Why Radical Humility is Key to Success

John Jantsch (00:03): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Jeffrey Hayzlett. He’s a primetime television host of C-Suite with Jeffrey Hayzlett and executive Perspectives on c-Suite TV and business podcast host of all business with Jeffrey Hayzlett on C-Suite Radio. He is a global business celebrity speaker, bestselling author and chairman, and CEO of C-Suite Network, home of the world’s most trusted network of c-suite leaders. He’s the author of four bestselling business books and we’re going to talk about his latest, the Hero Factor, how great leaders transform Organizations and create winning cultures. So Jeffrey, welcome to the show.

Jeffery Hayzlett (00:45): Hey, thank you so much for having me, John. I really appreciate it.

John Jantsch (00:49): This is my own personal question. So before we get into the book, I’m curious, where do you, with all the time you spend with C-suite leaders, where do you fall on the growing fractional c-suite industry?

Jeffery Hayzlett (01:02): I think it’s a great thing to have. You got a heart problem, go to a cardiologist, you got a muffler problem, go to a muffler specialist, not some general practitioner. So in this case, one of the things we’re seeing is that a lot of these experts can go and do lots of different things. They do this for whether it’s a box of soap, a cure for disease, political candidate, it’s all in the packaging. And so if you’re a chief marketing officer, you can pretty much sell anything, do anything. And I think it’s the same for CFOs, CIOs, CMOs, you can pretty much handle it. So I think it’s actually a good thing for a lot of businesses because you actually get some expertise of people that you normally couldn’t afford.

John Jantsch (01:41): Yeah, yeah, yeah. It comes with executive level, but you don’t really maybe need to have a CFO sitting in the corner all day. Right.

Jeffery Hayzlett (01:49): A guy like me is going to cost you a couple mill in terms of cost for full-time if I wanted to do that full-time, plus stock benefits and everything else that you get. And that’s not to say, geez, are you bragging or whatever. No, I’m just trying to give you the full range of that’s indeed exactly what it costs at that level. But if you want to get that at a fraction of the cost for this time so I can help be the most strategic person in the room, that’s a great way to do it.

John Jantsch (02:18): Yeah. Let’s dive into the book and let’s begin with the beginning. What is the hero factor?

Jeffery Hayzlett (02:26): It goes back to the time in which a guy named Rob Ryan started the hero group back in 1996. He sold his company for roughly 24.6 billion and give or take, alright. And when he sold that, he set aside a percentage of the company for every employee making the single largest number of millionaires ever created in one day. It’s never been surpassed. Even with the sale of LinkedIn to Microsoft for 26 billion, it still didn’t create as many millionaires as he did, and he didn’t have to, it wasn’t in writing or he and his wife, Terry, chief legal officer at the time, just decided they were going to give back and said, the people that helped us do what we did. So they gave everybody a set number of percentage of the company and made everybody these millionaires, and they would run up to ’em, John, and say, Hey, you’re Mr. Ryan, you don’t know me, but I’m the night watchman.

(03:16): I can send my kids to college. You’re my hero. Or I’m the security guard, or excuse me, the janitor and my wife’s mother is dying of cancer, but now she can live because she can get the operation. So you’re our hero. And they didn’t think much of being about being a hero, they were just trying to do the right thing. And what they did was they put people above profits. And that’s really what hero leaders do. And we see that today where hero leaders, leaders of company put values at the top of their list of all the things to do rather than bottom line operational rather than just being in terms of single-minded focus around a theme or organization or a cause. But to really truly look at the people and all that they’re representing in the company and serve those people, what they do is they gross more money, they net more money than the competition. They have employees who are happier, they have employees who are more engaged, customers that are happy and pleased and meeting conditions of satisfaction and vendors who want to do business with ’em. It just goes on. And so that’s really truly what I hear our leader is all about.

John Jantsch (04:24): So you’re not the first person to suggest this idea of strong values manifest in an organization, but for a lot of people it’s sort of just an academic exercise. How do you instill these values so they’re not just nice to have, they really exist and we enforce them and it’s part of the culture?

Jeffery Hayzlett (04:42): Well, that sets companies apart because not everybody’s going to have that. And those that do lead better. In terms of on page 12 of the book, I actually have a grid around those values and what sets people up. Are you a wannabe? Are you a do-gooder? Are you a bottom line or are you an asset company? I mean, there’s lots of different ways you can set that on the grid, and it’s just really truly, what is it you want to drive in terms of your business? And if there’s nothing wrong with an operational excellence of company that’s based on bottom line principles, bottom line, things like Walmarts and the GEs of the world, they do great products, great things, they’re just not interested in values. And they might say, oh no, we give to the community, we do that. You do that because it meets your objectives and checks it off your box. You’re not doing it because it’s the primary thing you do. And that’s the difference between hero companies. They want to be great companies. They don’t want to be assholes. And in our group, they sign a pledge that says they’re going to operate with certain principles. And I, to me, I’d like to see more companies do that. I’d like to see more people operate with greater values. I’d love to see countries do that as well because we’re going through some real turmoil right now. So that’s the difference. Not everybody can do it.

John Jantsch (06:00): Would you say there are a prescribed set of values then rather than you just have to find your core values and live them?

Jeffery Hayzlett (06:07): I mean, certainly depending on your upbringing. Alright. And your socialization, you

John Jantsch (06:12): Should steal, right?

Jeffery Hayzlett (06:13): Yeah. I mean for some that’s a value form. I mean, it’s just a bad value. But there are some companies, some people, some groups, they actually do that and that’s what they believe in. I mean, there’s certain groups we all know that’s what they do. So it really depends on what drives your own moral compass in terms of how you want to be or your own personal conditions of satisfaction. We all have to have those. I talk about this all the time. I have my set of personal conditions of satisfaction, what are yours? And even with your family or with your employees or with your customers, you have to develop what those are.

John Jantsch (06:50): Alright, so let’s say internally everybody says, yeah, we’re going to be a hero company. How do you communicate that out to the world without sounding goofy at times? I mean, maybe some cases it makes total sense, right? To say we’re a hero company and people get that. But in some cases maybe it doesn’t make as much sense.

Jeffery Hayzlett (07:07): I don’t think people who are hero companies say, I’m a hero company. I don’t think that’s the case, right? Yeah. I don’t think anybody wakes up and says this morning, I’m going to be a hero. There are people that wake up and live great values and great ways of living your life and being great business people, being a great father, grandfather and so forth, grandmother for those women out there. And I think that’s what you have to do. You have to do that. And as a result, you’re a hero company as a result, you are a hero leader. And I talk about that in the book because there’s nobody that I know that’s a hero leader says, I want to be a hero. There’s none. They just want to run great companies with great people’s doing great things. And I think that’s the most important thing is to really sit forth and say, this is what I want to be, and then what I want us to do and the scale that we want to have and the impact that we want to have.

(08:01): And I don’t think we spend enough time thinking of that. Right? On the bottom of my website, it says New York, la, San Francisco and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which is where I’m from. I’m sitting in Sioux Falls right now, but I have offices around the country and operate all over the world, and yet I say Sioux Falls, everybody says why? And then right behind that it says, because we can, and I do that because it’s an homage to my hometown of Sioux Falls, but we can do all these things in our business. Why? Because we can’t. You can choose these things and it might cost you more, it might be more time consuming, it might be harder, but you can do those things. You got to choose to make those a priority. And that’s really truly what it’s about.

John Jantsch (08:46): So a little bit of what I was getting at there is, I mean, you’ve clearly defined something that’s a competitive advantage that’s going to help you in the market that’s going to help you attract talent. So how do you effectively communicate that in a way that draws people to that same mission,

Jeffery Hayzlett (09:04): Publish your values. I mean, that’s one of the things you can do is right up front tell people, this is what we stand for and who we’re going to be. And we all know those hero companies in our community. They pay for the little league, they sponsor the symphony, they do the things because they can and they should, and they choose to do that. So one of those would be able to publish those and say, this is the values that we live by. And I’ve seen some great companies that do that. And by the way, you don’t have to agree with ’em either. You can disagree with them. I mean, let’s take Truitt, my mind escapes me a second, I’ll remember it in a second, but he’s the Kathy Truitt, the head of Chick-fil-A has certain values that they believe in. They’re upfront about those values.

(09:47): They don’t open on Sunday because he believes that’s the day of the Sabbath and we should rest. He also doesn’t believe in same-sex marriage. That’s one of his values. It’s out there and you can believe you agree with him, disagree with him, but those are the values. He puts ’em out there. And he also makes a really good chicken sandwich, right? With a pickle on it. I mean, no sauce been very successful. And as a result, by publishing that, pushing it, he attracts a certain group and doing a certain thing his way. That’s it. You agree with that or not? On the other end, you’ve got Howard Schultz from Starbucks, who is by the way, completely opposite on the political spectrum of Mr. Truett, but yet they operate in a certain way, certain form, and you could agree or disagree with that. And yet they’re very successful.

(10:35): So the key is to be able to really and live the values. And that’s important because you think back when I use it as an example in the book where two black men walked into a Philadelphia Starbucks and the manager said, if you’re not going to buy something, get out. We all know this, John, and you’ve gone to Starbucks, we’ve all gone to four bucks or five bucks, whatever you want to call ’em. And you walk in there and you can sit there all day and work in there and never buy a thing. That’s right. Because it’s really a place for community and it just happens to sell coffee and all this other stuff. And yet here was two black men sitting in this inner city, Philly, waiting for a business partner to come by or somebody they were pitching or something along those lines.

(11:17): And they were going to get coffee. They admitted that they were going to get coffee, but the police came, kicked them out the whole bit. It was a very big controversial kind of thing. And Howard Schultz shut the company down for a day and said, we’re going to go back and relive our values. We’re going to teach people again. This is what we are. We’re a place of community. You don’t have to buy anything to come in here because that’s what’s made us successful because we’re a meeting place for people to come together, and as a result, we sell coffee. And so I think those are really great things. So living the values, if you live those values, then people will see that’s what you do. It’s a slower way to get customers sometimes, but nonetheless, you get customers for life.

John Jantsch (11:55): But I think it’s a great point too though, because we’ve probably all seen companies that say, this is what we stand for, but then their actions sometimes suggest otherwise, I’ll use your Chick-fil-A example. A lot of airports are not very happy with them not being open on Sunday. And in fact, in some cases have said, you have to be. And they said, we’re willing to not be here. I mean, that sends a pretty strong message, doesn’t it?

Jeffery Hayzlett (12:18): I got to stand up for him. I mean, listen, I don’t appreciate his views on same-sex marriage. It’s not my belief. I don’t like that. I got a cousin who happens to be gay, and I don’t particularly care that they wouldn’t recognize my cousin’s partner. I don’t like that. But they still got a good chicken sandwich. And I know my cousin still goes there and eats as well. By the way, in this country, you’re entitled to your opinions. You’re entitled to your beliefs. Even though I might not agree with them, it doesn’t mean I can’t eat your chicken sandwich. All right? So it just means on those things we choose to disagree, but we’ll still be civil. And it’s okay to have that. By the way, politicians should learn that right now.

John Jantsch (12:58): Yeah, there’s actually a case to be made for a little polarization in your marketing if you’re going to stick to it, because the people you’re talking about are probably extra loyal to a company that maybe shares their values. Let’s talk about, we’ve been talking about physical spaces. Let’s talk a little bit about how this plays out in the digital world that we live in now, where increasingly we’re not interacting with individuals and companies. Is there something to be learned in terms of new techniques of communicating the hero factor in this

Jeffery Hayzlett (13:31): Increasingly digital world and breathing it? If you’re online or offline, you still have your own values of what they are, and you still should put those through, and they should come through digitally as well. That doesn’t mean just because you’re not there and face-to-face or you’re not communicating that by broadcast or by advertising. Certainly a brand is nothing but a promise delivered. If you’re delivering that promise online, you’re still delivering those same core beliefs and values that you believe in terms of being a hero club.

John Jantsch (14:00): How would you suggest this? There are a lot of people that they don’t necessarily treat their employees different than customers, but they view them different obviously, than customers. But I’m guessing that the hero factor doesn’t care. In fact, maybe starts with being a hero to your employees first.

Jeffery Hayzlett (14:19): You try to be, it’s hard for us because as business people, we’re always put customers first. We’ve been taught that since back in the seventies and eighties, when those books were there, who was it that came out first? Tom Peters customers always right. If customers ever wrong, reread rule number one. So we’ve grown up with that and know that to be true, but to serve the people that you’re going to serve, you have to make sure that those serving are treated at the same level. And we sometimes cut a little corners with that. And we have to go back and remind ourselves, I need to treat you in the same way I treat them because you’re an extension of me. And so most hero leaders do put their employees first.

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Jeffery Hayzlett (16:18): Well, the biggest problem is that 53% of the company don’t even know what the values are in all companies, I think operate with some level of value or value system. But if a majority of your own employees don’t even know what the value system is, you’ve already behind the eight ball before you begin. So you got to really start there. And it’s not easy. Trust me, it’s not easy, especially with new employees, new ways of doing things. The post covid world where everything’s been speeded up days, weeks, became months, became years. So it’s been very difficult to do that. And we’re not having the interaction that human interaction like we have, but there are ways to get around some of that by making every meeting on Zoom or video and connecting as much as possible. So there’s better ways of being able to do it, but that’s where it’s really become more difficult for us to be able to do that. But you just have to try harder.

John Jantsch (17:11): Alright, so let’s say you’re the new CEO. You’ve been brought in to turn the ship around. And one of the things you realize is culture’s pretty pretty not good here. And you want to bring this hero concept in. How do you start?

Jeffery Hayzlett (17:27): You get together with the team that’s going to implement it, and you say, we have to come up with some great values. We have to say, what is it we’re going to stand for as a company if we know that a brand is a promise delivered, first of all, what’s our promise? What problem are we solving and how is that different from everybody else? Now in that, how are we going to do that? How are we going to operate together and are we going to operate with our customers? How are we going to operate with our vendors and how are we going to operate with those around us in the community and everything else that make up our city, our towns, our states, or whatever? And so that’s where you start is that fundamental conversation. You get agreement around that and then start living to that agreement, which is not an easy thing to do.

(18:10): But once you start doing that, then it starts to happen. And then I think you also have to address John, the mood. What’s going to be our mood? How are we going to do it? It’s one thing to operate with values, but are we going to go at it by dragging ourselves the line, or are we going to run into it? And that’s really where you have to have some really hard and very transparent discussions. And then with leaders, you have to operate with what I call healthy tension. You have to have some tension and confront things when you see things and allow your employees to confront you as well when you’re not operating inside those values.

John Jantsch (18:48): Yeah, probably the biggest rule breaker, right, is the person.

Jeffery Hayzlett (18:54): Sometimes it’s tough. It’s not easy being the ceo. It’s not easy being one of the c-suite leaders. We like to think that we’re the smartest people in the room or not. Our job is to be the most strategic people in the room. And our work at the C-Suite network that we do is to help people become that most strategic person that we’re serving in that room.

John Jantsch (19:15): I probably should ask this in the beginning, but I’ll wrap us up here. What role does humility play in this leader’s new life?

Jeffery Hayzlett (19:23): I think you have to have a servant mentality to be a hero leader, without question, you have to want to serve others, whether that’s cleaning the toilets or at the, sometimes standing in front of thousands or millions on television, talking about what your company is and what you’re doing and how you’re trying to serve your community. But the core is you got to get you better. Check yourself before you wreck yourself to quote a great movie quote. And it’s important for you to look inside and make sure that you’ve got everything set up and lined up. And sometimes that takes some coaching, it takes some, obviously some ongoing education, some motivation, some inspiration, and it’s important for you as a leader to get that.

John Jantsch (20:03): Jeffrey, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there anywhere you’d invite people to connect with you and then obviously pick up a copy of the Hero Factor?

Jeffery Hayzlett (20:12): Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that. You can go to hayzlett.com, H-A-Y-Z-L-E-T-T.com, or the C suite network.com. You could find us there, and we’ll be there for all, anything and everything you might need.

John Jantsch (20:26): Awesome. Again, I appreciate you taking a moment, and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.