Start With A Win - Unlocking the Power of 'WE' with Former Fortune 10 Executive Kyle McDowell

Starting point is 00:00:00 Are they words on a wall to you, or are you really committed to subscribing to these principles and leading in a different way? The best way I can do the right thing is to lead by example. We say what we're going to do, and then we do it. I mean, talk about going from disengaged to engaged relatively quickly just by understanding these concepts and leaders walking the walk. Welcome to Start With A Win, where we unpack franchising, leadership, and business growth. Let's go. Coming to you from Area 15 Ventures and Start With A Win headquarters, it's Adam Kantos here with Start With A Win.

Starting point is 00:00:35 Hey there, fellow seekers of success. Are you ready to unlock the secrets of building a powerhouse culture and in reigniting your leadership mojo? Today, we're joined by Kyle McDowell, a former Fortune 10 executive turned rockstar speaker, bestselling author, and leadership coach extraordinaire. With decades of experience leading massive teams in some of America's top firms, Kyle's not just about talking the talk. He's all about walking the walk. Ever heard of the 10 wheeze? Yep, that's his brainchild,

Starting point is 00:01:05 and it's revolutionizing the way leaders approach their teams. From his game-changing book, Begin With We, to gracing stages at top-tier institutions, Kyle's on a mission to crush organizational dysfunction and ignite that fire within leaders. So if you're ready to ditch the me for we and dive into a world of transformative leadership, you're in the right place. Let's get started. Kyle, welcome to Start With A Win. Adam, I am so grateful for being here today. Thank you for having me. Hey, it's my pleasure. I love this concept of we. I mean, this is something that as leaders, we really need to focus on because that's really what we're building. We're building influential communities that get better together.

Starting point is 00:01:52 So I mean, this we thing is such a transition, transformation within our minds. So I want to go back to how you got into the we. Tell us a little bit about Kyle. Where do you come from? How did we get to where we're at today? Yeah. So I spent nearly 30 years in big corporate America, leading really massive organizations at names that you are very familiar with. I worked for three Fortune 10 firms. And just for kind of context of scale, my last two roles before exiting corporate America to go on this journey I'm on now

Starting point is 00:02:26 or to launch this journey, I led collectively about 30,000 employees. I led P&Ls and operating expense budgets that were in the multi-billion dollar range. And that's impressive on its own, I guess, depending on how you quantify success. And by most measurements, my journey was filled with a lot of success. But it's probably around year 22, 23 of that journey where I realized, I kind of woke up one morning and looked around and all the people that I thought respected me, I learned they actually feared me. And because I was that classic leader, that hard charging, banging my fist on the desk, like my way or the highway cared a hell of a lot

Starting point is 00:03:11 more about results and the people delivering the results. And I learned, it took me a while, but I learned that I kind of alienated those around me in the process. And this was back in around 2017. My health was not good. I was on the brink of a divorce. I'd achieved a lot of things from a corporate perspective, but I was very apathetic to the whole engine. And I stepped away. I didn't really have a plan, but I knew I needed to take a little bit of time off to kind of regroup, get myself together. And if I were given an opportunity to go back into corporate America, it would need to be a little bit different. I would have to lead differently because those 20 plus years sucked the life out of me. And I just had this hunch there had to be a better way. There had to be. So after about two weeks sitting on the bench, I got a phone call asking if I'd be interested to run the Affordable Care Act and 1-800-Medicare-Enrollment Centers. It's a team of about 14,000 people. It's a $7 billion program. And it was a gut check moment, man. It was like, all right, this is kind of be careful what you wish for territory, and you're there now. And I took the role. And about 60 days into that role, I brought all the top leaders of the organization and turned out to be about 45, 50 people.

Starting point is 00:04:29 And the night before I was going to meet with this group, I knew I needed to communicate something different. Because if I approached them similarly to the way I had approached leadership in the previous two decades, I'd probably get the same result, right? You know the old cliche, if you want a different result, you got to do different things. Same input is going to give you the same output. And really, I wish there was a more sexy story. But the night before, I'm in Lawrence, Kansas, in a not very nice hotel room. I've got my laptop in my lap, a blank PowerPoint in front of me. And I said, all right, dude, this is it. It's gut check. What are you going to do? And about two hours later, I'm staring back at the laptop and I see these 10 sentences that I crafted. Each of them begin with the word we. I'm not super creative. So I have the 10 we's. And the next morning I stepped out in front of

Starting point is 00:05:15 this group of leaders and I was very direct in saying, these are the rules that will govern how we treat one another first. Because I was at least wise enough at that time to say and to understand that for us to be high functioning and deliver really excellent service and a product to those that we serve, we must be high functioning behind the scenes. We've got to get our act together behind the scenes. And I was warned before I took the role that there was a bit of toxicity and some dysfunction, a lot of siloed success. Like if one area's leader, a leader of a particular area was doing really well, but another area was not, they didn't care because their area was, was, was killing it. So collectively we were not winning and what transpired or unfolded over the course of the next 18 to 24 months, it changed my life. Um, and it changed. And I can say with all confidence, it changed the lives of many others. The business results were exponentially improved by nearly every measurable. Now that we had this paradigm of we first over me and my and my own accolades, our business results were unprecedented.

Starting point is 00:06:17 But what was more important and impactful to me was the impact it had on the leaders. I watched a bunch of bosses transform into leaders that genuinely cared about those around them, genuinely cared about the impact that they could have. They wanted to reconnect with the passion and fulfillment that they once had and they lost throughout their journey. And I knew once I saw this unfold the way that it did and I gave it a couple of years, I took the show on the road,

Starting point is 00:06:44 took it to another organization. Right. And in 2019, I had an opportunity to step away for good. And I thought this is my chance to have a bigger impact on the world. And that's when I put these concepts into a book and the book became a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller. And now, my man, it is my purpose on this planet to evangelize these messages because I know the impact it can have. And we deserve to have more than a soul-sucking experience inside of the corporate world. Exactly. Exactly. Amazing story. I love how you got there, the 10 wheeze. I mean, just, it's such a cool idea. You know, it's like the kind of the 10 commandments of leadership, I guess you could say almost. I love that. But ultimately, you know, it's like the kind of the 10 commandments of leadership, I guess you could

Starting point is 00:07:25 say almost. I love that. But ultimately, you know, it comes down to, you had to cross this bridge, a really difficult bridge, frankly, in business. And that going from me to we, and by the way, everybody, what's the most important thing to the employee? It's me, myself, and I. It's not we. And even in management, it's not we. It's in leadership that you start to see that we and the, as far as the company goes. But how did you, especially, you're dealing essentially a government entity here, dealing with that particular perspective where people are protectionist of themselves. They want their paycheck. They want to go home at 4.59. Don't ask me to stay later. And don't ask me to do anything more than the guy next to me or gal next to me or whoever is setting the bar, which probably isn't all that spectacular to begin with. How did you be able to make that transition?

Starting point is 00:08:24 Because I can tell you, it didn't happen in that meeting. It happened as a result of you dropping that snowball on the side of that mountain that started to get bigger from that meeting. But, I mean, how were you received? Because I can tell you, there's probably a lot of hallway talk after you left going, this guy ain't going to last long. There was. How'd you overcome that? You're spot on. And I recall vividly, as if it was yesterday,

Starting point is 00:08:49 looking out across that room with the leaders that were, and by the way, many of them, it was my first time ever meeting them. And I would categorize it in this way. About half the room, I could sense a real energy. There was excitement. You know, this is what we've needed. This is the guy that we need. This is different than what we've had in the past. I would say a quarter of the room was on the fence. They weren't really sure if I was what I said I was or if I was going

Starting point is 00:09:17 to live these principles. Then the last quarter, I hope not to offend, but they looked at me as if I was just full of shit. They just did not. It didn't work. It didn't resonate with them. My favorite one of that group, though, was a fellow by the name of Nick who admitted that evening he thought I plagiarized them. He thought I stole the 10 wheeze. And I said, no, no, no. These came to me last night.

Starting point is 00:09:41 And he said, you know, Kyle, the message was so impactful. Could you please send me the PowerPoints that you used today? Because I want to share it with my team. I want to see if I get a similar reaction because I'm fired up. Well, Nick and I became friends over the course of the next several months and still are to this day. And he admitted to me he only wanted the PowerPoint because he wanted to check the properties to see if I was the person that actually created the deck. He thought for sure I had taken it from somewhere else. Now, Adam, I will tell you the thing I think in hindsight that helped create this magnetism that the 10 We's ultimately delivered. By the way, it's still the cultural manifesto of that organization. Their performance appraisals are all revolved. They

Starting point is 00:10:20 all revolve around We. They've got the We awards two, three times a year. But I think the thing that allowed it to take so much traction was I didn't force it down anybody's throat. As a matter of fact, I was adamant to say, guys, if you want it to be the 11 we's, let's talk about that. If you want it to be the eight we's, let's talk about the two you want to take away. Because the last thing I ever wanted, and these are decisions I have to make in my business today when I'm asked to work with companies,, are there words on a wall to you or are you really committed to subscribing to these principles and leading in a different way? And I thought if I pushed them and said,

Starting point is 00:10:55 this is it, it's kind of like the beatings will continue until morale improves. It wouldn't have worked. So I allowed them to take hold organically. But what I had to do then and now is I had to live them. I had to walk the walk. I couldn't just talk about it. So the first time I was greeted with a challenge, for example, one of the principles is we challenge each other. The following one is we embrace challenge. So the first time any one of my employees came to me with a challenge, especially if they were just being difficult for the sake of being difficult to kind of test me, which the new guy gets tested. Um, I knew I had to react and behave in a way that I would want them to react and behave had they been given a similar situation

Starting point is 00:11:34 or else they knew I was, I was full of it and I couldn't be a hypocrite. So I think those two things had a lot to do with, with how, how they've kind of taken off or took off then and continue to take off. Awesome. Hey, well, you've named two of them. We challenge each other and we embrace challenge. Let's get into the rest of these because I know our listeners are dying to understand the flyover. I want everybody to go out and buy the book, of course. Um, so we'll, we'll talk about where to get that. I'm sure it's on Amazon and, and, you know, Barnes and Noble and everywhere else you can buy great books. So, um, but, the reality is, to take us through the 10 wheeze, and let's just briefly touch on each one of them. We don't need to fully unpack them because I do want everybody to go buy the book.

Starting point is 00:12:16 But give us your take on each of these. Happy to. And I give this caveat every single time I walk through them because I'm not naive. And if I'm in your audience and I've seen it when I'm on stage, um, the reaction at first tends to be, well, yeah, of course this is so simple, but I caution you and you of all people, Adam, know this simple is not easy, right? When we're talking thousands of people or even tens of people, simple is not easy. And the other caveat is they expand. So from one to two and two to three and beyond, they all piggyback from the previous weed, creating this kind of almost like a coat of armor. So let's jump into it. The first is by far the most simple,

Starting point is 00:12:56 but it also is tough to live consistently. And it's, we do the right thing. We number one is we do the right thing. And there's a one word sentence that I always use to follow that first sentence. And it's always, we do the right thing. Always the right thing is subjective. We can argue about what the right thing is. But we're going to be conspicuous in our endeavors to do every single thing as quote unquote, the right thing. Now in the book, I walked through some approaches and kind of a filter, almost like a fishbone diagram to get, to get someone to the right thing. And suffice it to say, I, and me is nowhere in that equation. So I'll leave it at that. Awesome. But if I'm going to be a great leader and inspire and motivate others around me

Starting point is 00:13:38 and lift others up, um, the best way I can, can do the right thing is to lead by example. And we, number two is we lead by example. And a lot of folks say, well, that's such a cliche. It's old school. Of course, we lead by example. Well, we're already leading by example. The question is, are we leading by an example that's worth replicating? If it was in the company intranet or if it was blast all over social media,

Starting point is 00:14:00 is your behavior, the way you treated someone in a one-on-one, is that something you'd be proud of? Is that something you would be happy if your mother saw that? It's the filter I use. That's a great filter to use. And it's like our moms in the day would say, do you want this on the front page of the newspaper? When there was the front page of the newspaper. I still think about that, man. My mother passed away a dozen years ago, man. And I still use her as my filter. Would she be proud? Is this the person that she'd be proud that she raised? Um, if we're going to lead by example, I think the very best way the leader can, can set that example and make sure it's lived throughout the organization is keeping good on our promises. And we, number three

Starting point is 00:14:38 is we say what we're going to do and then we do it and leading organizations of any size. And I would love to get your take on this. The thing, one of the things that frustrate frustrates me more than anything else is failure to keep commitments behind the curtain. It's like, it's like, Hey, Adam, can you bring some data? Let's look at some finance data next Tuesday's meeting. Could you have that for us? You got it, Kyle. No problem. Next Tuesday rolls around. You're like, well, I emailed Jim. No, that's not who we are. That's not excellent. You committed to this, right? And unless you get in front of it, way in front of it to say it's not coming, then you need to, you need to make good on this

Starting point is 00:15:12 commitment. We're only as good as the commitments we keep. It's our brand. It's our, it's our personal brand, not just the organization's brand. So we said we're going to do, and then we do it. And that requires us to do what take action.. And we number four is we take action. Every single organization is littered with problems that people are well aware of, but not raising their hand to address because usually there's very little incentive to do so. If I make a mistake, I'm going to be ostracized or worse. Maybe I get, you know, who knows?

Starting point is 00:15:40 It can be worse. So we're going to take action, right? If you see something, do something. It's kind of like the TSA. Right. You see something, say something in our world. We see something, do something. I love that. I mean, we have so many people that just talk, but don't do in business. And as far as being able to evaluate, you know, you mentioned this is in their evaluation process. Right. Is this person an action taker? Have you started taking action? Have you fulfilled your action? Have you followed through on your promises? This is, I mean, this is a masterclass in how to create an employee, you know, handbook really. This is fantastic. So keep going. Well, I love the way you frame that because in most organizations, we do a really good job of teaching the employee how to do the job, like the things

Starting point is 00:16:25 for which they were hired. Right. Right. But rarely is there an expectation, a documented expectation of behavior. Like this is who we are and how we behave and treat one another. And that, I think that's where the 10 weeks become really powerful. They enable corporate values. They enable our mission statements. So it's, it's a code of behavior more than anything. That's, I think it's missing in most organizations. So if you want people to take action, you've got to be ready for mistakes. You've got to be ready for people to stumble, right? Otherwise, why would you raise your hand, right? And that takes us to week number five, which is we own our mistakes.

Starting point is 00:17:00 And I must insert a quick story here on this one, man, because the fellow I mentioned earlier, the biggest skeptic, Nick, Nick led a group of data scientists. He was responsible for our repricing. Every single year we owed our client a new repricing schedule, and it was Nick's team that led this. And Nick came to me one afternoon and said, Kyle, I think we're going to be able to save our client 15 million bucks next year. And the way our relationship was, nearly every dollar I would save them on an annual basis, they would reinvest elsewhere. So it was always a win-win for everybody. So Nick came to me, super excited, $15 million. Wonderful. I go to the client. I say, Hey, I got great news. We're going to save you $15 million next year. And she was skeptical, but excited. She said, this is

Starting point is 00:17:39 wonderful. I'm going to tell my higher ups, but I need you to sharpen the pencil on a couple of areas and come back and just assure me it's really 15 million. Went back to Nick. Hey, Nick, can you sharpen the pencil? Take another run at this. The following evening, probably 839 o'clock, Nick calls, which I knew something was wrong. Someone's calling that late. And he was ready to be fired because his team had made a $10 million error.

Starting point is 00:18:04 The actual give back was about 5 million, not 15. And most people would say, Hey, Kyle, you're still giving back 15 million. Well, not this client. They booked 15. So I had to unwind that. But the point of sharing the story is Nick and I are still great friends. As a matter of fact, he wrote this story in my book. I asked him to summarize his side of the story. He felt like he was about to be fired. He knew, and I just told him, I said, you're the right guy for this role. You're here for a reason, but this can never happen again. And that's the spirit behind we own our mistakes.

Starting point is 00:18:35 I don't think we're judged by our mistakes. I think we're judged by how quickly we remedy them and if we repeat them. And Nick created some stopgaps and some quality processes that never allowed that issue to ever happen again. But we've got to create that environment. We've got to make sure people are comfortable to raise their hand. Hey, I blew it, man. Because the following we is we pick each other up. We number six, we pick each other up. And that is, it sounds so simple, but there's two folds. There's kind of two components to this. Certainly, when somebody has stumbled as the leader, put your hand out. Pick them up as a human.

Starting point is 00:19:11 We all bring baggage to work, divorce, sick child, financial issues, whatever. We all have baggage. If you want to be part of a team and feel like you're part of a team, we've got to pick each other up. The leader has another obligation, though, and that is to propel members of a team. We've got to pick each other up. The leader has another obligation though, and that is to propel members of the team to new heights. When the team member wants to do something bigger, maybe they even want to leave your team and go somewhere else. I think we are obliged to help them do that. And I've had great success doing that. Even when you help someone who is aspiring to take another role and they don't get that job, they're so much more loyal and committed to the team after that because they know you care about them, not just what they can do. Right. So we got to pick each other up. Now, I'm the first to admit, once we hit seven through 10, it gets a little less rainbows and unicorn

Starting point is 00:19:54 and a little more kind of serious. And I've already mentioned one of them. We number, I'll go back to seven. That's outcomes over activity. We measure ourselves by our outcomes, not our activity. And I bet, and again, I'd love to get your take on this, the size of the organization that you have run. There's this fascination with activity. We wear our calendars when we're double and triple booked and at 13 meetings, we're back to back all day. That's like a badge of honor for some people. But I say, if you can't draw a straight line from every one of those meetings to an outcome for which you have been assigned,

Starting point is 00:20:29 something you own, why are you doing it? Why are you attending this meeting? We have recurring meetings where people show up and they don't even know what the hell the topic is, but it's on my calendar, so I'm there. So we've got to, look, I'm really happy that my Uber driver puts gas in the car before he picks me up,

Starting point is 00:20:44 but that's an activity that I'm not paying for. I'm paying to get from A to look. I'm really happy that my Uber driver puts gas in the car before he picks me up. But that's an activity that I'm not paying for. I'm paying to get from A to B. So activity matters. But outcome is like, kind of show me the money type thing. My favorite of the 10 we's is the next one. We already touched on it. It's we number eight. It's we challenge each other.

Starting point is 00:20:58 And this is where I think it's really hard for a lot of leaders to get behind because they're so used to being right. They're so used to not being challenged. They're not used to hearing from someone on the team saying, hey, Adam, you might want to think about this because I think you're heading down a bad path. Now, every challenge must be grounded in data or experience. It can't be your opinion. We all have those. Right. That's not helpful.

Starting point is 00:21:21 Got to be grounded in data or experience. And we should listen. So it's got to be peer to peer. It's got to be member to leader. It's got to be leader to bigger leader, every single direction. Everyone has value and has an opportunity to say with data or experience, Hey man, we should reconsider this. Um, that's my favorite of them all by the way. And then, uh, of course I touched this on this already and that's, we embrace challenge, market forces, challenges from inside the organization, unpredictable things like pandemics, right? If we are not prepared and ready to embrace challenges, we are weak.

Starting point is 00:21:55 We'll get lapped by our competition because it's a given. Challenges are going to come, and it's a fact. At least in my life, it's a fact. Anything worth having is usually a result of overcoming one or more challenges in our personal lives, in our relationships, in our physical lives, right? You want to lose some weight, you've got to burn some calories. You've got to go through something difficult. And then the last one is kind of the bow on the present or the icing on the cake. And I was purposeful to leave this at number 10, because if it were earlier in

Starting point is 00:22:27 the list, I think it's a recipe for disappointment. And we number 10 is we obsess over details. I love it. At various points of my career, I picked up different nicknames. Most of them I'm not proud of, and they're probably not worth repeating, but there is, there is one that I'm, I wear with a badge, like a badge of honor. And that was the shredder. I was known as the shredder. So my team would bring, you know how this goes, right?

Starting point is 00:22:48 Oh yeah. Together a PowerPoint or a deck that we're going to take to an investor. We're going to take to the seat. We're taking it somewhere, right? It's going to be seen somewhere else. And I would shred those documents. I would notice different size fonts, different size margins. Like the staple would be in an incorrect incorrect direction, right? Literally that level of detail, because I so believe the level of obsession that we put into our work product behind the scenes, it folds right into the level of obsession and the quality of the product that we deliver externally. Man, think about the last time you opened a product from Apple.

Starting point is 00:23:23 Just the packaging experience, the obsession to the detail that they put in that package is overwhelming. And it sends the message that the thing inside, whatever it is, even if it's a pair of earbuds, wow, this must be really cool. This is, this is going to be an excellent product because they took the time and energy and the care to obsess over the details of my unboxing experience. So that's the 10 wheeze. And like I say, man, simple, super simple, but not easy. I mean, it's a masterclass on the framework for creating a great team, creating great leadership. And frankly, we're at a low point in employee engagement right now. So for people to reflect on this actually would massively move them up the engagement scale there. I mean,

Starting point is 00:24:05 talk about going from disengaged to engage relatively quickly just by understanding these concepts and leaders walking the walk with these concepts. Kyle, this has been incredible. Where can we find the book? Where can we find you on the internet? Where should we follow you at? Yeah, I appreciate you asking. The book is Begin With We, 10 Principles for Building and Sustaining a Culture of Excellence. I think I mentioned at the top,

Starting point is 00:24:32 it started as a passion project. I was hopeful to sell a few hundred copies. I'm just humbled to share that we've just passed 10,000 units sold. Nice. And it seems like every month is a new record for us. So it's been really exciting. And my website is kylemcdowellinc.com. I'm on essentially every social platform. The same

Starting point is 00:24:52 handle is at kylemcdowellinc. And Adam, I truly share those, not to gain followers or chase internet cloud, but that's not who I am. I genuinely enjoy hearing from readers and followers who have questions or maybe they're facing a leadership situation or conundrum that they just don't know how to handle. And I do my very best to respond to every single one of those. And it's, it's how I get my energy and it keeps, it fuels my tank to continue doing what I do. Awesome. Everybody make sure you check out Kyle and begin with we, I mean, this has been an incredibly valuable podcast. So thank you so much for being on. Kyle, I have one question I ask all the great leaders on Start With A Win. That's,

Starting point is 00:25:32 how do you start your day with a win? I don't know if you've heard this answer, but for me, starting my day with a win, that starts with a good night's sleep and getting to bed the night before. I know that sounds a little old man-ish, but it's true, man. If I've got a big day or really any day, and I'm an early riser, I'm a 530, 5, 530 guy. I'm in the gym early and kind of doing my morning routine. But I am terrible at executing that morning routine if I've stayed up any later than 10, 1030. So for me, it starts the night before a great day, a big win.

Starting point is 00:26:04 Everything starts with preparation. For me, that preparation is getting to bed at decent hour. Sounds like you and I are out of the same playbook here, buddy. So absolutely it's, it's get to bed on time and get up early and hit the ground running and do something for yourself to get yourself in alignment for that day. And those wins, right? Kyle McDowell, it's an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. You are truly a leader. You're changing lives. And thank you for all you do.

Starting point is 00:26:30 And thanks for being on Start With A Win. It's my pleasure, Adam. Thank you for the platform to share, man. I've been looking forward to this one. Thank you. Субтитры сделал DimaTorzok

Start With A Win - Unlocking the Power of 'WE' with Former Fortune 10 Executive Kyle McDowell

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