A few months ago, our friend Simon Sinek visited our BW Papersystems location in Phillips, WI to record an episode of his A Bit of Optimism podcast with Barry-Wehmiller Chairman Bob Chapman.
It wasn’t the first time Simon had been to Phillips, WI, as you’ll soon hear and for his podcast, Simon not only wanted to talk to his good friend Bob, but other BW teammates in Phillips, some he had met almost 15 years ago.
That episode of Simon’s podcast is out now. I highly encourage you to listen to it or watch the video version on You Tube, which is almost a mini documentary.
On this episode of our podcast, we want to bring you something special. While in Phillips to record, Simon and Bob held a Town Hall for the team members there as a thank you and to recognize them for the inspiration they have been, not only to Simon but countless others.
This Town Hall is a great dialogue between Bob and Simon and it also includes a couple questions from the audience, including the high school aged son of one of our team members that is a big fan of Simon’s and was very excited to talk to him. Also, Simon and Bob talk about the 10th anniversary revised and expanded edition of Bob and Raj Sisodia’s book, Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family.
Listen to this inspiring conversation through the link in the header above or through your favorite podcast provider.
Transcript
Simon Sinek: It's a treat for me to be back here. I think it's my fourth or fifth time back over the course of whatever it is, 15 years. And it's one of my favorite places to visit, if I'm honest, beyond the fact that it's absolutely gorgeous here.
This is a reminder to me of why we are doing what we're doing, why I'm doing what I'm doing. When I met Bob, he explained what he was building. He told me about this company that he was building, and the way that people treated each other, and the way that leaders were raised to lead.
And we got rid of the concept of managing people, because nobody wants to be managed. We want to be led, which is true. And he told me all these things. And I'll be honest, I mean, good storyteller, you know? And I believe-ish, because I hear a lot of people telling me stuff, and I go see it, and it's not really true. But I believed it was a good company, and I said, I want to see it.
And I was the first person that Bob invited from the outside world to come and walk around.
And we, you picked me up, and we darted around the country for three or four days, and I think we looked, we went to a whole bunch of factories. And Bob was amazing. He said, just go talk to people. There was no, nothing set up. He wasn't with me, so it's not like, you know, the CEO is with me, and everybody's on their best behavior.
I could do whatever I wanted, and talk to whoever I wanted, and ask whatever I wanted. And after three days of meeting you, and I spent a night here, so I was with you for quite a long time. At the end, we went back to St. Louis, and I remember saying to Bob, Bob, I can no longer be accused of being a crazy idealist, because I write about what's possible.
I don't actually expect it to exist in reality, right? And I said to Bob, I can no longer be accused of being a crazy idealist if what I imagine exists in reality. I know you know what you have is special.
I know you know that. I know you know how it felt when you worked somewhere else before you got here. I know some of you know how it felt what it was like to work here before Barry-Wehmiller came in.
I know you know these things. I know you know how other people talk about their jobs, your friends and your family, and it is different to the way that most of you talk about or think about your jobs. I know you know that.
But for what I do, let me tell you who you are and what you represent is more powerful than you realize. You are a symbol of hope that most people do not have. What you have should be the norm, not just for American manufacturing, but for American business.
It should be the norm in a factory or an office or anywhere, that you come to work feeling like you matter, that someone actually cares about you as a human being. That should be the norm in America. It will be if we continue doing what we're doing.
It's not just coming here and being a part of this culture. The more you talk about it with your friends and family, the more you talk about what it's like to work here at the Thanksgiving table. Those people go home saying, why don't we have that?
That's what causes the ripples. It's not just me writing books and Bob now giving speeches. All of us are working together to affect this change, and we don't know where the change comes from or what instigates the change.
So we have to do it all. So beyond coming back, because it's been a long time, it's been a bunch of years since I've been back here. Beyond coming back because I just like coming back, I'm coming back here also to say thank you, because the work you're doing, the way you represent yourselves, the way you take care of each other, it matters so much. And you inspire me to keep fighting the good fight.
Bob Chapman: You know, since Simon came 15 years ago and said, I'm no longer nutty idealist, I've just seen what I dream of. And he said, I dream of being able to walk down any street in any city in this country and tapping anybody on the shoulder and say, do you like your job? And they say, no, I don't like my job.
I love my job. That is the vision that he saw here when he talked to all of you 15 years ago.
Since then, Simon basically opened the door to the world of this experiment we had in humanity.
OK, we've had an industrial revolution. What was sparked here is a human revolution in harmony with an industrial revolution. So people are our purpose.
And Simon started bringing other people in to see it. Yes.
Simon Can I say what actually happened?
Bob: This is Simon's version of the facts.
Simon: Here's what actually happened. I went around, saw all the factories, met all the people, was amazed. Went back to St. Louis, met the culture team, met Rhonda and her team.
And they were all excited to hear what I had to say at the end of all of it. And they're all looking at me, sort of big smiles, thinking that I'm going to gush and say, oh my god, this is the most amazing thing ever. And the first words out of my mouth were, you're the most selfish company I've ever met.
And they looked at me just like that's not what they expected. And I said, yeah, what I saw was amazing. What I saw was incredible. I've never seen anything like it in my life. And what you were giving to, back then it was 3,000 people, what you're giving to 3,000 people is absolutely astonishing. Meanwhile, there are millions of people who are going to work and suffering. how dare vou keep it to yourself, whatever you've figured out, you have to share it with the world because it's just unfair.
And that's when Bob became a public figure. He decided to go out on the road. He'd never given a speech prior to that other than, I guess, a conference, right? This was an industrial conference. And the book and all of the rest of it. And so, you know, Bob was somebody I admired and I got to write about. And now he's my friend and co-conspirator in trying to change the world.
Bob: So, after Simon's visit, his first book was Start With Why, Finding Your Why. OK, that was his TED Talk. That's what I was first introduced to. But he was in the process of writing his second book called Leaders Eat Last. OK, and it comes from his work in the military, the Pentagon, in terms of what creates our great leaders in the military, and how can we bring that into all aspects of life. And so, Simon started inviting people in, and amazingly, and again, given what's kind of going on in the world today, the conflict we have in the world that concerns us all, he invited a gentleman that some of you may have met when he was here, called Bill Ury, world peace negotiator at Harvard. 30 years negotiating world peace.
Why would a world peace negotiator come to Wisconsin to see a factory that makes corrugated equipment? Because Simon said, you've got to see this. So, Bill Ury comes in, like Simon, spends two days talking to our people. And what he said, given, again, just think of the conflict we have in the world, in our cities. What Bill Ury said I will never forget. He said, he saw the answer to world peace. Visiting with all of you, I said, Bill, how on earth could you see the answer to world peace? Visiting a manufacturing plant.
And he said, I saw a place where people genuinely care for each other. And when you think of the conflict we have in the world, for a world peace negotiator to see this. And then he said, a lot of the team members talked about your listening class. And again, given the issues we face in the world right now, he then adds, I now realize I've been going to global peace talks for 30 years, and I realize that's what they are. They're global peace talks. The problem is nobody knows how to listen, OK, which is the greatest of all human skills.
So, the combination of Simon's perspective, Bill Ury's, the Harvard professors, the McKinsey top people, I have never had a guess. Simon started it. He opened the door to the world. I have never had a guess come here that didn't say, I've never seen anything like that. How could that be? How could it be that making corrugated equipment in northern Wisconsin that people would see beyond the product? They saw you. They saw the way you cared for each other.
And so we have something very special here. We're trying to always be good stewards of that. So we can create a world where everybody matters, because we have you in our care for 40 hours a week. So again, as we continue this journey we've been on together, to share this message with the world, to try and heal the brokenness.
Simon's voice gives unbelievable credibility to our message. And his visit here today is really a landmark opportunity to see that it continues, it is growing. The world needs to hear that we can care for people and create economic value and human value and harmony.
So I think, you know, Simon, you wrote the foreword to our new book. Again, we wrote five new chapters which capture our experiences in the last ten years. What do you hope the new book will be to this world? Because you wrote the forward, you're publishing it, you've read it, the team did a phenomenal thing. We've worked on these five additional chapters for a year. What do you hope this message will mean to the world when we face the issues we see?
Simon: So, something really funny has happened in the world. Which is people have sort of lost faith in consultants, right? Because they became such a business that's upsell, upsell, upsell, that a lot of them have lost credibility.
And so, what started to happen is companies are looking at other companies that they admire, and they're going directly to them and saying, can you teach us? So, for example, companies that want to enhance their customer service, they are going to Zappos. Zappos has a whole, as a result of all the questions and requests that come visit, they have a whole process and division that can take you on a tour and teach you how Zappos does customer service. The Walt Disney Company, you know, people keep calling them and say, how are you so good at what you do? How are you so good at the details? How are you so creative? How are you so customer-focused? They got, they started something called the Disney Institute, where they do consulting. Well, they'll go into companies and teach them the Disney way.
And I think Barry-Wehmiller is one of those companies. You know, in part because you're now public, in part because I've had the opportunity to share your story and write about you. People want to hear from you and know how you did it. And so, I think beyond you being on the speaking circuit and doing the interviews and doing the press, having a book is an amazing way for people to engage directly with the company, so they can learn from the people they want to emulate.
And I would rank you up there with the Zappos and the Walt Disney companies as one of the companies that people must learn from. So, it's one of the reasons I was, I am proud to publish your book and share your message, because it's more than just nice words. I want people to go and spend the time and implement what you do. Even if they do it imperfectly, it's better than what exists. And that's what I love about it. It's why I want to do it. Should we take some questions? There we go.
Audience Member 1: I guess, Bob, from when you launched the first book, what maybe has been one of the biggest surprises that mavbe resulted from that book for you?
Bob: If you had told me 15 years ago, someday I'd write a book, I'd say I'd probably land on the moon before I wrote a book. I'm an accountant from North St. Louis. We're a manufacturing company with no ability whatsoever.
But one of the guests who came here, a gentleman named Srikumar Rao, who was a contributing editor of Forbes Magazine, he did the tour that Simon did with a couple of other people. And he sat down across from me in my office and he said, Bob, this is a mess. I've interviewed hundreds, if not thousands of CEOs and I've never seen anything like this. You have to share it with the world. That really kind of made me feel this obligation to capture what I hope you're experiencing and share with the world. And then Simon gave us a profound piece of advice that has guided us for the last 15 years.
He said, don't try and change everybody. Look for the early adopters. Look for the people who believe what you believe and want to join you. And focus on them, and others will follow. So, the book, again, we were told by Penguin that a good business book will sell 5 to 15,000 copies and consider it a successful book.
Well, the book about your story has sold over 110,000 copies in seven languages around the world, which is not a statement of success of the book. It's the power of the message. It's the message that sells. Because remember, we live in a country where 88% of all people feel they work for an organization that does not care about them.
A big learning that I had since the book that I now articulate as a key message of the book, I always thought running Barry-Wehmiller was a financial challenge to create shareholder value.
And not too long ago, I was interviewed by Washington University organizational development professors after an hour and a half interview. They looked at me and said, you're the first CEO that we've ever talked to that never talked about your product.
And I paused a minute and said, I've been talking about our product for the last hour and a half. It's our people. I won't go to my grave proud of the machinery we build. I'll go to my grave proud of the people that built them. I caught them completely off guard, because most companies are defined by the product, meeting the market need. We start with our responsibility is you, to give you a sense of a future, a sense of meaning, so you look forward in the 40 hours or so that you spend with us.
We basically give you a sense that you're part of a team that you feel valued, because the biggest theme in a new book that we learned, because in my education, I was never told that the way I'd run, Barry-Wehmiller, won't affect your marriage, your relationship with your children or your health. What we have learned is the way we treat you and the way we teach you these human skills of listening and recognition and service, 95% of the feedback we get from our teams around the world is how it affects their marriage and their relationship with the kids. Because Simon and I say parenting and leadership is identical. What is parenting? The stewardship of these precious lives that come into our lives through birth, adoption or second marriage that we take very seriously.
What is leadership? The stewardship of these precious lives that walk in these doors every day who simply want to know they matter. So we, the biggest thing we hope the book will achieve that has is the recognition it's gotten around the world. Remember, Harvard, as you know, also wrote a case study about the same time as our book. And Harvard told us it is now one of their better-selling cases with 80 universities from Japan to India using our case study to teach leadership. So, my hope for this book, the revised edition, is it becomes a textbook for teaching caring leadership around the world. Because this is not an American issue. You know, we operate all over the world. We have people from Serbia to India to China.This is a universal truth.
People simply want to know who they are and what they do matters. And if you take the time in your leadership to affirm that, they will share gifts with you and they will go home and treat their families and we will heal this, what Tom Friedman calls this poverty of dignity we have in the country. Because we have economic prosperity, we have the strongest economy in our history, but we have the highest level of depression, anxiety and suicide because people feel used, not cared for.
So, we're an experiment in humanity. We're trying to bring a human revolution in parallel with the industrial revolution so together you can create human and economic value in harmony and we can heal the brokenness we're all feeling in the world.
Simon: OK. Can I share something that will make you feel happy?
Bob: You guys ready to feel happy?
Simon: Yeah. OK. So what Bob is saying is right. We know that an unhealthy corporate culture where people feel like a number, feel like that they don't matter, feel like their work or their lives don't matter. We know the biology of what happens. We know that that is, you feel stress.
You might experience it as bad night's sleep, short tempered, all these kinds of things. It's stress. We know that stress is caused by a chemical on our body called cortisol. We know that cortisol is very bad for your health in large doses. In short and small doses, it's fine. It's like fight or flight, right?
But in large doses, in other words, unhealthy corporate environments, we know that it screws with our immune systems. We know not only the rates of depression, anxiety and suicide, but higher rates of diabetes, some cancers and heart disease result from excessive amounts of cortisol in your body. In fact, more people die of heart attacks at lower levels of companies than higher levels of companies because, you know, shit flows downhill.
But there's an opposite. There's an opposite, which is when you feel cared for, when you feel loved, not only does cortisol goes down, it's a magical chemical called oxytocin that goes up, and oxytocin is unbelievably healthy. Let me give you a case study of one. I went to this longevity conference. I'm cynical about the whole longevity movement, I'll be honest with you. I think it's a little much.
I went as a favor to a friend. I hung out in the back anyway. These are all nuts about doing everything in the measurements and the vitamins and supplements too much. They had all these machines and tests and I took them for fun. I stood on this machine where they scan me and do whatever. I kind of exercise and I eat OK-ish.
I'm not opposed to [?] for health or longevity. Everything goes in waves. I got the fifth best score in the room. I should have had the worst score in the room, OK? I did another one. They took a blood test and it's called GlycanAge where they measure the inflammation of your cells and inflammation leads to everything bad that happens in our lives. If you have inflammation, that's where you have problems later in life. And so they can measure the quality of the information, the inflammation. So they took my blood and about three weeks later, I got the results and they had somebody on the phone tell me my results and they told me that based on your inflammation levels, if you're eight years younger, if your glycogen age is eight years younger than your chronological age, you are very healthy.
Mine was 22 years younger than my chronological age. And here's the lesson. I'm happy and I love my friends and I love the people I work with. And we take care of each other, and I've learned a tremendous amount from you. And I've tried to bring that into my own life. And so not only do you have less stress, sure, sure, we know that. You know that. But I can tell you the science shows that by working here, you're probably going to live longer. By working here, you're probably healthier. Right?
And this is the magic of human relationships. We're social animals. And when we feel like we matter, when we feel loved, the biological benefit is overwhelming. And so, I encourage you to get sleep. I encourage you to try to eat healthy. I encourage you to exercise. Those things, of course, matter. But those things exclusively, I also learned from the GlycanAge people that the longevity nuts, they actually get very low GlycanAges because they're so obsessed with all the numbers and they're so obsessed that they missed a workout that it actually creates stress. And they're unhappy people because they don't have friendships and work environments like this.
You're living longer because of this culture. Not many companies can say, come work for us, you'll live longer. But I can tell you that just based on what I've learned about being happy and caring about people and having people care about you, has miraculous, literally miraculous impact. Should we do one last question?
Bob: Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Audience Member 2: Okay. So I'm only in high school, but how do you create a culture of people when you aren't necessarily in a position of leadership, and how do you make sure people around you still feel valued?
Simon: Great question. Shouldn't you be at school?
OK, so there's a difference between having a position of leadership and being a leader, right? I know many, many people who have very, very senior positions. They are not leaders.
They have authority, but they are not leaders, right? And I know many people that have no position of rank or authority, but they've made a choice to look after the person to the left of them and look after the person to the right of them, and we would trust them and follow them anywhere. So, leadership is not a rank. It's a choice.
If you come to school every single day, don't worry about the teacher, don't worry about the principals. If you come to school every single day and choose to take care of the people to the left of you, take care of the people to the right of you, even worry about your teachers. If they're in a grumpy mood, maybe they're going through something, and you can go to your teachers and say, are you OK? Right? You are a leader.
And what happens is when a leader emerges, as many of you here have experienced, sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly, at different paces for everybody, there are ripples, right? Because when somebody feels taken care of and genuinely believes that you care about them, their instinct is to actually do it for someone else. It's a very human thing, right? And then that person does it for someone else, and that person does it for someone else. And before you know it, you've changed the whole school, regardless of the teachers or the principals.
Bob: One story that happened since the first book, that I, as I look around this room and see all your team members, that it was profound, that I learned, we wrote the book, a high school football coach in Wisconsin, in Kimberly, Wisconsin, read my book, wanted to meet me in Green Bay. So, one of my trips to Green Bay, I met with him, Steve Jones. Had talked about how much the book meant to him as a high school football coach, which surprised me. And then I said, you know, Steve, the only problem I have with sports is we have winners and we have losers. I said, how do you coach young men, in this case football, about winning and losing? And what he said to me was profound. And I want you all to think about this.
He said, we don't talk about winning and losing. We say, play your position well for your fellow team members. And they won 72 games in a row and five out of six state championships in Wisconsin. Play your position well. So, each one of you, as you leave this gathering, when you think it's not just about my career, my advancement, OK, my role.
But when you look around this room and you see fellow team members and you say, I want to do my role well because I know it impacts everybody in this room. So, that collective caring. So, one of the things we've learned, which I never occurred to me, the bad news about COVID, it was highly contagious. The good news about caring, it's even more contagious than COVID.
When people feel cared for, it releases in them the capacity to care for others. And when Simon brought General Flynn to Akron, General Flynn's statement was, I've interviewed a bunch of your people in Akron, and the biggest surprise I had, which caught me really off guard, this is from a leadership, three-star general in Pentagon involved in leadership.
He said, they didn't say it was like a family, they said it is a family. And I said, well, General Flynn, these people are not related to each other. And we had a discussion, Simon and General Flynn. What we came to is, they chose a word that in our society means the place of ultimate safety and care, the word family. They used the word family not for relationships, but for feeling cared and feeling safe. And that was profound to me.
So, our goal is that each one of you don't look just at your role, what you do, but you know that if I play my position well, I'm creating a future for my fellow team members. And so that was a profound learning that I had.
And I'm going to leave you with the theme of the new book. Because in my education, again, I said earlier, I was never told in my education or my experience in the real world that the way I would run Barry-Wehmiller would affect your personal life, other than pay and benefits. You know, that was the trade-off. You give me your gifts, I'll pay you fairly and it benefits. What we've learned is that the way we treat you will profoundly affect the way you go home and treat your family. So, the theme of the new book is, the way we lead impacts the way people live. OK, so we, the session is really about the healing of the brokenness we feel in the world.
And it starts right here. We have you in our care for 40 hours a week. And if we treat you with respect and dignity and you play your position well, not just for your career, but for your fellow team members, we can be a symbol in the world that you can create economic and human value in harmony. And when people feel valued, they'll share gifts with you. They didn't even know they had because they care about each other.
So, thank you all for the feedback you've given to these dozens and dozens of guests who have come in from around the world. I want you to leave this session proud that people of Simon's stature in the world see something here that you probably don't see every day. But you come from the outside and you've been around as much as Simon has and all these other guests from McKinsey and Harvard.
We have something very special here that the world is watching. We're trying to say that he's not a nutty idealist, OK? The world he dreams of, he saw right here. And he's been talking about it.
So, Simon, thank you for your partnership because it's a profound message of caring in this world, and it began right here, so thank you.
OK, go play your position well for your fellow team members, OK? Thank you.