Returning to Episode 10: Honoring Bob Chapman: The Extraordinary Power of Treating Your People Like Family
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In this special tribute episode, we honor the life and legacy of Bob Chapman, former CEO and Chairman of Barry-Wehmiller, following his recent passing. Bob shares the defining experiences that shaped his belief that “everybody matters,” from his upbringing in Ferguson to reconnecting with his father. This episode reflects his commitment to building people-first cultures and redefining what leadership should look like. Listeners will walk away with a renewed perspective on empathy, responsibility, and leading with care.
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In this special tribute episode, we honor the life and legacy of Bob Chapman, former CEO and chairman of Barry Wehmiller, following his recent passing. Bob shares the defining experiences that shaped his belief that everybody matters, from his upbringing in Ferguson to reconnecting with his father. This episode reflects his commitment to building people first cultures and redefining what leadership should look like. Listeners will walk away with a renewed perspective on empathy, responsibility, and leading with care. Please know that our thoughts and prayers are with both the Chapman family and the Barry Wehmiller family. It takes something a little more to lead with impact. I'm Lisa Nichols, author of Something Extra, and this podcast was inspired by our daughter, Allie, whose additional chromosome has shaped how I see people in leadership. Each episode features conversations with inspiring leaders from around the world about what truly defines how they lead and serve others. If you enjoyed today's conversation, Bob, I am so honored and humbled to have you with us today. I am a huge fan. I know a lot of people are a huge fan. Barry Wehmiller, your name is out there. You guys are really transforming, I believe, the way people are thinking about leadership today. So I'm just so honored to have you with us as our guest. Speaker 1
It's a pleasure to be here, and I appreciate the opportunity to share this, calling we have Yes. To make the world a more caring place. Speaker 0
I love it. Well, let's jump right in. Tell me a little bit about growing up in Ferguson, if you would. Speaker 1
As I look back in my childhood, I would say in terms of where I've come to, my childhood was a very normal childhood. I was an average student in a public school system, wasn't really turned on academically. I I was into kind of a class clown. It's hard to believe, but I was a class clown. And so I wouldn't say that my childhood really shaped the message. So I I think it just think of me as a typical Ferguson kid who got in trouble occasionally and had good friends and ended up giving the, speech at the graduation of McClure High School in Ferguson. So, kind of, again, I think back on it. I I just was gifted with a positive personality. I've always had this positive outlook on life that's allowed me to get through the many challenges we all experience with, thinking that things were meant to be and we can learn from every experience. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Where where do you think that came from? Was I mean, I know that your parents were very instrumental in your life. Was that just Bob Chapman and how Bob Chapman was born? Or Speaker 1
I honestly think it was Bob I honestly think it was how Bob Chapman was born because I have this eternally optimistic attitude that things happen for a reason. And if we if we embrace life that way, then we learn from those experiences we had, learn more from the challenges we have than the good things we had. There's an old expression somebody told me at one time, you only grow one way when you eat ice cream. Good times do not necessarily make good character. So I would say to you, I was more challenged by the, I'm more I grew more from the challenges than I did from the experiences. And, again, my dad was I was not close to my father until I was in my early twenties. I graduated from college, and he was an accountant by background. And when I passed the CPA exam, it was the height of my dad's pride in me because it took him three times to pass the exam, and I passed it the first time. So that was Wow. The first time he experienced that. And my mother was just a supporter of mine, but I wouldn't say that either. My dad was kind of a pessimist, and my mom was just a simple Iowa farm girl. So I believe some higher power blessed me with these personality traits that have allowed me to deal with the issues I faced in my life. Speaker 0
Well, there's so much packed in there. I'm a big believer too. It's not always fun, the hard challenges, right, that we go through, but that truly is where we grow, I believe. Speaker 1
Yeah. There's no question that I look back on my professional personal career. It was the most traumatic moments of my life that shaped what my life has become. And I look back and said, thank God that I had those challenges or it wouldn't have allowed me to think and grow as I've been able to do to shape the message I've been able to embrace in this journey I've been on. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Well, I think that's gonna be really encouraging and some hope to some of our listening audience. So Ferguson means a lot of things to a lot of people. But what does Ferguson mean to you today, Bob? Speaker 1
I would say to you that Ferguson means to me good basic values. You know? I believe here in the Midwest, here in Ferguson, here in the Saint Louis area, the thing I would say to you, it's a wonderful place to be raised as a family because we have good Midwestern values. And so I would say to you, when I look back on Ferguson with a great deal but I enjoyed my life in Ferguson. We lived in a very simple house, a one bath, three bedroom house in Ferguson. It was a very normal life. Nothing unusual about my life. Two sisters. And so I would say to you that Ferguson just is the foundation for my value system. My parents were from Iowa, which were pretty simple backgrounds. And so I would say to you, there's nothing unusual in my background that would account for as kind of the journey I've been on other than good values, good Midwestern values that I think Ferguson embodies. Speaker 0
Well, I couldn't agree with you more. I do. I think the the values here are just it's salt and light, you know, really. I mean, people are just great people. Speaker 1
It's a great place to raise a family. Speaker 0
Right. So more people come to Saint Louis and start your businesses and move their businesses here. Right? That's right. So we kind of talked a little bit about it. You you became an accountant. You passed the CPA exam. Did you work for you worked for Price Waterhouse. Right? Speaker 1
Yes. I worked for Price Waterhouse. Speaker 0
Starting with Price Waterhouse. Speaker 1
And I that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to become a partner. If you ask me why I became accountant, I have no idea. As a, you know, as a teenager, I wanted to be a gentleman farmer. My grandfather was a farmer. I spent my summers on the farm. But when, I found out that my longtime girlfriend was pregnant in college and I was pretty much a barely passing student in my first year in college. I found myself in the accounting profession, you know, pursuing an accounting degree. And I went from a that's why I always say the greatest challenge, tremendous feeling of society judging you when you find out that your high school girlfriend's pregnant when you're nineteen years old. When I look back on that, it gave us a phenomenal son, and I went from a equivalent of a barely passing student in college to a straight a student who graduated with honors. I don't remember ever thinking about that that, you know, I I felt like a loser because, you know, I went and lived in a trailer court in a little mobile home and where most people live on campus. And, it clearly brought out of me something I didn't know I had, which was academic skills. Mhmm. Speaker 0
I Speaker 1
virtually got straight a's after I found out that Liz was pregnant with our child, and it clearly changed my life. Mhmm. And, Speaker 0
the pivot point for Speaker 1
you wasn't gone. Pivot point. Mhmm. But, again, sometimes you only learn when you look back at something. At the moment, I just felt humiliated. You know, what am I gonna do? And, again, I don't remember thinking this that I'm a loser and, you know, that my life is now gonna be shaped by this. My response was clearly I'm gonna make something of my life and earn the respect of my son and and be a good steward of my wife, and academics were certainly a path to do that. Speaker 0
Yeah. You stepped up. I think it's probably your positive outlook on life, though. Again, probably thinking, you know, things are not don't happen by accident. Yeah. I was just saying. Speaker 1
I couldn't agree more. I I look back on the things that have happened in my life and, and again, many challenges that I faced. And, there's no question that shapes the way I think and who I am and and and it grounds me, because I don't ever forget those experiences. Speaker 0
Right. Well, let me ask you this. Did you ever think when you were getting your CPA and you were working at Pricewaterhouse, did you ever think about being a CEO one day? Speaker 1
No. I mean, I I think my focus ever since I took up accounting in, my sophomore year in college was to be a partner of public accounting firm. Even though my dad had a background at Arthur Andersen in Saint Louis, My dad and I didn't have much of a relationship, so that was never I I didn't think a factor in my decision. But my dad had invested in the nineteen fifties about thirty thousand dollars to make a small investment in this family owned company that was struggling. And in the nineteen sixty five era, a factoring company out of Chicago that lends against your assets offered to lend the company money to retire the Wehmiller stock, some small amount of money. And my dad's thirty thousand dollars would become fifty seven percent. So my dad stepped into a leadership, you know, to owning the company, if you will, our family, in about nineteen sixty five. But I I don't ever remember any interest in the company whatsoever. We never talked about the company because the company was always challenged. Mhmm. It was struggling. My dad had poor health. And so I my aspirations was a career in public. It never occurred to me that I I would had any aspiration of being a CEO. I I wanted to be a partner in a public accounting firm. Speaker 0
But at some point, your dad invited you into the business. Speaker 1
Yes. What happened were you? Well, what happened was as I started as I passed the CPA exam, which was a momentous occasion for my dad because he was a CPA and he had taken him three times to pass it. And when he saw this son who he had mixed feelings about what I would turn out in life, passed the CPA exam in the first sitting, all of a sudden he started talking to me about business. And so he'd called me over and asked me advice and ideas and but I still wanna be a public accountant. And one day he said to me, would you ever consider working for the company? I need somebody I can trust. I had never thought about it, and my mom cried because she said, though, you'll two will hate each other, you know, if you work together. Idea. And what my dad and I said is, okay, I said, okay, dad. You're kind of a pessimist, and I'm an optimist. Well, we gotta promise each other, and this was critical to our relationship. If something's bothering you, you're gonna tell me. And if something's bothering me, I'm gonna tell you. That's gotta be the foundation. So we began the journey that way. And, again, it was so bad when we started, and my dad had a practice with his secretary of opening all the mail in the company looking for somebody who might be trying to cheat him. So that's, I mean, that's the environment I stepped into in nineteen sixty nine. It was he just had people had disappointed him, and, he didn't feel he could trust his leadership team. So I was a breath of fresh air to my dad, and I came in with, unbridled enthusiasm to bring what I had learned in my school education and a little bit of Price White House because I'd only been in public accounting two years. So that's how my journey began with my dad. Somebody he could trust. Mhmm. Speaker 0
So we talked about one life interruption. You had another life interruption when you were just thirty years old. Talk to us a little bit about that, Bob. Speaker 1
I was at dinner in Saint Louis with my mom and dad who were leaving to Australia the next day to, our joint venture in in Melbourne. And had a nice dinner with my dad. And, he woke up the next day and died of a heart attack. So at age thirty, I went from and the interesting thing is that dinner that night at the local restaurant, Steak and Shake, my dad had said to me, you know, you're kinda running the company now. I think you ought to have the title of executive vice president. That's the last thing my dad said to me, before he passed away. So I had worked at the company six years. I'd been Armin. Because my title was somebody he could trust, I worked throughout the company, and I learned I always say when you look at a clock, it looks kinda simple. You have two arms. It goes around, tells you time. But underneath that face, there's a lot of gears that have to come together, synchronize to provide accurate time. So I was given the beauty to look behind the face of the business to manufacturing and sales and joint ventures and accounting and supply chain, all the functions that I kind of my intellectual curiosity took me on. So when my dad passed away suddenly, I was ready. And the beauty is that I think my dad died in October. We were three months into our financial year, and the company virtually rarely ever made its budget, struggled, had banking relationships, but they weren't strong. They were okay. So when my dad passed away in October of seventy five, within the first few weeks, our bankers announced that they were gonna pull our loans because, you know, here's this thirty year old kid. What does he know? Yeah. What does he know? And, and in hindsight, you know, my dad passing away again, it's a little bit like, when I found out, that my first wife was going to be with child. It dramatically changed it. When the banks pulled on me and my dad died within a matter of a few weeks with each other, in hindsight, again, I said, I'm not going down this way. And I threw my energy into that company immediately. And the balance of the nine months of the twelve months, the company had the most profitable year in the history of its company. I paid back our debt. The banks all of a sudden had a new appreciation for me. So the company had the most profitable year in its history in the first nine months I ran it of the twelve month year. And the good news is that we got through the banking issue, and the bad news is I got overconfident. I had such a win so quickly that it appeared that I had kind of the golden touch, which began a journey to building this company to have a future. Speaker 0
Right. That's really interesting, Bob. So, like, what did that do to you internally? Because I've seen that happen before. If you have success too quickly, you can get a little overconfident. You can get a little prideful. Pride's not a good thing. What did it do to you internally, you know, to have that Speaker 1
success so quickly? Of confidence. Because again, to have the most profitable year in the hundred year history of the company within the first nine months of me running a company. And, again, it continued on. So the company was eighteen million when my dad died. And within four years, I took what I had learned in my MBA program, what I learned from just awareness of business, And I started some growth initiatives to give the company a future. And it looked like everything I touched turned to gold, and the company grew from eighteen to seventy two million between seventy six and nineteen eighty to eighty three. And then everything that it looked like was gold ended up having issues. And not that anybody could see those issues because we were dealing with major corporations with major initiatives and getting tremendous support. The banks were giving us support. You know, and when you've never the company hadn't grown since the nine early nineteen hundreds when mister Moe Miller brought Speaker 0
It's amazing. Speaker 1
It was an amazing feeling to talk of Saint Louis, talk of the organizations because we're just exploding with growth and solar energy and electronic inspection in Denmark and filling systems with the Miller Brewing Company and serving Anheuser Busch growth. So every dimension was dramatic. And so it you know, just like anything, when success seems to come too early, you don't learn as much from it. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 1
And so I again, very successful initiatives, but each one started developing challenges, which ended up creating the second. Well, actually, the third because, you know, my first wife getting pregnant, then my dad passing away. And now we're at fifty five million in sales, and the banks suddenly pulled on me this time in nineteen eighty three. It was much more traumatic than in nineteen seventy five Mhmm. Because we are much more dependent upon the banks, and it was a dramatic the bank that one day said to me, you're one of our most highly valued clients. We believe in you. And the next day, they said, we don't understand what you're doing. We wanna pull our loan. And it was it was dramatic. Now, again, I always say I learned so much more when I didn't have money than when I did. When the banks made it easy for me to have when they supported my growth, it all seems so easy. And I the amount of learning was limited. But when the banks pulled on me and while I was paying twenty two percent interest at the time, I'm in prime plus whatever. It was unsecured debt, but very I learned more in the nine months it took me to refinance the business than I ever learned in my life. Oh, I I wanna talk to who we became today. Speaker 0
Yeah. I wanna dig into that. We're gonna take a quick break, and then we'll be back with Bob Chapman. Speaker 2
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Well, welcome back, Bob. You kinda left us with a little cliffhanger there, and so we need to tell our listening audience. I mean, what did you do? I mean, here's another life interruption. You weren't expecting the banks to call the loan. So how did you what did you do? Speaker 1
Well, again, I'd had this tremendous trajectory of growth, tremendous awareness in this community, in our industry of this phenomenal growth from eighteen to seventy two million in four years. And with the full support of our banks. I mean, they basically told me along that journey, make sure you tell us how much money we need so you got the kind of money you need. And when they suddenly, pulled the loan because we experienced some issues with each of those growth initiatives and the related financial issues of warranty expense and inventory write downs. The very bank that, supported me in that growth was the first to pull. And so I came back from the meeting with the bank where they told us to grow. And I don't ever this is where this personality issue helped. I don't ever remember saying, oh my god. What are we going to do? I remember saying, we gotta get through this. And the responsibility of a leader in any organization is to give the people in your span of care a grounded sense of hope for a better future. Well, in this situation, dealing with the crisis I'll give you an example. I called a meeting in in in the intensity of this with our global leadership team. And, again, we had declined from seventy two million to fifty five million. But we had some operations in England. And and so people came over from England, and I had, you know, about twelve people in our boardroom. I said, well, you know, it's Saturday morning. Let's, get a cup of coffee. And my financial director said, you know, Bob, I forgot to tell you, but, they repossessed our coffee maker. We hadn't paid them in six months. And I said, you know, I don't ever remember liking that coffee. Why don't I run out and get some, and I'll be right back. So I had this positive attitude towards and we'd have crisis, you know. I remember our health care I mean, our personnel director came to me and said, Bob, we haven't paid our health care premiums to the insurance company in three months. I'm afraid they're gonna cancel on us. And my reaction was, well, if they do, we'll just pay the premiums our self, and we won't use the insurance company. And my family would say, my wife and kids, Cynthia, would say, they don't ever remember me coming home and bringing it home to them. Because, again, this positive attitude, we're gonna find a way through this. Let's just keep going and be creative. So I would say to you that we spend nine months being turned down by financial institutions. People would say, oh, well, we could lend you. You know, you've done so well. And then they'd look at it, they'd say, sorry, mister Chapman, but we're not able to lend you. Finally, we got what's called asset based lending out of a company in Chicago called Citicorp because somebody's father used to work in our shipping department, and his son worked for Citicorp. And he went the extra mile to try and make it happen. So we got refinanced nine months later with a, I always say, kinda like going in a dark alley with a guy in a dark suit with an envelope. You know? That's what asset based lending can really be traumatic. So anyway, we got refinanced after nine months, but we lived day to day on cash. We negotiated with vendors every day. Can you give me a little bit? I'll give you a little bit of money. I'll pay a little bit more. I mean, it was day to day. What cash came in? What do we have to pay so we can build things, etcetera? And we there's a whole book that could be written on what it's like when you don't know every week whether you're gonna be to pay your people for work. Speaker 0
Right. Speaker 1
So at the end of that, we've got refinanced by Citicorp. It is like having a noose around your, neck. The key I had studied a company called Emerson Electric and a gentleman named Chuck Knight, who had grown Emerson from a billion or something to twenty billion through acquisitions. Kinda mature businesses. And so I just went to my finance team after we got refinanced, and I said to my finance team, you know, I'm proud of our history, our hundred year history, but our history does not give us a future. We need to find a way through acquisitions to create a future for our people. And my finance department said the obvious thing, mister Chapman, I think you forgot something. We only have one problem with that idea. We have no money. Repeat after me, mister Chapman. We have no money. And, again, this is probably the single most important thing I ever did. I looked at my finance team, and I said, I didn't tell you I needed money. I told you we need to do acquisitions. And I walked out uninhibited by the fact that I had no money and began doing acquisitions. It's a little bit like saying, I'm gonna go shopping, but I don't need a wallet. And so what do you buy when you have no money? You buy things nobody else wants. Speaker 0
Nobody else wants. Speaker 1
But And they'll virtually finance you to buy their product. Sure. So these series of probably five or six acquisitions that I did between eighty four and eighty six, when role and then I brought incredible intensity because everyone was a life defining moment for me. Because if any one of them failed, we were dead. Because I had no room in our financial Mhmm. And the beauty is that those came together. I put them together, and the idea surfaced again in England that what if we could sell off these acquisitions in the public market and get enough money to pay off our debt and we'd have a new beginning? I thought that looks like heaven to me because I was so tired of no credibility with financing. Even the Citicorp people were tired of us. And so I would say to you that that was a transformative opportunity for me. But we began to do acquisitions to give our people a future. And because we were so broke, we brought incredible intensity to each acquisition to make sure that they work. So that's what transformed our company. Mhmm. I don't know if we had had plenty of money to do acquisitions whether we had done as well because the fact that that being your end. If if somebody tells you if you're not successful, you're going to die, you'll probably work really hard to be successful. Mhmm. So I would say to you that environment of frailty in financial terms caused us incredible intensity to make sure that these really, eclectic acquisitions worked. And it brought out creative things we did to shape broken companies to give them a better future. Speaker 0
Wow. There's so much in there that I love because that just turns everything upside down because you usually do not look for a struggling company to buy. Speaker 1
Right. But the beauty is there's plenty of those out there. There's plenty of struggling companies nobody wants to buy that I was able to buy. Speaker 0
Yes. That's wonderful. Well, let's talk a little bit. And I because I really want to get to who you are today and Okay. And who Barry Wehmiller. Because like I said, I feel like that right now, Barry Wehmiller, there's so much great buzz out there. You guys are the gold standard as it relates to how to lead and the leadership model. So I wanna get to this, but, you know, this is called something extra. So, Bob, what do you think is the something extra that every leader needs to be a great leader? Speaker 1
I'd say the something extra that every leader needs to be a great leader is what I was blessed with by some higher power, which is to see people in a different way, to see them. And and again, I think the most transformative revelation I had was that wedding story where Talk about that. I stopped Many of your listeners will have had the experience of seeing your child, wed to another child and having great hopes for the marriage. And so I was experiencing this wedding, and again, as I saw my friend walk his precious daughter down the aisle, and as he got to the altar, he said, her mother and I give our daughter to be wed to this young man. And he sat down next to his wife, with a great deal of pride watching the ceremony continue. And my mind, as you can sense, went to a different place. And I said, that's not what that father wanted to say, having walked my two precious daughters down the aisle. What he what that father wanted to say when he got older is look at young man. Her mother and I brought this precious young lady into this world. We've given her all the love that we can possibly give so she can be who she's intended to be. And we expect you, young man, through this marriage for you to continue to care for her as she will care for you so you can both be who you're intended to be. Do you understand that, young man? And all of a sudden, I said to myself, oh my goodness. All twelve thousand people that work for us around the world are somebody's precious child just like that young lady and young man. And because until that point in time, I saw people that work for me as functions. That's a receptionist. That's an engineer. That's an accountant. That's an IT person. I didn't see them as somebody's precious child. And I would say to you that that transformed me because when I realized that, it changed my whole view of the stewardship of the people whose lives are entrusted to me. Because when you think of people not as function, but as somebody's precious child, and you know that you've got them in your care for forty hours a week and that you will be the most positive influence on their life, it changes everything when you stop seeing people as functions. You know, I always say I took a management classes in college. I got a management degree, and I got a job in management. So what did I try and do? I tried to manage people. And it was always about me and my success. I was never taught to care for the people I would experience in my journey toward in my life. I was taught to use people for my success because we define success as money, power, and position. And I know many people with all three who are miserable in their lives because that is not a truly successful life. You know, it was it was interesting to me, after I was interviewed for an article in a magazine, the writer said to me, name three people you'd like to have dinner with. I'd never been asked that before, so I thought of him. And I said, well, there's a guy named Ken Blanchard who wrote a book called The One Minute Manager. He's a very man of deep faith, very simple ideas on leadership. And I thought, boy, I'd love to have dinner with Kenny. He's still alive. I said, number two, I'd I'd love to have dinner with Ronald Reagan. He he believed in the goodness of people. He had a vision for our country. He led it with simple elegance. And I said, do I get three? And he said, yeah. I said, well, then I'm going for the big guy. I'd like to have dinner with Jesus Christ. You know? What a cool guy to have dinner with. And so that was published. And this still amazes me, but within two months of that article being produced, the people I tell you about did not know about the article. But a gentleman emails me. His name is Ken Adleman. He worked for Reagan in the White House. He helped negotiate with the Russians, the strategic armed court. Ken emails me and said, Bob, I just watched your TED Talk, and Ronald Reagan would love the wedding story. And I thought, well, you know, that's about as close as I'm gonna get to Reagan. It really touched me that somebody worked intimately with Reagan for eight years in the White House, reached out to tell me that Reagan would have loved the wedding story. So that's a coincidence that I just named Ronald Reagan. And then I'm I'm at a dinner in San Diego, a leadership guru conference. And a gentleman taps on my shoulder and says, Bob, I just had dinner with Ken Blanchard. And he loved the wedding story, and he wants to talk to you. I thought, oh my god. That's number two, and I'm not ready for number three yet. And it was astounding to me that I had said that in the article and these voices came out all related to, people who I would love to talk to about this journey we've been on from success to significance. So, I would say that the wedding story is and all the talks I've given around the world, that is the one that resonates with people because we're kinda taught to use people for our success. We're never taught to care about people because we define success as money, power, and position, not leading lives of significance in response to his love for us. So I would say to you that the wedding story was the one that really helps people understand when you look at the people that you have the privilege of leading as somebody's precious child and you know you're gonna have impact on their life, profanity changes everything. Speaker 0
Changes everything. Absolutely. I love that. I love that. I'm so glad that you were able to to meet with Ken, and that's that's wonderful. So, Bob, there's a couple things that I love that you say. One of the things is people will say, you know, what do you build? What do you do? And I love your quote, we build great people. I love that. Another one that I know that I'm gonna carry with me personally, is that always look for the goodness in people. And there's goodness in everyone. There's goodness there. Sometimes you really have to look hard for it, but, you know, there definitely is goodness. So I love those two things, and those are quotes that I'm gonna take with me. But talk to us a little bit. I mean, you've been given this amazing gift. Barry Wehmiller, like I said, has just kinda turned things upside down in terms of how you lead. What are you doing with this gift that you've been given? Is there something you wanna talk to our listening audience about and how they can get more connected and learn more? Speaker 1
You know, I think a couple of things that come to mind, and one of the things that I was blessed with in this journey at Revelation was that, probably ten, twelve years ago, somebody encouraged us to do a video about our unique company, and this is when we're much smaller and much less evolved in our thinking than we are today. And it was during the, Clinton Monica Lewinsky scandal. It was during the Enron scandal. So if you go back to that environment, it's kinda disappointing for our country and our political leaders and our business leaders. So but we had been challenged to do a video of our company's success. And so the marketing team done all these nice expressions. They're getting towards the end of the video, and and they came to me and said, we wanna talk about our success growth in sales, growth in profits, growth in in customers. And the burden of kind of where we were as a country in terms of trying to look up to leaders, but these issues, developed. And a thought occurred to me that has profoundly shaped what I'd like to share with listeners. I said, you know, we just find success all wrong in this country. We define it as money, power, and position. We are gonna measure success by the way we touch the lives of people. And that became our guiding principle, measuring success by the way we touch our team members, we touch our customers, we touch our community. We don't beat up suppliers. You know? We don't take advantage of people. We are gonna measure success by the way we touch the lives of people. And that became kind of the foundation of our belief system of, the our values and everything needed to we could look at that statement and make decisions all day long about caring, well-being, stewardship because we had this now this expression, we measure success by the way we touch the lives of people. I'd also like to add that when, Washington University sent over two organizational development professors a few years back to interview me because they had heard about this, and they interviewed for me for about an hour. At the end of the hour, they said, you know, you're the first CEO we've ever talked to that didn't talk about our product. And I thought a moment, and I said, we've been talking about our product for the last hour. It's our people. I will not leave this earth proud of the machines we build. I'll be proud of the lives we built. These thoughts that developed over this period of time really shaped this feeling that we've been blessed with a leadership model that could profoundly change the world as we know it. And I believe it's the way we were intended to live and work together where people validate the worth of each other in their journey, and that successful lives are those people who serve others in their pursuit of significance. And so I I would say to you what we've done because we feel that we've now some higher power chose us to show the world the way we are intended to live and work together, where we value each other and care for each other. So we not only teach with internally how to transform managers into leaders. And, again, a lot of my leadership practice was shaped by trying to be a parent and trying to be good to the six kids we were blessed with. At the same time, I was trying to fix this broken business, which I told you about previously, which is about management, which I define management. The word management means the manipulation of others for your success. And leadership is the stewardship of the lives entrusted to you to ensure. And people talk about needing to find people, you know, good people to bring your organization. I believe it's a matter of building a safe bus, which is your business model, and then you need leaders who know where to go and how to get there safely. And therefore, anybody that gets on the bus is gonna go to a good place. So our responsibility as leaders is around people, purpose, and performance. It starts with our understanding that our primary responsibility of the people who we invite to join us around a purpose that inspires them to share their gifts fully towards a common vision, and then we have to create value. If we don't create value, we can't be good to our people. It's a continuous cycle. Not two out of three, not one out of three, but all three. People, purpose, and performance in harmony. Human value and economic value in harmony. That is the world the way it was intended to be, and we have been blessed with a model that allows us to create that for the people we have the privilege of leading, and that is our leadership criteria. And so we teach people internally in our university to care because we realized we couldn't send them back to universities because we teach management, and we need to teach leadership. So we created our own teaching content. And then from that, we learned that listening is the most powerful act of leadership. So we have taken from our university to Cynthia, my nonprofit called Our Community Listens. And we have a branch in cities around the country, but we have one right here in Saint Louis where we teach people empathetic listening in three days. Because when I thought when you cared for somebody, you went over and talked to them. It turns out when you care for somebody, you go over to listen to them with empathy, to be present, to listen to them. And finally, we decided that this message was so powerful we needed to share it with the world. And we created the Leadership Institute where we're looking for early adopters, people who believe what we believe and wanna join us on this journey so we can start healing as a country. Because when you look at our country right now with the lowest unemployment in fifty years, peace in the world, and people are not happy. We thought when we had prosperity and peace, we were giving people the ultimate environment. But what we haven't created is a world where people feel valued because we live in a society where we use people for our success instead of care for people for our success. Together, we can do great things. So we feel that we have this calling to share with the world what we were blessed with, which is a model that cares for the people we lead so that we again, we found out in this journey that the person you report to at work is more important to your health than your family doctor. Okay? And we also when we teach people to be leaders in our company, ninety percent of the feedback is how it affects their marriage and the way they raise their kids. And so we realize now that if people are not cared for for forty hours a week, it affects their health and affects their family units. So Mhmm. Business could be a powerful force for good if it simply cared about the way it treats the people they have the privilege of leading. Speaker 0
Yes. And when you think about that, Bob, truly this leadership model could change the world. Because and when you are doing that with the people that are entrusted to you, they're gonna go home. They are going to be happier at home. They're gonna have a more fulfilling family life. And that's there's just a domino effect there. Speaker 1
You know, and there's a church that I generations. I gave a speech at a church in Charlotte, and they have a program called the leap of faith. How do you go from Sunday to Monday? And this is exactly how the book Everybody Matters is how we care for the people that we have the privilege of leading in our life, whether we're at home or we're at work or we're in our community. And when you think of the issues we face today in our society where people don't feel valued, how can we ever be raising kids today when their parents come home from work not feeling valued? So I'm when my granddaughter graduated two years ago from Aspen High School, everybody else was cheering as their hundred and fifty eight students walked up to get their diploma. And I had tears in my eyes because I knew the world we were sending my granddaughter into, a world where eighty eight percent of the people don't feel valued. And my hope is that by standing up and sharing on this podcast, preaching wherever I can this caring message that we can transform the world to the way it was meant to be where people genuinely care for each other. And I just this is not an American issue. It's not a business issue. It's true in every facet of our society. People are hurting because they don't feel valued. We have customers in Russia who come over to look at our equipment and come back, and they wanna talk about our culture. They wanna bring this culture to Russia. So I believe that this is the answer to the world peace where people value each other because they feel not used, but valued. So my message is to try and share this in any way I can, and I appreciate this opportunity or interest in this message because I feel it's not our message. It's a message a higher power has given us because it it's it's a message that would heal the world as we know it. Speaker 0
Thank you so much, Bob. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for inspiring us. Thank you for your deep convictions and your willingness to stand up for what you believe is right because I'm with you. I had Speaker 1
a feeling she was with me. Yeah. Speaker 3
Our show today is executive produced by Brian Muncie. Our technical producer is Daniel Williams. Something extra with Lisa Nichols is a Technology Partners production. Copyright Technology Partners Inc twenty eighteen. For show notes or to reach out to Lisa, visit lisa gale nickels dot com slash something extra. Don't forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen.