The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish - Alan Mulally: The Power Of Working Together
Episode Date: November 1, 2022Widely regarded as one of the top business leaders of his generation, Alan Mulally joins the show to discuss the formation of his leadership strategy and how you can apply his lessons to your life and... business. On this episode Mulally breaks down the principles of how a team can work together toward a larger goal, creating a culture of love by design, the role of the leader, what happens when people opt out of working together, how to use the ideas of working together in your family life, and so much more. Mulally is perhaps best known as the former President and CEO of the Ford Motor Company, which was struggling during the late-2000s recession before Mulally used his teamwork-oriented philosophy to save the company. Under Mulally’s leadership from 2006-14, Ford was the only major car manufacturer to avoid a government bailout, and Mulally was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time. Prior to joining Ford, Mulally spent more than three decades at Boeing, where he eventually served as an Executive Vice President and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. -- Want even more? Members get early access, hand-edited transcripts, member-only episodes, and so much more. Learn more here: https://fs.blog/membership/ Every Sunday our Brain Food newsletter shares timeless insights and ideas that you can use at work and home. Add it to your inbox: https://fs.blog/newsletter/ Follow Shane on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ShaneAParrish Support The Knowledge Project's Sponsors: MetaLab: Helping the world’s top companies design, build, and ship amazing products and services. Aeropress: Press your perfect cup, every time. House of Macadamias: Nourish your daily routine, nurture your lifestyle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
When you meet somebody, you always have three questions.
One, who are you as a person?
Is this about you?
This is about I versus we.
It's about me versus service.
The second question is, you're the leader.
Where are we going?
Where are we going?
What's that strategy?
What's the VPR?
What's the creating value roadmap?
Then you got the third question that is, Shane, do you see me?
Do you see me?
Welcome to the Knowledge Project. I'm your host, Shane Parrish.
This podcast is about mastering the best of what other people have already figured out.
If you're listening to this, you're missing out.
If you'd like special member-only episodes, access before anyone else, hand-edited transcripts.
and other member-only content, you can join at fs.blog slash membership.
Check out the show notes for link.
Today, I'm speaking with Alan Malali.
Alan has an aeronautical engineering degree from the University of Kansas.
His accomplishments at both Boeing and Ford are legendary.
He took over Ford in 2006 when Ford was in a downward spiral.
The stock was $1, and the company was on pace to lose $17 billion,
which is the worst year in its,
103 year history. I wanted to speak to Alan because I wanted to know how he turned the company
around. We discuss where his formation of leadership comes from, his working together principles,
the working together management system, creating a culture of love by design, the role of the
leader, what happens when people choose not to be a part of the working together system and how
those conversations go and how he uses the system in his family and so much more.
This is one of my favorite conversations ever.
It's time to listen and learn.
Alan, let's just dive right into this.
You've served your family, Boeing, Ford, and communities around the world in such a positive way over the years.
How did you end up with this formation of leadership and can you share your service journey with us?
Absolutely.
First of all, it's a pleasure to be with you.
I think that really is a good way to start.
I grew up in the Midwest in Lawrence, Kansas, also where the University of Kansas is.
We had pretty modest means, but we had a lot of love in our family, starting with our parents' love of us.
Over the years, I can remember very clearly the lessons that they shared with me and who they were as a person in addition to what they did.
And so every morning, one of my parents would say these lessons to me,
just to make sure that I was remembering them and understand them.
So one day my mom would say, now remember, honey, the purpose of life is to love and be loved.
I'd say, oh, mom, that's great.
I remember, I think that's good.
And she said, but remember, in that order.
Okay, thank you.
Then the next day, my mom or my dad would say, again, when I was getting ready to go to school,
well, now, to serve is to live, honey.
Thank you, Dad. That's great.
Then next day, one would say, seek to understand before you seek to be understood.
I'd go, that's good, too. I remember that.
And one that really stuck with me over the years is, it's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
Thanks, Dad.
And then the one that probably impacted me the most, Shane, was when they said, by working together with others,
you can make the most positive contribution to the most people.
And then, of course, they discussed like-long learning and continuous improvement, and respect everyone.
We're all creatures of God and were worthy to be loved.
And then one that really was meaningful to me as I got married and started our family stuff,
is it developed one integrated life to deliver your life's work.
So those are the things that my formation was based on.
And, of course, I was a normal child growing up, and so I wanted to fit in.
I really, being a modest means, I really wanted a pair of Levi's and some Norwegian shoes.
So I decided that, and I can remember deciding this, that if I were going to be able to get those jeans
or maybe get a car and go to the ERC, Kansas someday, that to serve as to live was going to be my strategy.
So I started my service work with the TV guide routes, newspaper routes, a lawn mowing business.
I was a bagger, a checker, and then a night manager at the Dillon's grocery store.
I was a carpenter and a ranch hand and a farm hand.
And then when I started school at the University of Kansas, I also, for the entire time I was there working on my degrees in aeronautical, nationality engineering, I continued to work and serve the engineering department at the University of.
Kansas. I followed that with joining Boeing and then also later at Ford. And the thing saying that
really I learned was that I just love this serving. I'd love the looks on the on the people's face
I was serving. I'd ask them for the suggestions for improvement. And somebody told me I was the only
person as a checker in the Della's grocery store that actually got a tip. And I remember asking
the person that was coming through the line. Why are you tipping me? I could understand that
that when I was a bang boy. And they said, well, first of all, you took care of us. You asked us
if we found everything that we needed. Did we have the coupons for the items that are discounted?
Work was always service, and it was just fabulous. I felt good about it. I wanted to be better at
it. And I, of course, I also included all of the stakeholders because I knew that if I did
that, including my parents and family and the leaders in the areas that I was serving.
that we would actually come up with an even a better plan to serve our customers
and serve each other and all the stakeholders.
That's my formation than my further development at Boeing at Ford,
and especially at Boeing initially, was I was joining a company that was world-class
at project and program and business management.
So I combined those personal values and beliefs and behaviors
with the learnings of large-scale system and,
and business, creating businesses are profitably growing from the good of all the stakeholders.
So that's how I became who I was. I took the same, or I am, and I took the same lessons
to when I was asked by Bill Ford to join Ford. They helped Ford. I want to talk a little bit more
about the story of how you ended up at Ford in a second. One of the things that you said that
stood out to me was you have to build an integrated life to deliver your life's work. What does an
integrated life mean. I found that to be so useful. And one day my parents made a drawing and they
have a circle and inside the circle it had a smaller circles. And the circles would be your work
life, your family life, your spiritual life, your community lives, all your different lives.
You could have put as many lives in there as we each have. And then on the,
top of the circle, it said one life, and then underneath the bottom of the circle, it said
life's work. And remember, work to me and my parents was the same as service. So my life's work
is service, and I'm going to integrate all of those components. And people ask me a lot of times,
well, how do you do that? And I said, well, first of all, you decide what's really important
to you, each one of those circles. And then also, look at your calendar.
in the morning. Look at your calendar at night. When people are managing their work-like balance,
they might think that, oh, well, I have something planned with a family next year. So I got that
one covered. No, I think you're going to have to think about that every day. So the idea of
integrated life is that you've decided what's really important to you and very honest with
yourself. And also, you're looking at your calendar near and longer term. And are you paying
attention to the things that you really believe are important in your life to serve?
I like the term integrated because so often we sort of forget about these other components, right?
And then we sacrifice our relationship with our community or, you know, part of integration could be your overall health.
And we sacrifice that in pursuit of a myopic sort of focus on one part.
And then inevitably it crumbles.
Oh, exactly. Shane.
I think that you can see how fast you would get, this would be a discipline process.
if you look at that drawing and you look what you have put down there is what's important to you
and you look at that each day and just reflect on how it's going near and long term,
you get to a place where you really get clear about your activities
and having an integrated set of activities.
I remember when the kids were young and we'd have our family meeting
and we'd sign up for the different things we're going to do to help each other
And I would take my items back to going, and my assistant would put that on my calendar.
And sometimes I would just disappear in the middle of the day for an hour or to go to a parent, teacher, conference or something else.
And everybody knew where I was, and they knew I'd be back.
I think that it's a very reliable process, but you have to follow the process, would be my advice on that.
I want to talk about the decision to join for it, because when we talked before, you said you originally were actually not going to join Ford.
So can you walk us through that decision, how you ended up joining Ford and sort of some of
the immediate cultural differences that you felt between Ford and Boeing?
And then after that, we'll dive into some of the principles and working together management
system.
Oh, sure.
Clearly, I love, I love Boeing.
And I always have.
I was on the design team of every Boeing airplane.
And I realized very quickly that at the time, the airplanes were the first internet, because
we were actually connecting people around the world.
And people could find out that we had more in common
and they were different.
And we could then choose to work together for the greater good.
And so I never thought I was going to ever leave Boeing
and I had a lot of opportunities along the way.
One day, Bill Ford called.
I'm going, Bill Ford, the great-grandson of Henry Ford.
And I had a Ford vehicle when I was growing up.
And I just, I followed Ford a lot because as I had,
learn more about history and World War II and Ford and Boeing working together. I'm just always
very interested in it. So I knew I was in trouble when I was talking to Bill because I wanted to know
more. I kept asking all these questions about why they were in the situation they were in. And he shared
the whole story with me. And they'd become a house of brands and had purchased Asson Martin and
Jaguar and Land Rover and Volvo. And still 70% of the business was Ford. And which as you
no, you can't be world-class too many things at the same time.
And so they were going to lose $17 billion.
And he said the biggest issue he had was getting people to work together around the world
to use all these fantastic, smart and talented people.
I thought about it and talked about it as a family.
And I initially called him back and said I was going to stay at Boeing.
And a couple of the kids, we have five kids in Nick and I'd be married for 52 years.
And Nikki, two or three of the kids were outside my little office listening to this
because they really want, they were encouraged me to go.
Come on, Dad, we know all about airplanes.
We know all your friends here.
You want to drive a Mustang and see everybody at all.
And so they walked in the room and one of them said, so, Dad, we listen to this and
we're going to Ford, aren't we?
And I said, we are.
And the lesson learned out of that.
I've learned over the years on you have two is, you have two, is you think.
think about it, you look at it from every possible angle, and at the end of the day, you decide,
but the most important thing is that when you say it and you start to act on it, you really
need to think about how you feel about it. And when I went through that process, I knew that this
is where I wanted to serve next. And people ask me a lot, why would you choose lead Boeing?
You're the CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. You've been on the defense side. You love your
work, you're an airplane desire. You love the business. And at the end of the day, I felt like
I was serving as second American and global icon, two really important companies that have made
such a difference to the United States and the people around our world. And I felt like it was the
all time I was being asked to serve to save this second American and global icon. It's incredible.
I mean, what you did at Ford was no short. Like, it was one of the biggest turnaround
rounds in history. I think they were on pace to lose 17 billion when you took over and nearly
bankrupt. And then the transformation over the next decade was just astonishing. And in researching
and talking to people who worked with you, you're known for these working together principles,
practices and a culture of, I hope I get this right, love by design, what specifically are those
principles and practices? Super, super question. And this.
the essence of working together in my life and service. There are a few of them, and I want
to touch on each of them. So these are, to your point, these are principles and practices that
create a culture of love by design, meaning that it's demonstrating your love for what you're
doing as an organization. It's also demonstrating your love of how you feel about all the
participants and their contribution. And it's also by design. So you're creating not only the principles
and practices, but also a reliable process and expected behaviors of all the participants as you
work together to deliver your compelling vision, whether it's at Boeing or Ford or a specific
airplane or a specific car. And so the first one, and these are written down. People have them
on a car, they carry around, they're in the offices.
And one of them, the first one is people first, love them up.
And the reason is that these are talented people that are working on these programs.
I'll just use the triple seven airplane as an example of a major program project in business.
Hundreds of thousands of people that are working on this airplane to design it all around the world.
they're talented they're motivated they believe in the vision of getting people together
so they can work together around the world so appreciating them as a human being and appreciating
their talent and thanking them and including them so every one of these things i'm going to share
with you to your point is a demonstration or an element of showing your love for all the participants
so the second one is including everybody so when you're designed in their plane we include
not only the airlines, but we include, of course, all the employees, all the suppliers,
all the certification agencies around the world, all the cities in which the airplane is going to be
used, and all of the investors and all the bankers, all the people that are participant,
they are actually represented on the leadership team. So their voice and their thoughts
and their suggestions are included in the development of the strategy and the plan
and the accomplishment of the objectives. So include everybody. The next one is coming together around
a compelling vision, a comprehensive strategy, and a relentless implementation plan. So the power of
that vision, as we all know, is really, really important. Is it meaningful? Is it have purpose? Is it
going to serve? Not only the stakeholder, but the greater good. And you can imagine how that
need that was at mowing and afford because our whole life is dedicated to safe and efficient
transportation and having a comprehensive strategy for the product for the process for delivering it
for all of the people including the working together a strategy then a relentless implementation
plan and that's the business plan review which we'll talk about which gets a lot of attention
over the years where every week we meet with all of the stakeholders and we go through in an hour and
half, two hours. We go through every element of the strategy for accomplishing our objectives.
Also, the status of that, we actually color code, all of the team members, color code,
their strategy plan on how it's going, red, or ring, they have its own plan, yellow. They have
an issue, but they have a solution. And red, they have a new issue, but they're still working
on the solution for it. And that next one is having clear performance goals and one plan. Most
companies have many plans and most people are trying to figure out what the plan is, as we all
know. Facts and data, really important. We care what you think, but we also want to know
what are the facts and data that you're looking at to draw your conclusions? Because as we go
forward, especially on working on a yellow or red, we all want to know those facts and data so that
we together can turn the reds to yellows to greens. Then we move to some more demonstration.
demonstrations of love. So expect the unexpected and expect to deal with it. And so we're going to share
the reality of our situation every week so that everybody knows what the opportunities are,
but also what are the issues that we need to deal with, and that everybody knows the plan,
the product, the process, the people that work in the other plan, they know what the status of it is.
And also, Shane, they know the areas that need special attention. So think about what that
respect for people means. When you share these things, I mean, many people, many believers,
if they have a red item, first of all, that embarrasses them, they think they're not doing their
job, as opposed to that red item is a gem. I clap when you have the red, because you're not
red. You're not red. It's your item's red. Thanks for sharing that. Now, we all can work together
to help you, and that's turned the red seals of green. And then the attitudes are really, the
attitudes, the beliefs, and the values are really important. And what we really look at are the
behaviors, because that's what we can see. And so we have these expected behaviors that we have
zero tolerance for violating them. So proposing a plan, being positive, having a find-a-way
attitude, respect to each other, listen to each other, help each other, appreciate each other.
You can see very sophisticated word shape, very sophisticated. But we can see this, and we can
help each other in our personal development plans always be moving forward and growing in all
of these behaviors the way we treat each other. Then emotional resilience, this is a creative
process, it's innovation. We're going to have issues along the way. And so we're going to trust this
process of working together and we're going to trust the process of turning the reds to yellows
and green. And the last one that everybody absolutely loves is have fun and enjoy the journey and
each other. And as I mentioned, every day we'd wake up and every business fire we'd get together
and we'd say, you know, thank you. How can I help? And then enjoy each other and also enjoy the
journey of creating these phenomenal products and services. Now there's one corollary to that chain
that's really important. And that is zero tolerance for violating
on this process of working, the business plan review, the creating value roadmap, including
everybody, all the stakeholders on the leadership team, zero tolerance for violating that
operating process and zero tolerance for violating these expected behaviors because we all concede
each other.
We're together every week, and you can imagine how seriously everybody takes the process and
the behaviors.
And as we continue our discussion, I'm sure you're going to want to know, well, what do you do,
Allen when when people are not committed to following the process and expect the behaviors
are working together.
But we can talk about that as you wish.
You said trust the process.
And that sounds great.
But you're coming in to Ford and you're implementing a completely different process than
the culture has had before.
Sure.
How much resistance did you get?
How do you get the buy-in for people to actually trust the process?
You're an outsider coming in, right?
How do you corral people to trust?
the process and then follow the process. This is a really good question and everything you said,
there's truth in that. Absolutely. And so what do you think the one piece of paper that I brought
with me from Boeing to Ford was this piece of paper I just described to you? And when in the first
meeting, when Bill introduced me to the team, I shared with them this one piece of paper.
And the looks on their faces were phenomenal. They'd never seen words like that.
this. People first love them up. If you, you know, if you make a mistake and you violate the
process of the, he would just say you're sorry. And so I could tell by looks on their faces
and they're from all around the world. And I could tell on their faces that, wow, I'm going to
have to, it's going to be really important. I spend a lot of time sharing with them what these
mean and about that zero tolerance policy in the commitment to commit to them. So I spent
a couple of hours a day for the first few weeks, making myself available to the entire team and
individually, as they wish, to answer their questions about these principles and practices.
And then I said, okay, here we go, and we're going to learn about it because we're going to start.
So we pulled together on the business plan.
We updated the creating value roadmap to restructure ourselves to match our production to the real demand.
and develop a competitive cost structure.
At the same time, we committed to develop a new product line,
small, medium, large, cars, utilities, and trucks.
Everyone would be best in class in terms of quality and fuel efficiency
and safety, smart design, affordability.
And then also taking out a small home improvement loan
of $23.5 billion to finance the restructuring,
but also refinance the product development plan
to support the customers in our growth.
Then the last one was work together as one team worldwide on our one Ford plan.
And, of course, the way Ford was set up at the time, every Ford was different than every country around the world.
So Henry Ford never thought that that would be the way it would end up.
But you can clearly see that we would never be competitive if we were trying to compete with all these different.
from fords against these global powerhouses that we all knew.
So the biggest part of that strategy was we were going to pull together,
work together as one team, and we're going to use all of our talents to work together
to create this one Ford plan.
So we developed the strategy.
We started the business plan review,
selected the team from all around the world,
which is relatively easy,
because everybody knows who the leaders are in each of the disciplines, whether it's engineering,
manufacturing, or procurement.
So I talked to everybody, looked at their performance management, 3-60s and stuff.
And so we had the best of the talent all around the world, some of which had never worked together,
started our business plan review.
I'd always start the meeting.
And then each of the members, and I'd go through the vision and strategy and the plan status
at the company level, then every member would go through their area of responsibility.
and share their contribution on the strategy and the plan.
And also, as we mentioned, they also show the status with their colored coding.
So now here's the essence of your question.
We start our process.
The behaviors are getting really good.
We have about 300 charts with the entire team.
And we've also shared with them now for the first time that we lose $17 billion.
dollars. And all 300 charts, Shane, were colored green. All 300 charts. So this is the essence
of your point. So here's this new person. We shared a new culture of working together and
transparency and timeliness and supporting each other and respecting each other. And all 300
charts are green. So I stopped the meeting a few weeks in a row.
said, is there anything in any of your areas of responsibility that's not going well?
We are losing $17 billion.
Of course, the eye contact goes down to the floor because they don't know me,
and they know that the culture that they were in is if you, like a lot of companies,
if you brought an issue to your supervisor or your boss, the CEO, and you didn't have a solution,
then you seem to disappear because a lot of cultures are you only bring an issue
if you have an answer.
That doesn't allow it working together,
the way we're talking about,
where you can move quickling on the issues.
So they didn't know what would happen
if they should have read.
So finally, the leader of North America,
they have an issue with the launch of the Ford Edge
in Oakville, Canada,
with the actuator on LiftCade.
And so he's having his meeting,
his BFPR before ours, the night before,
and up comes that the launch chart,
Shane, and it has three columns for technical readiness, schedule, compliance, and financial impact,
and all of them were colored green. And they just stopped production. One of the biggest things
you could ever do is it caused a lot of issues. And so he says to the team, he said, I think this is one of
those red things Alan is talking about. And one of the members, one of the vice president said to him,
well, good luck, because you know what happens when you have a problem.
You don't have a solution at Ford.
And he finally said, well, I think we need to trust the process.
I'm going to trust Alan.
And then the other vice president said, Shane, well, it's nice knowing you.
Take care.
We'll put it red for you.
So red, red, red, red.
So the next day, we started the business plan to review, green, green, green, green, and up comes this red chart.
on something really important, a launch of a new vehicle.
And so he explains it very succinctly that here's an issue that came up.
We're working on it.
We don't have a solution yet.
And at that point, I started to clap.
And I mean, all the eye contact went to the floor.
I could feel the air dissipating.
And they're kind of looking at me and they're looking at the floor.
and they're looking at Mark, the speaker,
and later they told me that they got that sign.
I clap met the two large doors behind us in the Thunderbird room
at the World Headquarters were going to open up.
Two large human beings are going to come in.
They're going to extract Mark from the meeting,
and that would take care of that.
So I said, so any initial thoughts from the team
on how we can help Mark?
And Derek Kuzak was leading engineering worldwide,
said, yeah, I've seen a problem like that before.
We'll get you that data.
Betty Fowler, who was leading quality worldwide, had a similar comment.
And Joe Hendricks, who was leading manufacturing worldwide, said,
you know, we're going to figure this out.
You're going to need some manufacturer engineers up in Oakville, Kanda.
I'll get them identified and get them up there.
So when we have a solution, we can switch out the parts
and get the production going at a time of manner.
That took, you know, 10 seconds, 12 seconds.
We were on to the next chart, green, green, green,
green. Next week, only one red chart, and that was Mark's again. And I said, looking around the
room and they're all looking at me and they're looking at Mark and they can't believe that Mark's still
there. And then they had the same comment. Thank you very much. And then finally, two or three weeks
later, they had a solution that turned to yellow. Two weeks later, I think, it turned to green and all
the vehicles started flowing around the world. So Shane, guess what the colors of the slides look like
that following week. Not all red, but they looked like a rainbow. And everybody then decided to answer
your question that not only we're going to trust the process, but wow, this trusting the process
would allow us to remove all the stress out of our individual lives, be able to share what the
real situation is, and also be able to count on this working together process to trust it that
we if we know what's going on and we know that our behaviors and our process allow us to deal with
it, that we can turn reds to yellows to greens. And at that point, Shane, I knew that no matter
what happened at Ford, whether it was Jim and Chrysler going bankrupt, or whether it was the
tsunamis around the world, the competition, whatever, I knew that we could use this working
together process and create a near-term and longer-term value for all the
stakeholders in the greener get.
What stood out to me as you were saying that, it's just the consistency.
And if you were, if you were, if you had a lot of variation in your approach or how you
handled it, I don't think you would have got the same results you did.
Shane, that is really critical.
And when we talk about the reliable process, the system for doing that, one of the biggest
single principles is the discipline.
Just imagine you're on the team.
and every week, 7 a.m., 7 to 9 a.m., everybody's connected around the world,
and we're going to go through this.
I've gone through my introduction of the vision strategy and plan for 45 years every week.
I think I maybe miss 10 meetings because wherever you are, you phone in or you link in.
And the kids used to link in with me if we're somewhere because they just love watching the colors
and watching them all change and watching everybody try to help each other.
And so that discipline of following the process, and also to your question or your comment,
the discipline of the behaviors.
See, if somebody would go after somebody or act like they knew what the answer was or be
rhetorical questions or whatever, anything that would cause an unsafe culture of love by
design where people felt like they're going to be a victim or be made fun up,
then their commitment to sharing everything is going to go down.
And so it's a commitment and a discipline to the process and a commitment and a discipline
to the behaviors on how we're going to treat each other and how we're going to be treated.
I think that's what creates the psychological safety, right?
It's not only the commitment, but the consistency and then the discipline to keep following it up.
And let's go to your question now, which is how do you deal with people who either don't
commit to the implementation of the working together system or choose behaviors that don't
align with what's expected.
Great, great question.
And just one comment about your last comment, which is very important, is that what happens
so quickly is the confidence that's built up with all of the participants on the team, because
you can imagine when you start solving issue after issue, because this is a creative process.
You're creating something out of nothing.
And so you're expecting the unexpected, you're expecting to deal with it, and it's working.
And so you can imagine the confidence that you get in the team.
Plus, there are stress levels going to are way down now.
They sleep at night.
They know they're going to make progress.
And so I think that's really an important point because the myth that that's not a safe organization
that you're not going to be able to have this phenomenal working together as success.
Okay, now, at the first,
everybody's trying.
I also told them, you know, if you violate this or you go after somebody or you don't respect
what they said or just say you're sorry.
Well, they'd never heard the love word.
I got the forward, but they also had never word the sorry word.
Hadn't heard that either.
So just tell you you're sorry and then jump back on to the expected behavior.
So every once in a while, I'd have somebody that would go after somebody or thought they knew more
than the person and kind of attack them in an aggressive way as opposed to asking for a question
for clarification or whatever. So I'd follow up to their office and in one version of the other
this is what would happen. And I'd say, now, would you think about your behavior today in the
meeting or whatever the situation was? And they'd make a comment about, well, you know,
I wasn't probably the best that I could be. And I said, well, no kidding.
And what do you think that meant to the team?
Did you watch what happened when people started to be a lot more careful to share?
And yes, I did.
And so remember, look at the same piece of paper on the principles of practice,
the reason we're doing this is that we need the hearts and the minds of every participant,
every stakeholder.
And then the person would say, oh, I know, but I don't know whether I can do that, Alan.
and this is not the way I grew up.
That's not who I am.
I know I'm command and control,
and I can be a little bit of a bully.
But I've done very well,
and for it's paid me well,
and I have more and more responsibility.
And I said, I know.
And if you don't want to commit
or you can't commit to these principles and practices,
it's okay.
And I look at their face and shame.
I could see what they were thinking.
that you thought I meant, oh, I mean, because I'm so important that I can start to treat people
like I always have treated them and not move in this direction. And so, and they even say that
sometimes, well, thank you very much. Alan has said, no, what okay, what I mean by okay is it really
is okay because you're making a decision to move on. And it's okay. And remember that first
principle, we still love you, your human being, your creature of God. And if this doesn't work for
you, respecting people, listening to each other, helping each other, then it's okay, and you're
making a decision. And if you want to commit to it, we can get you help and get your coach,
your dynamite person, very knowledgeable. But if not, we wish you the very best. And also,
we all need to know what you're going to do. And so I'll like you to go home tonight,
think about it, talk about it with the people that you love and trust. And let me know tomorrow,
or whether you're going to commit to move in this direction.
I know it's going to be different and a long career.
And we'll have you told it all the rest of the team.
We'll agree on the two or three things
that if you improve those,
will move you a very positive direction into working together.
And then we'll be supportive and we'll help you.
So they'd come back the next day
and one person would say,
I've thought about it and I don't think I can do it.
And we say we wish you the very best.
Had another person that always liked to do rhetorical questions, which is not very healthy for working together.
Like you're trying to ask the question, you know the answer so that you can show everybody you have smart char, not working together.
And so I had the same conversation with her.
She went home, came back and said, Alan, I'd like to move in this direction.
And because this is really who I am, I feel like I've been violated my true self for a lot of years.
and she became one of the most fantastic leaders I've ever worked with because once you say that
and you say that to the team now and you say it to me because remember they're not working for me
now they're working for that vision of the company and the service that we're providing and they're
working for all of their colleagues and so she just became one of the most fantastic at working
together leaders that I've ever worked with so and again it's their decision because it is their
decision. 80% of the time that had happened, they moved in the direction of staying and making
a commitment and making great progress on working together. Because it goes back to just basic
fundamental human values that are powerful. Two rabbit holes there. The people who stayed
after, I love how you phrase it. You're choosing this behavior. And if you're choosing that
behavior, you're choosing to opt out. The people that stayed, how quickly did that.
behavior change? Like, was the, I can't imagine in my head it's this overnight thing.
Oh, yeah, because remember that, just keep, remember, you're on the team. And every Thursday,
you're sitting around a round table. And you're also looking at monitors inside the table of all
the people that are around the world. And I ever remember the team's there. You've just gone through
all your reds and yellows and greens that week before. You would never, you wouldn't possibly
be able to have a red and say to the team, can you imagine saying, I know, I was really busy
this week, y'all.
They didn't have time to work on that.
To hell with all of you?
I don't think so.
Can you imagine what that conversation would be like out on the playground?
Because they're not working for me now.
They're working for what we're trying to accomplish.
And so what we'd see is when a person made a decision to move in this positive direction,
they'd be, first of all, they'd be a little more hesitant.
for offering their thoughts or questions, which is understandable because they're thinking this through.
How do I do this, but I do it in a respectful way? And then pretty soon, after two or three weeks,
they're watching now the behaviors of other people that are doing this, they're getting comfortable
with it, and then they just start moving in that direction. And every once in a while,
because of the sorry thing, they all say, can you imagine what happens when a person would say,
you know, that's not the way I really meant to say this.
I know that was a little abusive, but I'm really sorry.
And then we all look at them and they know what we're saying, well, start again.
And so you get this unbelievable support that you can really move in this direction pretty decisively.
Of the people who decided to leave, did anybody ever at any point come back to you after they left and said, you know what, I really want to get on this boat.
I want to get on this ship with you.
We had a few that as we were growing,
we had opportunities that could use their skills,
and they approached me or one of the senior people.
And people tell me that those are some of the most phenomenal conversations they've ever had.
Because if somebody comes and does that,
then we know it's going to be okay.
And in 99% of the time at West,
because when somebody gets to that place,
They have really thought about it and reflected on who they are as a person and what they do.
And, you know, what really happens in this, Shane, you're really getting added is who you are as a person is going to have more to do with your success and whatever you're choosing to do than anything else.
Marilyn Gist, who asked me to work with her onto her phenomenal book,
The Extraordinary Power of Leader's Humility,
and she actually wanted to have a couple of chapters in there about working together,
and how humility really supports that.
And in her book, she really did a phenomenal job of laying out a simple model for humility.
And what does that really mean?
And one of the things that she said was, when you meet somebody, you always have, you always have three questions.
One, who are you as a person?
Is this about you?
This is about I versus we?
It's about me versus service.
Are you about what we're trying to accomplish here, this compelling vision for the organization?
Or is it about you?
The second question is, you're the leader.
Where are we going?
Where are we going?
What's that strategy?
What's the VPR?
of us, the creating value roadmap. Then you got the third question that is, Shane,
do you see me? Do you see me? And how many times have you been in the line
reading somebody, and by the time that they have reached out to shake your hand,
their eye contact has moved on, even before they looked at you? They don't see you.
And I don't see you means that I respect you, I care about you, I'm interested in you,
I want to thank you because we're going to do this together.
And together, we're going to create a lot of value for the greater good.
It's almost like a presence feeling, right?
You can tell when people are present in a conversation and when they're not.
Like if you have your phone sitting on the table and you're talking to somebody,
you're not fully present in that conversation because at any moment,
if that phone dings, you know that I'm just going to pick it up and read it.
But people feel it when you're present and they feel respected and they feel listened to
and they feel hurt.
All of these things that go into your culture of safety as well, right?
Where what does everybody want?
They want to be loved.
They want to be respected.
They want to be listened to.
They want to contribute to something larger than themselves.
And to do that, we have to be consistent.
Absolutely.
Now, listen to what you just said.
You just described a working together culture of love by design.
It was designed this way.
I mean, I'm an airplane designer.
It was designed because we wanted that culture where people felt everything that you just described.
And also to your point, when we're doing a business plan review, there are no devices.
If you pull out your device or you're looking at your computer, we just stopped the meeting and look at you.
Can you imagine how quickly you stop that?
Because everybody knows the principles of the practices are on a piece of paper.
They're sitting up there in front.
and you're choosing not to respect this organization and each other and you're not present
because we need you.
We need everybody.
So it's really cool you said that because it doesn't, see, you don't need to stop very many
times for everybody to understand that doesn't work, but you need to be present.
Within two months, and when I arrived at Ford, we were on our way.
The colors were all showing up.
The behaviors were getting just fantastic.
the stress was going down, the issues we're dealing with were considered gems,
and we're going to solve them together, and we did the clarity on the behaviors
and the clarity on the process we're going to follow, and then backing that up for zero
tolerance, and then appreciating it.
The banking people absolutely accelerates the implementation of the working together system.
It also, and from the outside, not working at Ford or never working at Boeing with you,
It strikes me that it almost creates like a transplant.
You either take it, it other takes or it doesn't, but the body becomes the reinforcing mechanism.
Or in this case, your fellow, your peers, your colleagues become the reinforcing mechanism.
Absolutely.
And so the role of HR in my head, I would say the role of HR is changing, right?
It's less about grievances and complaining.
Now it's about hiring and attracting talent and unleashing them because people know when they're not
fitting in. And the culture is such that it just forces you out. Absolutely. Just another point
about what you just said. Part of the working together system that we'll talk a bit more about
is continuous improvement and lifelong learning and continuous improvement. So our performance
management, our 360 process, you now know exactly what that's about. You're going to use all
of stakeholders, all your colleagues around that roundtable, and every year we ask them about
how we're doing, including me, and what would be one or two things that if I could improve
that behavior, that character, or that skill, it would help us help me individually and also
help our team and our business if I made an improvement on that. So every year, every member
of the team had their one or two items that everybody else knew about, to your point,
everybody else is now supporting. And so very easy then to say, give somebody feedback because we know
what they're working on and we can give them an example. And so people want the feedback now because
they know it's facts that they're looking at. So to your point, a stakeholder center coaching
when you know of from Marshall, I didn't know what those words meant until I met Marshall,
but I knew we were doing statecolders and our coaching with our working business. And he thought
that was the coolest thing is that we had a whole company led by the leadership team
that not only was leading with stakeholder center leadership, because we're including all
the stakeholders, but also we were leading with stakeholder center coaching, meaning that
we were helping our colleagues further develop themselves individually and as a team
and as a business. You feel good about it, and you're getting more and more effective.
people are benefiting from it. And you're feeling that satisfaction, a meaningful accomplishment
and smiles on their faces. It just builds on itself. It strikes me that we only receive or we only
really want feedback when we feel safe. And we only offer real feedback when we feel safe. And the reason
that I think that is not only from our conversation right now today, but I'm thinking most people
out of workplace, you know what's holding your colleagues back. You know the one behavior they do
that undermines them every time or self-sabotages them, but you don't tell them. And I think
you don't tell them in part because it's not because you don't love them or you don't want them
to succeed. It's because you don't feel safe telling them. You don't feel safe in that relationship.
Absolutely. Shane, think about how this system deals with that. Because when you are this clear
about the expected behaviors?
Well, you have set everybody free, right?
Yeah.
Because if you're going to provide behavior somebody
and you don't have clear expectations
about what the behaviors are expected,
well, it's just that's really hard.
They don't know why you're saying it to them.
They don't know how that fits in.
And that's why when we look at those expected behaviors
that we just described in the principles and practices,
the reason that they, that's okay for us to take a stand that
is that those are so fundamental to respected people's dignity.
And all the religions of the world, everyone has tried to describe these, right?
And so, and the reason that works is you're respecting people's dignity as a human being,
as a contributor.
And everybody knows that that results in that satisfaction of meaningful accomplishment
with individually and as a team.
And so we've never, we look at those behaviors all the time, and we just,
check one, make sure we think they're absolutely the right thing. But I think it's because
for thousands of years, we've been trying, we're all been trying to one way work to create
this kind of environment. And that's what we're doing with the working together management
system. So talk to me a little bit more about the working together management system.
I think we've come at it through a couple of different angles. Piece it together for me in
the sense of like the hole and then break down the parts that we haven't talked about.
But that's a really neat way you said it, too, as saying, because they're elements of a system.
And, you know, as an engineer, my whole life is around systems because there are lots of different pieces of a system, and they all work together to contribute to the greater good.
And think about an event diagram, another circle, just like the one life likes work.
So you draw a circle, and that's the working together management system.
is what's inside the circle.
So at the top, put a circle,
and that says principles and practices.
Then put another circle,
going around to the right,
and put another circle,
and put governance process in there.
Then go down a little further
and put another circle
and put leadership team.
Then go, start going back up,
put another circle,
and it says creating value roadmap.
Then go one more.
Your last circle then is
business plan review. In the bottom of the circle, put our culture. And we'll put this diagram
on the website for the show notes so everybody can just pop up and see it yet. That's great that
you're going to do that because it's a gift. And we worked on it forever to describe it like this.
And so again, when you look at these five elements and you can see how they work together to
create this environment. So we covered the principles and practices. And the management, in the
governance process, that's the way we manage the overall business. So that includes our, all the
shareholders, the stakeholders, the boarded directors, the leadership team, and then the process of
the credit value roadmap and the business planner do. Then when you look at the leadership team,
and remember the word leader is inside leadership. So it starts with the leader. Because you can
imagine if you don't have a leader that is absolutely committed to these, this character and
skills that it's going to be very hard to have this operating system and these expected behaviors.
So the things that are clear there is you're going to include all of the stakeholders.
You're going to coach and facilitate as opposed to telling everybody what to do.
You're going to be leading with humility and love and service and courage and discipline
and resilience and civility, authenticity, meaning that your behaviors are aligned with your
beliefs and your values.
and also positive mindsets.
And you're going to be responsible for the working in the management system
with zero tolerance for violating it.
So everybody's, that's our job are these things.
And then your performance management and your continuous improvement
in your lifelong learning.
Then when you move over to the creating value roadmap,
that's the strategy, for example, the strategy of Boeing was to make a complete family
of vehicles that can go point to point nonstop all around the world safely and officially.
to get people together.
Or Ford, Henry Ford, was opening the highways to all mankind, two compelling visions,
and now what's the strategy for accomplishing that?
So that deals with the product, the process of doing it, the people, and the working together
a strategy.
Then going up to the business plan review, okay, we have the strategy now, we have the plan.
Now, every week, we're going to go over the vision, the strategy, and the plan, the red deals,
and the areas any special attention.
Then you're right back up to operating with those principles and practices.
I love it.
It's self-reinforcing and there's natural feedback loops in it.
What's the leader's role in that system?
The most important thing is to hold the team themselves and the team responsible and accountable for following this process.
All five of those elements, we just got to follow the process.
And so holding ourselves accountable for that.
And the other is leading by example.
I mean, I started out as an engineer working on commercial airplanes.
And as you are asked to take more and more service, as you move in that direction,
when I found just because of who I am and what I learned at Boeing on large scale projects
and systems integration is that you're going to move to a place where you're facilitating
and you're coaching because somebody has to keep getting this aligned.
Like if we have a new issue on the strategy, well, we need our special attention meeting to deal with that.
And so as you get to the place where you're on this leadership team at this level, you have responsibility for a large portion of the organization like engineering and manufacturing procurement, but you're really leading with aligning with the rest of the team and you're facilitating and you're coaching with your team.
I always have like maybe 12 or 13 people reporting to me, which a lot of people always wondered how I did that.
But I had to have every discipline need to be on that team, because if not, then if you have the
haves and the have-nots on the leadership team, you've got to keep explaining to the people
you haven't around the meeting out what's going on, as opposed to everybody's being there.
And now everybody is leading with an example where everybody in the entire organization reports
to one of those people.
So you're not leaving anybody at the out.
And if you follow this discipline, it really doesn't make any difference how many people you have
there because when you do a business plan or view, you run it on a very tight schedule.
And you, because you're going to be there again next week.
So you're looking for the changes, offers to help, and you're going to be back together
next week.
So that's the most important thing about the leadership team is to, is the be and the do,
who you are and what you do.
You don't know anything about that, Shane, is that because this is so visible on the
behaviors, and the process is so reliable. Everybody keeps moving forward with their beliefs and
their values, the things you can't see. You can't see those. You see their behaviors. And everybody
tells me this, that no matter how they arrived, however they grew up, what their training was,
the things that went well, the things that were horrible in their life, that once they join this
environment and you have these expected behaviors, and they're the right expected behavior,
and you start acting this way, then you start being this way.
So gradually, your mindsets and your beliefs and your values,
they all start to move this direction.
That's why that authenticity word is so big,
because if you look up the definition of authenticity,
three circles again is it's the alignment of who you are
and what you do between your beliefs, your values, and your behaviors.
Now, we can see the behaviors, but when we see those behaviors and you're doing that over and over again and you're living that way, well, what happened to those values and beliefs? They move in a really positive direction. And that's what people tell me saying that, like, they're off a program where they move on to something else. And when I see them, they say that wherever they have gone, if they can't see the fundamentals of working together,
system, the process and the behaviors, then they make a judgment call really quickly.
And if they don't see a way it's going to happen, they move on.
Because once you, it's like you said earlier, once you felt this way, and once you
are appreciated this way, you're never going to go back.
It's like you're never going to tolerate Grendel's mother or Grendel's extended family
down there in the swap.
Once you've seen the light, once you felt the heat, the warmth of operating this way,
you're never going to go back.
Makes sense?
Yeah, totally.
To your point about the actions becoming who we are, I mean, we are what we repeatedly do.
Exactly.
There's something that you said earlier I want to come back to, which is you said everyone
is a leader just by being who they are.
What did you mean by that?
Well, it gets back to the B and the do, but especially the R, you see that with their
behaviors.
Let's just take humility, for example.
like those three questions that we asked.
So you can see that.
You know when you ask those three questions of yourself about who you're meeting, right away that tells you who that person really is and how they and how they operate.
That's why we've always started, always started with the behaviors and but having a process that you're following where you have to, you have to exhibit those.
You can't hide from them.
You can't just not participate.
So you have a mechanism now where you have to.
participate and now your decision is are you going to do it with these behaviors or not and if you
don't you're going to meet some interesting people and you're going to get a chance to decide again
so I think the working in management system pulls together the B part and the due part
and everybody eventually gets to see both of those either aligned or not and the working together
management system isn't just for organizations I believe you and your wife use a version of
this at home. Can you, can you tell me more about this? How does it apply at home? My wife just walked by
and, but she walked by. So they all, the kids, they all, they all, they all think this is so,
so fun. But Nikki and I've been married, I've mentioned, for 52 years, and we have five
darling children. And when they started to come along, I was at Boeing and I'm program,
management and lots of people.
And I'm watching these seven people now.
And so I said to Nikki, I mean, you know, this is in very more complicated with
our size of our family.
We need to do a business plan and review every week.
And she goes, Alan, this is not Boeing.
This is our family.
I waited for a week to reflect on this.
And that all made sense.
And then so I said the next.
week. Okay. What if we have a family meeting every week? And she said, well, what would we do
in a family meeting? I said, well, my suggestions, and I welcome yours, would be after we come back
from Mass on Sunday morning that we have an agenda for our family meeting. The first agenda
I would propose is that all of us, including you and me, we go around the house, we pick up all
of our stuff. We take them back to our cubby or back to our room. Because after a week with seven
people living lives, it looks like a bomb's gone off in the house. And I didn't sign up for a
compelling vision of picking up the house every week. And neither did any of the participants.
She said, okay. I make sense. I said, what next? I said, well, then everybody would, excuse me,
we'll go back to our room and we'll pick up the laundry and we'll take it down to the laundry
room. And with five children, we usually always had two washers and dryers because you want to get
that stuff done, or that's all you're doing the whole week. And that's not a compelling vision
again for our family. Yeah. So we do all the laundry together. Then everybody would bring the
laundry down, dub it out of the kitchen table, and they would all sort the socks and everything
else. Because it's not a compelling vision to sit there by yourself and try to sort all these
things for everybody. I mean, it's impossible. Plus it takes a long time. So that's done in like five
minutes now. Then they take their laundry back to their room. And then they come down with their
calendar and saying the calendar. Little loose like notebook or wires down the end. They're in
kindergarten, Shane. They're in kindergarten. And they got the calendar. And they sit around the
round table. And then we go around the room and every member of the family describes what they're
going to do this next week and also identify any things that they need our help with. So do they need
a taxi cab service. I need cheerleading service. Are they got teacher, a pair of teacher conferences,
whatever. And so we all write down things that we can do to hell. And I'd take it back.
The things I'd sign up for, I would take it back and give it to my assistant at Boeing. She'd
build it into the calendar, like we mentioned. And so it's just my integrated life. I've just
integrated my life, right, along with the rest of those circles in the integrated life. And then,
And so that was great.
And then the next agenda was we would just reflect on the behaviors that we've agreed to
because we agreed to a compelling vision for the family that has us all growing and contributing
and making a difference in service, kind of like what my parents did to me.
And so we go through those, any suggestions for improvement, including the behaviors.
That was really interesting at the first because they were pretty aggressive when they were
younger about, well, you said that you were going to pick me up after football, or pretty soon
that we also worked on the how you do, how you say that, and how you give that feedback, because
you want to do it in a positive way. And so they got really good at that. But we went through that
and clarification there, that was a family meeting. And so every time we're together,
and they're all grown now, we'll get together once or twice a year. And every time we're
together, especially after a drink or two, most of them will bring up things to happen in the family
meetings. And, I mean, they're so funny. When you look back at the things that were going on,
oh, one of the family meeting principals was that if you're going to do something that could
embarrass the family or make us really proud, either way, you have to tell us ahead of time. Can you
imagine that scene? So they didn't share everything that they
they would do, they would embarrass us, but they sure thought about it because that was a
principal in practice. And so when we reflect on these when they got older, oh my gosh, it was
so fun and it was so funny. Sometimes I couldn't tell whether they really enjoyed it or whether
they thought this was a hassle. And so I would say to them, you guys, if you didn't really enjoy
the family meeting, why did you always keep coming to it? You never missed one. Never, never.
And one of them says,
Dad, do you remember what the last agenda item was on our family meeting?
I said, no, I don't.
I said, you handed out the allowances.
Of course, of course we had to come to the family meeting.
Now, every one of them, saying every one of them is running their version of a family meeting.
This is Plan Review every week.
I love this.
I want to follow up with two specific questions.
One, what are the other family principles you had?
One was sort of like if you're going to humiliate anybody we know in advance.
What else?
What are the other values and principles that you had together as a family that you held people to?
Now, this is going to come as a newsflash, the same ones.
Yeah.
Absolutely the same ones.
Like on the chart that you see, the two slides I sent you that you're going to share with everybody.
It has Boeing as a logo for Boeing and Ford.
you could also put on there a family reunion photo
because it's the very same ones.
The kids, I was talking with Peter the other day
and he was in the office and I was doing a Zoom call
and I looked behind him.
He had the working of the principles and practices
that we just went that everybody's going to get a chance to see.
That was on his desk right in front of him.
Our lives, having a vision,
a compelling vision for what we're going to do
to serve to make a difference, a purpose,
that having a strategy to achieve.
it, but then also having a plan to reflect on the progress against that so that we can either
make modifications to the strategy or not, but know how it's going and be able to make decisions
back to your first questions on an integrated life. Am I paying attention to the things that I think
are important in my life, in the life of the people I'm serving?
The other thing I wanted to follow up with was you gave the example of sort of like you're
supposed to pick somebody up. Football, you didn't do it. But you said that you sort of coached
your kids on how to give that feedback. I'm curious if you can take me behind the scenes,
how do I say that in a nice way? What does that look like? How do I teach my kids this?
Shane, great job. Okay, here's an example. One of our girls was on the dance team in high
school. I was going to be somewhere and Nikki was going to be somewhere. And so the week ahead of one
of their most important performances at school before one of the events. One of the older kids
that was driving then, agreed to get her from the school to this event, and he forgot about
it. Unbelievable. So we start at the family meeting. We go around, and our daughter says,
well, I'd just like to bring up one thing. I think we all can learn from. Do you remember
brother that you're going to pick me up and you're going to take me to my event and you know that that
event and what I do is really really important to me and I can just see the her brother getting
white and I just want you to know that that I know you care about me I know you love me you are
very reliable I just want you to know I think that might be a
might be an opportunity to learn.
And the way, the apology that he made and his commitment,
and they were sorry and the apology he made
and then his commitment to learn from this
and be even better, it wasn't just between those two.
I mean, all seven of us were listening to this.
And so it affected everybody.
So when they were at first starting out,
they'd be a little bit more aggressive
because they just didn't know how to do it.
But one of the principles and practices
is you treat people or respect, you listen,
to them. You give their human beings. So you don't yell at people. You don't go after them and stuff.
And if you just share how you feel, share how you feel, no one can argue with that. So she was
sharing exactly what was important to her, what the commitment she thought she had, and how she
felt about that and being, and not, and being violated. And so, and they're, they're exactly
that way today. And you think of the people that you work with or are you with.
that operate that way versus, you know, telling you what to do or not saying they're sorry or
whatever. It's incredibly impactful, right? Because we make commitments to each other. And if we're not
going to do it, it's going to grow and feel like we're really letting people down. So we're going to
develop this one where we're not going to let people down. I like that a lot. I think I're going to
try to implement this after my kids. But part of what I like about it is that you're all learning from
each other. And your role as a parent then goes from do this, don't do this, to coaching almost
and. And facilitating. And facilitating. See, look it. It's all coming together. Shane, look at that. That's
what's on that. That's what's on the working other system. You're coaching and pathility. It doesn't
mean that you're not leading. Someone said to me one time, I love coaching CEOs and their teams on,
because they all want to know about this working together.
And one of them said to me one time,
Alan, are you telling me that the board directors and the shareholders
are going to pay me these big bucks as a CEO
to facilitate and coach?
And my answer was they're going to pay you twice that
if you're a good facilitator and a coach.
You're the leader now.
You're the leader now.
you have all of this talent, all of which knows more than you do about their given subject.
This is Peter Drucker's knowledge workers.
And so we need the hearts and minds of all the knowledge workers in a safe and a healthy environment.
And so the biggest contribution you're going to make and the reason you should be compensated for it is if you can create this culture of love by design that has a real.
reliable process and behaviors to create value for the later good.
That's your unique contribution with zero tolerance for violating neither.
I love that.
I want to end with a specific question that we ask a lot of guests, or I ask a lot of guests, I guess.
But what is success for you?
How would you define that?
How do you want to be remembered?
That integrated life of service, I, and, you know, you've had a lot of great, a lot of great leaders
and people on your show, which is, I just like to comment.
This is fantastic.
I've listened to many of them, especially one of the latest ones with Marshall Goldsmith,
who's a dear friend.
At the end, Marshall loves to say this analogy, you're, you know,
you get towards the end of your life and you're looking back on what you've done and not done.
And Marshall, in his latest book, tried to share with everybody that you don't want to get to that place
and have a bunch of regrets.
I mean, you can deal with that now by the decision.
you make. It needs to be about something bigger than yourself. And it's going to be the best
that you can do as it, as opposed to it's always going to be anomaly successful because you'll
keep just getting better and better and better. When I look at that integrated life drawing,
I look at it every day. I'm just sitting there. It's in front of me. I don't like I'm sitting there
studying. I kind of know what that means. But when I look at that, I just touch on all of those
different pieces of my life. And am I doing the things that I really believe in that I can
really make a difference and serve? And then think about the work one, looking at the work one.
I mean, I've been on the design team for every Boeing airplane, 707, 27, 27, 37, 47, 47, 47, I was
asked to serve as the chief engineer for the triple seven airplane, and then the 787. And 70% of the C-Serve,
flying around the world are on these fabulous Boeing airplanes, saving efficient transportation,
and the same thing at Ford. I mean, I look at those plus the things in the community and stuff,
and you go around your diagram like that, I want to keep doing it. I want to keep doing the same thing.
I want to keep helping out and filling in all the aspects of all those circles of an integrated life.
incredible impact you've had, millions, if not billions of people, have been impacted by you.
And I really appreciate you taking the time today to have this amazing, phenomenal conversation.
And thank you so much, Alan.
Shane, I'd, I've just liked to say, one, thank you, and thank you for the opportunity.
And I've joined your organization.
I love your work.
And I'm very, I'm very proud to be able to support you.
and you're really about something really important
because there's so many people in our world
in a very complex, rapidly changing world,
there's so many people that are really working to serve.
And so the fact that you're capturing that for people,
I think is absolutely fantastic.
So I'd just like to thank you for your service too.
That's very generous of you.
Thank you.
Thanks for listening and learning with us.
for a complete list of episodes show notes transcripts and more go to fs dot blog slash podcast or just google
the knowledge project until next time