Ken Blanchard

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and I'm on a mission to make you remarkable.
This episode's guest is one of my heroes, Ken Blanchard.
He's the author of the one and only, One Minute Manager. This book is available in over forty-five languages and has sold twenty-three-million copies.
Ken is also the co-founder and Chief Spiritual Officer of the Ken Blanchard Companies, a leading international training and consulting firm.
His newest book is called Simple Truths of Leadership: Fifty-Two Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust. In it, he explains the concept of servant leader, which you might consider an oxymoron, but it is Ken's guiding principle of leadership.
Ken received his bachelor's and PhD from Cornell University, and a master's degree from Colgate University.
He spends time as a visiting lecture at Cornell, where he is also on the Board of Trustees.
In 2005, Ken was inducted into Amazon's Hall of Fame, as one of the Top Twenty-Five bestselling authors of all time.
As an added bonus, and something that I did not anticipate would happen, Ken tells a couple of great inside stories about Peter Drucker and Norman Vincent Peale, two more legends in management theory and writing.
If you are interested in becoming a better leader, this is the episode for you.
I'm Guy Kawasaki, this is Remarkable People. And now, explaining the simple truths of leadership, is the remarkable Ken Blanchard.
I want to take you back a little bit to 1982 or so. My hypothetical question is, if you wrote One Minute Manager today, would it be longer or shorter than a minute? Would it be a One Minute Zoom Call, A One Line E-mail, a One Line Text Message?
Ken Blanchard:
What we would do, if we were talking about it today, is talk about you can give a one-minute praising or redirection online through Zoom, or you can do it person to person. What we recommend is that you not avoid face-to-face meetings, but recognize this great advantage of Zoom, because you can be in contact with your people so much more now than we could ever, when we waited for them to have to come into the office and meet us person to person.
I think that's one of the great advantages that's come out of the pandemic, is that we can communicate so much easier. I did a session the other day with some people from South Africa, Europe, South America, India, all in the same Zoom call. I mean, it was ridiculous.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. But it's not all pixie dust and unicorns, though. Zoom and virtual meetings present a different set of challenges. How do you optimize a one-minute meeting for Zoom?
Ken Blanchard:
I think that what you need to do is make sure you're communicating with your people, and be yourself. Don't act like you're somebody else because there's a Zoom camera on you.
So, I’m talking to you now, but it doesn't seem to me that you're up in Northern California, and I'm here. No, we're right here together, and so let's talk.
Guy Kawasaki:
What motivates you in your life?
Ken Blanchard:
People have asked me, why don't I retire? I celebrated the sixty-first anniversary of my twenty-first birthday just recently, and I ended up writing a book with Morton Shaevitz, who passed away recently, called Refire! Don't Retire: Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life.
Because I saw my parents and people when they would get into their sixties, they'd head to Florida, and sit around on the beach and drink, and all that.
I just think, if you're doing what you love to do and having fun doing it, why not continue to do it, no matter what your age is? I'm not going to retire, I'm refiring, and having a ball doing it.
And then, this book is really fun.
I'm working on a book with my son, Scott, who's the president of our company now, called Leadership Legacy: It's A Family Affair. That's going to be a fun project to do.
Guy Kawasaki:
There is no question that you can definitely coin a great book title. You have got that wired. How would you say the simple truths of leadership have changed since 1982, if at all?
Ken Blanchard:
I think the big changes is that in 1982 when we were talking The One Minute Manager, it was still top-down leadership. The one-minute manager, he was making sure he set the goals, and he was deciding who to praise and all. And now, the young people, and I think the big change is, they want side by side leadership, not top-down leadership.
We wrote a revision of The One Minute Manager a few years ago, and we changed the one-minute reprimand to one-minute redirects, because that's much more of a collegial kind of thing, than a reprimand.
I think that's the big difference, is that people want side by side leadership, not top-down. It doesn't mean they want your job, it's just that they get excited that they're going to be able to participate and give their input.
Guy Kawasaki:
What if somebody pushed back on you and said, "Two of the greatest modern leaders in business aren't exactly side by side servant leaders, i.e., Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk." Are they just outliers, and you shouldn't pattern your life after them?
Ken Blanchard:
Yes, I wouldn't. I think they're brilliant people, but if you talk to people in Apple, with Steve, he was not a great loved manager. I think he still would be an important part of the team, but I wouldn't make him President.
Guy Kawasaki:
What if somebody says to you, breaking all protocols of politeness, "Ken, how do I know that your ideas will work, because you've mostly been a writer your whole career, you haven't run an organization?" To which you respond with what?
Ken Blanchard:
First of all, I'd say he's wrong, because we have 250 people working for us in our organization. And it was my wife Margie years ago, when I started to write, she said, "Ken, we should start our own organization, for two reasons. One, we can test the concepts with our people. And secondly, we'd have the same problems and issues that the people we're trying to consult with have."
We did a Zoom call, my son, the other day, with our company. We had 220 people from around the world on a Zoom call.
So I would say to them, "We are running a company, and we've learned a lot from doing it."
Guy Kawasaki:
That's a Ken Blanchard drop the mic moment right there.
If you were to tell most people the two words, "servant" and "leader," they would say that they are in direct conflict, if not oxymoronic. So how do you explain the concept of servant leader?
Ken Blanchard:
I tell you, when I talk to people about servant leadership, initially, they think I'm talking about the inmates running the prison, or trying to please everybody, or something of a religious movement.
But they don't understand that there's two parts of servant leadership.
The leadership part has to do with vision, direction, values, and goals, because leadership is about going somewhere. People need to know where we're going, what we're being held accountable for, what are the values that should drive our behavior?
That's the responsibility of the hierarchy.
It doesn't mean that you don't involve people, but it's your responsibility. If people working for you aren't clear what they're being asked to do, and what good behavioral looks like, and what's the values to drive their behavior, shame on you, because it's your responsibility.
Now, involve them, but it's still your responsibility.
Once that leadership part is done, now you turn the pyramid upside down, and we get to the servant part. And now, your job is to work for your people. Your job is to help them do anything that they need to do, to accomplish their goals, to live according to the values and the vision.
So it's a great one-two punch.
One of the simple truths in the book, in fact the first one, is that servant leadership is the only way to get both results and relationships.
Randy Conley, my co-author, a lot of times in his sessions, he'll write on the flip chart or up on the screen, ‘Results and relationships.’ And he'll say to the people, "Raise your hand, which words you think are most important?"
About 50 percent will say results, and 50 percent relationships. A few people will say, "I think this is a trick question. I bet 'and' is the right answer." And he says, "You're absolutely right, 'and' is the right answer.
Because what you need, with all great organizations, they realize their number one customer is their people. If they take care of their people, train their people, love on their people, and build relationships with them, they will go out of their way to take care of the second most important customer, which is the people that use your products and services, and then they'll become raving fans of your organization.
That takes care of the bottom line, and the profit.
See, a lot of people think that the reason to be in business is to make profit. No, profit is the applause you get for creating a motivating environment for your people, so they take good care of your customers.
Guy Kawasaki:
What's your theory about all the companies and leaders that say, "We are a customer-focused organization," because did you not just advocate that we are an employee-focused organization?
Ken Blanchard:
No, I think it's all right that they say that we are a customer-focused organization, but the question is, how do you get there? Well, you get there by first taking care of your people.
Obviously, all of the money that comes into your organization comes from your customers, so you want to be focused on your customers.
But organizations that act like it's only the customers that important, and they treat their people badly, are ending up losing all their good people, and eventually, going to hurt their relationship with their customers.
Guy Kawasaki:
Now, in this servant leader paradigm, I understand, the leader comes up with the vision, and then becomes a servant in order to help employees realize that vision. But where does the leader get the vision, to start?
Ken Blanchard:
The leader is involved, hopefully, in setting the vision and direction and values for the total organization. And then, what you do with your people is, you say, "Okay, here's what we're trying to accomplish in the organization. Let's look at your job responsibilities, and see which ones of these could help, in a positive way, impact that vision and direction. And that's what we'll start to work on."
Now, there's some other things that are maybe unique to your particular job, but once you look at that, and you set the vision with them, then servant leaders use different strokes for different folks. You don't want to use the same leadership style with everybody.
And then, another simple truth is, servant leaders use different strokes, for different folks, on different parts of their job.
So it's analyzing, "Okay, here's what your goals are. Let's look at your development level. What's your competence and your commitment to be able to do that on your own? If you can do it on your own, we can delegate it to you."
But sometimes, people are enthusiastic beginners. They're excited about a particular task, but they've never done it before. They need direction. Sometimes, they're disillusioned learners. They've worked on this for awhile, but they're really frustrated. They need both direction and support.
Sometimes, they're capable but cautious, meaning they don't want to be left alone, and they really want you to check in with them awhile.
Obviously, you hope that people eventually would become self-directed achievers, so that you could delegate to them. Once that's done, now you move to day-to-day coaching.
It's interesting, there three parts of managing people's performances, performance planning, where you set goals and objectives, and analyze their development level, and determine appropriate leadership style, there's day to day coaching, and then there's performance evaluation.
When I ask people around the world, "Of those three things, where do you spend the most time," and what do you think the big answer I get is? Which of those three you think they spend all their time on?
Guy Kawasaki:
Not the first one.
Ken Blanchard:
No.
Guy Kawasaki:
I can tell you that.
Ken Blanchard:
It's evaluation.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes.
Ken Blanchard:
They're filling out forms on their people. Why are you filling out forms on your people? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Let them fill out the forms in themselves, and you agree or disagree with them. Your job is to help them win.
Garry Ridge, I don't know if you know Garry, he's the CEO of WD-Forty, now he's the chairman, and he really ran with a lot of our concepts. I was a college professor for ten years, and I was always in trouble, because the first day of class I always handed out the final examination.
The rest of the faculty would say, "What are you doing?" I say, "I'm confused." They'd say, "I thought we were supposed to teach these students." "You are, but don't give them the questions in the final."
I say, "Now that I am going to give them the questions in the final, what do you think I'm going to do all semester? I'm going to teach them the answers, so when they get to the final exam they get, ‘Hey, life's about getting As, not some stupid normal distribution curve.’'"
Garry and I wrote a book together about what he's doing at WD-Forty called Help People Win At Work, and listen to the subtitle, A Business Philosophy Called Don't Mark My Paper, Help Me Get an A.
And he's taken that whole concept, where he sits there with his people, shows the organizational goals, goes across their job descriptions, sets goals with them.
And now his job, the manager, is to help them accomplish their goals, to help them win.
Peter Drucker told me years ago, "Nothing good happens by accident, put some structure on it."
So Garry's taken a concept that we talk about, called ‘one-on-ones, and all of his people meet with each of their direct reports at least once every two weeks, for fifteen to thirty minutes. The manager schedules a meeting and the direct report sets the agenda.
If you met with your people twenty-six times a year at a minimum, you would know them, and they would know you. Most people don't even know their people.
You ask them, "Does this person who work here, do they have any kids?" "Gee, I don't know. I'm not even sure if they're married." "What are you doing? You don't even know anything about your people. Get a life."
At WD-Forty, they do everything to get people an A, and the last time they did it, they got a 92 percent employee engagement score. Can you imagine that?
This book, I initially wanted to be called Duh: Why Isn't Common Sense Common Practice, but our publisher said Duh doesn't translate in a lot of languages, and all, so that's how the simple truths came out.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. Ken, I am not making this up. When I started this podcast two and a half years ago, I swear to God, the first name that I came up for my podcast was Duh.
Ken Blanchard:
Is that right? Yeah, you considered that?
Guy Kawasaki:
Seriously. So when I read that you wanted to name that book, Duh. I said, "Oh, my God."
Ken Blanchard:
Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
I took it as, "Great minds think alike," but ...
Ken Blanchard:
That's right.
Guy Kawasaki:
Like you, I was convinced that Duh is not a good name. But there's a part of me that regrets not naming this podcast Duh.
Ken Blanchard:
Particularly if you put ... Our subtitle was going to be, Why Isn't Common Sense Common Practice? So then, the Duh makes sense.
Ken Blanchard:
But I still wonder why, because people will say to me, "Well, who uses the concepts you talk about?" Well, only the winning companies, like WD-Forty, Nordstroms in retail, Wegmans in grocery, Synovus in financial services…
Guy Kawasaki:
Duh.
Ken Blanchard:
I'm going, "Duh."
Guy Kawasaki:
Maybe I'll change the name. I want to back up a second, though. I buy into this concept of servant leadership, but if I'm a leader listening to this podcast, I say, "Okay, I got it, Ken, I know what I should do, once I have the vision. How do I get the vision?"
Ken Blanchard:
You get the vision off of the vision of the company. That's the first thing.
Guy Kawasaki:
But who made that?
Ken Blanchard:
Hopefully, it's the top management team. What does it say in the Bible? "People without vision perish."
And there's a lot of organizations, I say, "What business are you in?" They go, "Duh." They don't know. "What are your values?" "I think they're around here somewhere, maybe on the wall."
They either don't have it, or they don't ever use it. But the great companies really have it.
In Southwest Airlines, what business they're in? They said, "We're in the customer service business, we happen to fly airplanes."
Which, their picture of the future is, that they want everybody to realize that if they want to fly, "You should fly with us, because we're the most friendly, cost-effective, all that." And then, they have really clear values, including a good sense of humor, which came from Herb Kelleher.
Guy Kawasaki:
Right.
Ken Blanchard:
I was on a Southwest Airlines plane recently, it had a rough landing. The pilot came on there, he said, "I'm embarrassed for that rough landing, but it wasn't my fault, it was asphalt." So that's the fun kind of stuff.
Guy Kawasaki:
We've discussed what it takes for the leader in a servant leadership relationship. What does it take for an employee to make that work?
Ken Blanchard:
The employee needs to be part of the team, but they're invited to be on the team by their boss.
It's we, not me.
When you look at the figures, I think it's 65 percent or 70 percent of the employees in America really don't like their job, and don't like their bosses, and I'm going, "Duh. Why is it so stupid?" It's because they don't treat their people as if they're important.
They act like all the brains are in their office. What you need to do is say to your people, "We're a team. I don't have all the answers." And a lot of people will say, "Well, you would admit you don't have all the answers? They'll wonder why you're their manager."
They will not. They will say, "Wow, this is going to really be fun."
I wrote a book with Colleen Barrett, who stepped in as president of Southwest when Herb Kelleher stepped down. She has a great saying, that "people admire your skills, but they love your vulnerability." And so, when you really ...
Guy Kawasaki:
Love that.
Ken Blanchard:
Admit that you don't know everything, rather that people go, "I already knew that he or she didn't know everything, and neither do I. But together, one plus one is a lot greater than two."
Guy Kawasaki:
And what if this employee has been suppressed for years? How do you break them out into this new kind of leadership employee relationship?
Ken Blanchard:
I think you spend more time with them. You say to them, "This is what I'd like to do. What's been your experience in the past? Was there anything that we need to help you get through? Because you might have been mistreated in the past, because most people have been."
Again, another one of my favorite sayings is that, "When in doubt, confront, and when all else fails, try honesty." Just be straightforward with your people. Talk to them as important partners and people in your life.
Guy Kawasaki:
I don't want you to think I'm a pessimist, but I have doubts that every employee or every leader can make a servant leadership relationship work. There must be some employees who just cannot take this initiative. What happens?
Ken Blanchard:
Garry Ridge of WD-Forty has a great concept. He said, "You share them with your competition."
So he said, "Obviously, this isn't the right place for you. But I'm glad to help you find the organization that's perfect for you."
You share them with the competition. You don't want to keep around somebody who's sabotaging what you're trying to do.
Guy Kawasaki:
Back when I worked for Apple, sometimes, companies would headhunt Apple. We had a saying, that when such and such person left Apple, and joined XYZ Corporation, the average IQ of both organizations went up.
Ken Blanchard:
Uh-huh (affirmative). So you were glad to get rid of them, and ...
Guy Kawasaki:
Exactly.
Ken Blanchard:
Create a problem for them.
Guy Kawasaki:
One of the strongest characteristics of this servant leader is the ability and efficacy of offering praise. So how does a good leader offer praise?
Ken Blanchard:
One of the key concepts in here under servant leadership is that the key to effective leadership is to catch people doing things right and give them a praising.
And what that really means is, Spencer Johnson and I wrote about that in The One Minute Manager, people said to me, "Ken, of all the concepts you've been teaching for years, if somebody took everything away from you but one, what would you hold onto?"
And it's the second secret of the One Minute Manager. Because so often, when people see their boss coming, they see that they're going to get hit, or they're going to be criticized, and all.
But if you create an environment where you wander around, you try to catch them, people doing things in, give an "Attaboy," or an "Atta girl," they're going to welcome and look forward to seeing you, because people love to be affirmed and love to be caught doing things, right. It's just a wonderful kind of environment.
And it doesn't mean, when you're catching people doing things right, you're letting them do anything that they want. Because another one of the secrets is that effective servant leadership gives clear boundaries. The boundaries set the goals.
We say, "A river without banks is a large puddle." So when you give people freedom and delegate to them, it's within the boundaries that you're trying to accomplish in the organization.
Guy Kawasaki:
Then that's how you offer praise. How do you exercise power as a servant leader?
Ken Blanchard:
You don't, it's interesting. When I-
Guy Kawasaki:
You don't?
Ken Blanchard:
... I won the president of the seventh grade in New Rochelle, New York, when I grew up. My father, he retired eventually as a rear admiral in the Navy, and I came home, and I'm all pumped up, and, "Dad, I'm the president of seventh grade."
My father said, "Today, Ken, is the beginning of your leadership training." He said, "Now that you're president, don't ever use your position. Great leaders are great because people trust. It's not about power. It's about a relationship."
Guy Kawasaki:
Using that theory, I can only email imagine your opinion of political leadership in this country.
Ken Blanchard:
It's really sad. I got to talk to all of the right wing Republicans a few years ago. And the first thing I said is, "Where's your vision? What do you want for this country?"
We don't have a vision for this country anymore. We don't even know what our values are. I thought freedom of speech was a value. And now, you can get clobbered for what you say and all that kind of thing.
And I said, "Then you ought to create a vision for the country, and then go to the Democrats and say, 'Here's our best shot at it. What do you think?' Because right now, you're just in a pissing contest with your opponents, and it's all about a win-lose, 'I' orientation. That doesn't make any sense." So I send a lot of prayers to Washington.
Guy Kawasaki:
Couldn't you make the case that back then, the Republican vision was, ‘get Barack Obama out of the White House’? That was there, ‘How to Make America Great Again’…get Barack Obama out?
Ken Blanchard:
Sure, and now we got to get Biden out. But the point is, who do the Republicans have? They're talking about putting up Trump again, my God. And one of the biggest problems that we have in our country, and I don't know how we take it on, is the press.
Because would you like to run for President, when they would go into your background, and find out all the mistakes that you've done, or what you've done in high school, and all that? It takes a person with a pretty big ego to want to go into that position, and we can't get good people to run.
We have to get some leaders who care about the country, are willing to take it, but the press, I don't even watch the news anymore. Because it's all about things that are going wrong, not right.
Guy Kawasaki:
I don't know if you have people watching this, and listening as we do this right now, but their heads are probably exploding, saying, "Oh, Ken, stay out of politics, stay of politics."
Ken Blanchard:
I'm not into it. That's why I say that.
Guy Kawasaki:
Duh.
Ken Blanchard:
Duh, because it's awful.
Guy Kawasaki:
You say in the book, something very interesting, which caught me off guard, which is that “A good leader should toot her own horn.” Why is that?
Ken Blanchard:
We have a saying in there, too, that if you don't toot your own horn, somebody else will use it as a spittoon. If you're not for yourself, who is?
But we want you to serve your people and all. But in the process, we want you to feel good about yourself. It's really interesting, is that people say, "Why don't people who say they want to be servant leaders, why aren't they?"
It's because of the human ego, which I say, is everything good outside, or whatever.
And there's two ways your ego gets in the way, that stops you from being a servant leader.
One is false pride, when you think you're more than, you're brighter than, "I'm smarter than."
And the other is fear of self-doubt, when you have a less than philosophy. A lot of people think, "Well, the less than, that's not an ego problem." It is, because you're thinking about yourself.
It's actually interesting, with the people with false pride, the guy who wrote years ago, I'm Okay, You're Okay, he said, "The worst life position is, 'I'm okay, you're not.'”
All the research shows that they're covering up, not okay feelings about themselves."
How do we overcome false pride, and all that? It's with humility. And a lot of people think that humility is a weakness.
I guess it was Les Lewis or Rick Warren, or myself, who said, a number of times, "People with humility don't think less of themselves. They just think about themselves."
So we say, "Toot your own horn. We want you to feel good about yourself. Because if you feel good about yourself, then you are much more willing to let other people feel good about themselves, and play a part. But if you don't feel good about yourself, you want to hide that, with control needs."
Guy Kawasaki:
I want to ask the question about imposter syndrome.
So the imposter syndrome is the concept that, let's say you get promoted, you get a bonus, you get appointed to the board of directors of a company, and you look around the room and you say, "I don't belong here. I'm not good enough. I don't deserve this raise. I don't deserve this bonus. I don't deserve these accolades. I'm an imposter. These other people deserve it, but I don't." So it's the feeling that you don't deserve something you got, as opposed to, "I have to bullshit these people."
Ken Blanchard:
You have a self-esteem problem. And I would work on that first, because as I said earlier, my mother said, "Don't you ever act like you're better than anybody else, but don't let anybody else act like they're better than you. There's a Pearl of goodness in every human being, dig for it."
And I think a lot of people need to dig for the pearl of goodness in themselves, and get off of this thing, that I'm an imposter. If somebody wants you to be a leader, say, "Thank you. I'm going to try to do my best, but I can only do it with your help."
Guy Kawasaki:
I would sure like to know the Ken Blanchard Hall of Fame of, "These are great servant leaders. These are people you'd should aspire to lead like."
Who's in that list? I bet it's a short list, but who's in that list?
Ken Blanchard:
I have to think about the people who have led the companies I mentioned.
With the Wegman family. I knew the founding Wegman, who founded the company, a tremendous human being.
Jimmy Blanchard, who was the president for over twenty years of Synovus.
They won the Best Run Company by Fortune so many times, they asked him to stop applying.
And the Nordstrom brothers, I got to know them. They were very amazing humbled people.
Herb Kelleher, one of the most fun, humble people I've ever met, started Southwest Airlines.
All of those people that I think about.
Truett Cathy, who started Chick-fil-A, I wrote a book with him on the generosity factor, because they're the most generous group of people that I've run into.
So I just think that the people who rise to the top are eventually people that are humble, and people look up to.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you have a Hall of Shame that you just shake your head, and say, "Duh, what a loser?"
Ken Blanchard:
There's a lot of them out there. We don't have to name them, or where they're located.
Guy Kawasaki:
Just give me two or three. Okay.
What is the difference between resisting change, and resisting control?
Ken Blanchard:
I think that resisting change means that you're not living in the world we have today, because it's full of change. And if you're constantly resisting it, you have a really tough life.
Resisting control is something that a lot of people are concerned about, is that they want to get involved, but they don't want to be told what to do. They don't want to work for a boss who thinks that all the brains are in their office, and they don't want to be controlled.
They want to be a partner. That's one of the things that we're talking about now more, is that leadership is a partnership relationship, not a superior subordinate.
Can you imagine that word, "subordinate," subordinary person? What an awful term. That's ridiculous.
I don't feel strongly about that at all.
Guy Kawasaki:
At an extreme, you say that's even true in the military?
Ken Blanchard:
Yeah, my father was really interesting. He had twelve LCIs in the Second World War, and the Pacific, and after the war, all the commanding officers who were still alive would come to our house for a weekend.
And they just come and tell me about my dad, and how he just made them all feel like they were a part of the team. And that he wasn't the smartest kid in town, that they were in this thing together, and all.
So I just think it's just true. If you really want people that are on your side, it's got to be we rather than me, and one plus one is greater than two.
Guy Kawasaki:
Just out of ignorance, what is an LCI?
Ken Blanchard:
It's a Landing Craft Infantry. They brought in the Marines and the, in those days, frogmen, the SEALS, into the beaches of the Marshall Islands, Saipan, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, and all.
My dad was an interesting character, was a real model for me. He grew up at West Point. His father was a doctor at the Military Academy, and he loved West Point. He sat in the back at the great graduation speech, saw Jim Thorpe, one of the two touchdowns. and he wanted to go to West Point.
His father said, "No, son," when he graduated high school, "I think you should go away to school." He said, "If I can't go here, I'll go to Annapolis."
He went to the Naval Academy, graduated in 1924, and they didn't need Naval officers in 1924, because the world war ended in 1922. After his senior cruise, they dismissed him in January 1925, he went to Harvard Business School, and majored in finance, and then went on to Wall Street, and built his career.
He's about to be made a vice president of National City Bank. In 1940, he comes home, and I'm one year old, and says to my mother, "I quit my job today." She said, "You did what?" He said, "Yeah, I quit." She said, "To do what?" He said, "I rejoined the Navy."
She said, "You got to be kidding me." He said, "Didn't I tell you when we got married, if the country ever got in trouble, I wanted to be there? Hitler's crazy, and the Japanese will be in this soon." But here he is at forty, going in, and they made him a second Louie, and put him in Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Pearl Harbor happens, look like he's going to stay there, because here he is in his forties, but no experience. That wasn't my dad's style. So one of his classmates had stayed in, and was a top guy in the Bureau of Personnel for the Navy in Washington.
He called him and he said, "John, I got to get the action. What do you got for an old fart in the action?" He said, "Ted, let me look into it," and a couple of days later, he called back.
He said, "Ted, unfortunately, the only thing I have for a guy with your little experience, is a suicide group going into the Marshall Islands." And my dad said, "Of course. You got your man."
He didn't tell my mother, 70 percent of his men were killed and wounded. It was really right in the action. So he was a pretty amazing guy, and ended up retiring as a rear admiral in the Navy, because of all the decorations he had gotten.
I tried to follow in his footsteps, but I had flat feet, so I failed the physical.
In those days, that the Naval Academy thought if you had flat feet, you'd be tired all the time. And my eyes weren't twenty-twenty.
When I went to Cornell, I got in the Air Force ROTC. Then they gave me the exam, they kicked me out of that. So I finally decided I was Four-F. I was too fat to fight.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, man. Okay.
So what happens when a servant leader catches an employee doing wrong? We know what to do when you catch them doing right. But what happens when you catch them doing wrong?
Ken Blanchard:
"When in doubt, confront," and when all else, finally, you say, "I was observing this, and I got some concerns about this in terms of whether that's going in the direction we had talked about. Do you agree?" And most people will agree, and all. And you say, "Okay, what can I do to help you get back on track?"
So you redirect their energy. You don't fly in.
A lot of people are seagull managers. Somebody makes a mistake, and then they fly in, they make a lot of noise, dump on everybody, and then fly out.
No, I don't think that's what a servant leader would do. They would confront and say, "How can I help you get back on track?"
Guy Kawasaki:
You are the master of metaphors, I have to say.
Ken Blanchard:
Thank you.
Guy Kawasaki:
A good metaphor is a sign of intelligence, that's my theory.
Ken Blanchard:
Well, I think another thing that we really need, my father said is, "Keep a sense of humor." He always said to me, "Ken, take what you do seriously, but yourself lightly." And I think that's a very powerful thing for people to learn, and to laugh and enjoy.
We even laugh about mistakes you make, so other people will laugh, but at WD-Forty, Garry said that "there's no mistakes anymore at WD-Forty, there's only learning opportunities."
So people will come and say, "God, boy, do we have a learning opportunity today.” What do we learn from it? It's improbable stuff.
Guy Kawasaki:
Zooming out a little bit, based on your theories and your sixty books, including this one, this is a four-box question, okay?
I'm going to ask you the same question for, what changes if you are a female boss, what changes if you're a female employee, what changes if you're a black boss, and what changes if you're a black employee?
Those are the four boxes.
So box number one is, you're a female boss. What's your advice?
Ken Blanchard:
I would say about all the four boxes, let's stop putting leadership into categories.
The concept of effectiveness applies whether you're black, white, female, Asian, male, whatever. So what we try to do is, we're doing a lot of training with people who want to build up their diversity and their inclusion and all that.
Well, situational leadership, our SLII model, is an inclusive model, because it involves people. You don't do the One Minute Manager, you don't do SLII to people, you do it with people. That's why I think it applies the same, no matter what you're talking about.
For me to say, "I'm a female and I should do it this way," no, if you're female, you ought to make sure everybody knows what their goals are. If you're female, you ought to wander around, and catch people doing things. If they aren't, redirect them, I don't care if you know what you are, is that the same concepts apply. It's not sexually oriented theories.
Guy Kawasaki:
But you don't think that a female or black employee or a LGBTQ employee, or leader, don't you think they face special challenges?
Ken Blanchard:
Well, they might face special challenges, in terms of some of the prejudice that people have, that they have to deal with, and all.
But I think that if they focus all on that, and not on what they're trying to accomplish in their role as a leader, and they say, "You probably have a lot of different opinions of me as a woman leader, maybe you've never worked for a woman before. But let me just tell you, we're going to have fun today. I'm going to try to be the best leader you've ever had, regardless of the fact that my hair is a little longer than yours."
Guy Kawasaki:
I have two more questions for you.
So the first of two is, what makes a good apology?
Ken Blanchard:
What makes a good apology is first to admit that you made a mistake, and say, “I just want to tell you, what I did the other day is I did all the talking, and I kept on cutting you off and all. And I just want to apologize for that, because that's not the way I want to be. And I really need your opinions as much as anybody else. I hope you'll forgive me for that, but I do want to apologize."
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay.
Ken Blanchard:
And confront. When all fails, try honesty.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay.
My last question is, you mentioned his name earlier. Let's suppose that you and Peter Drucker go into a bar, to have a drink.
Ken Blanchard:
Yeah?
Guy Kawasaki:
What would you agree on, and what would you disagree on?
Ken Blanchard:
My experience, in my times with Peter is, I didn't disagree with anything he said. I thought he was one of the most wise, brilliant, caring human beings, an amazingly humbled person.
And he guided a lot of the things that I said, like I said, "Nothing good happens by accident." He was a fabulous human being, and I don't think I would argue with anything.
We were on a couple of programs together, and it was so much fun, just to be there with him, to be on the same stage with your guru. A lot of people don't want to admit that they have gurus, or leaders.
Are you kidding me? I wrote a book with Norman Vincent Peale, who wrote The Power of Positive Thinking, and he was eighty-eight years old at the time.
Norman just taught me so many things. He was the one that said, "If you're not your own best friend, who are you going to be? Feel good about yourself. Positive thinking wasn't just about your people, it's about yourself."
He and Ruth taught Margie a lot, and they really helped us take a look at our faith, too, which was a non "religious" type. It was about love and about appreciation, about support.
I'm eighty-two now, and he died in 1995. I'd like to be able to have another thirteen years, and hope I could still make the impact that he had. He and Ruth just impacted us so much, and she died at ninety-one.
And when she was ninety, she said, "I understand a lot of different things that are happening in China." And she took a trip to China to find out what was going on over there, at ninety. Can you imagine?
But what Norman said, "When you stop learning, lie down, and let them put the dirt on you, because you're already dead." Isn't that a great thing to remember? "When you stop learning, lie down."
Guy Kawasaki:
I will tell you that I don't, it must have been fifty years ago I read this, but I read The Effective Executive, and I read Management, the Drucker books, and they were huge influences on my life.
Ken Blanchard:
That's right.
Guy Kawasaki:
The Effective Executive is something I would recommend to this day.
Ken Blanchard:
Absolutely.
Guy Kawasaki:
I don't think it's ever been bettered. I also want you to know, Ken, I truly do believe, that I'm not saying, when you die, but I think you're going to be mentioned in the same breath as Norman Vincent Peale, and Peter Drucker, and Ken Blanchard.
I mean that, there's no question, that you're in that category.
Ken Blanchard:
I hope so, I feel very blessed, and it's interesting. I think I told you that my college professor said that I should be an administrator, because I couldn't write.
It just turned out to be just so much fun, and because I just don't know how to make things really complicated, because I don't have that kind of complicated mind. I'm a simpleton.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'll tell you, when I read this book, I was stunned. So on the left side, there's a sentence, on the right side. There's one page that explains that whole thought, and that's it.
That is a beautiful thing, that discipline, right there.
Ken Blanchard:
That's right, and there's twenty-six on servant leadership, and twenty-six on trust. And it's been great working with Randy Conley, especially with being, he's been with our company for twenty-five years, but he's built his own reputation in the field of trust.
Guy Kawasaki:
Ken Blanchard, to put it mildly, duh, you are the man.
So thank you very much for sitting down for our podcast.
Ken Blanchard:
I've just enjoyed this. I think that you're a good learner, and I'm just glad you enjoy having your own show.
Guy Kawasaki:
Duh, this has been just fabulous, for meeting one of my gurus. Thank you so much.
Ken Blanchard:
Thank you. And where did you get all that gray hair?
Guy Kawasaki:
I have four children.
Ken Blanchard:
To be honest, I don't have any gray hair.
How many kids, four?
Guy Kawasaki:
Four, yup.
Ken Blanchard:
That'll keep you going. I got two, and five grandkids. So that's fun.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, wow. Well, you got grandkids? That'll be a whole 'nother level.
Ken Blanchard:
Yeah, I bet you're right. If you got a successful marriage, you married above yourself.
Guy Kawasaki:
There's no question about that. My theory is that behind every successful man is an amazing woman, so ...
Ken Blanchard:
That's for sure.
Guy Kawasaki:
So that's Ken Blanchard, and I hope you understand the concept of a servant leader. What a great idea.
May you be one, or may you work for one, or may you become one. Servant leader. Remember those two words, not an oxymoron.
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and I'm on a mission to make you remarkable. Today, it was with Ken Blanchard.
My thanks to Jeff Sieh, Peg Fitzpatrick, Shannon Hernandez, Luis Magana, Alexis Nishimura, and the drop-in queen of Santa Cruz County, Madisun Nuismer.
Aloha, and mahalo.