Relly Nadler: Welcome to Leadership Development News: Profiles and Practices of Top Performers. I'm Dr. Relly Nadler. Dr. Greenberg and I have been doing this now for twenty years. Cathy will join us in a moment.
Relly Nadler: But we always want to bring you tips, tools from top performers, gurus, leaders, thought leaders who can bring you something unique, something that you could do in the moment. A lot of times I like to talk about moment mastery. What are the things in the moment that can make a difference? We show our emotional intelligence in relationships.
Relly Nadler: And we're really excited to have Bob Chapman here. The title of the show is Everybody Matters. Couldn't be a stronger message in today's world. The extraordinary power of caring for people like a family.
Relly Nadler: And so we have some questions that we're going to ask him, kind of tap his expertise. I'll give you his bio in just a moment. But Cathy and I, as you know, have worked with thousands of people to perform in the top 10%. And we like to see that as a tipping point.
Relly Nadler: You and your team, if you can get into the top 10%, you are more satisfied, you are more productive, you have more well-being, you are clearer, you're tapping into your wisdom. So it's really a tipping point. And there's a lot of assessments and things that you can do to measure yourself and measure others.
Relly Nadler: We are certified in a series of emotional intelligence tools. But what does everybody ask? Well, what am I going to do? How do I raise that?
Relly Nadler: And that's been my focus really for the last thirty years. What do you do to raise your emotional intelligence? And we know as far as our world today, there's four challenges, and some of this we'll ask Bob about. First, we have more emotional distress than ever before.
Relly Nadler: Anxiety, uncertainty. Seventy five percent of people feel like we need more support. So emotional... More emotional stress.
Relly Nadler: But then on the opposite side, we're not that self aware. We think we're self aware. And in some of the research, Tasha Eurich in her book Insight, says when it comes to self awareness, it's more like 15%. So we have all these emotions, everything's going on, and we're not that self aware about what our triggers are, what our patterns are, what about others.
Relly Nadler: And then we're all on autopilot. So I like to say if you stay on autopilot, you stay average. Nobody wants to be average, but we're on autopilot. It's only gonna get worse with all the AI bots and Siri, Alexa, that we don't need to think anymore.
Relly Nadler: So all these emotions are happening. We're not that self aware. We're on autopilot. And what we're gonna do with Bob in in coaching and leadership is slow thinking.
Relly Nadler: And so it'd be interesting because Bob's got a series of questions. You know? And how do we slow down from autopilot? And the idea of slow thinking is gonna beget more better thinking, quality thinking.
Relly Nadler: So if you're a coach, if you're a leader, if you're somebody in your family, can you be more reflective? Can you be curious longer? Can you ask more questions? Can you slow down the autopilot?
Relly Nadler: And we're all on autopilot. And so just that sense of being in the moment, that's where you can share who you are and what you do. It's all in the moment. Alright.
Relly Nadler: So I think that's kind of enough on that. I'm just seeing if there's anything else I wanna say before we bring on Bob. Probably the last piece of this is around emotional intelligence. Travis Bradberry, who's written a book around emotional intelligence and updated it, ninety two percent of top performers are high in emotional intelligence.
Relly Nadler: Is that you? Some of the stuff that Bob will talk about? And, typically, the higher you are in emotional intelligence, the more money you will make. Well, let me tell you about Bob, and we have some questions that we're gonna tap into.
Relly Nadler: So Bob recently has been recognized as a twenty twenty five top 50 leadership and management expert by Inc. Bob is very intentional. And I love that word because everything is about in the moment. You're off autopilot, the opposite is you're intentional.
Relly Nadler: He's intentional about building a better world. He is the chairman of the board and former CEO of Barry-Wehmiller. And when he became a chief executive in 1975, so that's a long time ago, Barry-Wehmiller was struggling at 18 million in business. Today, it's worth 3.6 billion global platform of industrial and packaging, automation, professional services, and life sciences.
Relly Nadler: Under Bob's watch, it's a combination of 150 acquisitions. So think about change management, think about all the emotions that we just talked about. 12,000 teammates, 28 countries. And his journey from traditional management to truly human leadership.
Relly Nadler: I was inspired by the Wall Street Journal bestseller, Everybody Matters, just like our title of our show, sold 110,000 copies and is available in seven languages. And a revised expanded version of the book was just released last year. So we're going to tap into that, Bob. So welcome to the show.
Relly Nadler: We're glad you're here. And so tell us a little bit about some of the things that have, you know, people in your background that maybe you stood on the shoulders of to kinda got you to where you are now.
Bob Chapman: You know, I would say to you, I have a pretty average intelligence. I got an accounting degree from Indiana, MBA from Michigan, joined Price Waterhouse for a while, so pretty traditional business background. And as I entered both the professional field of Price Waterhouse and then Barry-Wehmiller, I thought it was all about profitability, organic growth.
Bob Chapman: That's what I was taught. That was implied. And I saw, I was a nice guy, I saw people as a function for my success. I needed them for my success.
Bob Chapman: It was an economic relationship. I'll pay you a fair salary with benefits. And if I need your gifts, I will do that. And when I don't need you anymore, I will lay you off.
Bob Chapman: It was in the way we're taught, we're not taught to care about people. We are taught and rewarded to use people. And that was the first half of my career. And I did well in that environment, you know.
Bob Chapman: And about around 2000, I had a series of revelations that completely changed the lens through which I saw the 12,000 people in our care. And it mainly occurred at a wedding when I was watching my friend's daughter be married to another friend's son and how everybody was in awe of this young man and young woman.
Bob Chapman: And my mind went to a totally different place than I'd been taught or had been experienced. It wasn't a book I read, it wasn't a mentor. All of a sudden I said, you know what, all 12,000 people in my span of care in the world, because we operate all over the world, are somebody's precious child that simply wants to know they matter.
Bob Chapman: And I have them in my care for forty hours a week. And my... So the lens through which I saw people that day at the wedding went from seeing people as a function for my success. Seeing them as somebody's precious child, it changed everything.
Relly Nadler: So say a little more about that because that is a transformation. I just got off working with people who want to be coaches and we talked about conversations and things like we're having now. Some are transactional, but some can be transformational. Like, what...
Relly Nadler: Do you have a sense of why then did that have such an impact on you?
Bob Chapman: You know, again, I was doing well with tradition, the way I was taught, way I experienced the world, using people, focusing on organic growth and profitability. And I can't explain to you why all that, that why at a wedding. Yeah. The way I saw the 12,000 people from India to Serbia to Japan completely changed.
Bob Chapman: It changed. And so I'd say to you, the way you see people impacts the way you treat people. if you see them as functions for your success, you treat them accordingly. If you see them as somebody who simply wants to know they matter, who want to trust you, it is a totally different style of leadership.
Bob Chapman: So the other thing I want to mention, you mentioned top 10% quartile performance. One of the things that I have found in my journey, and I think it will be relevant to your audience, is and I don't ever remember studying this, I call it business model design. Okay? the foundation of every leader's responsibility is to have a business model that provides those people in your care a grounded sense of hope for the future.
Bob Chapman: Okay? When our case was introduced at Harvard and I was invited to be up there, Jan Rivkin, the professor, asked the 160 executives from around the world who'd said it, is Barry-Wehmiller's success its culture or its strategy? They discussed it for a few minutes and they voted, they said it's our culture.
Bob Chapman: And my mind again went to a different place. Jan asked me to stand up and react to it because I'd never thought about it. And I said, look, if Ferrari builds the ultimate high performance engine and you put 85 octane fuel in that, it'll start, it'll run. It probably won't run to its potential, but if you put 91 premium octane in that Ferrari engine, it will run to its potential.
Bob Chapman: So I said the foundation of my responsibility as a leader is to design a business model where people are safe in my care. That is my foundational. I was never taught that. Okay.
Bob Chapman: And nobody ever observed that. It just occurred to me that that is the foundation. And the culture, this truly human leadership culture, is the premium fuel. But you can't take a premium fuel and put it in a Toyota and think you're going to race a Ferrari. Okay?
Bob Chapman: So a leader's primary responsibility for those in their care is to make sure that the people are part of a business model that has a future. So they can decide to raise a family. And look at we're having record numbers of layoffs in this country right now. And it's not personal, it's just business.
Bob Chapman: Okay. But how would you like your son or daughter or best friend who worked at a place, had great hopes being part of a great organization, and then one day somebody walks up and says, Sorry, we need to meet our investors' expectations for margin, and we've had a little softness. So unfortunately, we're gonna have to let you go.
Bob Chapman: So we have a society that uses people to achieve financial goals and all these layoffs to improve profitability. And they take note, I guarantee you the boards of these companies did not say, okay, we're gonna approach 10,000 people and say, I'm sorry, you know, here's your benefits, etcetera. And, you know, I I know we recruited you with a future, but you have no future.
Bob Chapman: I guarantee the board did not discuss the psychological damage those people, nor did they discuss the people who remain who no longer feel safe in this world.
Relly Nadler: So let me just echo what you're saying, and then Cathy joined us, Cathy will have you chime in. So, you know, two major concepts that you just talked about is the sense of hope for the future. You know? And Cathy and I do coaching in organizations.
Relly Nadler: You know? Cathy's worked with some of the biggest consulting firms, Accenture, and and CSC. The idea that hope and even in coaching for a leader, that's energy. And are you getting that energy for hope?
Relly Nadler: And then the second thing you said that's kind of the foundation, is it safe? You just described situations that's not safe. Not safe for the individual, not safe for the family. And then once one person goes, everyone's like, am I next?
Bob Chapman: Exactly. That's the environment we have because we don't see people as our purpose. We see our financial results. That 10%, okay?
Bob Chapman: And to hit that 10%, that's what you're not promoted because you care for your people. You're promoted because you achieve results. And quite often these activist shareholders group come in and immediately lay off people. Okay.
Bob Chapman: So, so when remember, we have a society where 88% of all people feel they work for an organization and doesn't care about it. And I speak in healthcare, I speak in education, I speak in nonprofits, I speak in business, every part of our society, people don't feel valued, they feel used because, and these are not bad people, the leaders, they were never taught to care.
Bob Chapman: They were taught to and promoted for achieving results as long as it's legal. Layoffs are are a horrible part of our society today.
Relly Nadler: Cathy, let's have you kinda chime in. I know you're catching catching, but you got the gist of, Bob and his his background. And he did just say we're going to have this podcast recently that went global with Simon Sinek. And so we'll get a copy of that. We can add that.
Cathy Greenberg: Go ahead. I think the thing that you're touching on so beautifully here is that we have along the way through many different generational changes lost touch with human elements of business. And know, Bob, I think what to me is part and parcel of this is also what we're going through right now with the whole AI component of business and that's something that people are also very, very concerned about.
Cathy Greenberg: Let me just ask you a quick context question and if you've already answered this, I apologize. I had a little bit difficulty getting into the show this morning. When did you decide for whatever reason that the human condition was more important to you than profitability?
Relly Nadler: Cathy, he shared this story, but go ahead anyway you wanna kind of...
Bob Chapman: I would say to you, I wouldn't wanna answer that question because we really call it people, purpose, and performance. It starts with our foundational responsibility for the people in our care around a purpose that inspires them to share their gifts. And then we've got to perform. If we don't perform to the expectation of our investors, our customers, we will end up hurting our people, we'll lose the confidence of our investors.
Bob Chapman: So it's not people are more important than profit. They're in harmony. Okay, it only makes sense if people feel safe, they feel cared for, that they're going to share their gifts fully and they're not going to go home at night worrying about, you know, should we buy that house? Should we have a second child?
Bob Chapman: Because, you know, 10 people or a thousand people just got laid off. So it's not one at the expense of the other. They're in harmony. A strong performing business gives people a better future.
Cathy Greenberg: No, no, I'm with you, I'm with you. And I mean, were many books written in the early 2000s. Had people writing about the idea that profit needed to be in balance with their people, right? There are books written by Rosenbluth Travel and certainly Mackey at Whole Foods.
Cathy Greenberg: I was just wondering what was it about your career? When was it that you, this epiphany went off for you that something needed to be different?
Bob Chapman: Well, it really, again, occurred in 2000 when I realized that I had these 12,000 people in my care for forty hours a week and I would have a dramatic impact on their life. Let me just add something to you. Again, we thought the Industrial Revolution was going to bring the answer to industrial advances in health care, standard of living.
Bob Chapman: We had better paying jobs in Ford Motor Company factories. All the benefits of the Industrial Revolution. When were unions formed? In the early stages to protect workers from management. Okay.
Bob Chapman: So clearly, Henry Ford and others didn't really care about the thousands of people at work. He was making a lot of money in automated production and so forth. So I would say to you, again, I speak in every I gave 300 speeches in the last five years around the world. In every part of society, this is the exact same issue.
Bob Chapman: Our education system is the foundational problem. We teach people academic skills so they can be a doctor or they can be a lawyer or they can be a business person. And if they get a good job, which means making money, we've done our job. Guess what we don't teach people in our care.
Bob Chapman: We don't give them the human skills that are critical. So it's interesting when we had this revelation that we would have a significant impact on the lives of the 12,000 people. Somebody asked me a question, What's your greatest concern, Bob? I said, My greatest concern is that something would happen to me and this movement would die with me.
Bob Chapman: So we got up the next day and we created a university to teach human skills, to create disciples. So it wouldn't be Bob, it would be everybody embraced that. It's still amazing to me. And the three things we taught were empathetic listening, recognition of celebration, and culture of service.
Bob Chapman: And to this day, I am astounded that 95% of the feedback from around the world when we teach this is how it affects their marriage and their relationship with their children.
Relly Nadler: Bob, this is great. We're gonna take a a break in a in a moment, but you're singing the tune that Cathy and I talk about. I mean, a lot of these competencies, empathy, celebration, service, kind of sit in the emotional intelligence world, which is exactly what you're saying. And, you know, that's why it's not your IQ.
Relly Nadler: It's not to your degrees. It's not how smart you are. That's why we're so passionate about this is it's really in who you are. Do understand yourself?
Relly Nadler: Do you manage yourself? Do you understand others? Do you manage others? So we're gonna take a short break, but we're gonna come right back.
Relly Nadler: So make sure you come right back, and you can hear more from Bob Chapman here.
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Cathy Greenberg: Welcome back to Leadership Development News. We're having a delightful conversation today with the author of Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like a Family. Today's podcast titled with Bob Chapman. And before we went to break, were talking about, know, kind of the epiphanies we have and how do we get to where we are in life.
Cathy Greenberg: And I just want to bring everybody's attention to a couple of data points that were just published recently by 6seconds.com. You know, we are still in a human energy crisis globally, well over 600,000 people in over 129 countries are feeling the pinch of a post pandemic world even though we are way post pandemic.
Cathy Greenberg: And I think Bob, one of the things that we were talking about when we went to the break is that these are all clearly emotional intelligence qualities that individuals need to actually understand more about to be truly human and to have truly human leadership. So why don't we talk a little bit about that?
Cathy Greenberg: Why don't we get into some of these soft leadership skills that really aren't soft? They are really the framework on which we all operate.
Bob Chapman: Okay. I'm ready.
Relly Nadler: So part of this, Bob, your three things, and these are things we talk about, empathy, celebration, service, those are foundational. What what do you say to others like, oh, come on. That's, you know, that's soft. That's woke. Come on. We don't have time for that. We gotta have these people produce.
Bob Chapman: I'll tell you is we've been teaching these classes around the world for over twenty years. And the reaction whether you're in Serbia, India, China or Germany is exactly the same. The impact on people when you give them these human skills, which our education system should be giving us, so we can use our academic skills interacting with human skills is powerful.
Bob Chapman: Again, first when said we have to create a university because our universities don't teach us to be leaders, they teach us to be managers. A manager is somebody who manipulates others for your success. And a leader is somebody who profoundly cares for the people they have the privilege of leading. So I hate the word management.
Bob Chapman: I think it is the manipulation of people and leadership stewardship, you know, to be a good steward of the people and treat them with respect and dignity. And as I said, it starts with a good business model because you cannot be good to your people if your business model fails. Can say, well, it's not my fault.
Bob Chapman: Constantly taking a look to all the leaders I'm talking to today. Do you have a business model that is your people are safe by your investors, your stakeholders, your team members, so they can share their gifts fully. And again...
Cathy Greenberg: Can you talk a little bit, Bob? Tell us what safe is to you? What does safe mean to you?
Bob Chapman: That I can go home at night knowing that I have a future. That I can decide to raise a family. We can decide to buy a home because remember, today, most people do not feel safe. And Donna Hicks calls it, Tom Friedman calls it, more than a poverty of money, we have a poverty of dignity.
Bob Chapman: When people feel used as opposed to cared for, it creates a sense of humiliation. And that sense of humiliation creates anger and unrest like you've never seen before. We have the most prosperous economy in our history, and we have the highest level of depression, anxiety and suicide. Why?
Bob Chapman: I mean, have economic prosperity, why don't we have human prosperity? Because the Industrial Revolution assumed that money would create happiness. If you had better home, better healthcare, better education, everything would be better. And here we live in, you know, 2000s, and we have the highest level of depression, anxiety and suicide.
Bob Chapman: And again, I speak it, whether it's doctors and nurses at hospitals, whether it's school teachers, every part of society, people don't feel cared for. And it's not that we have bad leaders. Okay, they're not bad people. They were not taught or promoted to care.
Bob Chapman: Okay, they were taught and promoted to use people to achieve results. And if you get the top 10%, what difference does it make whether you laid off 10,000 people or 5,000 people, because you're celebrated for the fact that you got your high achievement. So what's more important to me in balance. We believe that when people feel cared for, you will attract and people will share their gifts fully when they feel safe and valued and they work for each other.
Bob Chapman: So again, it starts with and it astounds me that we learned twenty years ago, the idea that we would teach people how to listen without judgment. That is the greatest of all human leadership skills we have learned in twenty years. We teach it all over the world. Okay?
Bob Chapman: And then how do you let people know they matter? And that's called recognition and celebration, not five year anniversary, fifteen year anniversary type set, but little acts daily of recognize the goodness in others, which creates a positive environment. And then cultural service, seizing the opportunity to serve others. Moving away from it's all about me, did I actually care about you?
Bob Chapman: So all those, just this incredible team I had 20 years ago that developed these classes, the feedback would bring tears to your eyes and the stories I've heard all over the world, the impact. And so again, when we look at what's wrong with kids today, what's wrong with American families, guess what? Most of those people work in an environment where they don't feel valued.
Bob Chapman: They come home stressed. They're not worried about their future. And we said, you know, it's drugs, it's social media. You know, it starts with we don't know how to care for the people we have the privilege of leading.
Relly Nadler: Let me just kinda interject something here, Bob, and then we're gonna, you know, talk about kinda why now that you're doing the next edition. You know, my training was really learning a fair amount about family systems, and then you're talking about families. And some of the research is showing that the... Especially the dad who may be the person who's out out of the house spends about twelve minutes with family.
Relly Nadler: And of those twelve minutes, maybe it's at the dinner table, and now it's probably even less because of everybody's on their phone. And of those twelve minutes, 10 are logistics. You know, where are we going? What time do you need to be picked up?
Relly Nadler: Did you do your homework? Two minutes is, Bob, how are you doing today? You you you had to give a presentation. What happened?
Relly Nadler: Two minutes. And I would think that stat is even now outdated that it's probably worse. So with that, and I I love your message, kinda why returning now ten years later to Everybody Matters? Like, what, you know, what was the impetus for doing the next edition?
Bob Chapman: Well, I would say to you originally, when we began this journey, if she told me someday I'd write a book, I'd say I'd probably land on the moon before I'd write a book. You know, it was so far beyond my imagination. But people like Simon Sinek, Srikumar Rao, Raj Sisodia, all these incredible people, McKinsey partners, Harvard professors heard about it started coming in, because we didn't really know what we had.
Bob Chapman: We thought it was good. People like Simon Sinek spent two days talking to our people. And he said, Bob, I'm no longer a nutty idealist. I've just seen what I dream of.
Bob Chapman: I dream of a world where you could tap anybody on the shoulder and Eddie said, Do you like your job? He said, No, I don't like my job. I love my job. So he said, If it exists, it must be possible.
Bob Chapman: Second of all, he brought a guy named Bill Ury, a World Peace Negotiator. This is profound. A World Peace Negotiator comes into a manufacturing company. Well, Bill did.
Bob Chapman: He spent two days and given all the issues going on in our country right now in world between Republicans, Democrats and etcetera, etcetera, and elder, and all the conflict. Bill said he saw the answer to world peace in our company. How on earth could you see the answer to world peace? He said, I saw a place where people genuinely care for each other.
Bob Chapman: Okay, not just themselves, but they care for each other. And then he added something again, particularly profound in today's times. He said, Bob, I now realize I've been going to global peace talks for thirty years. And I now realize because your people talk a lot about this listening class.
Bob Chapman: He said, I now realize that's exactly what they are. They're global peace talks. He said the problem is nobody knows how to listen. And you don't listen with your...
Bob Chapman: It astounds me that listening is a profound skill that can be taught. You can't... The CEO Roundtable came out a few years ago when Bernie Sanders was a possible presidential candidate and concerned about his socialism view. They came out with a statement.
Bob Chapman: We need to think about more than just the shareholders, know, Milton Friedman's shareholder supremacy. Well, I know some of these really fine gentlemen. They meant what they said, but they have no idea how to care. They were never taught to care.
Bob Chapman: They're not rewarded to care. It was just a nice public relations statement. Okay, so what we realized is our education system and that's where our major focus is right now. Until the education system changes and we give people these human skills so we can live together with the beauty of diversity, not the conflict of diversity, we are going to continue to say, I'm right and you're wrong, whether it's abortion, whether it's taxes, so forth.
Cathy Greenberg: So Bob, one of the things that I'm really curious about as we're having this conversation, I'm really enjoying your passion around this subject. What was it that made you decide to do this now? What was it that made it important for you to write this new edition now?
Bob Chapman: Well, when we began this journey, it was just an eclectic internal growth. The more people saw it and finally this gentleman named Srikumar Rao, who was a contributing editor of Forbes came in and said, Bob, I have interviewed thousands, hundreds, if not thousands, of CEOs. I have never seen anything like this.
Bob Chapman: You have got to write it. You're fortunate to find Raj Sisodia, who wrote the book on Conscious Capitalism, John Mackey, to be my co-author. Raj says, This is the message that has to be written and I'm going to write it. So we began with no expectation of how the book would do other than it felt an obligation to share these revelations in a way that Raj was able to combine conscious capitalism and his background.
Bob Chapman: And so the book is really one third my story of how I went from management to leadership. And then two thirds of how to implement truly human leadership. Well, ten years later, apparently a publisher said a good business book sells five to 15,000 copies. Everybody Matters has sold over 110,000 to 120,000 copies in seven languages around the world.
Bob Chapman: And in the meantime, I've given hundreds of speeches in every part of society. And I've had a lot of feedback. And what we realized is that the first book is, the first part of the book, original book was my journey. Second to third is how to do it.
Bob Chapman: But what we wanted to add is ten years of experience is the impact it makes on the people that you have the privilege of leading and make sure that we capture that so it becomes a complete journey. Here's how you get to the journey. Here's how you do it. And here's the impact we'll make.
Bob Chapman: And again, one of the big impacts is the way we see people affects the way we treat people. If you see somebody as a cab driver, you will probably treat them as a cab driver. Okay. And so trying to awaken society, we need to, our education system from K to 12, which we're working on, we're working with primary education to bring this to kids.
Bob Chapman: So by the time they graduate from high school, they have these human skills combined with their academic skills, and they can leave our care in our schools, ready to live in the beauty of diversity, not the conflict of diversity. And now we're working with about five universities and also change the curriculum. Instead of just teaching law and marketing and business, we're teaching, we're developing curriculum to teach this at the collegiate level, we're getting tremendous impact.
Bob Chapman: So again, I kept saying, you know, there's a gentleman named Doug Parker, fabulous guy, who runs and was giving a speech in Dallas at a major Methodist church. And I gave my talk and he came up to me and said, Bob, I'm Doug Parker. I'm chairman of American Airlines. He said, again, this is the state of the world.
Bob Chapman: I thought my job was to build the world's biggest airline. I did. But until I heard you speak, it never occurred to me to care for the 130,000 people of American Airlines. How do you process it?
Bob Chapman: Here's a man in a devout, good faith, good values, wonderful human being. His board didn't talk about the culture of the people. They talked about market share. They talked about performance.
Bob Chapman: They talked about peer performance. Nobody talked about the impact they were making on the 130,000 people.
Cathy Greenberg: You know, it's funny. I want to share a quick story that I think you might appreciate Bob. So I was recently at an REI store, and I was looking for a new electric bike. And the young man that I was working with, always, I'm interested in the people that I'm speaking to at these stores.
Cathy Greenberg: And I asked him, I said, so how do you like working here? And he said, you know, I really love it here because when I get overwhelmed, and I really need a break, there's always 10 other people that work with me here in the store that I can share my feelings with and I feel heard.
Cathy Greenberg: And you know, this is a testimonial to the work that you're doing, Bob, and a lot of the other people that are out there starting to recognize that in today's workplace, exactly as you described it, we have to talk about people being heard. And one of the things that I love about what you're talking about here is the fact that it's such a good time for people to reevaluate what they're doing, to reevaluate the kinds of practices and programs that they're bringing into their organization.
Cathy Greenberg: So how do they get your programs? How do they how do they bring what you're doing into their organizations?
Bob Chapman: Well, with all these just McKinsey, Harvard, you know, Harvard wrote a case study on our culture. I think it was eight years ago or something like that. It is one of their better selling cases with over 200 universities having taught 300,000 students our case. And it is a compelling.
Bob Chapman: So I would say to you that what we decided is we had been blessed with a vision of the way the world was meant to be, not the way the world is, where people genuinely care for each other, not use each other. And so we decided to create a Leadership Institute. Simon Sinek said, Look for people who believe what you believe and want to join you in the journey, okay, to become truly human leaders.
Bob Chapman: So we created a leadership institute. We have about 50 people that work full time at the Chapman Leadership Institute, and we work with major corporations to help them learn to care. Okay? And the second thing is we established a foundation, Chapman Foundation for Caring Communities, where we bring this into communities and we work with policemen, fire departments, school teachers, nurses to bring these human skills.
Bob Chapman: The demand is unbelievable because it is so healing when you learn these human skills, you realize what you have not been to the people you love. And the man in tears in these classes is overwhelming. So we have Chapman Foundation for Caring Communities. We have a Chapman Leadership Institute.
Bob Chapman: And I give speeches all over the world with education and the work we're doing in education to change. So the vaccine is the work we're doing from K to 12. Okay, and that's the main focus we have. What we're doing though, is really trying to create tomorrow's leaders to heal the broken, you know, people who want to do this, but don't know how, and then go back and teach from K to 12 education.
Bob Chapman: When people graduate from school, they were ready be leaders who care for the people they have the privilege of leading.
Relly Nadler: So Bob, we're gonna take our next break, I think then Cathy and I will kind of direct us a little bit more into some of the skills and maybe the how to's like you're saying that are embedded there. So we'll be asking you about maybe some couple of tips and tools that are your favorite.
Relly Nadler: I mean, we all know we should listen. Stephen Covey said listening is to the relationship as breath is to the body. So you know how it is if you don't have breaths for, like, thirty seconds or a minute. And I think many relationships don't have that breath.
Relly Nadler: So I'd love to kinda hear your take on it when we come back. You're listening to Leadership Development News. Come right back. We'll be waiting for you.
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Announcer: VoiceAmerica is on LinkedIn. Connect with us today. You're listening to Leadership Development News, profiles and practices of top performers with your hosts, Dr. Cathy Greenberg and Relly Nadler. Now let's get back to the show.
Cathy Greenberg: Welcome back to Leadership Development News. We're having a wonderful conversation here with Bob Chapman on how to change the everyday life of every human being from many of the organizations that all of us work in every day to many of the organizations many of us are protected by every day, which is my community, law enforcement and special operations.
Cathy Greenberg: So Bob, let's jump right in here. Can you give us a couple of examples of the things that you love to teach when you are giving people some real context about how they can be better at the soft skills?
Bob Chapman: Well, what's really enriched our journey is the stories people tell us. And what we've learned is the questions you ask determine the insights you get in response. So one of the questions we began asking in the early days is, how does it make you feel? Nobody ever asked how they feel.
Bob Chapman: And I was in our plant in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and I said to a gentleman who would... I was experiencing the culmination of this leadership style because we'd just acquired their company a year ago and and we're bringing truly human leadership. And I said, you know, what impact has it made on you?
Bob Chapman: And he said something I will never forget. He said, my wife is talking to me. And I said, he said, yes. He said, prior to you acquiring our company, we had layoffs, we had downsizing, we had issues, and I realized that when I went home at night, I didn't feel valued.
Bob Chapman: He said, I was told what to do, you know, and nobody ever asked me what I thought. Now, I'd worked here for twenty years, you know, I kind of said this to life. And when I get to my home, he said, I opened the screen door and I'd throw my hat in.
Bob Chapman: If my hat came flying back, I knew I better go have a beer before I go in the house because she wasn't in a good mood. He said, since you have brought truly human leadership to our 700 people in this large plant, he said, I now realize people actually ask me what I think.
Bob Chapman: I actually contribute my gifts to make it better. And I find that when I go home at night, I feel better about who I am. And when I feel that way, I'm nicer to my wife. And when I'm nicer to my wife, she talks to me.
Bob Chapman: And I thought, oh my God, never occurred to me that we would reduce the divorce rate in America by the way we were treating people at work. Second interesting story, we were acquiring a company in France, so it's kind of an international piece. And my board was somewhat concerned about governmental intervention, workers councils, all the issues in France.
Bob Chapman: And eventually, they got comfortable with my compelling logic. And I had to fly over to coast of France to meet with the workers council, who represented all people. I sat down with them and I shared our vision of everybody matters and the message. After a nice respectful discussion, they said, Mr. Chairman, we are going to vote in favor of this acquisition of our company.
Bob Chapman: I felt overwhelmed. A kid from St. Louis and this beautiful part of France, I was overwhelmed. And then a gentleman named Felipe said something to me I will never forget. He said, Mr. Chapman, could I say something?
Bob Chapman: And I said, Sure. He said, Mr. Chapman, we've been waiting for you for thirty two years, and they began crying. And what he said, what he meant was, for thirty two years, we have not felt valued. They're part of a major French company, they had all the benefits.
Bob Chapman: And I said, you know what, the government can't, it can protect your wages, it can protect your retirement benefits, but it can't protect your soul. Okay? And what they saw in this is a chance to be a part of an organization where they actually felt they mattered, which is the desperate need in our country.
Bob Chapman: Again, doctors and nurses feel this way. We were given the privilege of bringing this to a regional hospital outside of Austin, Texas, because a major group said, Please, can you just share this vision with this well run regional hospital? I fly down there, I give my talk, which you've heard. At the end of it, the doctors and nurses were asked to comment and they cried because they said, Nobody cares about us.
Bob Chapman: Okay? So every part of society that I speak in, again, education, nonprofit, the military, I see the brokenness and we're trying to nobody's getting the root cause, which is really that we just simply don't teach people the human skills to care. We just assume they come from a nice family and that they'll have that.
Bob Chapman: And that is the biggest thing I've learned. Until we change education, we were never gonna cure this issue because our education is about making money because we think making money will create happiness.
Relly Nadler: That's beautiful, Bob. So I just wanna share a couple things that I've heard you say and and some of the how to's. You know? So one, you said, their opinion seems to count.
Relly Nadler: You know? We know from Gallup and some of their research, they put out surveys. That's one of the questions, and it's usually one of the questions in a lower score. Your opinion seems to count.
Relly Nadler: Well, you gotta ask someone, what do you think about this? What's your ideas? What's your recommendation? All you wanna know from me?
Relly Nadler: My opinion seems to count. And I think just that. And then the other thing about listening in people who are the leaders, are they having the one on ones? That's the power position.
Relly Nadler: And in their one on ones with their people, are they asking some of those questions? And are they feeding back what they heard? Just like if you go to a fast food store and you get something and they say, Okay, let me give you back your order. You're getting two Big Macs and Coke.
Relly Nadler: Feeding back what the person just said, and I'm trying to make this practical, in listening. And then you want to have the person say, That's right. If you don't get a that's right, this comes from super communicators, Charles Duhigg. If you don't get a that's right, you haven't given them... You haven't listened.
Bob Chapman: Yeah. And so I wanna make sure you understand. There was one of our team members when we decided to create a university to teach managers how to be leaders, to transform managers into leaders, who insisted insisted that we teach empathetic listening, which I thought was crazy. Why would we need to teach adults to listen?
Bob Chapman: Okay. Okay. And I was, but they were so convinced they overrode me and so they created this three day foundational class that we've now taught to over 20,000 people around The United States. I was in Minneapolis about six months later and a young lady came up to me and said, Mr. Chapman, I just took your university listening class.
Bob Chapman: And I said, Great. What was it like? I had no idea. And she said, It changed my life.
Bob Chapman: And I said, We taught a class in work that changed your life. She said, Yes, I now know how to raise my two year old daughter. She acted out how she used the listening skills with her two year old daughters and impacted her. So again, I want to emphasize the greatest healing skill anybody the greatest in all human skills is the ability to listen without judgment.
Bob Chapman: Okay, and if we had more of that, we'd have less protest, we'd have less conflict. Because in our educational system, we teach people how to speak, how to articulate your thoughts, and how to debate. I'm right and you're wrong and I won. Okay, we're not teaching people the most foundational skill that we need as a society.
Bob Chapman: And we see it everywhere. We see it everywhere, people protesting. Okay? And so anyway, to me, I want to make sure you understand the most overwhelming thing that we have learned is listening is the greatest.
Bob Chapman: Listening without judgment, listening to understand and validate the worth of others would heal the brokenness in the world. I would add, you know, one more point. We... In Aspen, where I live, the police department had several people take our three day class.
Bob Chapman: You know, we had defund police and all the other issues. And I said to these two policemen, I said, I'm just curious. What did our class mean to you as to police officers? And they said, Mr. Chapman, we take hundreds and hundreds of hours to learn how to enforce the law.
Bob Chapman: But we are taught nothing about how to deal with people. Okay? Same way with business. We teach law, math, but we don't teach people how to...
Bob Chapman: So the human skills are what we desperately need. And there's no motivation to teach them because they're soft skills. Well, they're actually foundational skills. Okay, they're not soft skills. They are foundational skills to be a leader among others.
Cathy Greenberg: Yeah. And that's so powerful. What you're saying, Bob, is really powerful because again, and I concur with everything you're saying. One of the things that I do in my organization with the National Command and Staff College is we are highly engaged with law enforcement across the nation, teaching them the well-being skills necessary to not only take care of themselves, but also the communities that they operate in because they're dealing in a well, if you will, well-being environment now.
Cathy Greenberg: And you can't just assume that the skills you learned in the academy are going to get you through. And I think one thing you'd really enjoy my sharing with you before we leave the show today is one of the organizations I work with and they're on Paramount Chopper Cops. It's the organization that I truly love very much up in Ocala.
Cathy Greenberg: And they all say, I love you. They don't leave a room where their brothers and sisters in the police department, in the sheriff's office where they operate. And they don't say goodbye, they say, I love you. And that's so meaningful to the point that you're making about being humane and listening and caring not only for the public, but for each other. Thank you. Thank you for all you're doing.
Bob Chapman: Starts with each other. If we, in our police departments, if we don't care for each other, how do we leave and care for the people we interact in our community? I mean, we've taught firemen, we've taught police officers, we've taught United States Air Force. Never in twenty years, well over 20,000 people taught did anybody ever say to me, Oh, I had a, I had a [unclear] on that?
Bob Chapman: Yeah, I understand that. Never. And it is the most healing, powerful way to address the issues we face as a country.
Relly Nadler: So, Bob, before before we, let you go, you know, ten years from now, what do you want people to say about this next edition of your book? It was ten years when you did the first one. Ten years from now, what do you want them to say?
Bob Chapman: That it is it is the primary textbook used in all parts of education to guide people in developing the human skills to be a good citizen, a good friend, a good leader, a good parent, a good executive at a company. That it surfaced the desperate need we have to teach human skills along with academic skills, and this book became the foundational guide on how to do that.
Relly Nadler: Beautiful. So, Bob, let me just give you your website, then we'll bring us to a close. Barry-Wehmiller, and Wehmiller is W-E-H-M-I-L-L-E-R dot com slash story leadership Bob Chapman. So, and I'm sure if you just put Bob Chapman in, you'll get that. You have a video.
Relly Nadler: Can also have a video of him with Simon Sinek. So thank you, Bob. You've been listening to Leadership....
Bob Chapman: Share this message to every corner of the earth and start healing this brokenness we feel that we also desperately want to have hope that we can live together with harmony.
Cathy Greenberg: Absolutely. And I'm going to quote you in my new book called Future Proof, Bob, so you'll be hearing from me again. Take good care, everybody. Thank you for being with us today on Leadership Development News to tune up your leadership. Till next time.
Announcer: You've been listening to Leadership Development News profiles and practices of top performers with your hosts, Cathy Greenberg and Relly Nadler. We sincerely hope that you gained some great ideas and inspiration on how to elevate your leadership skills. Join us again next Monday at noon Eastern time and 9AM Pacific time right here on the VoiceAmerica Business Channel.
