do they add to what we're trying to dio and and and But then But the key is so you're right hiring a key. We'll give another key building a high trust culture is we need modelling from leaders. We need people that are saying, you know, here's what we're trying to do Here is why they're giving the why behind of what?

They're declaring their intent. Sentence people get the wet. They often don't get the white Give the why. So declare your intent here. We're trying Dio here is how we're gonna do it Now we're gonna talk straight and you declare you say we're going to do so. I'm going to tell the truth, and then you model it and you tell the truth and you call things what they are versus no spinning or sugar coating or, you know, kind of twisting, manipulating posturing. And then you're transparent. You're open model that's versus having hidden agendas and, you know, you practice accountability. Expect responsibility vs finger pointing and blaming. And so you're kind of saying,

Here's who we are Here's what we stand for These are the kind of behaviors were seeking in our culture, and we then seek the lead out and model that So where and your modeling at the top were in the middle Wherever you are in the organization. No, not the weight on the boss. You can you can be the catalyst. Did you know to do that? Well, you know, it takes two to have transferred, only takes one to start. You could be the one. And when you model it wherever you're at And then when you hire accordingly to both character, their competence and both, you know gonna plays well with others and they can learn and get better. Then I beginning to build a culture. And then I do one more thing.

If I try to do my best to align my sisters and structures around the high trust culture. So if we tell people we value collaboration but a reward system, just reward independence and cup competition. The nets kind of miss alive, and so I wanted then make sure award systems have. I said, value, collaboration and interdependence and teamwork, and I want to align my systems and structures to say and we reward that, too, and it takes some time to get there. But a combination of modeling with good hiring forfeit as well as for opportunity and then a landing systems and structures enable you to build a high trust culture. We have a high trust culture. You could move fast. You could be agile and adaptive. You can respond.

You can innovate on. The data is overwhelming that high trust cultures innovate at 11 times the pace of low trust cultures, because people are far more able to take a risk, making mistakes learn, get better and improve. When there's low trust, it just won't do that. You won't take that risk, and they innovate better. They collaborate better. They're far more engaged. When there's high trust, you inspire your people, you retain them and you also perform better. The data shows that there's about three times both performance multiplier to high trust. Greater profitability,

greater value of your enterprise, your business when there's high trust. So you get all these high trust dividends. Know what it's not to like about that? It's just not easy to do. It's easy to say, but it's hard to do its simple but not easy. So we gotta focus on building that trust from the inside out, modeling it for you as a leader after your behavior and then and then building. It's through your systems and structures and through your hiring. So those are some of the things that the leaders could do. You know, in any role is an entrepreneur or even as an entrepreneur within a larger company to build high trust within your team. Your unit, your you know, your circle of influence.

Yeah, word that has come up maybe more than any in this conversation is learning. And it's something I'm doing a great deal of right now during this conversation. So I'd love to know how you assess learning and when you're taking on a new topic and new strategy, Are there any things that you do just to help you with your knowledge acquisition.

Yeah, well, I start from the premise of what if the half knife of my knowledge. But we're just a year. You would cause me to constantly be learning and recreating myself and the whole idea that I don't want to just have 10 2030 years of experience where I've just really where it's really one year experience. I'm repeating 10 2030 times. I'm constantly wanting to say, How can I learn? How can I get better? How could I stay relevant? And so the meat, that's the key. The key to learning is tied to relevance. Staying relevant with your customers, staying relevant with your market stand relevant with your own people. And that's what I'm saying is you know, um,

that this idea of extending trust is relevant as a leadership style for our day. We got multiple generations, no, five generations, you know, certainly four, um, from the from you know, the traditionalist to the baby boomers to Gen X to millennials to Gen. Z And people are looking at different things. And so we gotta we gotta make sure we have a style of leadership that's relevant for our times. Gotta learn and improve and get better. And sometimes learning to your to your question requires I'm learning and almost unfreezing kind of our old approaches and challenging and saying, Is there a better way to do things that are better way to operate? It will make me more relevant for our times. I love the expression by the historian Arnold Toynbee.

He said nothing fails like success. And he said, You could describe all history almost with that phrase. Nothing else like success and the whole idea, Sean, was this that is, in society throughout history, you'll see societies have a challenge come to them, and they learn to develop a very successful response to that challenge. To the challenge comes they have learned and built a successful response to that challenge and that it will success. But then what happens is the nature of the challenge changes and that once successful response that had worked with the prior challenge doesn't work very well with the new challenge. Hence the idea. Nothing fails our success, so we need a new response to the new challenge we gotta learn and may be unlearned what we've done in the past that made us so good and we've got to stay relevant with a new challenges. And that's what's happening. We had now have multiple generations at work in a way we haven't had before.

We have change and disruption hitting. Yes, in a way we haven't before, not just this pandemic, but even outside of that, when we get through this, just the pace of change, the amount of change, the type of change, the destruction that's hitting every industry. We have a need for engagement, need for innovation and need for collaboration in new and different ways greater than ever before. We need to inspire people like never before, So to offer a kind of how we've done things in the past may not be near is relevant today. Nothing feels like success. We need a new way of leading in a box rating that is relevant for our times.

So to operate with a style of leadership that you might call command and control that might have worked in the past is like playing tennis with a golf club. You know that the tool, your using the style of leadership, your employing is not relevant for our world today. We need a new style of leadership. I caught trusted inspire that's relevant for our times is everything we've been talking about, to stand trusted people to inspire them. And because that that brings out the best of them in neighbors, collaboration and innovation and agility. So we can adapt to respond, to change to a disruption. And we gotto constantly be improving and getting better and learning you're exactly right to stay relevant. And so it is an ongoing process. I love them the phrase expression by General Shinseki, a former chief of staff of the Army. He said,

If you don't like change, you're gonna like irrelevance. Even less, you know, is the change is hitting this. We got to stay relevant. And the key to relevance is to stay learning, improving and getting better, including in our style of leadership, the way that we lead people interact and the state relevant for our new world for, you know, for the new challenge in front of us, which is taking place today so that you're exactly right. It is ongoing, learning and improving. But I think if you can tie the learning to the idea of relevance,

relevance with your people, relevance with your customers in the marketplace. That will then have you know, a connecting point to our learnings. We're not learning, just for the sake of learning we're learning. In order to stay relevant with all our stakeholders,

you bring up such a great point. It reminds me of creative destruction. And if you're not doing that, if you're not reinventing your business model, it's gonna go out a day. It won't be relevant. Like you've said. You continue to bring up people throughout history, great military strategists. So I have to assume you're a very big reader. I love readings. I'm always intrigued by what books people continually go back to over the years. Are there any books you've continued to pick up?

Um, you know what? I I love both, uh, literature, Um because that can take you to places there. You that you know you can sometimes only imagine enables us to experience life in different ways from classics like, uh, name is Rob Lee to you know which switch to me inspires me, and it shows you again the power of of ah being trusted John Belgian being trusted by someone when his he felt his life was basically over and I was that bishop. But he stole the candlesticks for those that are familiar with the story, and seven believed in him trusted him to thio more. You know, books about business books, the traditional business books left Jim Collins good to grade. I find it's based upon principles. I tend to gravitate toward books.

They're based upon principles versus young of kind of techniques or practices, because those kind of flow in and out. But I look for important principles, you know, in the field of marketing so much out there, the whole paradigm shifted with Seth Godin and his permission marketing. And you know, that's what 15 20 years old, But such a breakthrough. It remains a plastic I'm Fredrick, right, called book on the loyalty effect, all about creating value for customers. I come back to that again. Yes, it's kind of an old when I,

you know, I know this is self serving because it is runs in the family. But my father's work on the seven habits of highly effective people is foundational for both personal effectiveness and for personal leadership development for any leader. Does it get its based upon principles and focuses from the inside out? Out. But I think you can go through. If you have a framework, two ways to look at things, then you can go through no historical books. And I like you. I also do, uh, like like history. And, um and I like to read, um,

you know, I like to stay current with what going on, but there's so much going on, it's hard to Staker. So I tryto say, you know, change is the only constant back to there's another constant in addition to change and that is principles and principles ground us. And during a time of great change in transition, people long for principle. And so that's what I traded with speed addresses, teach basic foundational principles, know that trustworthiness, centralized trust and it's about credibility is about behavior and fairness and honesty and integrity and creating value these air principles that transcend time and cultures and coming back through things like that. Help us through it, you know, to deal with the challenges that life throws us.

And so, yes, I think we can get a lot from studying history. But what I like to come back to is how, um there's all this change going on around us and we have to be responsive. We got to stay relevant with the need to constantly come back to principles in the midst of change. Gives us a sense of an anchor during a time of uncertainty. And that's why to me, some of the the plastics are so important, and I come agenda drive. We drive back to that.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Sticking with the principles that will withstand the test of time is essential throughout all elements of life. Not only times like this. Well, Steven Covey, this has been truly fascinating. A complete joy for me. Where else do you want the listener staying connected with you picking up your books anywhere we can direct them?

Yeah, I'd love the listeners. If you're interested in this, go to a speed of trust dot com speed up chest dot com because you'll find some videos there. Cem Some things for free. You can look, you can apply. We'll talk about this idea of how tres is really the one thing that changes everything. It impacts everything. We're trying to do it one level. We all know that. But as we've been discussing in another level, it is an exceptional performance, multiplayer and accelerator, an energizing for everything that we're trying to do, that it makes the second point really important. And that is that trust is learn herbal.

And in the speed address book, I kind of outlined how you build trust on purpose as a leader, as a team, as an organization, and turned this trash into your greatest friend into your currency. Trust is the ultimate currency in our world today. So a speed of trust dot com is a great place toe. Get access to some of these. Resource is also you can follow me on Twitter at Stephen M. R. Covey and I loved a engaged with our listeners and hopefully add value with what I feel is my life's work. And my calling is to try to help increase trust in our world as a means of inspiring people in organizations everywhere.

Well, there was a lot of value given his conversation, so thanks again for joining us on. What got you there?

You're welcome. Sean and thank you for what you're doing. Teoh really increase dress in the world by talking to great leaders and practitioners and helping our listeners see be inspired by their stories so they can also see that same possibility in themselves. That's what you do. So you are a catalyst, the building dress in this world. And I appreciate being a co catalyst with you would help bring about a renaissance addressed. Thanks so much shot.

You guys made it to the end of another episode of what got you there. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I really do appreciate you taking the time to listen all the way through. If you found value in this, the best way you can support the show is giving us a review rating it, sharing it with your friends and also sharing on social. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.