Keep Leading!® Podcast Episode 003 | The Hero Factor | Jeffrey Hayzlett

Hello, everyone. This is Eddie Turner, your host for the Keep Leading Podcast, the podcast dedicated to leadership development and leadership insights.How do you run your business? How is your organization perceived? Wouldn’t it be great if all businesses were run like a hero? Well, how do you get that hero factor in your organization and transform it into a winning organization with a winning culture? Today’s guest is going to provide that answer. I’m excited to have the chance to interview the man that taught the world to think big and act bigger, the global business celebrity Jeffrey Hayzlett, CEO of the C Suite Network. We’ll hear him explain right after this.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Keep Leading Podcast, the podcast dedicated to leadership development and leadership insights. I’m your host, Eddie Turner, the Leadership Excelerator. I work with leaders to accelerate performance and drive impact.I am incredibly excited to interview the man that taught the world to think big and act bigger. He has offices in New York, LA, and, as he puts in his signature on his cards, Sioux Falls because he can. I’m talking about Jeffrey Hayzlett, the Prime Time TV host of C Suite With Jeffrey Hayzlett and Executive Perspectives Live on C Suite TV. Jeff is also the host of the award-winning All Business With Jeffrey Hayzlett on the C Suite Radio. He’s also a global business celebrity, hall of fame speaker, and the chairman and CEO of the C Suite Network, home of the world’s most trusted network of C suite leaders. Jeff is the bestselling author of multiple books and his most recent book The Hero Factor: How Great Leaders Transform Organizations And Create Winning Cultures.

Jeff, welcome to the show.

Hey, it’s good to be here. Thanks so much, Eddie. I appreciate that great intro to.

Well, Jeff, you are truly larger than life and I just have to tell everybody how I first met you, actually how I first learned of you before I met you. I thought that my wisdom, I would share my two cents about the bag that one of our speakers in NSA should purchase for her next trip, and I told her all about Tumi and why I thought it was a great brand. And then all of a sudden this guy Jeffrey Hayzlett not only types “Tumi is a great brand” but puts his Tumi commercial in the feed. And I’m like “Who is this guy?”

Yeah, who is this guy? I don’t remember doing that. I’m a big enthusiastic supporter of Tumi. There’s a lot of brands that I really like. There’s a lot of things I like. It’s like I’m always selling something for somebody because one, I just like doing that and two, I like having other people know about things I like so much.

Well, you’re the master marketer. There’s no question about it. I just kind of watch you and revel in awe but that was when I first heard about you. And I got a chance to meet you probably six months later at the National Speakers Associations Summer Conference which was Influence 2015. And I got a chance to meet you and, man, I’ve enjoyed becoming friends over the years since then. And then you invited me in 2016, I believe it was, to the inaugural C Suite Network event for the C Suite Network advisors that you formed.

Yeah. And it kicked off and we set up like 100 people, about 150, I think, total. And it’s grown ever since then and now, of course, we’ve expanded. Now we have C Suite Radio, C Suite TV, C Suite Book Club. So soon they’ll be launching C Suite Academy, C Suite Publishing. We’re pretty excited about it all, all these different brands under one big umbrella.

That’s outstanding. And this podcast is happening only because of you because I had no desire, it wasn’t even on my radar to even think about podcasting until you brought us all together probably in 2016, I believe, at an NSA conference and we talked about it. I remember taking notes feverishly but thinking at the end “Well, this is good for me in the future if I decide to but it still wasn’t something I wanted” but after listening to your podcasts which I’ve definitely … Would you tell everybody the name of that so they can tune in? Go ahead.

Well, my podcast is all business but I’m stepping away from that and starting a new one which is named after my book The Hero Factor.

All right, excellent. So we’ll talk about that for sure. So that made me decide “Okay, it’s time to jump in.” And so thank you for being a guest today where we will talk about, in fact, The Hero Factor but can you tell everyone before we talk about the book, the story about the Hero Club because you told that a couple of months ago at an event and I just thought it was fascinating.

Yeah, the Hero Club got started by a guy named Rob Ryan who sold his business back in 1998 for 20.4 billion dollars. And when sold his business, he and his wife, Terry, who was also the Chief Legal Officer, although they were under no obligation to do so, they set aside a certain percentage of the company for all the employees, making the single largest number of millionaires ever created in one day. It was just phenomenal.

Wow!

So you can imagine all these people, Eddie, coming up to them and saying “Mr. Ryan, you don’t know me but I’m the janitor here and I can send my kids to college. You know, you’re my hero” or they the night watchman says “You know, Mrs. Ryan, you don’t know me but I’m he night watchman and my mother-in-law has cancer and I just paid for the operation.” So story after story and they thought “Well, geez, they’re not heroes” and they just said “What can we do that could be different? What can we do to get people to operate with greater values so they put people over profit?” And not the profits but you still have to make money. And we can talk about that, about being a good company versus a wannabe or a do-gooder or even a bottom liner. There’s different kinds of companies that are out there but he started pulling together a group of people, about 20 or 30, and could never get it up to sustain it where it was more than about 27 people were they would get together and they’d start talking about their business. And so he approached me about two years ago and said “Hey, Jeff, I’d like you to take this over and you can really build scale. You’ve been doing that with the C Suite Network. Could you do this with the Hero Club?” And so we took a look at it and one of the things that we added was a pledge, a pledge that’s businesses sign, the CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs of businesses sign that say “We’re going to take care of the community. We’re going to take care of our people. We’re going to take care of our vendors. We’re going to take care of our environment and all the things that are critical for us to run our business and we’re going to put people and communities over profit” but profit’s still being a big part because the free enterprise system is what got us here. The ability to make money makes the things happen in the world, whether you like it or not. Without the cash you can’t make an impact. Without the profits you can’t make an impact. So that’s how the Hero Club got started. And now we’ve got hundreds of members all over the country and it’s starting to take off.

Absolutely. I read a Forbes article that talked about the fact that the Hero Conference is a must attend event.

Well, I was coming to it. We just had one in Vegas. It was unbelievable. We had hundreds of CEOs there and it was just a great event. And we’ve got one coming up in June in San Jose. In September we’re going out to the Black Hills of South Dakota. We’re going to go to the Crazy Horse National Monument. We like to go to different places from time to time and do it more retreat style where we get together and we talk about accelerators. We talk about networking and how to get bigger. We talk about access to capital and we’re talking about capital of all kinds – money, investment, cash, collections, people because capital is also people. Capital is also security in terms of cyber security and everything else that you’ve got to value in terms of protecting the assets that you have. And then we talk about tools and education. And then last but not least, we like to have a little fun. So it’s been a great group and just some of the most inspiring people I meet and just talk to, I just can’t get over. These folks in just a short period of time have become my best friends and it’s insightful. It’s insightful and inspiring.

Yeah, I had a chance to meet several of these insightful, inspiring people at the event held at the World Trade Center Tower One at the Condé Nast event that you did in December and just amazing people.

Well, that was a great location too.

So tell me, Jeff, leaders are listening to this podcast and they’re going to be wondering, well, how can they elevate this leadership skills to hero status?

Well, first of all, realize what it takes to become a hero company. Hero companies, first of all, these are some numbers that I think are really unique about businesses in general. One is that about 28% of the people who work for a company don’t even know what you’re doing, what your vision is. 53% of the people who work at a company aren’t even engaged in a meaningful way. So the realization is, first of all, what kind of company you want to be and then to be able to declare a vision around it. So what’s your vision of where you want to take it and does everybody in the company know what that vision is because if they don’t know, then what the hell are you doing because then they don’t get it, they don’t understand it. So that’s the first thing. So then everybody’s behind that as to what we are, so everybody can recite basically “This is what we do and how we do it.” And once you once you decide what that vision is, then you kind of pick a side. So on page 12 of the book The Hero Factor … And, by the way, you can get this for free, you can get at least the assessment for free and the outline of this by going to TheHeroFactorBook.com and I’ll give it to you because I want you to be able to take your company through an exercise to find out where you rate on the scale, Hero Intensity Scale and see what kind of company you are and then see how you might want to move it to one or the other area. So, at the very bottom of the scale there’s these asset companies – they have no value and they have no hero values and they have low operational profits. All they want to do is rip people off. We know who those companies are. In fact, there was a great documentary on Theranos the other day, I saw a couple of them that are coming on, The Blood Company. I mean, what a loser. I got to say it. I mean, just diabolical, people died. And not only that, took billions of people’s … I think it was billions in terms of the money that they took. So that was one.Then is the next level that you could be a wannabe. A wannabe is somebody that’s thinking about it. You could be a good company doing a great job. You could be a do-gooder. A do-gooder is high on hero values, low on operational excellence. So you could be operational excellence company, their bottom line, what we call bottom-liners. They just do a hell of a hell of a job making money doing that but they have little values in terms of Hero Value. They might give a check to make them look green or volunteer and do this and do that but really they’re not operating with Hero Values. And those companies that operate with Hero Values, we find that they gross more dollars, they make more money, they have happier employees, they have more engaged customers, and their vendors like to do business with them. So, to me, you got to pick a side. So decide what kind of company you want to be. I don’t care, just pick one. And I think that’s one of the most important things you got to do first is decide “Hey, this is our values. What are our walk-away values? What are the things I’m willing to do and not do in business? And when someone offers me money to do this or do this, am I willing to take it?” These are the kind of questions that most people need to ask themselves and they fail to do that from time to time.

Wow, you gave me a lot of rich meat to chew on there, Jeff. The idea that that many people, the stats you quoted, either are unaware of what the company does or not engaged what the company does is staggering. So your solution that you show… And I’m glad you mentioned that because I was going to ask you about pages 11 and 12 and you walk through that very nicely. So for those who don’t have a copy of the book, you definitely get a copy of that and look at it because this chart draws out very nicely the things that Jeff just explained. And so I had the privilege to be able to read this as you were explaining. That was nice. So that is very insightful. People get a chance to take the assessment. I actually did go to the website and you cited it there and we’ll also put this in the show notes for those who want to be to take the assessment to see just how they stack up.So what I’d like to do is ask you another question related to that, Jeff, that you raise. What are the core principles that leaders need to implement in order to become hero leaders and hero companies?

Well, there are so many of them. I’m not going to outline them all here because I want them to get on the book. I want you to get into the assessments. I want you to figure out the things that you think you might have to do but they’re going to be around things like diversity and inclusion. Again, when I said earlier about picking a side, for so long, Eddie, you know this, you’ve been in the HR business for a long time, the business of people and talent, we’re afraid to rock the boat, we’re afraid to take positions on things. And my book is really about do the opposite of that. You should take positions. And people, they might not do business with you. I find very few people who do that because of your stand on something. Let’s give you a couple of great examples. Right there in Houston where you live I think isn’t Hobby Lobby or Michaels, aren’t they down in that area?

Yes, sir.

Okay. They don’t open on Sunday. They don’t open on Sunday because they believe that’s the day of the Lord. They believe that’s the day that they should have rest but I don’t see people that are of another religious denomination or people who are offended that they do that, maybe a little bit of inconvenience from time to time because they want to go do some craps. Let’s take another business like, I don’t know, a Chick-Fil-A based in Atlanta. Cathy Truett, one, they’re not open on Sundays either. Two, you can’t buy a Chick-Fil-A. You have to be a manager. You have to work your way up in the company before you can buy or run a Chick-Fil-A. And then not only that, he says he doesn’t believe in same sex marriages. That offends a lot of other people but it doesn’t stop me from having a good chicken sandwich with the pickle on it. Look, I don’t agree with his positioning on that particular issue. I think he’s out to lunch, so to speak, but by gosh, I defend his right to take it. And I have friends, I have family who are gay and they still go and get a Chick-Fil-A sandwich because at least he’s taking a position. he’s not being wishy-washy about it. That’s his belief. More power to him. The same thing goes for if you want to take a knee on a football field. I’ll defend your right to do it. That doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences as a result of it. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a revenue impact or other people will not be offended by it but by gosh, I defend anyone’s right to do that. And we should all stand up for that. There’s nothing wrong with that because that’s what our constitution says and we can get into political debates about it. Even people with Trump, I mean, I know him. I was a judge on Celebrity Apprentice, worked with him for a couple of years doing different things as partners on businesses and yet he’s crazy but I defend someone’s right to defend him and what he does. And I think it’s one of the best things that we’re having for our country, quite frankly, not because I like him from a political standpoint because it’s making people pick sides. For so long we didn’t pick sides and look what it got us. It got us in a mess and still a mess, even a worse mess now that we got him there but that’s nonetheless, right? It’s all about at least picking a side and saying you’re going to represent being for something. That’s what I think was what’s really cool that’s come about, about this stuff is the ability to have that open debate.

Very well said, Jeff. It’s important that leaders definitely have to be authentic and they have a core that they don’t vacillate from but at the same time be able to recognize and respect multiple perspectives.So what I’d like to do here is just take a quick break to have a word from our sponsor.

We’re back. I invite you to subscribe to the Keep Leading Podcast and share with your friends. Please leave a review for me on iTunes so I know you’re out there and I know what you’re thinking. If you leave a review for me on iTunes or share this podcast on social media, please tag me and then send me a message so I’ll know. I’ll send you a digital copy of my bestselling book 140 Simple Messages To Guide Emerging Leaders. And I’ll also give you a shout out on social media and the Keep Leading Podcast.Okay, I am here with Jeff Hayzlett, the global business celebrity, hall of fame speaker, and the Chairman and CEO of the C Suite Network and we’re talking about his most recent bestseller The Hero Factor: How Great Leaders Transform Organizations And Create Winning Cultures. The ability to do both is perhaps what some people might think is not possible. Jeff, does it mean that if I’m going to create a hero culture, I have to sacrifice profits? I should probably ask you that.

No. Well, maybe sometimes at first or the beginning you turn down business because this person’s not the kind of person you want to do business with or they’ll pay you and they’ll pay you in 160 days rather than 60 or 90 days. You’re watching companies now push back payments way, way, way back, which is almost ridiculous but can say “Hey, no, I won’t do business with you” and turn it away and that, of course, cost your business but in the long run it makes you a stronger business. So really truly, no, you don’t have to balance that because by doing the right things, by being ethical, by being direct in your conditions of satisfaction, you get to a point of doing the business with the way you want to do it. So that’s good.

Good. Thank you.Now, Jeff, one thing I want to ask you about is in the book Chapter 11 – Crash Landing When Cultures Fail To Care – you mentioned the story about Theranos earlier. And if folks haven’t had a chance to watch that documentary, it’s worth watching because it’s incredible how a 9-billion-dollar company is now worth zero but it was initially hailed as one of the great success stories in American innovation. Well, you brought this chapter to life at the December event for The Hero Club members and the C Suite Network members by introducing Dave Sanderson. I just remember sitting there as the story unfolded and you could hear a pin drop in that room. Can you share just a little bit about this and how you wrote this and put this into story and how you brought him in to talk to us?

Yeah, it was quite the interview. It’s always interesting when Dave and I get together. We like to talk to each other and we have some similar beliefs and some dissimilar beliefs but we always have a good respect for each other. Well, Dave Sanderson was the last civilian to step off the plane of the US Airways that crash landed into the Hudson River here in New York City. And he was one of like two or three people that were hospitalized as a result of hypothermia and the injuries he sustained as part of that crash but no one died. So he talks a whole series around moments matter and what are those moments in your life and what’s important and what’s not and how it comes about as a result of a momentary strike on a plane, a momentary landing, a momentary decisions by the captain’s, momentary heroics by the ferries that operate on the Hudson River and then all the first responders that kicked in. I mean, it was amazing, absolutely amazing.And then he’d talk about the moments afterwards where he was being taken care of by the Red Cross when they actually put a toe tag on them because that’s what they do even when you go to the hospital on a massive, massive evacuation like that or trauma like that. And then the next day, I think, was the most poignant. He flies home in borrowed clothes that were given to him by the Red Cross. And he’s a businessman flying home the next day, met at the airport by his family. You can imagine how happy they were to see him. Then he decides “Well, what the heck. I should probably drive into the work just to make sure that they know I’m okay” because all the hoopla was on the news, this and that. So he drives in to work with his children because they decided they want to be with their dad. And he walks in the business. There wasn’t this Oh my gosh, are you okay?” The first question out of someone’s mouth was “Are you going to make it to Detroit next week?” And I just thought “Wow, that says something right there about a company culture.”

I got chills when that was told at the event and we all kind of put our hands over our mouth and just gasped.

Yeah, yeah. He didn’t work for that company much longer.

Yeah. I actually shared the story with a friend of mine literally two weeks ago. He was in town visiting me and we were supposed to go to dinner and he was running late. He says “Eddie, something’s come up. I’m going to be delayed.” So we finally get together and he tells me that he was delayed because the gentleman who works for him had just had a heart attack.

Oh jeez!

32 years old. And when he got the call, the gentleman … He’s been on this contract for about six months. The gentleman who had the heart attack, the family didn’t call the gentleman who had managed their account for the last three years. They called my friend because he is the one who had formed a relationship with this young man. And when my friend informed the big boss, if you will, his first question was “Who’s next?”

Ah yes. Now you just reminded me of something I push back into my memory. Years ago I was working in a publicly traded company and I was head of Sales and Marketing and it was a couple-billion-dollar-sized company. And we had a shooting where we had a former employee who had left us years and years and years ago mentally disturbed, obviously, as you hear the story, walk into one of our printing facilities and killed an employee, set the place on fire, went looking for more employees and then finally when the SWAT team showed up, he killed himself. And so I heard about it immediately because I was head of Sales and Marketing. Someone called and said this and this and as a leader in the company here, if you’re closer to the employees, you tend to hear more than the everybody else. And I remember I started getting on the phone to start helping to organize the response. I mean, what are we going to do for the employees? They just witnessed an employee getting shot? The place is on fire. What about the work that’s in there? What about the people that are in there? What about the … all the stuff that’s going on. What about counseling? What about taking care of all these people? All these things were running in my head and how are we organize for it and do we have a plan for it and do we not? So I’m on the phone with our headquarters operation because I’m out on the field with one of my divisional presidents. And the divisional president says “What are you doing?” I said “I’m helping to getting this thing going because there are people that will do that.”

Wow!

He said “What?” I said “These are our people.” I said “We are the people that do this.” He goes “No, you need to pay attention to business today.” I said “I am paying attention to business today.” I remember I had thrown a … every once in a while I’d throw a punch at somebody … but he made me so mad, I wanted to punch his lights out. It’s like “Are you kidding me, man?” And we didn’t have a plan for it. I, unfortunately, have been through something similar before with another company. I had a PR company. So we had to handle tragic things like this before. So I’m trying to handle everything. I’m trying to figure out how to work with the local news, local Sheriff’s Department, local police department. All that stuff’s going in my head because my gosh, we’re a publicly traded company. This could also hurt us too, right?

Absolutely.

First, take care of the people. So I called the Head of HR – “Let’s do this. Let’s do this. Let’s get everybody in conference room.” We did that. We organized everything. And then we charted a plane and sent some people out there right away and held employee meeting, took care of things, brought in counselors. I mean, it was all that kind of stuff. And at the same time trying to handle with the media.

Well, you showed yourself to truly be a hero in that case, Jeff.

One time my wife was asking me about a board that I’m on, it’s a real bummer. It’s not a good company and the guy is not doing a good job with it. And she goes “Why are you still on that?” I said “Because it’s what good people do.”

Wow!

It’s what good people do. It’s what we do.

Excellent. Well, there’s one final question I’d like to get your input on, Jeff and that is how do today’s leaders create the next generation of leaders who will carry these values that you’re describing and that you have epitomized throughout your career.

By being a leader., by being a living breathing example of doing it every single day. That’s the critical piece of it is that you have to live it every single day. And there are times that I miss it, you miss it, I’m sure we all do, we’re human but it’s also the realization that when you miss it, you go back and say “Hey, guys, I’m sorry, I screwed that up.” I do that. I do that far more than I care to sometimes where I might get mad about something or someone says something and I go “What are you talking about?”, I get defensive about it. I’m just human like everybody else. And I have to go back and say “Well, I’m sorry about that, guys. You were right.”

So it sounds like the real takeaway from our conversation today is that people should run their business with hero values. Is that correct?

Without question. You want to make money? You want to be better than everybody else in the industry? You want to have more engaged customers, happier employees, and people you want to work with every single day, and vendors who want to just rush to you and help you” That’s what you do.

Well, I’d also add that they should consider looking at the Hero Club Organization and certainly picking up a copy of the book but also looking at the Hero Club Organization, going to one of the events and perhaps even becoming a member.

We’d love to have them. You can go to the HeroCEOClub.com and you can find out more there too.

And, Jeff, I love asking people about their best leadership story or advice they’ve received or a leadership quote. Do you have a quote that you can share with us?

Yeah, it’s right out of my book and it’s “A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business. and that’s by Henry Ford. He was a tough old guy but, if you remember it, he always said “I got to make a car that my employees can afford.”

I love it. Well, Jeff, you have absolutely become one of the people who I look up to and I have a high regard for and one of my good friends and I am just so delighted that you took some time out to come on my show and be one of my very first guests. And I just can’t thank you enough. Thank you.

Well, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. This has been a great, great time to spend with you.

I appreciate it.Well, that concludes this episode, everyone. This is Eddie Turner, the Leadership Excelerator, reminding you that leadership is not about our title or our position. Leadership is an activity. Leadership is action. It’s not the case of once a leader, always a leader. It’s not a garment we put on and take off. We must be a leader at our core and allow it to emanate through all we do. So whatever you’re doing, always keep leading.