Welcome to the Self Aware Leader Podcast with Jason Rigby. In this episode, we have the pleasure of hosting Scott Freidheim, author of “Code of Conduct,” a memoir and guide to crafting your own principles in an increasingly complex world.
Scott takes us on a journey through the extraordinary highs and challenging lows of his life, from the boardrooms of Wall Street to the personal brink of bankruptcy. Through tales of adversity and triumph, close encounters with global leaders, and life-changing moments of clarity, Scott distills 32 chapters of noble tenets and moral insights.
In this episode, we explore several key themes from Scott’s book:
Bravery: Scott shares his harrowing experience during the 9/11 attacks and the critical decision-making moment that likely saved many lives.
Gratitude: We discuss the profound impact of first responders and the importance of recognizing their selfless service.
Compassion: Scott reflects on a haunting encounter with mental illness and the need for a compassionate approach to mental health.
Humility: We explore Scott’s journey from aggressive collegiate soccer player to a leader who understands the value of humility in personal growth and success.
Ethics and Accountability: Scott shares stories that highlight the importance of ethical leadership and personal responsibility in the face of challenges and setbacks.
Strategy and Relentlessness: We dive into Scott’s experiences at Kenmore and ettain group, discussing the role of strategic thinking, leveraging partnerships, and persevering through adversity.
Throughout the episode, we reflect on the essence of living deliberately, inspired by the resilience and insights of Scott Freidheim’s remarkable journey. This conversation isn’t merely about listening to a captivating story; it’s an invitation to reflect on your own values, consider what drives you, and deliberate on how you navigate the freedoms and trials of life.
Join us as we explore the wisdom and perspective needed to forge your own path, guided by the principles and experiences shared in “Code of Conduct.”
this is the self-aware leader podcast now your host Jason Rigby super excited today guys I have Scott uh friedheim he wrote a book called The Code of Conduct it’s 32 chapters of Nal tenants and moral insights and today on this episode guys I don’t want you to merely listen you’re going to hear some captivating stories from Scott to me it’s an invitation to reflect on our values to consider what drives us and to deliberate on how we navigate the freedoms that we have and the trials of our life so whether you’re an aspiring leader which is most of you whether you’re in search of Direction in your life are simply intrigued by the rich tapestry of Human Experience code of conduct this book offers the wisdom and the perspective needed to forge your own path Scott thanks for being on the sofware leader podcast thanks so much for having me very excited to be here yes that’s awesome I want to get into if we don’t mind right off I I because for sake of time I want to make sure we get through your book and we’re going to skip through some of the chapters and highlight some that really meant to me as I was reading this book I want to start off with chapter one bravery and I know on September 11 2001 we all know that day you faced an unimaginable crisis can you walk us through your initial reactions when you realize the gravity of the situation especially if you could you know take in the moment that your Executive Admin Marna you know screamed upon seeing the attack of what was happening um so uh it was a beautiful day um I came into the office and I had one of those interior offices the exterior offices with the ones with the windows we were in um three World Financial Center which is the building downtown Manhattan that has a pyramid on the top of it that’s attached to the Winter Garden I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures um from September 11 uh of all the Damage Done um Marna my exec admin screamed and ran to the window in the office opposite me uh I followed her and I looked up we were facing south so just to the left we were attached to the North Tower of the World Trade Center we were attached by a bridge it looked devastating uh I ran back into my office and called my brother who was in Midtown and said they just bombed the North Tower it’s 100 times worse than 93 mind you in 93 I was in the subway in front of the one where that was affected when there was a detonated bomb so uh I I had another close call there but the the day was uh a series of new horrifying developments as the minutes ticked away uh it wasn’t much after that that the second tower was hit by a plane I was in the office of the chairman um I walked straight to the elevator after I hung up the phone with my brother to leave the building but after I pressed the button I realized our chairman and CEO who was this decision maker wasn’t in the office he was in Midtown at a meeting so I grunted audibly uh an exploitive and made my way back into the office because I knew I couldn’t leave I didn’t know who the decision maker was going to be um and then uh we proceeded on two occasions to decide not to leave the building and that’s when I thought frankly we were making a grave mistake but as you know wall Street’s incredibly hierarchical and the senior person on premise was insisting that staying in the building was the right answer it was unclear to uh his defense it was unclear that it was safe outside this could have been a biot terror attack at the same time uh and he was in constant communication with the Port Authority so uh it was chaotic uh it was a time where virt the vast majority of people who surrounded me on our floor uh the way I describe it is they froze frankly they looked like lobotomized sheep and it’s only after the fact that I realized um through some of my own studies uh what happens when people freeze when they’re pushed beyond the limits of what they can uh process and uh the scope of tragedy uh with all of the things that you know you you you’ve seen and read about all of that was true and happening uh and each time you’d look out the window to make sure that it wasn’t getting worse you’d see another horrifying thing so I in fact got caught up in the moment uh since uh I was a ble to talk to our chairman and CEO away from the process in the building and convince him that the right answer was to evacuate everybody that I stayed in the building through the point in time that the South Tower was collapsing after we had evacuated everybody so uh I didn’t think I was going to get out and the next uh couple minutes I was proceeding to Sprint down the stairs five steps at a time uh in the empty stair because everyone was already gone thinking I wasn’t going to get out uh and thinking that there was a plane lodged in our building and that our building wasn’t as structurally sound so I fully expected that any second it was going to collapse on top of me so I went through a period of I don’t know if it was uh 120 seconds or so where uh I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to make it out and frankly the reason that chapter is called bravery is because uh when I think of a couple things about that day one of them is unquestionably the selflessness of the people who we have in our communities that are willing to put their lives at risk for the rest of us so that we can live in the blanket of comfort and safety by virtue of their selflessness and then surely that’s fire it’s police it’s paramedics and first respons ERS but there are a lot more in our community than just that so bravery to me is one of the defining things that was a wakeup call to me and I think to many people in our nation no and and you have a quote in in that first chapter bravery you have the selfless Brave earn respect through sacrifice when when you think of of those that were you know there onite and you saw them you know the firefighters the police you know they’re just selfless service and you think of Bravery I like to earn respect I is there something you know and and you also had to make a decision that was you know probably the hardest decision you had to make in your life because it’s to deal with human lives what was that moment like and then was there was there fear I mean you you talked about you know people I was in the Marine Corps so you can kind of see that same thing happen in war but what was it like for you I mean you know a lot of people that are brave are still fearful but was just the idea in your mind of of of helping the people like what went through that yeah and again to be Crystal Clear um I I don’t consider uh and I make a distinction I don’t I don’t consider anything that I did on that day Brave uh I think what I did was relatively Instinct instinctive um I’m I’ve been a businessman I’ve been a CEO in private equity and in Industry uh and my choice has been um to have a career in the corporate world bravery to me is for all of those members of society like our war Fighters like yourself who deliberately say I am going to pursue a life of service and I’m going to help those in my community I didn’t do that I acted instinctively in the moment I don’t view that as bravery um bravery to me is all of those others that have committed their lives uh and for those of us who’ve had the benefit of going through some experiences like this um uh it’s a bit of a wakeup call uh that we owe so much more than we’ve delivered and there’s a passage in the Bible that speaks to you know the talents that you’re given and what have you done with the talents I can tell you that 911 and other moments in my life like a near-death experience uh when I was in a bicycle uh and went heading into a a truck on a highway um I’m just grateful on a personal level that I get another bite at the Apple at my near certain uh moment of death because my report card wasn’t good enough and I haven’t delivered on my talents and I owe so much more the book at the premise of the book um is trying to be a disciple if you will in a way which I have not done in my life uh within the context of today’s society and you hosting uh your podcast being a be being someone who’s out there giving an opinion is incredibly difficult in this environment so what I tried to do was um to relay moments of time and history that the they collisions with history that people can relate to just like 911 um to say of all the things that matters how you live your life is the one that may matter the most if you’re near certain death moment is going to be like mine was that’s that yeah I think that puts a significance on it the one thing I want to ask you about because you know not just at this 9911 you’ve had to be brave and make decisions and we’ll get into a few of those uh with the stories of your book but you’ve had to make some pretty important decisions in your life as a leader what type of process do you go through you know when you’re having to make a decision that may require a little bit of Bravery or may require um you to kind of step out of the norm how do you make those decisions so I I think um particularly in business the facts usually Drive the situa the answer and um you know uh in business school you learn about uh decision trees you learn about ex the concept of expected value and you probability wait and adjust and you you look for whatever it is that the economic value is that delivers the highest and best um uh value in light of where you sit on the risk Continuum that’s that’s a business process that being said like you mentioned there are lots of there are lots of decisions that add complexity um uh and bring other factors into the equation and you know the environment sustainability and The Human Condition and the community there are lots of other things that uh will be impacted by various decisions that you make two companies merging together invariably there’s going to be overlap and therefore they going to be lots of people who have families and they’re The Breadwinner um who are going to be affected by those decisions um I did it instinctively and one thing that I’m trying to say is don’t live your life instinctively rather Define the aspirational tenants that you would like to Define in your life I’ve failed at every single one of mine so but that doesn’t that doesn’t negate the nobility of defining it and aspiring and trying to live by those every company has a budget I’ve never run into a company that doesn’t have a budget well why do they have a budget they have a budget to try and deliver on an economic performance that they’re seeking to achieve athletes have goals they’re their Times by which they want to finish a race um analogously if one cares about the life they live and that they lived a way uh that they could look back with without regret then it probably makes sense to Define what those are so if you’re able to do do that I hadn’t I was doing it instinctively which frankly is some DNA some what you’re taught at home and in school and some uh if you have a religious Foundation what you’re exposed to there um but virtually all religions have the Golden Rule as uh a primary articulated theme so I think you have a better chance of being happy with the life you led if you actually f it uh but mine was instinctual had I had a list in those important decision-making moments I would have reflected on those and said am I living up in light of that and I think it is a powerful and a good thing and some of the most enlightened leaders and CEOs are those who don’t just go by the math rather they incorporate their own code of conduct however it is that they Define uh what that might be yeah I’ve always wondered about that you know especially when it comes to um you know I’m in business too but making having to make that decision and for a young leader when you’re looking at like you said the math and Roi appared to our shareholder value appared to what it looks like you know in your code of conduct like how do you make those moral filters yeah it’s hard and um I think it’s going to be easier if you define I’ll give you I’ll give you a couple examples um and this would not this wouldn’t happen in today’s corporate world um it’s my first it’s my first week of the job uh on Wall Street and I’m working over the weekend uh Wall Street is a pressure cooker of an organization uh of a of an industry and each of the organizations have a brutal pyramid that filters out people along the way the most being called out in the first couple years of your career I hear a noise on uh the floor it’s a Saturday I’m working on it was actually a convertible it was a convertible note pitch for markv Industries I remember exactly what it was uh and I hear a noise so I walk over to the noise and there’s someone yelling from the other side of the floor so I walk peek in and this person is yelling lamp shade lamp shade I had no idea what he was referring to well what he was actually referring to was he said you are lampshade and he proceeded to explain what that meant now I’ll get close to what it was but I can’t uh stomach actually repeating what it was but it was a reference to what the Nazis did to the Jews during World War II I was so horrified particularly because I grew up in Brazil and France and when I lived in Paris I had met lots of survivors of the Holocaust uh members of the French resistant Americans uh who had fought in World War II so I had deep exposure when when I went to bed at night my nightmare was not the boogeyman getting me it was the Nazis coming for me even though I’m Catholic that was that was the nightmare that I had that was recurring and this boss of mine is referring to me effectively as a Nazi because of my last name what do you do in that moment now today it’d be pretty easy you just walk into the HR department and that person would never get a job again and rightfully so uh but that wasn’t the only instance I had another instance where I was I was responsible for uh MBA uh so business school recruiting uh for this Wall Street firm and I went in you know this uh managing director called me into his office and said I I hear you are supportive of a candidate Jim out of Stanford I say yeah they said but he’s black I said uh yeah he’s got a 720 GMAT 3.9 GPA and he has an offer in hand from Morgan Stanley and he just stared at me as if we weren’t on the same page and how could I possibly be supportive of giving an offer to someone who was black so what do I do in that moment in time again this was in the early 90s and I had already experienced I’ll do a third one just to give you a um a feeling because it’s not just about anti-Semitism it’s not just about racism uh we’ll go misogyny so we’re in we’re in uh an assessment decisionmaking moment we had just met with the top candidates from Northwestern and the University of Chicago’s Business Schools and we’re ranking all the candidates I’m an associate so uh there were two of us and there were two managing directors the four of us were responsible for who got offers to join the Wall Street firm and these uh at the time were among the most lucrative jobs that mbas could get and we had a scoring system of one to five based on leadership problem solving teamwork the standard stuff and the one managing director as work going around assessing this woman from the University of Chicago says three M now the two Junior decision makers myself and the other associate kept our mouths shut because again Wall Street was so hierarchical and if you disagreed with the managing director on anything it’d be really easy for them to fire you and that was that the HR department was in the room so this is not some office hidden away that no one knew what was going on HR was in the room to give you a feeling for what what it was like in at least on Wall Street but I think more broadly Corporate America and the managing director said 3M so the other managing director said hey Enlighten us what do you mean by 3M and he proceeds to say in reference to the woman so right h said nothing so in all these three situations what was I going to do oh I could Clearly say that’s objectionable and then what would how would that play out okay I thought more likely than not uh I’d be fired and they’d find a way to fire me that’s that I could go to HR and guess what there’s now a fight between a 15 to 20 year veteran and uh a first week on the job kid I lose that battle and I had seen uh a young woman who was um uh I didn’t seen I heard about a young woman who uh was uh sexually harassed in the worst way and what happened the senior vice president stays she goes so it was not a safe place rather what I did is I saidou know what when I get into a position of authority and responsibility I’m GNA do something about it and throughout my career I’ve done something about it I’m not a supporter of quotas I’m not a supporter of changing the standards to put people who are not qualified in positions however I am a strong supporter of equal opportunity and throughout my career I’ve made sure that I’ve been a standard Setter in terms of leveling the playing field so that everyone has a chance you you you were in the military does that mean that you didn’t if you if you didn’t go to the Iva League school you shouldn’t have a shot at the same job no you should and I should throw resources to prep you just as they got prepped so by their parents by their tutors so um when I look back at my career that’s one of the things that uh I really pressed and part of the reason I pressed because I lived through experiences that I found abhorent objectionable and inconsistent with frankly who we are as a nation or are meant to be yeah and I I think that defines us as a nation and separates us is our bravery you know and and we could we have stories that we could go back in the past and go through and and see but that’s something you know as an individual with personal freedoms that this country you know those were those were fought for through bravery you know so I I I think that’s really important I kind of want to go 180 degrees out and go to chapter five um you know Scott which is compassion and you have a story in there about Lori Dan I think is her name can you share that with our listeners sure so um I was on uh I was a student Northwestern uh I was on the soccer team and the fraternities were on the north side of campus and the sororities were on the south side of Campus uh I had just read that there was a woman who was raped on campus and I found it uh disgusting and nauseating and fast forward a week or so uh we were hosting a party uh I wasn’t drinking we were in season and uh I went to get a bite to eat I don’t know what it was midnight or something like that Southside of Campus there was a Burger King so when you’re a division one athlete or I’m sure like you military you eat a lot so I went down south and I saw a woman who was walking by herself from the north side of Campus obviously I thought it was one of the sorority girls who was heading back to their dorms so I offered her a ride gave her a ride that was it I never spoke to her um there was no flirtation there was no changing exchanging of numbers there was nothing I just I wanted I wanted her safe uh and that’s why I gave her a ride well uh as it turns out she had a disorder and um she was being Medicated by conflicting uh medications from two different doctors that she was seeing and they didn’t know about the other medication and it can have explosive uh consequences one day um it blew and she uh walked into uh a she she started off the day by picking up a couple of children and saying she was going to bring them to a carnival these were a couple kids who she used to babysit for and instead she went and uh set fire to an elementary school this is in the north side of Chicago and she then proceeded to go to uh an elementary school where there was another child that she babysat for she walked in the school with uh two loaded um guns and uh saw one child in the hallway uh he ran in the bathroom shot him missed then shot him again hit him in the chest he went down she went in the hallway there were two other boys uh her gun jammed she ran into a room where there was a teacher it was a substitute teacher she said put all the kids line them up against the wall uh the teacher refused initiated a struggle uh but Lori Dan um prevailed and emptied her guns into the uh uh children in the classroom killing uh Nicholas uh Corbin who was I want to say six years old seven years old hit five other kids left the school um uh earlier before she had uh done the school thing she left she went to a few houses and I was she had a list of people who she wanted to take to um the afterlife and I was on her list so she left me Capri UNP packets that she baked with lead and uh or uh Rice Krispie treats that she baked with lead and Capri unpack packets that she where she used a syringe and injected arsenic um I know that because the FBI technicians came to my house uh after the shooting and sampled them and and then gave me the report but she then uh ran into you know she jumped in her car uh was flustered got in a crash ran into a house um shot a college uh student who was trying to settle her down uh she ended the day by um taking her own life when uh the SWAT team had surrounded her house what did I see why is the chapter called compassion um mental health is a real thing um suicide rates among our Warf Fighters and Veterans is appalling um this is a woman who had issues and our system our society failed her um so it’s not but it’s not just about compassion towards her but the children who lost their life lost their potential the rest who suffered uh immense injury who are scarred for life for all the family members who have a permanent hole in their heart in their soul uh our failure to address that kind of thing has the opportunity to have such a magnified detrimental impact and for the rest of us who might not be in uh the nucleus of that moment in time um I think it’s really important that we embrace uh compassion understand that you don’t know what someone’s been through whether it’s when you’re driving in a car and someone cuts you off or whether it’s someone snaps at you or bumps you with her shoulder in the street you don’t know what they’ve just gone through and I think having a lens of compassion as a companion in life is incredibly powerful and is going to help us in society and being a place that is more consistent with the kind of society we all I think Embrace yeah you have that what you just said you have the quote in the book and I have it written down a lens of compassion is a powerful companion in life’s journey do you feel like a as a leader there’s always this um you know you know what I always talk about this in my podcast not using the L word you know love you know uh as a leader when you look at something being compassionate you know you you always think of weakness you know what what what do you as a leader have learned especially in your code of conduct when it comes to leadership and compassion um leadership we we we’ll talk about leadership I don’t particularly like talking about leadership just because it’s become so um it’s been such a common uh thing where where CEOs come out and say hey let me tell you the keys to leadership and frankly I find it to be dime a dozen uh I would have never written a leadership book I have no I have so little time or interest in Reading um notes on leadership but as it relates to your personal code of conduct or tenants by which you aspire to and oh guess what you’re now in a position position where you happen to be a leader and how do you reconcile those things I think um compassion is unquestionably on the list um there was I’ll give you an example um uh I was working for a Wall Street firm and we had a certain complement of businesses there was another Wall Street firm that had businesses that would merge with ours and neatly to add more capabilities I don’t want anyone to figure out exactly who it is so it could be vertical integration it could be horizontal integration uh it could be Geographic uh expansion but when I had finished all of the materials going through the analysis of how much we could pay for this business it was a publicly traded company therefore the CEO of the other company obviously has a fiduciary responsibility to deliver the best for his shareholders when our CEO met him at his apartment that night um he said so how are you thinking our CEO said how are you thinking about you know what uh what you want to be doing going forward which was sort of code for let’s try and get into a conversation about merging and he said I’ll tell you uh my number is 100 million premium will be whatever the premium will be my number is 100 million meaning you I know why you’re here you want to buy my company but to get my company you have to pay me personally $100 million so what was that CEO doing that ignored your question well in the combination of these two companies there’d be hundreds of people who were fired actually probably thousands so think of the thousands of families with the children all out of a job overnight now the combination made sense because in the future you were going to have more jobs created more value added uh in the industry to Corporate America to society but in the short term lots of dislocation pain anxiety and there was no concept of bringing compassion empathy care it was a purely self-focused lens probably what a lot of people think about Wall Street um but I think what’s really important in all leadership decisions is to reflect on the totality of the decision that one’s really obvious uh but there are lots of other micro decisions you know company’s going to think about uh creating a volunteerism program did you blow it off or are you supportive of it there’s going to be um maybe there’s going to be a corporate uh philanthropy effort and they give every opport every everyone an opportunity to uh take out of their paycheck uh five bucks whatever it is they check the box say I blow it off well knowing that if a company can use its corporate resources combined with with employee money if employees want to engage it can have a magnified impact how do you do you Embrace this stuff do you dismiss it there’s so virtually every day in the workplace there are decisions that all of us make all levels of the organization that relate to how do I want to live my life so to your point it’s an everyday thing and it’s an every level thing yeah and I think the story you’re talking about was in chapter 12 under ethics uh in your book and uh you have a quote in chapter 12 on ethics never compromise on ethics when you’re looking at that felt acquisition um you know due to these unethical demands what do you think most uh Business Leaders when it comes to self-interest at the expense of of like you said families or employees how do you balance that with having to make a hard decision like I mean obviously the acquisition you can’t have everybody not lose their job so um the reason I said it’s interesting some people have said wait a second the conclusion of the story that uh that we just talked about is that several months later this CEO sold his company and got his $100 million package so isn’t the conclusion compromise on ethics and you’ll get $100 billion um the reason I said never is uh I think biting the forbidden apple compromises you for eternity and um it is going to be incredibly difficult once you compromise ethics to be able to draw a line uh I have a chapter uh and you said don’t use the word love but I have a chapter in there called love and it’s kind of like marriage um I take my lens of my marriage to every conversation there are Temptations all over the world their Temptations to uh retrade deals their Temptations to uh have fun with someone outside of your marriage there Temptations uh to cheat on your diet to skip on your workouts they’re just Temptations everywhere um if you take a hard line and you build a career where everyone knows that uh you’re someone whose ethics cannot be compromised I think it puts you in such a Wonder wonderful uh place in your career and when you look back you’re not going to have regrets about not having gone for it on uh maybe a couple extra bucks you could have been able to extract somewhere rather you’re going to walk around having a reputation where everyone Brands you as I trust that guy uh I’ve left full-time positions like those CEO positions a number of years ago now I put deals together between typically a founder of a company and private equity and most of the deals that I work on are people that I’ve bumped into along the way in my career who call me up and say hey I saw your your you do deals I’d love to work with you always loved working with you you always live by the code of doing the right thing or whatever you want to call it so it will it will serve you well uh but most importantly in my view across all dimensions of life is for those of uh us who have not had a near- certain death experience and we don’t know what it’s going to be like I’m trying to say I was in one of those moments and yours could be different than mine but in that moment the only thing that mattered it wasn’t it wasn’t my family members it wasn’t my friends it wasn’t what I accomplished accumulated achieved it’s none of that the only thing that mattered was how did I live my life so that was really the reason why I put the three years into it was CU I saw something and I wanted to share that yeah I love that and and I want to step into because I found this really really fascinating um when you were working with the brands kin Moore Craftsman and die hard and um chapter 22 you have strategy uh what was this strategy involved in leveraging Kim War’s unique position with the manufacturers and then can you just describe the process of you know the Innovation road maps uh and then the relationship between kimmore and its suppliers sure so um one of the things for uh mostly the uh people who are in the corporate world in your audience one thing that I always think about when it comes to strategy is where do I have leverage so with Kenmore it was Kenmore crafts and a DI but let’s just take we’ll isolate Kenmore Kenmore is a brand that was owned by Sears Holdings and we didn’t manufacture anything rather we had a whole bunch of other manufacturers that made the Kenmore product so Samsung LG GE Bosch Electrolux all of these other manufacturers Whirlpool though they made it so when I became the president of kenor cross and die hard I looked at our track record and we had been declining in market share and profitability for five consecutive years in a row and I sat back and I thought about and I thought we are being produced by all of these other manufacturers I asked someone who was uh the point person with all of these other manufacturers find out for me what percent of their utilization in their plants is Kenmore so if you were one of these manufacturers and say you were the plant manager in Ohio or say Michigan for Whirlpool you had this plant it was running at 85% capacity utilization and 25% of that was just making Kenmore washing machines refrigerators whatever so when I looked at the data I said to myself wow if I called them up and said guess what I’m not going to work with you anymore how would the boss of that head of manufacturing Faire with his boss when plant utilization goes from 85% down to 60 probably not too well so I had leverage so I then thought how can I use that leverage so what we did is we had a process of thinking about how can we use it and I got the whole team involved and we all went around uh a the table through a series of lunches where think of it as like speed dating innov ating so every lunch for one hour start stop no more I had this wheel of different types of strategies and we’ go around the table and everyone would give an idea and from these sessions we got a whole bunch of ideas the outcome of that so is engaging everyone’s ideas um was that we went to all the manufacturers and said we’re end our 7-year agreement working together so in 120 days it’s over they all immediately flew into Hoffman of States Illinois with their most senior people to say what’s going on we’ve had a hundred-year relationship or whatever it was and we want to do whatever it’s whatever it takes so what we said was we had to get attention we wanted a better relationship with you than we had before you are producing all kinds of innovation so think on one access you’ve got all of the different types of products dishwashers topload dishwashers frontload washing machines refrigerator Etc and then on this axis you have time and invariably they’re they’re building new plants to have new Innovations in the marketplace like the dishwasher that is the most quiet on the market and then theyd go to market and say hey this one makes the lowest amount of noise Bosch is really good at that um another one would be the refrigerator with the biggest capacity so you could put the most stuff in it that was another one so what we said was we want you to give us your full Innovation road map over the next three years all of your secret plans and projects you got to let us know they all said well that’s like the most sensitive information I can’t give it to you to which we said well then we’re not going to do business together so they all they all participated they all gave us all the plans and then we simply picked what were the best products in the marketplace across all of the manufacturers and we reset the Kenmore product line and uh created the largest lead we were number one in consumer reports the largest lead to number two that we’ve ever had in the 100 plus year of Kenmore so thinking about whatever it is that you have whether um it doesn’t matter what kind of company is but thinking where’s your leverage and then how can I translate that into creating a much more profitable business that’s what that was about and in the case of Kenmore in the span of uh six months we went from number three in market share and Major Appliance the United States to number one that’s amazing I loved reading that when I was in the book when when you think of and I this was like a huge highlight for me uh and the quote says think through where leverage exists from there much of the right strategy will fall into place when you’re one of the things that you said that I thought was brilliant and I read in the book was the strategizing that you did with your team and then allowing everyone like you just said to speak in voice instead of like being alone in a room or in a big desk and you’re sitting there with in a library and you’re coming up with the strategy how did you include teamwork in your strategy can you go into that a little bit more detail you know I think one of the things and you uh coming from the military uh it’s obviously you’ve already got it uh in your bones um a team can create so much more than the individual so someone may be the MVP but if you know take your sport whatever sport you want um take the best player on that team um you know uh topic of the day would be Caitlyn Clark If you said we’re gonna run the Caitlyn Clark play where everyone clears out and she runs down the middle of the court and either hits a three or tries to dribble and get a layup every time they won’t do well uh rather uh sure she’s the best three-point player ever but she is an incredible passer so what distinguishes her in my view is the complete game as opposed to one aspect of the game analogously whatever leader there is uh the leader is probably going to be the person who distinguished his or herself in their career and they happen to be at the right place and time but if their success for the team is going to be a function and product of their ability to discover the universe of talents on the team and how to use them in the right way in this example I had no I had just showed up I didn’t know who was going to have the best ideas so the only thing I did was create the environment so that everyone who was on the team and I mean everybody had an opportunity to play the game and provide input and I forced it with a clock so when I talk about this Innovation wheel just so you can visualize what it was because it could apply to anything um you had had a series of spokes if you will so one would say product category expansion one would say product category extension one would say new products one would say ggraph expansion so one was a product Related Group of strategic plays if you will one was distribution channels and a series of strategic plays on distribution channels so so I had a universe of things that related to a business generically and then said okay so for example on new products when we were doing Craftsmen well I don’t know um how about uh lawn care products we don’t do that we’ve got the mower but we don’t do lawn care products okay maybe we’re permissioned to go there as a brand and maybe not but it would be those sorts of things but when we went around the table it was for each strategic play if you will in a generic way each person at lunch had 60 seconds no more to go so as they’re as we’re going on the table they’re obviously looking at what’s the next play so that they can start thinking because and if they didn’t have it they said listen I thought about this I don’t have then we move on so we went around and made it so that we very quickly got to the call it 50 people who were in the business and everyone had a chance and the other thing that it does is it creates equity and when you win based on a strategy where everyone was a co-creator in it then everyone is fired up because everyone is sharing the victory it’s not about the victory for whoever happens to be in a seat that we’re going to call the leader it has nothing to do with that it has to do with the whole team in you know in the world of Wall Street Goldman Sachs is the most powerful brand if if you leave if you leave Goldman Sachs and you’re interviewing in say the world of retailing or brand products or distribution companies and you say oh I used to work at Goldman Sachs the first thing that person in this other industry is going to think is wow Goldman Sachs that great they’re thinking about the winning team they don’t they don’t actually disagre and say well which group were you in appreciating that certain groups were less qualified than others no are you the national champion or not if you were in the national champion team you’re a national champion so to me a really important part about a leadership is the understanding and appreciation that the team gets a lot more done than the individual and within that what are the ways that you can try to get them to be co-creators in a common and shared goal which is much greater in purpose than any individual I love that and and for for the sake of time we’re coming up on the hour I wanted to end in chapter 31 which is relentlessness and you have a journey with CDI cor uh you know uh successful turnaround with the group you know I want to kind of get into that but I want to I want to do a quote chapter 31 you said this be relentless in the pursuit of your destination believe in yourself even when the lights go out can you talk a little bit more about that because I I think this belief in yourself and having this code and I think this is a good way to end this podcast is if you have a code of conduct and you’re being true to yourself then you have the responsibility to believe in yourself because you’re operating in the way that is ethical and you know through of these code of conduct so no matter what’s happening externally around you internally you have that Compass um to guide you so you have the opportunity not to be ruthless but to be relentless so can you talk a little bit about chapter 31 on relentlessness sure you absolutely nailed it so I’d rather we just end here I’ll talk about it but you nailed it if you’ve got this thing written down that you define for yourself that says relentlessness and you get knocked on the ground and you’ve got that thing you know whether it’s a posted on your computer or wherever you have it um you’re going to have a much greater likelihood that you’re going to say to yourself I owe it to myself to get up off the canvas so in my case I was brought in to be the CEO of CDI Corp which was a New York stock exchange traded company to to be the turnaround guy it was on a steep Decline and I came up with a plan and without going into the whole thing uh while the board initially said yes and and a CEO reports to the board of directors um but when I wanted so we bought a company consistent with the plan but then when it’s time to sell a company they said No and when they said no what I realized in that moment in time is that the plan wasn’t achievable so uh I resigned because um you if if you if you can’t do what your platoon leader your coach is telling you to do you do not belong on the field so I took myself out I waited a year and during because I had a non-compete for a year but in that year um I was still in uh uh Financial Harm’s Way because uh on on Wall Street I uh you know with the global financial crisis I was 18 months from having to file for personal bankruptcy and I was in rebuilding mode and this was going to be the job that helped me deliver on my personal financial goals for myself and my family uh and there I am unemployed and uh frankly it was it’s one of those things where uh I just didn’t even want to be around town so uh we left town and I’m walking the streets of Paris for three months wondering what am I going to do but it was three months of high anxiety high pressure uh you can’t turn off uh the spend of life and I had nothing coming in and I wasn’t out of Harm’s Way but um what I decided to do frankly more than anything was almost out of defiance with the board of directors saying we’re not going to sell this company that you have an offer on I wanted to prove it to myself that I was right so uh I went to private Equity firms right after uh my non-compete expired laid out a thesis and um uh with their C Capital we put we invested $135 million in this idea and sold her for $925 million two years later 24 months to the day um and made a half a billion dollars for investors on the 135 and obviously it was a a wonderful economic outcome for me as well but had I not had uh relentlessness as part of my at the time time in unarticulated code then I’m not sure exactly where I would have been now there’s no guarantee that uh things are going to work out quite like that but uh it was all of those three a day practices it was the running on the beach with a soccer ball it was uh getting chopped down as a forward by The Defenders who are twice as big as me and having to get up every time that I think created a bit of a muscle memory that I took into the business world so uh whatever someone’s own aspirational tenants are that they want to have as a a behavioral guide uh to their North Star I think it’s really important because if you don’t write down what you want to achieve then you’re less likely to achieve achieve it analogously if you don’t write down explicitly um how you want to operate uh then you’re probably less likely to behave that way so uh I’m thrilled you asked me the question I’m thrilled you had me on the show uh I love what you’re doing and uh the message that you’re getting out well thank you Scott I appreciate it I’m going to put in the show notes make sure we have your book in there uh for uh you know code of conduct so everyone can go through and and create that um on their own