EntreLeadership - #76: Bob Buford and Jim Collins —Why You Need a Mentor

Episode Date: July 28, 2014

On this week’s podcast, two of the top leadership minds in the country—Jim Collins and Bob Buford—hang out with host Ken Coleman to talk about their mentor Peter Drucker. They share their personal stories on the man who has been called the father of modern management. As a special bonus, leadership guru Michael Hyatt drops by to give his tips on mentorship too. http://www.entreleadership.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charismatic, passionate, as integrity, humble, servant, faithful, inspiring, persevering, positive, flexible, driven. This is who we are that call ourselves leaders. Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Now, here is your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the podcast of Leaders by Leaders. Leaders for Leaders. I'm Ken Coleman and thrilled to have guest co-host Michael Hyatt in studio today. Michael,

welcome. Thanks, Ken. Great to be with you. So cool. Michael is a Franklin resident. Lives no more than what, six or seven miles from the studio. No, like two miles. Two miles. Yeah. It just feels like six or seven. Exactly. In traffic, it does. Yes, it does. So we're so glad to have Mike with us and our feature conversation today. I know you're excited about this. Bob Buford has written a new book called Drucker and Me. And the Forward is by his good friend, Jim Collins. And this is fascinating stuff because really the book is all about the private relationship that Bob Eifford had with the legendary management guru Peter Drucker. I mean, what would it be like to have him for a mentor? Oh, unbelievable. And so that's how it happened. Bob Buford as a young businessman, he's just in his early 40s, Mike, and he calls up, gets an opportunity, takes it,

and goes in visits with the great Peter Drucker. And what he thinks is going to be this mountain top once-in-a-lifetime experience to get wisdom turns into a 30-year-plus relationship. Unbelievable. Amazing. Yep. And I want to ask you, Drucker. Drucker's had so much influence. In fact, it's detailed in the book.

Rick Warren, you know, writes about the influence that Drucker had on him, and he's influenced the megachurch pastors and, of course, management gurus all over the place. As you look back on Drucker's life, and of course, you digest so much material, how has Drucker influenced you? Well, I think he's the first guy that helped me see that management was a sense. science that could be studied and there were good practices and bad practices. And prior to that, I mean, I'm a little bit older than you. Prior to that, I mean, you just got into management. There really weren't a lot of helps. He was the first guy that began to really dissect it,

distill best practices, and you could actually improve your management, improve your leadership. They weren't calling it leadership back in those days. That's right. But yeah, he was really the granddaddy of all that. That's right. So we're excited about that conversation. And I want to tease this, because after you hear the conversation, Mike and I are going to come back, and I'm going to put Mike on the spot because I want you to share with our audience about mentorship, specifically intentional. Good. Mentorship, meaning that how can people be more intentional to seek out the people?

Not everybody's going to get to hang out with a Peter Drucker type, but how can we do that? And then I want Mike to share a little bit about a mentor's influence on his life. So that's coming up. It's going to be great. But before we get into the conversation, let's just kind of get caught up on what's going on with you. Man, I'll tell you, I left Thomas Nelson as the CEO three years ago. That's hard to believe. It's hard to believe.

It's kind of a fading memory. It seems like 30 years ago. You've been so busy. But it's been awesome. I mean, that was great preparation for what I now consider to be my life's work, which is out speaking and writing and interacting with people, mentoring people. And I just love it. I just came back from the World Domination Summit in Portland, an amazing event.

But I just, people are so open and so eager. to learn more about leadership and about how they can have an impact on the world. We've got an incredible generation of new leaders coming up. Now, if you are somehow new to Michael Hyatt, please crawl out from Under the Rock that you were under. Check him out on Twitter at Michael Hyatt, and then, of course, his website. I mean, talk about what you're doing there. You've got some exciting things coming up. Yeah, I do.

I blog at Michael Hyatt.com, and I blog two original posts per week. And then in addition to that, I do a podcast, and we completely just revamp the podcast. So now it's video plus audio, and I've got a co-host, and Michelle Kashat is my co-host, so the female voice of Michael Hyatt.com. And, you know, we're just continuing to engage around these topics of, is it possible to win at work and win at life? And our premise is that you can't do one without the other. So everything in our, the blog is being reformatted that way,

and we're going to have a brand rollout that's going to happen later this year. Well, we had you in here because you are a great friend of the organization, and great friend of Dave's as well. And we love what you're doing. Thank you. And I want to talk about the spirit of sharing the spirit of abundance. And that's really why you're here because we both have great podcast. And we're, you know, this entree leisure podcast and your podcast is they're up at the top of the ranks.

And yet we can work together. And I want you to talk just quickly about the spirit of entrepreneurship and sharing an abundance. Because it can be done. I know you're out there solving problems, you entrepreneurs. but how do we work together? Yeah, I think this is the foundation for success in any area of life is you've got to give, not to get, but just to give.

Oh, that's good. And when you do that, it comes back to you in spades. You've got to add value if you expect value. You know, the most important thing I've found in business is to build trust. That's when sales happen. That's when transactions are consummated, but not before there's sufficient trust that's built.

The best, the fastest way to build trust is to give. To add value to somebody else's life, If when you do that, people open themselves up, they're willing to do business with you. So it's a brilliant business strategy. What a great statement, and it segues perfectly into our feature conversation on this podcast. The book is Drucker and Me. It's written by Bob Buford, author of Halftime. And The Forward is by Jim Collins, author of Good to Great and so many other wonderful books on leadership.

And it is all about Peter Drucker, the legend, opening up, as Mike just said, his heart, his head, and his time to spend with Bob Buford. And here's what's great about this, Mike. We surprised Bob Buford. He thought it was just going to be him in this conversation. I love this. He had no idea that the great Jim Collins, his friend, was on the line and you're going to get to hear that. This is exclusive to the Entree Leadership podcast. Here is my conversation with Bob Buford and Jim Collins. Well, Bob, it is a pleasure for our Entree Leadership podcast and for me to talk with you today. This new book, Drucker and Me, is absolutely fascinating as you take us behind the scene. So we want to start by saying thank you for being with us today. And we thought we'd

surprise you. We've got a fun surprise for you. Your colleague Derek Bell helped us make all this happen, none other than your friend and good to great author. Jim Collins is joining us on the line, so let's welcome him to the podcast. Jim, thanks for being with us. Happy to be here. Hey, Bob, how are you? Hey, I'm great. How are you? You are great. In a whole lot of ways. We could spend an entire hour talking about how great you are. and vice versa, too. Well, this is so great. And I want to dive right in when we have both of you on together.

I think it would be poor to start out this conversation without asking each of you to take a few minutes to just share your first experience in meeting the great Peter Drucker because you both had an individual and unique relationship, and yet you both are friends as well. So Bob will start with you. Take us back to that first meeting of Peter Drucker. Well, I think it was similar to what

what Jim had. But at least in my case, I was just intimidated to no end, grateful that Peter would see me. And you just had it was the thinker about how people get things done. I was alive. So intimidation, let's say. followed by warmth Wow

How old were you at the time Bob? Do you remember? I think I was 40 right in that area Yeah 42 Wow Jim let's ask you What was your first encounter with Peter Drucker like? I'm struck by Bob's

Description of Both intimidating and warm And I was 37 And was at a kind of a frightening turning point in my own arc and trajectory where I was deciding to leave the traditional academic world and think about kind of carving my own path. And a good friend had facilitated a connection with Peter Drucker. And I remember Drucker called and invited me to come down to his house in Claremont.

and when I went to the front door, it's very understated house, knocking on the door, knocking on the door again, and then hearing this from behind the door, hang on, I'm not young anymore, and he's kind of, yeah, and then all of a sudden he opens the door, and he grabs my hand in two of his, and says in the most warm, enveloping way, Mr. Collins, I am so very pleased.

to meet you. Please come inside. And I think that idea of, you know, you're meeting one of the towering, most impactful intellects of the 20th century, and yet he is just so warm and gracious,

and it's a, it's a, was just a marvelous combination. This is a wonderful lesson for leaders to hear of a legend, because Peter Drucker certainly is a legend in corporate circles and beyond, and he welcomes you, both much younger than him and he's already achieved this great status for his work and his thoughts

and his influence and he welcomes you in and so I want to flip that for a moment because even both of you were intimidated and so Bob I'll start with you and then I'll come to Jim but Bob what was it in you that while intimidated you reached out to him in the first place because I think there's a great lesson here that you took the chance you had the courage to reach out and ask him if he would give you some of his time Well, one of the values, I have 10 values printed, is go big or go home. That was behind my hoping that meeting would happen, and that meeting turned out to be 25 years of meetings,

all of which I taped on a little Sony, what do they call them, a microchip or something. So that was it. I read everybody else, but at that time I just set the others aside and said, I'm going to do it the way Drucker says. And I did, and it worked. Jim, the lesson learned, the takeaway from an opportunity to meet with Drucker and what that teaches us leaders to maybe put ourselves out there to somebody who can tremendously help us. Well, you know, I had a really fortunate turn of events, and I think that Bob writes marvelously about his book and in his book about how the Drucker was somewhat material and who he would spend time with. And there was kind of no system that I was able to discern. And I had a friend named Tom Brown who had done an article on our work, what became built to last.

and uh... when tom was interviewed interviewing me uh... about it uh... he asked me who i'd most you know admired uh... and and look to as a role model and i said and he said well i've had the privilege to interview drucker uh... would you if you had a chance to spend some time with him would you do that and i said well of course i mean just uh... really to do so and tom

uh... then got back in touch with drucker and said there's this young guy up at Stanford and you don't know who he is but he's at a pivotal point and I think it'd be worthwhile for you to spend some time with him and the next thing that happened was I got the phone call from Drucker inviting me down to Claremont and of course then I just would do anything to adjust my schedule I think one of the things I've learned you kind of hit with unexpected event luck events as you go along in life and this was a luck event, but the most powerful kind of luck events are Huluck, right? When you get to have a wonderful person cross your path, which is Bob Bufu for crossing my path as well, wonderful

hoolock. But when those who luck moments come, you have to be willing to on that who luck. And for me, the lesson was whatever it took, whatever I had to set aside, to be directly influenced by this person, I would do. And it didn't matter what else was on my schedule or life, I would go there for that opportunity. There's an interesting, just a little aside on that, when I came home from that long day, spent like six hours with me, I think I spent six days up my notes, and I still have those notes. And, I mean, I wrote down everything that impacted me that day. And I think that, you know, that's the other side of the learning, is that if you,

and Bob, this is why Bob's book is so wonderful, because it wasn't just that he went and spent time with Peter Drucker. What Bob did was he walked away from those, and he writes the real return was that he took Peter's, he wrote out his thoughts, he applied them to building the leadership network and providing himself a marvelous second half in life. and it was, you know, the real lesson is not that Bob met Peter, it's what Bob did with meeting Peter. And that's what's so special about this.

Yeah, one of the commonalities that comes out in this book is that Bob, you and Peter, and of course, Jim and Peter and you, all three of you, share a desire to see society be good and society to be great. And that leads me to this question. he's no longer with us, but from both of your experiences, and Jim, I'll start with you on this one. This idea of business for good, not just, you know, good leadership, but doing business for the greater good. What do you think Drucker would think of this idea?

Well, I think that, you know, the wonderful thing about Drucker is that he had this marvelous capacity to both a very high-minded and very principled, very far-seeing big-picture lens on things, and at the same time, as Bob Wrights, you know, and it kind of comes back to over and over again, and Peter and me, is this focus on also making things work, right?

The practical side of things. and and I think that that is and I'll come to your question but I have to sort of frame the show Drucker as I came to understand him was in pursuit of sort of one overall idea which is how to make

society both more productive and more humane with a deep, deep concern for the individual and I think that uh... you know on a it a it but you know you would always you'd always he's a little like a then master that would

be getting off of course and uh... and you know and one of his favorite things was good intentions are no excuse for incompetence or will i think drucker would look at it as of course i mean he was writing about the companies had a role far beyond just making profits and delivering shareholder returns long before i mean my

like 50, 60, 70 years before people were writing commonly about that. And so he always assumed that. He always understood more than make money. At the same time, he also was very clear that a fundamental responsibility of a business manager is to have very solid economics and that you must be economically smart. And so I think that he would look at it as an end, is that it's actually very difficult to put both together. You have to be tremendously successful and disciplined as a business,

and you have to see that your role in the world is larger than just making money. And he would have been very comfortable pushing people to do both. And if you couldn't do both, I don't think you would have much interest in you. Bob, would you add anything to that? Yeah, I'd almost say it. that he changed the metric or the outcome of an organization and big bonuses at Goldman Sachs or someplace like that changed lives. And he taught me how to measure was trying to get done in terms of change lives.

A lot of the book is one interesting one is that Peter, when he, nastyness, went to and Maynard Keynes and it changed his life, he said. When he walked out of the room, he said all Keynes talked about was commodities, specifically money. I don't care much about money.

He saw money as a requirement to continue to breathe, I guess. But I care about people. And the whole book and the whole theater is about as we talk to our audience of leaders from all different sectors different positions I want to come back to something that Jim wrote in the forward and it's this idea of Drucker the teacher Jim you wrote

Drucker infused all of his work with the great compassion and concern for the individual and this is the cornerstone of what made him a great teacher Jim, talk to leaders about personifying the role of a teacher when we must teach. Well, I think that what Bob was saying a little while ago is really central to this, that the trucker invested in people and was interested in changing people's lives and through them changing other lives. There's this image I have of this vector going out in time and space, and that what a teacher does is to impact the trajectory of that vector. So a young person, Bob at age 42 or whatever it was,

is like a vector. He's got another five decades maybe of productive, useful work in the world. It's a very effective person. And now you're seeing there's trucker, and this person with tremendous potential and a huge heart and tremendous capability, proven practical capability walks in your door and intersects with something you've seen about the way the world is changing. And then you invest in Bob as Drucker, and that vector, Bob Buford, a vector heading out in the time and space with all this capability, all of a sudden

you move that vector maybe 10 degrees or 20 degrees. And at the first point, it may not look like a lot, But when you look out over the course of a decade, two decades, three decades, four decades, that change now is a gigantic sweep. And that's where you get your really large leverage in the world. And then, of course, he can't affecting lots of other vectors. So it now starts to become a compounding set of changes of those vectors. And I think that that is what you think about what is influence, what is impact.

Because Bob changed others, and those changes. change the world. Before we let you go, both of you, it's been a fascinating conversation, but this book, Drucker and me is all about Bob's relationship with Drucker. But, Jim, I think it would be fun for our audience to hear about your relationship with Bob, and we can't cover all that in one question, so I'll simplify it to this. What would you say has been the impact of Bob Buford on Jim Collins? Oh, this question.

Well, it's been, as I mentioned earlier, I've been tremendously fortunate to have fabulous, good luck in my life in the form of wonderful people that have crossed my path. And Bob intersected with my paths back at about 94-95. We're at the same time that I met Rutger, actually. and, you know, the thing, if you're really fortunate, you come across people who open up entirely new worlds to you, and they make you a better person. And in Bob's case, one, he opened up the entire world about a pack for what could be churches.

And I'd become interested in the social sectors a little bit, but he pulled me and he said, you know, churches and nonprofits and all those areas that have really, channel my brain. And Bob played a big role in turning my energies in that direction and opening my eyes to it. But more important than that, I didn't have a great upbringing in terms of people of character who would show me what character is at first. I didn't necessarily get that from my family.

So I've always looked for great father figures and people who I can look to as someone to keep in mind that will make me a better person. Bob is one of those people. I'm a better person because his standard and his example is like a magnet that pulls me upward. Wow. And that is my relationship with Bobby as a beacon of some of what I would hope to be in terms of character. And let me just say one thing also about the marvelous contribution of his,

is, I think this is a wonderful, wonderful starting point for people to have an entry into Peter's Drucker's work if they don't yet know it. Because one of the downsides to writing 10,000 pages is each generation of leaders knows they should be acquainted with Drucker, but where do they start? Yes. Right, but those 10,000 pages is like drinking from the ocean. Where do you start? This is a fabulous of Drucker and his ideas, and then through that to become,

more deeply immersed. And I think in that it is a tremendous service that Bob has done for all those who will read it, but also ultimately a tremendous gift back to Peter Drucker. And I suspect he would be very pleased and very, very proud. Bob, I want to give you the last word from your heart. You could share so very much with the leaders listening in today. But from this book, Drucker and me,

if you could just share one thing from your heart to these potential readers and those we hope will run get the book, what would you say? Well, if I can, I'd like to read what Peter Drucker would say. There you go. I love it. We staged a big thing at the Getty Center. He wrote me a letter. You know, this business of a mentor has got to work both ways. I mean, we wouldn't have had a relationship if we've not.

common cause and common values. My closing remarks are Peter Drucker verbatim, like he is all through the book. He wrote a letter to Linda and me and said, above all, good thanks for what you, Bob, have done for me half of my life, the last 15 years or so. It's through you and your friendship that I've obtained

in my old age through and significant sphere of inspiration, of effectiveness, the mega church. You cannot possibly imagine how much this meant to me and how profoundly

you affected my life. I can't even begin to tell you what your confidence in me and your friend's warm and a two-way street. Yeah, it really is. And if it isn't, two-way street at one last. That's exactly right.

Well, when you mention two-way streets, it's impossible not to just share personally, as well as behalf of Dave Ramsey and our entire Entry Leadership podcast to both of you gentlemen, Bob Buford, the author of Drucker and me, and of course his good friend and the author of the forward, Jim Collins.

Thank you both for your influence on me personally, for being kind enough to contribute to these interviews and to our audience as well. We're very, very grateful. Thank you for your time. You're very welcome, Bob. It's great to hear your voice. And on behalf of all the people who benefit from your book, thank you for creating it. Wow, wasn't that just fantastic? Bob Buford, Jim Collins, hanging out with us. Awesome stuff. Unbelievable. Hey, we got a special offer for you. Bob Buford and his organization is offering you the Entree Leadership audience. This really cool offer. Two of you fantastically lucky leaders are going to get a chance for a mentor.

session from Beaufort's organization. Just go to drucker and me.com forward slash entree leadership. That's drucker and me.com forward slash entree leadership. Now, when you get there, you're going to fill out a survey and then two of you will be selected as winners. And this, Mike, is a terrific opportunity. It's a great opportunity. So I want to talk to you about this because this conversation just brought up to me and I thought, I've got to ask Mike to speak to our audience about intentionality in growing through finding mentors. What would you say to us? I'd say that you've got to have mentors.

You know, life wasn't meant to be lived alone, and it's much easier as a leader if you've got somebody to help you along the way. Now, the problem is that most people think that's got to be a physical mentor, and the truth is they're in limited supply, if you haven't found out already. But we have more resources available than ever before.

If you broaden the definition of mentorship, and you think of all the books that are available, the podcast, the conferences you can attend, I don't think you're going to be successful in finding a mentor until you've been faithful with what you've been given. Wow. So avail yourself of what's at your disposal. Dive into that, grow and learn. And, you know, the whole while you can be looking, interviewing, praying for the right

person to show up in your life that will make a difference. I want you to talk about the difference between audaciousness versus obnoxiousness, right? Because I think some people are hearing this, they're like, okay, there's some people, I'd like to take a shot at maybe saying, I'd like to spend time with Mike Hyatt, for example. Now, please don't do that, because Mike's full. He's already telling me that. He turned me down in the last week. No, I kid. But you know what I'm talking about? You can be audacious without being obnoxious. Yeah, and I think being bold is great, but I get people asking me every week. I could imagine. And the problem with that is they've not invested anything in me. I mean, I hate to say it that way,

but before you're going to ask somebody to invest in you, because it's a huge commitment in terms of time and resources and energy and everything else. Everything in life is a tradeoff. For a mentor to spend time with you, they've got to stop doing something else. You know, they're not just sitting around with time on their hands. So make it worth their while. You've got to add value, maybe for a long period of time even, show up in their community, show up at their conferences, figure out how you can promote them, whatever you can do, then make the ask and you're going to be more likely to be heard. I want to put you on the spot. Think back to a mentor in your life. And maybe one thing that they laid on you as a mentor that maybe changed your trajectory?

Well, I'll tell you one that was huge. It was a woman. Her name was Eileen. And I've told this story before, but it's a powerful, powerful story. This was back probably about 2010. So we were still in the teeth of the recession, really trying to make the company Zing when I was at Thomas Nelson. And so we had the sales goal for August.

I remember this August of this one year. And we missed the sales goal. And so I had my monthly meeting with her. and she said, well, tell me how last month turned out. So I went through the detail. And I said, we missed it. You know, the economy's down. Retail continues to drag.

And I was pointing to all these external things that were the reasons why we missed our sales number. And then she said to me, she said, okay, she was very compassionate. She said, I get that. But she said, what was it about your leadership that led to that outcome? Wow. What a question. It was a great question, but it ticked me off because I'm like, I just told you, why? It had nothing to do with my leadership.

Right. And she said, okay, I get that. But just patiently, she said, but could it have been differently, or different? And I said, well, yeah, it could have been different. She said, well, that's a good answer because otherwise we don't need you. Wow. Because that's what leaders are hired to do is to affect the change and make a difference. And so as I began to think about that question and really entertained it, I thought, you know what, it really was about my leadership.

There were phone calls I could have made. There were meetings I could have had. There was differences in strategy or different tactics I could have used. But it really was, the buck had to stop with me. The great thing about that was once you own that responsibility, you stop being a victim, and you put right back in the driver's seat, you're in control. You can change things. It could be a different outcome the next month, and it was. Wow.

That's a good word. Hey, folks, let me tell you something. If you got nothing else out of this podcast, that right there was worth listening. And I want to say this to you, Mike, you've been a friend, you've been an encourager to me, you've helped me. And I want our audience to hear the thing that I admire most about you, you've reached fantastic status. You're a success at Nelson, but you have kept learning. And I got to tell you, for entrepreneurs, the desire to keep learning, I think is the flame that is most important to keep alive. Keep learning. And you, my friend, are a lifelong learner, and I admire that.

Thank you. And we all benefit from that. Well, it's critically important. For any leader in any business, I don't care how successful you are, you've got to approach it as though you were a beginner. That's right. And keep learning. Yes, begin again and again and again. Fantastic stuff. Well, folks, we would love to hear from you. Your feedback matters to us. You could do it two ways. We'd love for you to email us. That email address is podcast at entreleadership.com. That's podcast at entreleadership.com.

We're also on Twitter at Entree leadership. So follow us and communicate with us. We want to hear from you. I want to thank Bob Buford and Jim Collins for giving us of their valuable time. I know you're better for it. for it here. I also want to thank our guest co-host, Mike Hyatt, for driving a couple miles over this morning to hang out with us. And on behalf of our producer, Don Haney, and the entire Entree leadership team, thank you so much for listening. We will talk with you again very soon.