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AWESOMELY SIMPLE : ESSENTIAL BUSINESS STRATEGIES

FOR TURNING IDEAS INTO ACTION (Unplugged)
A conversation between John Spence & Moe Abdou
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Awesomely Simple: Essential Business John Spence with Moe Abdou
Strategies For Turning Ideas Into Action
(Unplugged)

About John Spence & Moe Abdou

John Spence

At the age of 26, John Spence was CEO of an international foundation

directed by Winthrop P. Rockfeller III. He was nominated as one of the
top CEO’s in Florida under the age of 40 and was recognized by Inc.
Magazine’s “Zinc Online” as one of America’s up and coming young
business leaders. A professional speaker specializing in leadership, sales
and strategy, and team building, Spence has delivered more than 1,500
speeches in the past 13 years to groups as large as 8,000 and has done
executive coaching to more than 300 organizations worldwide.

Moe Abdou

Moe Abdou is the creator of 33voices — a global conversation about things

that matter in business and in life. moe@33voices.com

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Awesomely Simple: Essential Business John Spence with Moe Abdou
Strategies For Turning Ideas Into Action
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I have a specific focus today that I want us to try to focus on. I thought it
would be a good idea now that we’re winding down on 2010 for you to
reflect on this year. I wanted to ask your thoughts, as you look back on
2010 in particular, what would you say are some of the more interesting
issues that you found leaders and managers dealing with this year?

It’s a super question. Although there has been a wide spectrum of things I’ve
been working on there are two things that come to mind right now that seem
to be sort of a pattern emerging that I see over and over again.

The first one is, in the last 8 or 10 conferences I’ve spoken at and been at, I’ve
heard manager and leader after leader after leader talk about the fact that
they are very afraid that once the economy turns around, that they’re going to
lose their best people. They’ve treated them poorly. They’ve pushed them too
hard. They haven’t given them a raise. They haven’t motivated them.

They’re afraid that at the first opportunity to go someplace else, that they’re
going to have talent running out the door which is unbelievably surprising to me
because now more than ever is when you should be treating your best people
even better.

It’s shocking to me to hear leaders admit, we haven’t been taking very good
care of our people. We hope they don’t leave. My answer to that is you better
start taking much better care of your people right now.

That’s why I’ve been spending a ton of time on employee engagement, on

winning cultures, on levels of accountability. These have been topics that
people have wanted to talk about over and over again. Number 1 is this big
fear, I’m going to lose my best people when the economy turns around. That
sort of dovetails well into number 2 which is we’re not going back to normal.

I did a video, a brief podcast in early 2009 when the recession first really sort
of started to kick in about the new normal and that we weren’t going to go
back to business as usual. I just pulled that up the other day and looked at it
and it’s nearly two years old and it still is relevant today.

So I think a lot of businesses are realizing they’re going to have to change the
way they play the game. There are new rules to the game and they’re going to
have to figure out how to do that if they want to win in the game of business.

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Strategies For Turning Ideas Into Action
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Obviously what’s surprising to you when this whole talent issue has come
up specifically because it kind of leads off of what we’re going to talk
about here. I’m actually pretty mesmerized to hear that. When you
consider what’s happening in the world, I would think that it does not take
a rocket scientist to realize that my most precious resource of any
company large or small are my people.

You would think not. That’s why it was so shocking. When you ask me it was
such a big thing for me because I’ve been doing a lot of work on employee
engagement this last year. I’ve been doing a ton of research on it. Research
study after study after study clearly shows the number one factor that drives
highly engaged and highly satisfied customers is highly engaged to highly
satisfied employees.

That if your people are happy, if they’re excited, if they’re motivated, if they
enjoy the work, if they’re engaged in their work and they’re engaged in the
organization what they do is they create great customer relationships and those
customer relationships is what drives higher market share, higher revenues and
higher profitability.

So it makes sense that taking care of my people that take care of customers
which is why it’s so shocking to me when I see companies saying you know we
realize we have not been taking very good care of our people for this last year.
We’ve been beating them up pretty hard. Part of me says, that’s probably the
reason that your revenues, profitability and market share are all plummeting.

I think it would be interesting to be a fly on the wall when I hear you

comment on those things. But let me dive into something.

Almost exactly a year ago, you wrote Awesomely Simple which is the title
of your great book, blog post, to kind of unleash what I have been telling
people is your secret sauce for sustainable business success. It’s a simple
formula that you created John and the formula is T + C times (ECF) equals
Success. We’ll talk about that in a minute.

I’d like to kind of devote our time today trying to peel back the layers of
that formula and learn about your experiences with it particularly this
year. Maybe it’s a good idea for us to start by you telling us what it stands
for and maybe we take component by component and dive into it a little
bit.

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Strategies For Turning Ideas Into Action
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Actually, it’s morphed a little bit in the last year. When I originally wrote the
formula it was T + C x ECF = Success. Let me go ahead and explain what those
two mean. It’s Talent + Culture x Extreme Customer Focus = Business Success.
I’m going to say that quickly because I’ve actually updated it a little bit.

Based on some of the work I’ve done in the last year or so, I’ve changed the
formula now to (T + C + ECF) x DE (which stands for Disciplined Execution) =
Business Success. I’ve actually updated it a little bit. It’s now (Talent + Culture
+ Extreme Customer Focus) x Disciplined Execution = Success.

The reason I changed it is because I realized that I could teach those first three
things. It’s a wealth of talent. You got to have great people. You got to have a
culture that engages people that’s innovative and exciting or you have to have
extreme customer focus. But if you also don’t have a culture that can execute
that effectively with discipline day in and day out then the beginning part of
the formula is just good ideas. The value comes in implementing the good ideas
and putting the ideas into action.

That’s beautiful John. I think that’s awesome.

Let’s talk about talent. Having recruited and coached management talent
for the past 25 years, I know how challenging and at the same time, how
incredibly rewarding it is to be able to watch people grow especially
managers and leaders.

What I’m curious about new insights that you gained this year about
what’s happening in this whole world of attracting and retaining talent
specifically now that you’re telling me that some of the more interesting
issues are, how do I keep my people?

There are a couple of things. Let’s do the first caveat. This one I’m struggling
with a client right now is — I’m headed off to Canada this afternoon to help a
company with the fact that they have been hiring just for people not for
leaders. They don’t have what I would consider a strong talent pipeline.

So the first issue when I look at talent is that it has to be a philosophy within
the organization that’s finding, attracting, growing, and keeping great people
is fundamental towards success. They have to have a philosophy, that talent is
critical and then they have to put the timing, energy and the resources into a
building a very robust talent pipeline that says, we’re thinking three, four, five,

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six, seven, ten years out, who will we need a decade from now? How can I hire
them today and grow them to be who I need them to be a decade from now?

So issue number one I see in a lot of organizations is the lack of building that
pipeline and having the connections and the network and processes in place to
really be a talent magnet and have the ability that the best and brightest want
to work for you.

Number 2, when I look at talent which is interesting is talent doesn’t come for
money. If you look at what attracts the best people, salary is number 13 on the
list. The things that attract a really talented person are working on cool
projects with other really talented people where I can do meaningful work and
I can make a difference in the world. It’s about I want to be fully engaged. I
want to be excited. I want to really make a difference.

What I see is, now organizations are starting to realize that yes, all of our
competitive differentiation comes down to the quality of the people that we
can find, grow, and keep. That’s why I see more and more organizations
starting to really put a process into place because if you want to get very
specific and high level results, the only way to do that is to have a talent
management and a talent growth process.

John, I want to spend a little bit of time on this because I really believe
that this is a critical ingredient for any business large or small to grow.
You hear a lot about leadership talent. You hear a lot about management
talent.

One of the things that I recently said to somebody was, why can’t you have
a customer rep who is a leader? Why can’t you have your lead engineer
who is a leader? Why can’t your administrative assistant be a leader?

Just observing the expressions of this individual, he looked at me kind of

odd. I think everybody has leadership abilities. If we can figure out how to
tap people who are not slated for leadership positions but who have that
— I’ve always felt that that’s a plus in our corner. I’m curious as to your
thinking on that.

The best organizations are organizations that build entire groups of leaders
where everybody realizes they can lead from wherever they are in the
organization. They can make an impact. They can make a difference and they
are a leader.

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To me the definition of leadership is that you set a living example of the way
you want others to act or behave around you. You lead them through your
actions and behaviors. To me it just makes sense that everyone in the
organization everyday should be living as a leader, setting a clear example of
the behaviors, the attitudes, the competencies, the communication; the sort of
things that a great leader would do.

It’s interesting, if you study a lot of the best corporate leaders right now —
from midsized companies all the way up to some of the largest companies, the
organizations that are highly successful — oftentimes, it’s someone that came
up all the way through the ranks and was hired in a very low level position. A
position that theoretically, you wouldn’t be slated for leadership development
that is now the CEO or the president and doing extremely well even though
they weren’t brought in at a high potential situation and said, “We’re grooming
you to be the CEO.” Those attributes and behaviors became apparent through
their work and the living example they set.

John, I’m wondering what organizations that you have observed this year
in particular who really and truly embodied that whole notion of talent
that’s almost paramount?

That’s a really tough question because unfortunately, if you ask me which ones
don’t, I could give you a long, long, list. Let me mention a smaller company
first and then I’ll mention a larger organization I work with.

There is an absolutely fantastic company in Pennsylvania called Philadelphia

Gear. They were just named the number one best place to work in Philadelphia.
It’s a gear company. They make gear boxes for nuclear submarines and aircraft
carriers and electric companies and oil fields and things like that. They are
filled with — and I love the way the CEO says it — white collar people with blue
collar values.

They are technicians, they are engineers but they’re also people that
understand the value of a dollar. They have a strong what I would call
ownership mentality throughout the entire organization. That is a group that
understands the value of talent and understands the value of culture —
unbelievably successful company.

At the other end of the scale, a large organization I worked with that really
understands as well is the Mayo Clinic. I’ve been running their leadership
development program or one of the instructors in it for about seven years now.

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That is a company that understands it’s all about being the best, being the
brightest, taking care of all of our people. And that every person in every
position in the organization from the janitor to the CEO of the Mayo Clinic, we
want them to be the best they can be. We want to give them lots of education.
We want to give them lots of support. We want to give them a mentor. We
want to give them a coach. We want to do everything we can. Some of it is
spending money on it. Some of it just building into the culture to make sure
that every single employee that walks to the Mayo Clinic campus is the best
they can humanly be.

And they are an awesome example. I’ve never heard of Philadelphia Gear.
It’s hard to think about a company that’s building submarine parts to
really have that. It’s pretty awesome.

Have you found patterns that companies like that are using to attract that
talent. Are they basically coming to them from their existing talent pool?
Are they using specific methods to try to attract the type of talent they’re
attracting?

Another client that I’ve used to do a lot of work that is great at this is
Qualcomm. I know one of the senior people over there. It’s the same sort of
thing at Philadelphia Gear and the Mayo Clinic.

The thing that attracts talent is you’re going to come and be in a great culture
where we’re going to treat you like family. We’re going take care of you.
We’re going to value you as an individual. We’re going to understand that you
need life balance and that your job is not your life. That you have family and
you have kids or whatever it is. We’re going to give you a chance for your
opinion to be heard. We’re hiring you because we think we’re smart so we’re
going to be smart enough to listen to you.

When I look at the pattern, they basically treat people with respect. They treat
them with dignity. They let them know that they are important.

Actually, let me give you a really, really powerful idea. This is something that I
came across. It was one of the huge patterns I uncovered this year. I was
talking about it for a month. It’s a leading psychologist. We were talking about
what I do for a living and what he does for a living. He looked at me and he
said, “Really, what people want at the very base are three key things: Safety,
belongingness and appreciation.”

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When you ask me for the pattern of what a great company does. That’s what
they offer to their employees. You’re safe here. We’re going to take care of
you. You are on our team now. You’re part of the family. You belong. You’re
one of us. We care about you. We value you and we highly appreciate you. We
know you’re bright, smart, and talented. You are a values based person. We’re
happy to have you on the team.

So they go to work everyday and they feel safe. They feel like they belong and
they feel deeply appreciated. To me that would be the pattern that keeps and
attracts talent.

Right with your motto, ‘Awesomely Simple.’ I also want to mention to

everyone listening and reading this particular podcast that hopefully
within the very near future, we’re going to dive deeply into this and
everybody will have an opportunity to really explore these topics with you.
I don’t want people to think that we’re not really diving into it as deeply
as we can because I want to address these other issues too.

Let’s talk a little bit about culture. Instead of just diving into what is
culture, tell me about the one experience that you’ve had this year where
you walked out of an organization and just was totally wowed by their
culture.

There is a couple. Gentech really wowed me. I went out and did some work for
them in California. This was a culture of incredibly bright people doing
extremely important work. One of the things that wowed me is they offered a
big training class by me and it was optional not mandatory. If at any time, you
didn’t feel like you were getting value and you weren’t learning, you could get
up and leave.

I was wowed by a culture that says we respect you, you’re bright, you’re
professional, and you’re mature. We’re going to offer you the best training we
humanly can. If it doesn’t meet your needs, then you just go back and do
important work. I was wowed by a culture of people that treated each other
with tremendous respect. Everyone just glowed with competence.

Also, if you go around their campus, there are giant posters on the buildings,
giant murals on the buildings of actual patients whose lives they have saved. So
as you drive on that campus, you’re looking into the eyes, three stories tall, of
people who would not be here today had they not gotten a product or a service
that gentech developed.

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That was also a real wow thing to be able to make the connection daily
between the people they were serving, the people they were saving and the
work they were doing. It was palpable throughout the entire organization that
people knew why they were there and they were darn excited to be there.

John, you know, you talk about when you address this whole issue of
culture you talk about meaning, you talk about authenticity. I believe
strongly that meaning is probably what separates the most admired
companies from the pack. What approach do you take when you go in to
discuss this whole issue of culture and meaning with organizations maybe
who are not at that level?

It’s a very good question and we could just go back to an example you just used
a little while ago. It’s a little hard at Philadelphia Gear, a company that makes
gear boxes, to see the meaning behind that until they realized we’re the ones
that keep nuclear submarines running and aircraft carriers and cities running.
We contribute directly to the defense and the life of the people in our country.

If you can’t even get it to that level, then one of the things I’ll look at and say,
how can you get meaning in the work you do? Maybe it’s that your company is
heavily involved in their community. Maybe they’re really involved at a local
charity. They make a big, big deal there or the fact that at least you’ve just
got a great place to work where you go home at night and you’ve got life
balance and you feel good about what you do and you work for a values based
company.

Even in the most mundane company that isn’t saving people’s lives everyday,
there is still a way to say, we’re providing jobs and providing a great culture
and we’re letting fantastic people live a happy balanced joyful life and know
that they’re safe, that they got a good job, that they can go home and take
care of their family and they can be involved in their community.

So you just look for a way to if I can’t do it on a global scale can I do it almost
on an individual motivational scale of why is this a great place to work?

I’m sure John you’ve seen the opposite. Instead of going in and walking out
and being wowed, you’ve seen the opposite. You get in your car after a
meeting or first meeting with a company and say, “Oh my goodness. What
the heck did I get myself into?” What do these types of cultures look like?

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I have the best example in the world. I worked for a housing development
company earlier this year, very early this year. In the middle of the training
session, the door opened up and a gentleman — I’ve used that term loosely —
stuck his head in the room and said, “Are you idiots learning anything? This is a
waste of time,” and slammed the door.

I look at the group, I said, “Who was that?” They went, “That was the CEO.” I
said, “Here’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to spend the rest the day —
we’re changing the name of this course. We’re not doing sales anymore. We’re
doing, how to get a new job some place else.”

When you go into cultures like that, it’s clear, lack of respect for their people.
They do not see their people as an asset. Here’s the key thing is they don’t
listen to them. They don’t ask for their input. They don’t ask for their ideas.
It’s the old Henry Ford quote of, “Why do they bring their brains to work? I just
hire them for their hands.”

In cultures like that, they’re disrespectful to their employees. I just often see
statistics that said, a disengaged employee — a recent Gallup Poll showed that
about as much as 50% of employees on most businesses are disengaged. When
you look at the actively disengaged employee, they can drive down total
corporate revenues or organizational revenues by as much as 22%.

So think about that. If you treat your people poorly, they become actively
disengaged. Take a quarter of your total revenues and flush them down the
toilet. That’s what it means to have a bad culture.

That’s amazing. Did you teach them how to go find another job?

Yes I did. I spent the entire day in interviewing and thinking about other
industries and where they could go. I mean, I just looked at them and said, “If
you continue to work here, this person, this man, will destroy you.” Life is too
short to go a place where the CEO treats you like this everyday. Normally, I
would say give them a choice but even then, I looked at it, this is so horrible I
have to help you find a job some place else. This is terrible.

I love the approach that you’ve taken to your work and to life in particular.
There is no shortage of books as you know on this whole customer focus. It
really essentially is marketing of corporations. I love how you talk about
extreme customer focus. Share with us some best practices that you’ve
observed this year of companies that you’ve worked with or companies

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that you haven’t worked who you’ve seen this whole notion of extreme
customer focus with.

Again, on customer focus, there is a whole bunch of stuff we can talk about. I
mean, there is a myriad of different things. But let me hit what I think is
probably the most important thing in extreme customer focus and it’s the idea
around moments of truth. At its very base, you have not earned the right to get
anyone’s business if you don’t nail the 3, 4, 5 key moments of truth that make
or break the customer experience.

Let me give you a real quick example. Every restaurant on the face of the Earth
has at least four common moments of truth. When I look at moments of truth,
what I’m talking about is there is an entire value chain of your interactions
with the customer. From the minute they walk in the door of the restaurant, to
the minute they leave, there is a hundred of things that happened.

But there are only four key things that happens at every restaurant that make
or break the experience. And that is quality of the food, value, service and
cleanliness. Every restaurant has to nail those four. They’ve got to have good
food at reasonable prices with good service and a clean environment.

If you walk into a restaurant and they’ve got amazing food. I mean it tastes so
good. It’s just delicious and the service is superb. They’re right there. They’re
helping but they’re not hovering. They’re close by. It’s just unbelievable. The
prices are really fair for the incredible quality of the food you’re getting. But
as you take the last bite of your meal, four cockroaches walk across your table,
you are never walking in there again.

I think one of the most important things for any business around extreme
customer focus is to figure out what for my business. Whether it’s an internal
customer or an external customer, for the job I do, what are the key moments
of truth that I have to nail and then if I do that, then I can start to add icing in
the cake.

I’m actually talking to you from my car. Right now I’m sitting out in front of a
Starbucks. Starbucks understands the moments of truth. It’s got to be a great
ambience. It’s got to be comfortable. It’s got to be relaxing. It’s got to smell
nice and the coffee has to be perfect. If the coffee was rancid, it doesn’t
matter if there are fresh flowers and they give you free bagels and they shine
your shoes while you’re there. You’re not going back because the product is
not quality.

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To me there is a lot of stuff you could look at but every business needs to look
in the mirror and say, what are the 3, 4, 5 absolute critical moments of truth
and then, have we built a process around it to make sure we have repeatable
success? That we understand in the eyes of the customer what does the total
homerun look like then we make sure that on those moments of truth, we hit a
homerun every single time with every single customer.

You know that there are lot more companies out there, small or large that
would pay a lot more lip service to this whole notion of customer service,
let alone extreme customer service then the ones who really actually
execute it. I’m sure you see that everyday.

Yeah, I mean, people talk about it and they try to use it as a differentiator.
You’re going to enjoy our world class service. You’re going to enjoy our great
service. The funny thing is they actually do more harm than good by setting
expectations that they can’t meet.

To me right now for a lot of products — they can copy your product. They can
copy your location. They can copy your distribution. They can meet or beat
your prices because there is always some idiot that’s willing to go out of
business faster than you are by lowering and lowering their prices.

But if you have truly excellent customer relationships and you deliver superbly
on a consistent basis on those moments of truth, that’s one of the only
competitive differentiators that’s left to most businesses. So lip service isn’t
good enough. It’s got to become a way of life. It’s got to become ingrained in
the culture that delivering great customer service and having fantastic
customer relationships is the only way we do business and we will tolerate
nothing less.

You and I have probably known each other now for I think going on a
couple of years. I’ve got to tell you, there hasn’t been a time where you
and I have been either on the phone where you have not been totally
inspired, totally happy. I mean, it’s always really uplifting talking to you.
Tell me, what do you put in your coffee to keep your edge like that?

Well, I don’t drink coffee and I’ve done work for Starbucks. Even though I’ve
done work for them, I don’t drink coffee. Here’s what it is. It’s pretty simple
Moe. I figured out years ago it’s the most important thing I’ve ever learned in
my life which is from someone who reads a minimum of 100 to 120 books a year

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and has every year since 1989. I’ve been a consultant now for — this is my 18th
year. That’s a big statement to say.

Here is why I’m happy all the time. You become what you focus on and similar
to the people you surround yourself with. Whatever you fill your brain with,
whatever you look at, whatever you’re studying, whatever you’re thinking
about, and who ever you choose to surround yourself, will in large part
determine what your life is like.

I spend all of my time filling my mind and filling my life with happy, joyful,
exciting things. I surround myself with bright, sharp, smart, honest, values
driven people. All of the input I get and information and feedback from people
around me, is positive. It’s uplifting. It’s making me smarter, better, faster,
brighter, more helpful.

One of the neat things is when you really meet people that at a super high
level that are very successful, I’ve also seen that oftentimes they are the most
generous people. They give back the most. They want to help their community
the most. It’s a very, very virtuous cycle. That’s what gets me up everyday is
to do cool things with really fun people and help more people.

You’re doing it as good or better than anybody that I know and I commend
you for that. Any particular things you’re paying attention to as we kind of
end the year and head into next year? Any big topics, questions you’re
trying to get answered?

That’s a great question. For the time in my life, I’m really stepping back and
trying as hard as I can to think more of a global scale. I got invited this year to
the Renaissance Weekend which is a fairly prestigious meeting usually hosted
by a president. I’m going to get a chance to meet a bunch of very high level
thinkers there.

I’m pushing myself to try to look at business even though I deal with Fortune
100 companies. I deal with a lot of small companies and mid-sized companies
and startups. I think over the next five or six years, we’re going to see a huge
shift in the power structure of global economics. I think that innovation and
technology and creativity are the next stepping stone for success in America.

So right now I’m trying to understand two big things. What is happening around
the world economically that’s going to impact businesses worldwide from Main

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Street, you know, from small little businesses up to major corporations

everyone will be impacted. We see that right now. We’re living it.

And then 2 how can fostering an environment of creativity, of entrepreneurship,

of innovation and especially of collaboration. I believe that’s where the next
big wave of business success is going to be. It’s the people that create
companies in those areas that are highly innovative, creative, entrepreneurial
and very collaborative. Collaborative on a global scale even if you’re working
out of a tiny little office in a little town in Middle America.

I tell you man you’re hugely inspirational. Leave us with a favorite book
that you’ve read this year that maybe has left a mark on you.

That’s hard. Let me give you a couple - Referral Engine by John Jantsch. Great
book. Most companies are run by word of mouth referrals. That’s where all
their new business comes from up to 83% of their business. Mine is 99.9% word
of mouth referrals. Even though I own an advertising agency, everything has
been from referrals. John Jantsch did a great job with that.

I love the new Tom Peters book. I can’t remember the name…Little BIG Things.
Basically it’s a collection of all of his blogs for the last couple of years. I’m a
Tom Peters fanatic. I really, really enjoyed that book. A fantastic book called
the Noble Enterprise by Darwin Gillett a fantastic book on culture. I could go
on for another hour.

Actually if you go to my website, I’ve got all the best books that I’ve read
recently there. I’ve been putting up videos about once a month with my book
recommendations. I’m trying to keep on top of that because I think there is
some amazingly great information coming out right now.

How about that cool book that’s called Awesomely Simply? Do you want to
touch on that a little?

Funny, I never push my own book. It’s a helpful book but I’m not the kind of
guy who says, “Buy my Book!”

Let me wrap this up by saying what I’ve discovered reading all of your
stuff as I’ve shared with you many times. You have an incredible ability to
take a lot of content, a lot of great information, and to condense it down
to executable actionable pieces that leaders, managers, and all of us can
create and for that, everybody should owe you a tremendous gratitude.

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Awesomely Simple: Essential Business John Spence with Moe Abdou
Strategies For Turning Ideas Into Action
(Unplugged)

I know that hopefully this is a beginning of some really, really cool things
that we can do together. I appreciate your time enormously. I know you
love Tom Peters and all the guys that you’ve mentioned but I want to put
your name in that category as well.

Very kind of you. I’m deeply honored. As always, I enjoyed talking with you a
ton. Thanks man.

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