I am Charles Schwartz Show - The Mattering Effect: Success and Mattering Are Not the Same Thing - John R. Miles

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

John R. Miles graduated from the Naval Academy and spent years supporting special operations teams, including SEAL units, on ships and in high-risk missions. He later ran technology teams at Dell and Lowe's, and he now writes books and hosts the Passionstruck podcast. Charles talks with him about what he learned leading people where mistakes cost lives and where they only cost money. When John started at Lowe's, the team he inherited ranked last in the company's employee survey. He explains what he found when he talked to the people on that team, why they had stopped speaking up, and the steps he took to turn it around. He also shares the daily habits that keep him steady and why he stopped drinking three years ago. You'll hear how he thinks about autonomy, how to rebuild trust when people are afraid to bring you bad news, why he compares leadership to gardening, and the six signals that show whether people feel they matter at work. KEY TAKEAWAYS: Why a leader who controls every move becomes the bottleneck, and how clear boundaries let capable people do the work How to earn trust in a new role by listening to the people closest to the work before you change anything Why people who fear blame hide problems, and how rewarding early bad news saves time and money How meaning, autonomy, trust, time, energy, and reciprocity show whether your team feels they matter Why a daily habit of checking your actions against your values keeps you steady under pressure KEY POINTS: 00:20 - From the Navy to Fortune 50 tech: John explains how burning out as a high performer changed what he thinks drives real results. 02:40 - Leading special operations teams: John shares what he learned supporting SEAL units, and why a leader can never become the bottleneck. 06:01 - Earning trust on a Navy ship: John describes walking onto a ship with broken morale and why he volunteered for any job that needed doing. 13:10 - Self-regulation comes first: John walks through his daily routine of gratitude, mindfulness, exercise, and setting intentions. 16:29 - Tying gratitude to your values: John explains how checking your daily actions against your core values shows you where you fall short. 22:11 - Taking alcohol off the table: John talks about quitting, what it did for his sleep and energy, and why Charles says vulnerability takes strength. 25:50 - Walking into the lowest-ranked team at Lowe's: John shares the call that told him his team finished last in employee engagement. 29:17 - Systemic unmattering: John explains why people stop speaking up after they learn that nothing changes. 33:24 - Gardener leadership: John describes why he sees leadership as creating the right conditions instead of pulling on people. 37:56 - Autonomy means authorship with guardrails: John explains how training the whole team on one shared process gave them a common language. 44:04 - The six signals of mattering: Meaning, autonomy, trust, time, energy, and reciprocity. 46:22 - How to rebuild trust: John explains why hiding bad news leads to bad decisions, and what he did to make it safe to tell the truth. 52:29 - Time as a signal: John explains how a calendar full of meetings tells people what you really value, and how he cut the extra governance. 56:58 - Reciprocity: John shares how he gave his team training, promotions, and visibility, and why he got to know them outside of work. 01:03:48 - What becomes more human in the age of AI: John explains why companies should ask what machines free people up to do, instead of which jobs to cut.

Welcome to the proven podcast, where we don't care what you think, only what you can prove. John Miles led teams that supported Navy SEALs, then ran tech teams at Dellen Lowe's. When he took over a group at Lowe's, it ranked dead last in employee engagement out of 350,000 people. Today he explains how he turned it around and the six signals that tell you whether your people feel like they matter. The show starts now. But giving as much resources as I possibly could, within the financial constraints that I had. So what ended up doing is as the team delivered major wins,

I wanted to continually giving back to them. And so I was reinforcing it's not only what I can get from you, but it's what can I give back to you. And then the other thing I did was I really spent time understanding what was going on with them outside of work. that they have a sick family member, did they have other aspirations, did they love music,

did they have a kid who is on a traveling baseball team? Because when you connect with people both inside and outside of work and you see them as a whole person, it really becomes, how do we both become better because we're doing this together? And it's no longer just me. So this whole reciprocity angle was one of the most important components. because yeah yeah i think people have this this term that happens in business all the time like oh we're

a family yeah but you're not actually caring about their actual family so as you said is the kid on a traveling baseball team so when someone comes in like hey i got to go it's tuesday my little girl's got ballet i'm like go don't even ask just go and then we'll just figure out cover i also think when you're talking about showing visibility and saying hey these people did great it's important that I got taught very early on. If you want them to bleed for you, you must bleed for that. Which means very simple, simply, if anything goes right, they get the credit. If anything goes wrong, you take the credit immediately. And even if you're not, I remember this one situation happened where X, Y, Z happened. And they're like, why did this? And then our senior came in and

said, why did this happen? I was like, that was me. It's like, you weren't even in the same state. I was like, it was me. And they're like, who did? I'm like, it was me. And he's like, no, I really need to figure out who did it. I'm like, no, you don't. Me. I do it. Punish me. And we fixed it down range and we never ridicule people in public. We always do that in private. We celebrate them in public, but we sit there and when they saw that you're willing to bleed for them, that sort of reciprocity matters. And knowing that when team member four has a ballet thing that he's got to go to and the rest of the team covers, means that when team member two saw that, they're like, oh, wait, I'd have the ability to do this. Are you guys going to cover for me too?

And then all of a sudden this covers, and now you're creating unit cohesion. And people are doing this for us. And people think, oh, it's just, I'm going to use some sort of tactic. I'm just going to address them when they're in the office. You have to address the entire thing as a whole because what motivates Susie might not what motivate, might not be the what motivates Jane. And you have to understand there's different human needs and the psychology that comes into to understand that every single person matters is important. And they just don't do this. They don't go through the line of this.

and they're always looking for this proven little hack. It's not one. It's stacking the entire thing so that you can have this matter and effect across them. There's so much here that needs to be broken down on how to teach people to matter and how to teach people to connect. And to learn these things, we're not going to be able to cover it in an hour of a show. If someone wanted to learn more about this and so I wanted to get more access to you and have more of these concrete examples of like, listen, I did this during special operations. I did this in the NSA. I did this for Fortune 500 companies.

I've done this. You had this level of experience. How does someone track down you? How do they get more of these examples who, because they're dealing with fires right now. And yeah, maybe their fires, they're not going to hit their numbers

and their sales numbers versus the stuff you've been in where people don't come home. How do people track you down? How do they get a hold of you? How do they bring this into their world? Yeah. Charles,

what you're saying is so important because now that we're in this world of A, we're asking the wrong question. So many companies are asking what jobs can we automate instead of asking what becomes more human when machines do more of the work. And that is where my work is clearly focused. Technology and operations should establish the floor of performance,

not the ceiling of human judgment. And so if you want to hear more about how you can apply this in the age of AI, you can connect with me, My personal website is John R. Miles.com. The company website where you can find Passionstruck podcasts and all things about what we're doing is passionstruck.com. And if you want to pick up my new book, The Mattering Effect, the Mattering Effect.com. John, thank you so much for sharing some of this. You and I can talk about this for days, which I hope we continue to do.

Maybe I have you back on and share more. But I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you so much. Charles, thank you so much for having me. Huge honor to be on your show. John Miles has led people on Navy ships and inside Fortune 50 companies, and he says the same rules work in both places.

People do their best work when they feel they matter. Listen to them before you try to fix anything. Let them tell you the truth without fear of blame. Protect their time and give back as much as you ask of them. Do that, and they will fight for the plan because they helped build it. Thanks for listening. And we'll see you next time.