Rick Gibson – Principal Owner of MGR Development | Los Angeles Leaders - Los Angeles Leaders

Episode Transcript
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Narrator 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Los Angeles Leaders Podcast, where
we dive deep into the stories ofthe visionaries shaping the
future of our region.
Hosted by Christopher Luna,this podcast brings you
conversations with the moversand shakers driving innovation,
leadership and community impactacross Los Angeles.
Whether you're an entrepreneur,a community leader or simply

(00:21):
someone passionate about makinga difference, this podcast is
your gateway to the insights andinspiration you need to lead
and succeed.
Get ready to be inspired by theleaders making waves in Los
Angeles and beyond.

Narrator 2 (00:36):
In this episode, we welcome Rick Gibson, certified
Executive Coach at MGRDevelopment.
Rick Gibson has 20 years ofexecutive experience.
His expertise lies in executivecoaching centered around
mission and strategic clarity,purposeful living and
professional success.

(00:56):
Rick guides key executivestoward positive pathways by
fostering deep awareness,insight and action through a
transformative process.
His primary focus revolvesaround mission and vision
development for the purpose ofclarifying the strategic intent
of an organization.

(01:16):
Rick has spent nearly threedecades in leadership roles,
including Senior Vice Chancellorat Pepperdine, and now runs his
own executive coaching firm,mgr Development.
Rick Gibson has served on theboard of governors of the Los
Angeles Chamber of Commerce, theConejo Valley Chamber of

(01:39):
Commerce, and as director of theLA5 Rotary Club of Los Angeles
Foundation.
He is an active volunteer inthe community and served as
president of LA5 Rotary Club ofLos Angeles in 2020.
He assists clients inuncovering the compelling vision
for their personal andprofessional endeavors, weaving

(02:00):
these visions into captivatingand motivating narratives that
make these projects come to life.
Please welcome Rick Gibson.

Christopher Luna (02:11):
Welcome to Los Angeles Leaders.
I'm your host, christopher Luna.
Today's episode is especiallymeaningful to me.
I have Rick Gibson.
Rick has been a close friend ofmine and has really helped
guided me both professionallyand personally.
Friend of mine and has reallyhelped guided me both
professionally and personally.
He spent three decades inleadership roles as a senior
vice chancellor at PepperdineUniversity and now he's an

(02:33):
executive coach with his ownfirm at MGR Development.
In today's episode I want tokind of help explore these
leadership journey, but before Iget there I would love to learn
more about your upbringing andbefore you got into the
leadership roles.

Rick Gibson (02:48):
Sure, Well, christopher, thank you for
inviting me.
I'm happy to be here.
Yeah, my journey began manyyears ago in Bakersfield.
That's the Central Valley.
That's where I was raised.
Still have family there, and Ispent my formative years there,
worked with my dad in the marketthat he used to manage

(03:13):
independent markets.
Grocery stores are a big partof our family's history and so I
worked with him.
I had different kinds of jobsthere paper routes, whatever,
wasn't sure what I wanted to do,but I went out.
I did know I wanted to go tothe big city and so I packed up
my gear and told my dad I'mmoving and my mom moving down to

(03:37):
Long Beach.
I went to Long Beach State tostart and that opened up a world
for me.
And that opened up a world forme and that's one of the most
important things that I trynever to forget is just how big
LA is and the opportunities thatare associated with that.
I can't overstate that enough.
That became clear to me.
I began to consider manydifferent ways of putting

(04:02):
together a career.
What was very clear early onwas that it's also with great
opportunity comes some greatexpense.
So living here was going totake a lot.
So I began to realize early onI'm going to need to have some
kind of position that will be amanagement or leadership
position.
So that was the beginning of mytime to begin to turn towards

(04:27):
business and started off withcommunications and marketing.
But that began to turn tobusiness and then later on ended
up at Pepperdine.

But those were the early years, definitely
what I want to capture, beforeyou ended up at your, your, your
career at pepperdine, becausethat was 30 years of your, of
your life, right?
So I want to really capture thebeginning stages kind of your
college years um, how, how, whatpositioned you to take on such

(05:01):
a big role at pepperdine?
Like, how was your college?

year.
You know that's a greatquestion.
I think that everything beginsto add up, and so I'm sure it
played an even bigger role thanI knew.
But what I did learn early onat a big university was that if
you were going to get somewhere,get into the program that you

(05:26):
wanted, whatever it is that youwere working on, you had to
learn to network.
That meant to knock on doors,shake hands, get to know people.
So there are probably otherthings if I were to give it some
more thought, but there's noquestion that I, for the first
time, understood what it waslike to be a little fish in a

(05:49):
very, very big pond, and I hadto make connections.
I couldn't just show up, I hadto make some kind of statement,
I had to find ways to stand out,and I would say that's an early
lesson that played a huge rolein my career at Pepperdine.

But who taught you that lesson?
I mean, we kind of skimmedthrough the part where your
father was in the groceryindustry and I don't want to
skip through that because I'vebeen having some discussions
with some inspirational leadersand there's always some tie-in
to entrepreneurship.
The last person I interviewed,ms June Kim Lopez.

(06:29):
Her father owned a shoe storehere in Los Angeles and I mean,
did you would?
And I worked in the grocerystore.

I was working for my dad, so that meant for at
least part of that time I wasn'tbeing paid.
I was just doing my job that hehad me signed up to do, had my
apron, all of that.
But what I learned from my dadwas just what it meant to serve
a customer.
One of the things Christopherthat's very interesting and it's
almost absent these days, Ithink, but was present in the

(07:12):
independent grocery store wasthat my dad said these were
people who they would trade withus.
He would say he knew theirnames.
There were times where he wouldsend me with the customer who
might have been an elderly woman, a widow or something, and she

(07:33):
needed help with her groceries,and I'd walk down the street and
take them in.
I mean, that was what was thereand I realized early on at the
time it seemed just normalbecause this is the way it was.
It's not until the absence ofit caused me to realize just how
big a deal it was.
But no, they were forming acommunity there of people.

(07:54):
That was very meaningful to me.
I began to understand that evenlater in my career, but yeah, I
would say that's a big part ofwhat shaped me.
My dad knew their names, heknew something about them.
There was free coffee flowingall day long and people would
come to the market and somewould shop and others would

(08:16):
gather around and drink coffee.
But it was a gathering place, acommunity, and that was a rich
experience that I think hadimpact on my thinking.

Yeah, I mean I'm just thinking back on my
family business and how I wasraised in a business as well,
and I mean there's differentareas that we had.
I mean we had a warehouse thatwas just kind of closed.
It wasn't open to the public,but then we had the storefront
in downtown LA that was open tothe public and I was there at a
really early age just literallydoing everything, whether it was

(08:47):
cleaning or restocking,charging the clients and just
really helping them, and I thinkit does build character.
It takes us out of our comfortzone.
I can't even remember how youngI was, but I was in elementary
school, so I don't know, maybe Istarted, maybe, like literally
probably at six years old.
But you know, all the way, ineight, nine, ten.

(09:11):
I remember driving a forkliftthat's how I learned how to
drive and just unloading trucksand I was really there to help
and it was fun.
It wasn't work.
I think as I got older itbecame work where you're like
okay, you got to go work now onthe weekends and work on the
summers and it takes away a lotfrom your childhood too, right.
But I really think that a lotof the people that I've been

(09:34):
speaking with have some type ofties to that experience.
Right, and it really buildsthat character.

Yeah, it reminds me you're saying that I remember
on one occasion it was a busytime I was boxing groceries,
which meant bagging groceriesand putting them in the cart,
taking them out, collectingcarts, but then part of the day
it slowed down, and so Iremember one particular moment
standing around with my apron onbut there wasn't anybody really

(10:03):
lining up yet.
I didn't really have much to doand so I had my hands in my
pocket and I was just standingaround with my apron on, but
there wasn't anybody reallylining up yet.
I didn't really have much to do, and so I had my hands in my
pocket and I was just kind ofwaiting around to do the bagging
of the groceries and to do thework.
So my dad sees me and he callsme over and he says so what are
you doing?
I said, well, I don't reallyhave much to do right now.
And he said you always havesomething to do.

(10:24):
And I have to tell you I havenever forgotten that those are
just little tiny memory markersthat shape who you are.
And I believe not that Icouldn't completely become my
father, but I believe I evenused that line once before to

(10:47):
somebody who worked for me.

I've done that with my kids, my son especially
.
I mean that's like the worstthing you can do in a family
business is have your hands inyour pocket.
I mean, I think you can applythat now though, right Is, you
always want to make yourselfuseful, you always want to
support someone, right?
So you find something to do.
So I think that, again, thoseare the little things that I

(11:09):
don't think we know that as kids, right, but as we grow older
it's just really.
It just becomes who we are.
So, during your going back toyour college years now, what
type of positions were youworking in and what kind of
before you entered your career?

I should say yeah, I was trying to make my way
through college.
I was in at Long Beach Statemassive school great education
there, by the way, I'm a bigbeliever in public education.
But I had odd jobs, sometimesworking for the people I was
staying with when I lived downhere.

(11:45):
I ended up working at what usedto be called Mervin's and I
worked there for a while, butjust really to piece together a
living while I finished school.
Shortly thereafter met myfuture wife, met Agnes, and we
married.

(12:06):
Didn't think it was young at thetime, but in hindsight it was
young.
But then I began to takedifferent positions and I found
that I had the ability to speakthe language of a leader or a
manager.
You know it wasn't like it wasstrong rhetoric or something,

(12:30):
but it was speaking with alittle bit of confidence, and
even at times when I didn't havethat confidence.
But it did help me finddifferent positions along the
way.
I did spend a little bit oftime early on following a
passion and important work.
So I was in ministry for a bit,but that was a lead and a

(12:52):
connection that led toPepperdine and then that led to
30 years and a career that Iwould never have anticipated.

How did that lead to Pepperdine?
What were you doing so?

there is an affiliation with the church and
I was doing some work to helpsort of stand up a new ministry
that a church in South OrangeCounty was trying to put
together, and so I did that fora while.
My work in graphic design andillustration caught the

(13:22):
attention of a marketingdirector at Pepperdine.
That led to an invitation toapply for a position.
I took that position, workedthere for several years, became
the art director, then amanagement position, and
eventually went back to schoolto get an MBA.
A lot more to talk about there,I think.

(13:44):
But yeah, I became Pepperdine'sfirst chief marketing officer,
but it started off as a veryentry level, and I kept my hands
out of my pocket.
I worked every day, and I workedreally hard, and that work was
rewarded in a way that I wouldhave never imagined.

So you're at a ministry.
I mean, were you referred over?
What gave you the opportunityto apply for this?

role.
Thankfully, I was invited toapply and in fact I think it's
the only time I was ever invitedto apply for something.
Once I got to Pepperdine everyjob I had at Pepperdine after
that I asked for Wow, that'srare.

(14:32):
Yeah, I said, look, I'd like todo this.
And it didn't come immediately.
But I began to just positionmyself and did the long.
I mean it took 30 years to makeall that happen.
But yeah, it was just some workthat got printed Back in the
day.
It was a cassette tape and thena CD cover for something that
was being done at the universityand the director saw it, said

(14:58):
hey, would you be interested?
And it just opened the door.
Many opportunities came fromthat.

So when you're on Pepperdine, I mean, how did
you grow to such a senior role?
Because I think that I mean youjust said you were asking for
these roles and these positions.

Yeah.

So I mean, sometimes they're not even
available or they're not lookingor they're not hiring, or it
was something that you appliedfor, Like how do you have those
conversations with yourleadership and how did you grow
from that?

You know, a moment ago you said you know that's a
rare thing.
It is rare, but I'll tell youmy, I'll tell you, I'll give you
an example of how that cametogether.
So, very early on, had learnedthe power of storytelling, you
know, being able to put togethera narrative that had impact,

(15:48):
that was meaningful to people.
It was not lost on me that ourpresident could benefit from
some help with presentations hewas making.
I had an opportunity andoffered to do some PowerPoint
behind it.
He wasn't even sure what thatwas.

(16:10):
We began to move from doinggraphs, charts and data to
images and evocativestorytelling so that he could be
the kind of carry the weight ofthe mission and deliver it to
donors and faculty and all ofthat.
So I began working with him andhelping him and do these

(16:36):
presentations.
He would give me the script orthe speech he was working on and
then I would just work fromthat.
One thing led to another and hesaid what do you think of this?
So I looked through it, I madesome suggestions and was amazed
for some of it to show up in thespeech.
And then before long he saidlook, I've got a speech coming

(16:59):
up.
Would you do a little bit ofhomework for me and maybe get me
started, and so that led toFaceTime with him.
That led to me making the casefor storytelling as a powerful
tool of leadership, and thenthat finally led to the
conversation around branding,and that's when the chief

(17:21):
marketing officer role cameabout.
There had not been a chiefmarketing officer at Pepperdine
and I pitched it.

I mean that's incredible, because to have a
university president and it'snot just any university right,
it's Pepperdine.

University.

It's very well known and high respected To
have a university president goto you and say can you review my
speech and can you assist me inmy presentation.
I mean that just shows, I meanjust the influence that you had
at just an early stage of yourcareer, right, it's not that you
already had a certain position,so it's rare to have that

(18:02):
opportunity of someone to cometo you that way.

Yeah, it is.
But it also took him to havereal self-awareness and humility
to do that.
I mean, not everyone's going tobe willing to do that.
So there was a fit there.
I was also in a position whereI could just say, here's my idea

(18:27):
, and if he said, thank you, butthat's not gonna work, then I
would move on.
I mean, you know, I just thinkthat we began to learn how to
work together.
He knew that I was bringingsomething that he needed and
yeah.
So it took both.
It took a little bit of couragefor me to do that, but it also

(18:48):
took a receptive leader toreceive that, and that plays
into his leadership style, right.

I mean a lot of leaders are very I don't want
to say closed-minded or closed,but they don't want to showcase
that humble side to them, rightwhen they're asking for help or
they're asking support, sothey're building a good team.
So it shows the way he was ableto feel comfortable doing that,
because a lot of people are ora lot of leaders especially a

(19:15):
university president like thatmay be, you know afraid to ask
for that support and thatassistance.

No question.
In my experience, many leadersdon't feel that they can be
exposed that way.
They need to be somehow armoredup and appear to be the person
with all the confidence, all ofthe answers, and I mean we just

(19:46):
know that's not true and so, butthat's exhausting for them.
I have to tell you, it is amajor part of my coaching
business now.
It's because how do leadersfind a way to get the help they
need when they need it?
Round out their skill set,augment it when it's necessary.

(20:06):
Smart leaders know they needhelp.
They're human beings and theyknow they have strengths and
they know they have deficits andwhen they know to ask.
I have to tell you, nothingthat he did detracted from my
admiration for him as a leader.
It only actually strengthenedit.

(20:29):
But I can tell you I've workedfor people who don't want that
kind of support.

And how can these leaders better understand
the systems and is there aprocess to that?
Like, how do they learn thatright?
Not just by experience, but Imean, how can you teach those
skills?
And you're talking about yourcoaching business now.
I mean, are you teachingbecause of experience or is
there an actual format to it?

Well, I will say that a focus, a major focus of
my MBA program wasorganizational behavior, and
I'll say more about that,especially with systems,
interesting that you say thatand bring up that word, because
I do have some strongconvictions about how systems
are at work around us.

(21:18):
But back to the president whowas willing to ask for the help.
This wasn't just he wasn't justgetting that kind of help from
me, he was getting that fromothers.
He knew to hire talent, he knewto trust them with.
You know and you learn thatthrough experience for sure you

(21:39):
also have to be willing and hewas for there to be some
breakage.
Occasionally it didn't work,but he never micromanaged any of
it ever.
And he learned to say all right, I trust you.
And once he did, then he'd giveyou the keys to more things.

(21:59):
And I think he learned thatthrough experience but also came
from some character that he hadjust to be respectful of people
.

But that goes back to, like the recruiting
process, Right, and you'rehiring like you want to make
sure you hire the right person.
But a lot of times I mean asemployers we make the mistake,
Right, we don't always know froma few interviews and a few
interactions that we have.
So it does take time to buildthat trust.
But once you gain that trust,then it's I don't want to say

(22:31):
it's easy, but it makes things alot easier to assist in those
ways right.
Right.
So when, before you became thesenior vice chancellor of
Pepperdine I'm assuming youmanaged a team of your own.
You played a big role atPepperdine.
How did those leadership stylestransfer to your role?

(22:55):
What did you pick on and whatdid you do differently?

I became involved with marketing at a time.
Some will remember this time,but this was a time.
Some will remember this time,but this was a time when IT
owned the website and so it wasbecoming clear to many of us
that the web was going to be thenew mechanism for communicating
to people.
But it belonged, you know,organizationally it was housed

(23:22):
inside IT.
So I was there at a time wherewe blended IT and university
marketing and we came togetherand we created what is now
called the Integrated MarketingGroup, and it's about 30 people,
because we had five schools atPepperdine and it was 30-plus
people at times a combination ofwriters, designers, web people.

(23:49):
As social media began to emerge,we hired social media people.
I have to tell you, Icompletely took a page out of
the president's playbook.
I knew what I didn't know.
I mean, my real role was tryingto keep track of the story what
is the narrative, what is thebrand narrative.

(24:10):
But I needed talent and Ineeded them to be able to
interpret the story, and thereare days we got it wrong and we
learned that from a donor or aboard member.
But I adopted his advice and Irelied heavily on people I hired
.

Let's put some years to this, just to kind of
get an understanding right.
Because 30 years is quite atime, and especially for
technology, especially inmarketing, right.
So when did you start,pepperdine, and when did you end
?
What were those?

years, all right, so I started in 97.

Okay, so this is before the dot coms, right
right, right Right.
So that just shows you thetransformation that you were a
part of in a university, right,right.
So you're managing themarketing side.
You're telling the story.
There's a way to amplify that,right?
It's not like now, whereeverything's so SEO-driven or

(25:09):
Google-driven and you just payfor ads right Before.
It was done differently.
So you're having to learn allof that.
But in order for you to learn,you have to hire the right
talent.

That's right.
Oh yeah, when we first startedwe were using film, kind of just
waiting for this digital thingto blow over.
You know, we'd get back tousing film again and in fact
when it first came out, we stillhad to use film because the
digital technology wasn't highres enough.
But that all changed.
Everything changed.
But here's what didn't change,christopher.

(25:43):
It's still a compelling story.
That will make the connection.
The delivery is adjacent to thereal issue, which is what is the
story that's being told?
Because it's over time, it's anevolving story.
So how do you tell it?
In a way, knowing that theuniversity had to adapt in

(26:05):
different ways but still had tostay rooted to its values and to
its mission, so keeping thestory.
That was my role, and that partnever, ever, changed in the 30
years.
What changed dramatically washow we told that story, the
tools we had available to us,and we were absolutely able to

(26:28):
extend the reach.
More people learned about whoand what we were because of the
technology, but the technologyserved.
It served the story, not theother way around.

And your position wasn't just internally.
You had an external face to it.
You're a part of multipleboards, a lot of organizations,
and you're out within thecommunity too, right?
Is there a reason for that?
I mean, were you trying tocapture the knowledge externally
as well?
Because, I mean, you can't doeverything from an office, right

(26:59):
?

Yeah Well, so I will stick with my point that
it's still about storytelling,but a different kind of
storytelling.
So here's what I mean by thatstill about storytelling, but a
different kind of storytelling.
So here's what I mean by that.
As my career moved andprogressed and talent was hired,

(27:21):
we had a lot of people in theintegrated marketing group that
we hired early on that stayedwith us.
They were interested inadvancing their careers.
They were looking to move froman entry-level position into
another position, and so thereneeded to be room for that.
There needs to be some kind offlow for people to be able to
move.
So as I grew older andtechnology began to move way

(27:44):
beyond me early on I wasactually doing designing myself.

But as that began.
I've seen some of your work.
You're still a designer.

But it began to move way ahead of me.
So I began to realize that oneof the stories we were telling
was the narrative of the cityset upon the hill.
Set upon the hill, and that wasthe great idea that Pepperdine
was at a special place in aspecial location, and our

(28:17):
narrative was almost alwaysaround 24255 Pacific Coast
Highway, that beautiful campus.
But it became clear to me thatwe needed to be an LA story.
And so this is when I developedthe role into senior vice
chancellor and my job was not toraise money but it was to come

(28:37):
down and engage this city.
We needed to be a Los Angelesstory.
Our roots were in Los Angeles,not far from where we are right
now.
Christopher is the originalGeorge Pepperdine College campus
and it's still there 79th andVermont, and we were a Los
Angeles story and we werebecoming less of that.
So I felt, and the presidentagreed, we need to start showing

(29:02):
up in Los Angeles.
So I began to be involved withthe Rotary Club of Los Angeles,
served as its president 2019 and2020.
That took a long time to getthere On its foundation board,
worked with greater Los Angelesarea scouts, was on the board of
governors of the LA Chamber.
We had a terrific partnershipwith AEG.

(29:24):
We built a classroom insidewhat is now Cryptocom Arena.
The whole point was to show up,and so we showed up here, and
then I invited people that I methere to come out and see us
there.

Those partnerships were forged from
you.
What helped you or what gaveyou that inspiration to do that,
though?
Because a lot of people inthese roles or these positions
don't know how to transform that.
They're waiting to be told todo that or be given this idea of

(30:00):
, hey, maybe you should jointhis organization.
So what led you to make thatdecision?
Because that means you caredfor the organization, you cared
for the university, right, and Iknow a lot of this was your
personal time too.
It wasn't, you know, oh yeah.

I mean, those relationships continue Even
after my career at Pepperdinehas ended.
Yeah, I don't know that I'vegiven a lot of thought to that,
but I will say a top-of-mindanswer is that when Pepperdine
was at 79th and Vermont, whenyou fly over back into LAX and

(30:42):
you look down you can see thecampus and then a mile later—
what's there now?
It's the Crenshaw ChristianCenter.
Okay, there now it's theCrenshaw Christian Center.
The Faith Dome is there, andabout a mile towards the ocean
from it is SoFi.
Anyway, what's interesting iswhen Pepperdine made the

(31:05):
decision to move to Malibu, thedecision to move to Malibu, it
had to rely on friendshipswithin the city, at government
levels, at the California club.
Imagine how it is now.

(31:25):
Yeah, right.
And so I took a play out ofPepperdine's old playbook and I
was one of, but others that wereout into the community were
fundraisers, but I was not.
That this was part of marketing.
It was putting us out theremaking sure when there were
important things happening indowntown LA.
I was aware of that.

(31:47):
I could then ask how couldPepperdine be involved in that?
Let's face it, you've said kindthings about Pepperdine, but
this is a USC, ucla town.
It is hard to keep your placein a town like that.
So, yeah, it was a lot ofworking to know people and to

(32:07):
make friends literally to makefriends.

I mean, you have so many great colleges here
community colleges, public,private and there is a lot of
competition, right, right.
But when you represent aninstitution that way, it carries
a lot of value when you'reinvolved in all these
organizations.
So, again, it just amazes methat you're able to carry those

(32:32):
relationships and, like you said, you still maintain those
relationships and that's how Imet you.

That's how we met, that's right.

So it does go a long way.
I want to tap into the firesjust a little bit, because
Pepperdine is in the heart ofthat all.
Have you talked to anyone aboutwhat's going?
On in that area.
I haven't visited myself.
I should.
I've been wanting to, but Iknow it's very restricted.
But tell me a little bit aboutwhat exposures have you had?

with it.
Well, obviously the Palisadesand Eaton are top of mind, but I
was involved with the EmergencyOperation Committee at
Pepperdine during Woolsey so Iknow what it's like to be on
campus when the fires are around.
It is a traumatic experience todeal with that.

(33:26):
One of the things I'll just saybriefly is that we have a
shelter in place agreement withLos Angeles County Fire Scary

(33:50):
Because PCH, if it's blocked, orCanaan or Las Virginas, malibu
Canyon, I mean they're reallyonly two or three ways in and
out.
They said no, we want you toshelter in place.
That works and there's a goodreason for that.
But boy, that story is hard totell because you see the images
of flames and all that and thestudents are there.
It does not make for goodcoverage.

I've seen some videos there and I can't
imagine just being a leader totell your students like we're
staying, this is the policy thatwe have, and just to be I mean
like being a captain in a shipright, just to be able to have
make those decisions for so manylives, because it's scary.

(34:27):
I saw those videos and I can'timagine being put in a place
like that.
I mean I can just like justbeing with my siblings or my
kids and just being able to saywe got to wait because there's
help out there.

And the president I was talking about a moment ago.
He, in my experience, he washere during Woolsey.
His great gift as a leader wasto bring calm and courage to a
hurting community, a scaredcommunity.
He knew how to protectPepperdine better than anybody.

(35:02):
But what's also important toknow, it's not just students who
are there.
There are faculty homes thatare there.
There there are over 250residents, faculty staff, people
who live on campus.
I lived on campus for a whileand they're also sheltering in
place now.
I've been on campus to visitfriends and I'm Surprised and

(35:26):
amazed once again how the campushas been protected.
They take measures to take careof that, but it is staggering
to see and I mean my favoriteThai place was Chilada.
I used to go there for Thaifood Gone.
It is a staggering sight to seethe destruction.

I mean it's faith too, just having faith in
the community, faith in the firedepartment and law enforcement
and politicians, and justunderstanding that.
You know, I know the road forrecovery is quite long.
It is.
But just kind of hearing thenews yesterday.
We're very strong, you knowthese communities, la is very

(36:10):
strong, we're big right, and youtalk about having that distance
between Malibu and downtown LA,for example, but LA as a region
we're just strong and resilient.
So you see, all the partiescome together.
I joined the board of theAmerican Red Cross, as you know,
and I joined right before thefires and you can just see how

(36:32):
every institution, everynon-profit, every company, every
person was just activated, um,and everyone knew how to come
together and everyone wassupporting one another and
everyone knew what theirstrengths and their weaknesses
were right and um, you reallyget to see the, the sense of
community right in such a bigcity, which is difficult and
there's always finger pointingand things.

(36:53):
But at the end of the day, wewant what's best for the
community and I think that youknow things will come together
again, but and there's alsothings that we can learn off of
it.
But I think that, because it'sscary Just think about this this
is a wildfire.
I was in a conversation theother day and we're talking
about earthquakes and I don'twant to change the subject too

(37:16):
much here.
But with an earthquake you'regoing to have wildfires, you're
going to have gas leaks, you'regoing to have a lot of scary
things could happen with anearthquake and we've seen this
in other parts of the world.
But we need to be prepared andthis was just kind of a taste of
what could happen, right?

I agree with that.
La is just such an amazingplace.
But I don't know, there arevery few cities on the planet
that are operating at this scaleand this is a real test to see
how well cities can scale up.
There are a few out there forsure, but LA, let's face it is

(37:55):
one of the most globalizedcities on the planet.
All that's good, all that's badabout that, but it's a
globalized city.
London's probably a little more, but who knows?
I mean depends how you measurethat, I think.
But again, as I even said atthe very beginning of our
conversation, there's realopportunity in such a diverse

(38:16):
and large city, but there areunique challenges too, and
you're raising one.

So we're all in different positions in our
career right now and I reallysee you as a mentor of mine.
We speak quite frequently andwhen I came to you with this
idea, you're already coaching.
So tell me a little bit aboutyour current role and what
you're doing in the coachingworld.

Yeah, so I'm largely working with executives
and their boards, for the mostpart with nonprofits, but I do
have executives at senior levelsin for-profit businesses as
well, and it's largely based onthe idea that executives work in

(39:05):
isolation more than you mightexpect.
If anybody has been in or nearthe top job, you know exactly
how lonely that can be.
When the Woolsey fire wastaking shape, it was the
loneliest, even though there wasa committee around him.
It was the loneliest spot forthe president to be.

(39:26):
So executives are isolated andthey need to be able to express,
with confidence and withconfidentiality, their big ideas
, their fears, their concerns.
I mean, think about it,christopher, if you are a major
executive at a major corporationor a nonprofit and you have

(39:50):
some deep concerns aboutdecisions that need to be made,
or think about the world we livein right now, with all of the
challenges that are a part of it, there's a lot of doubt that's
mixed in.
You might do a lot of homework,do a lot of analysis, do a lot
of research, whatever, read lotsof books, but at the end of the

(40:11):
day, who do you talk to?
Do you express those doubts andconcerns up to your board?
Probably not.
Do you express them down to therank and file?
Probably not.
We're all looking to you to beconfident.
Do you express them laterallyto your colleagues?
That, hopefully, but that canalso be difficult.

(40:34):
Sometimes there are rivalsthere.
It's a weird moment and it's anisolated position just by its
very nature.
And so I have been doing thisfor many years, but not in a
formal way.
I formalize this sort of as Iended my career at Pepperdine.
But I provide coaching, notnecessarily consulting.

(40:58):
Now I will offer my opinion ifI'm asked.
I will give my opinion if I'masked, but my job is to help
executives reframe the questionsthat are in their mind, to test
them, to test their assumptions, to work into and tease out
their limiting beliefs, and so Ifind great joy in that.

(41:22):
But it is not hard right now tofind clients, because they're
actually they're finding you,because if you are trying to
lead anything in thisenvironment, it's challenging.

I know it's an honor to have you for that
one-on-one time as a coach and Icame to you with an idea and
maybe we'll get a chance to kindof talk about it a little bit.
But before I get there, I knowyou're talking about coaching
people at a senior level, butare you coaching people, I mean,
besides me?
I guess you should say but areyou coaching someone like me

(42:01):
that's growing in their careers?
Like, how can we learn from youas well?
Because there's a lot there.
There's a lot that we can gainfrom that experience.

Yeah, because there's a lot there.
There's a lot that we can gainfrom that experience.
Yeah, I definitely have youngerclients, male and female, and
very often they come to mebecause either a recommendation
from someone else, becausesomething is stirring within

(42:32):
them, or there is a crisisthat's beginning to bubble up or
boil over.
So usually I am gettingcontacted once there is some a
triggering event.
But I do think that coaching Ia coach, I believe in coaching

(42:53):
because it does allow me toexpress and think through and
then reframe my thinking and Iand so what I am able to offer
my clients, whether they aresenior executives or emerging
professionals and I'm veryinterested in emerging

(43:14):
professionals.
I have children who are thatage.
I've spent my career atPepperdine and these young
people are preparing themselvesfor great careers and then
they're finding the challengesof negotiating the structures
that are in place right, bothsocial and organizational
structures and they're findingsome headwinds, and so my

(43:41):
coaching helps them navigate.
That helps them resolve some ofthe angst or inner turmoil they
might have.
Some of the angst or innerturmoil they might have, and it
really is rooted to one majorquestion that is hard for people
to get an answer for, and thatis what do you really want?

(44:03):
And it's amazing to ask peoplethat question and to not be able
to get an answer.
I still don't know.

You know and I think that's part of life too,
right it is that want changes,the why changes and that's the
nice thing about having a coachis that as you're growing in
your career or in your family,you're going to understand a
different approach to things.
And I mean, I think it's onlynatural that that answer changes

(44:32):
because we're evolving everyyear.

I agree with that.
Answer changes because we'reevolving every year.
I agree with that.
But I will also say thatthere's something about the work
ethic and I don't know what totrace it to and I don't.
I'm not worried about that, butthere's something about the
work ethic that causes people toactually think they don't have
the right to ask that question.

(44:56):
They need to put on the shelfwhat they want until another
time.
I am coaching a lot of peopleat my age who are retiring and
they don't have an answer tothat question.
You see, it's not just me, no,they don't.
I get that, but it is a worthyquestion and it does help people

(45:18):
to when they have that, ithelps sort of solidify some
conviction and that gives somereal energy.
We all act and respond to thethings we believe to be true and
if we believe that we've gotsomething worth pursuing, you
know we'll have the energy weneed to find it or to achieve it
.
You know we'll have the energywe need to find it or to achieve

(45:40):
it.

So, uh, yeah, I, I just I just found it to be
a very beneficial thing to helppeople process the big decisions
and for my world largely arounddoing business, so when I came
to you after you retired fromPepperdine um I, I heard about
your coaching business and Ithink I approached you
personally on a personal levelthere first.
But then I came up with thisidea and I tried tying it into

(46:03):
what my idea is here with thispodcast.
Right, because and I'm not sureif I shared the complete story
here yet, but I come across alot of inspirational leaders and
you're one of them.
You've experienced such a greatcareer and there's a lot of
people who aspire to have that.
Or, like you said, they're justin different positions of their

(46:23):
life and what I'm trying to dois capture those skills the best
way I know how.
I can right, because when I goto these seminars and
conferences I see them on stageand a lot of the times these
leaders are talking about theirinitiatives or their companies
and they rarely talk aboutthemselves.

(46:44):
And I know I'm going to havemore time with you so I didn't
really get into your personalbackground so much.
We touched on it a little bit.
But I came with you to thisidea because on one-on-one
coaching it can get a littleexpensive's.
It's like having a personaldoctor, right, and there's only
so many hours in the day.
So I'm I, I said what if we dothis for a bigger audience, not

(47:09):
too big, but that way we canreally amplify your work and
your in your, your values?
Because if we can capture whatyou've done so far in your life,
um, and what you continue to dofor others in the service that
you provide, um, I thought itwas a great idea, right.
So we came with the with thisworkshop, this idea of a

(47:30):
workshop, and, um, I want tokind of touch on that just a
little bit.
Can you give me a little bit ofa highlight of what, like, if
I'm a student going to thisworkshop, what am I going to?
Go back and get an MBA and Iworked for an institution that
offered one.

And so I went through a program at Pepperdine
called the Presidential KeyExecutive Program.
I did so because I felt Ineeded to advance my career.
Check that box put a notch inmy belt, whatever.
I walked in the first day andthis particular program
attracted C-level executives.
These are people who hadalready achieved the corner

(48:22):
office.
Some had created, builtbusinesses and sold them.
But I was in the room withmajor executives from Toyota
when Toyota was still in LosAngeles aerospace industry, the
CEO of a hospital, aerospaceindustry, the CEO of a hospital
and my first.
We had an orientation weekendand my first weekend there.
I walked in and I thought I amso far over my head, I don't

(48:50):
belong at this table.
And 22 months later I belongedat that table and they belonged
at the table and we had a deeperunderstanding of what each
other had to offer.
It was literally transformative.
And I will say the reason whythis program it's an MBA program

(49:11):
, incredibly rigorous, but itwas strengthened by these
relationships with these supersmart people who were also being
challenged and they werereframing their own thinking.
And so I decided when youbrought this idea to me, boy, I

(49:33):
would have liked to have hadsome of this insight 20 years
before or 10 years before, whereI was, the things I learned
from them.
And it starts withself-awareness, understanding
how you work internally, andthat's what many call Peter
Senge, in particular, callpersonal mastery.

(49:57):
How do you, how do you even thescouts, do you know lead
yourself, lead others right, howdo you understand yourself?
But then how do you understandthe organizations you're working
with, recognizing that everyoneinvolved is a human being,
which makes it messy andchallenging and wonderful?
So we went through some reallyrigorous and amazing material

(50:22):
that I look forward to bringingto emerging adults to try to
give to them some insight 10years earlier than I got it,
because I do believe it willhelp them navigate.
The best way I can describe whathappened to me.
This was my message, because Ihad to give a little.
We all had to give some kind oflittle speech at the end of our

(50:45):
time together and one of thethings I said was I feel like
the NFL has just introduced anew camera that is, at the time,
is suspended over the field,and it wasn't until that.
We always had just a side view,but on the replays, with that

(51:05):
new technology, I remember beingable to see what the
quarterback was seeing roughly,when he threw the pass.
Well, when you see it from theside, it's two-dimensional.
But when you see it from behindyou go my gosh, he is throwing
that and the receiver isn'tthere yet.
You know, it is Wayne Gretzky,you know, go to where the puck

(51:29):
is going, not where it is.
The point is is that it elevatedmy vision of the field.
I left being able to seefurther down the field.
There's no question that wasthe great gift of this and that
is what I think the opportunityis.
What are those tools, what arethose ways of thinking so that
you can elevate your vision andlook further down the road on

(51:51):
your career and make somedecisions in advance, that
you're seeing the field, muchmore of the field.

You learn that from the MBA.
I also got an MBA and had adifferent experience.
So the workshop that we'reworking with now, though, is
like what kind of topics wouldwe unpack in those leadership
workshops?
Like, cause, it's not an MBAprogram, right, it's not at that

(52:21):
level or that capacity, butjust bringing you, um, in front
of these students, right,because maybe they already have
their MBAs, um, but you bringsomething different to the table
.
You're very unique because, um,something different to the
table.
You're very unique because yourleadership style is very unique
, and I'm trying to uncoverthings that we don't typically

(52:42):
read in a book, or we don'ttypically learn online or
through an MBA program.
So, when we formulated thisworkshop, you and I kind of
worked together on that, andwe're really trying to capture
something that's unique anddifferent.
Right, that's worth the timeand the investment, right, but
can you give me some of thosetopics that are on that?

Sure, we're calling it Pathways to Advanced
Leadership and we start withpersonal mastery.
What are those things thatfoundationally support me as a
human being?
You know, that buildself-confidence, that help me
understand who I am, where mystrengths are, where my blind

(53:26):
spots are, make me aware of thesystem within me.
And again, even going back tothe example of my dad or of the
president of Pepperdine, youknow there are certain life
skills that come naturally topeople, but there there are ways

(53:48):
to hone those, to strengthenthose, so that you become more
self-aware and that you uncoversome hidden strengths.
The greatest part of myexperience that started with the
MBA and has continued to thisday, is the real introduction of

(54:09):
both the visible and hiddensystems that are at work Inside
your mind, inside your heart,inside the company you work for,
inside nature.
I mean, it may sound a littlemystical, it's not.
It really is the idea thatthere are systems at work that

(54:31):
are interdependent and veryoften we're not measuring those.
We don't eat we.
They're the hidden system.
They are the hidden systemsthat are very much active and
present within a population ofpeople trying to do something
and to create a product, to makea profit, but that.
But we often measure the bottomline oh yeah, you have your

(54:54):
KPIs and your balance sheets andyour P&Ls.
But you don't understand thatyou have that there are
balancing factors.
So one of the things that'sinteresting, I think anyway,
about systems theory is the idea, in fact, that everything is
integrated, interdependent.

(55:15):
I mean, we can even see thatjust even in nature, but also
within our businesses.
And when you see that you beginto respect the parts more, the
different parts.
There's not a neglected part ora dismissed part, no, they're
an important part of the story,they're an important part of the

(55:35):
mission.
How do they fit together?
How do they work together?
The great gift for, I would say, anybody who goes to the
workshop is moving beyond theintroduction to what does it
mean to be a part of or lead alearning team, but to know how
to enact that when they go backto the office the next week or

(56:00):
as they begin to build theircareers.

It's very action-driven, right, and that's
what I like about it, because Imean, I've read a ton of
leadership books and I still aska lot of questions, right, and
I think just having access toyou and that knowledge, and then
when I was talking to you aboutit, I'm like you're asking me,
okay, but you're going to helpme too, right, like you're going
to be a part of this and Idefinitely bring something

(56:22):
different to the table.
Right, I don't have that rolethat you had at Pepperdine, but
I actually my last interviewwith June Kim Lopez.
she mentioned the newsletterthat I write on LinkedIn about
networking and, in my role, whatI do now.
I'm across, I go to a lot ofevents and there's a certain way

(56:43):
to navigate that and to me itreally does come naturally.
And it wasn't until peoplestarted asking the questions
like how do you do that?
Where did you learn that?
So I really try to gatheringthose thoughts and putting it in
a newsletter.
Right, and now, working withyou, we're trying to formulate
that we already have thiscurriculum, but we're trying to
give this curriculum to othersRight, where they don't have to

(57:04):
get you on one on one all thetime, because that could be,
it's possible but difficult, butwhere we can teach this to a
small group of 20 students, forexample, right.

Yeah, the idea is to learn how to compete by being
collaborative.
But, yeah, this is acompetitive job market.

It's important to be able to find your next
step and you want to be able toget your footing.
And how is this good for thecompany to be involved in?
So, for example, if you'rethinking about your organization
or any other organization, ifI'm a leader or a supervisor and
I want to send one of myemployees to this, is there a
benefit for them to do that?

Yeah, I mean, I'll just give you just an example
from my PKE program, my MBAprogram.
We spent the day at AmgenAmgen's out there at Thousand
Oaks, major pharmaceuticalcompany.
We were just blown away by allthat.
We saw the scientists that werethere, the engineers that were
there, all of that, and we werehearing about the challenges of
sourcing materials and productsand all kinds of things.

(58:08):
But we asked the CEO what isthe thing that concerns you the
most?
He says every day and I'm surethis is more of a, you know, a
slightly mythical story, but Iget the point he says every day
at five o'clock somewhere around8,000 people begin to leave
their offices and they get intheir cars and they go home

(58:30):
somewhere out in the communityand I hope and pray they come
back the next day.
Talent, really good talent, ishard to find.
It is hard to keep.
If you do not invest in themand say I see something in you

(58:59):
and signal that early on theywill begin to look elsewhere.
I listen to a lot of my peerstalk about emerging
professionals.
Oh, they have no companyloyalty and they blame it's
meant to blame or criticize theyoung person, right?
The millennial.
They always will say, as ifthey really know what that is,

(59:21):
when in fact they've done reallyvery little to keep the person
loyal and moving.
I said it earlier, I felt thiswith my integrated marketing
team.
I had talented people and theywanted to know what their next
step was, and I began to realizethat I myself, by occupying
this one position, made itdifficult for them to advance.

(59:45):
So I took my marketing to thenext level and went to senior
vice chancellor and becameengaged in the community.
But that opened my CMO role foranother and things began to
move.
So I just think that there isreal.
It's important to invest inyour people.

Christopher Luna (01:00:03):
Definitely.
I have a friend.
She went to UCLA for hermaster's and it was paid for
completely by her organization,and when I talk to her it sounds
like she'll never leave becauseshe's loyal to them and we
always want to continue to grow.
So this is just kind of anopportunity for these employers.

Rick Gibson (01:00:24):
Yeah, I'm very excited about it.

I think it'll be a great Well we're coming up
on our hour and I appreciateyour time.
I know I'm going to get youagain, hopefully.
I'm going to get you again,hopefully.
So I just wanted to kind ofclose this off and let our
viewers know all the detailswould be available to them.
I'm going to try to get youmore on a personal time, maybe

(01:00:46):
without so much production here,because this is a beautiful
studio.
Maybe we could do a Zoom callor something and just kind of
really break it down even more.
But before I go, I want to askyou some fire rapid questions,
all right, so you mentioned afew books there and a few
writers.
What's a quote or a book that'schanged your life?

Well, I have a tattered copy of the Fifth
Discipline written by PeterSenge.
He's very much a way.
He's done a fantastic job ofreally synthesizing the idea of
systems, theory and learningteams and the power of that.
The quote of his is somethinglike this there's nothing more

(01:01:28):
powerful in human affairs than ashared vision of the future.
That's different than adeclared vision of the future.
Most that's different than adeclared vision of the future.
Most people are working.
If they're working with avision at all, they're working
with a declared vision, the onethat the boss has said.
A shared vision is one thateverybody is behind.

(01:01:51):
Very quickly, I know we'rewrapping up, but I give a
presentation about this verything around the Apollo mission,
and we start with John FKennedy's great speech from Rice
University, where we're goingto go to the moon, and in it he

(01:02:12):
describes to do this we're goingto need materials that have not
yet been discovered,technologies that have not yet
been invented, and you suddenlyrealize they don't know how
they're going to get to the moon.
And we got to the moon.
What's amazing about this isthat if you were to ask the

(01:02:34):
engineers at NASA what are wedoing?
We're going to the moon.
If you were to ask theastronauts we're going to the
moon.
Ask the scientists we're goingto the moon.
Ask the people who cleaned thehallways in the restrooms we're
going to the moon.
Ask the staff who served foodin the cafeteria in Houston what

(01:02:55):
are we doing?
We're going to the moon.
Everybody believed it.
Anyway, I think that justunderscores the quote.
There's nothing more powerfulin human affairs than a shared
vision of the future.

Wow, that's incredible.
Thank you again, rick, for yourtime, and I really look forward
to working with you and growingthis relationship more and
really helping others.
Um, I wish I've had thisopportunity.
Um, like you said a littleearlier, I think, um, I would be
in a different position now,but I'm I'm looking forward

(01:03:29):
what's to come and how I'm stillgoing to continue to grow and
learn from you, so I lookforward for us to continue this
relationship.

Likewise, we have a lot to learn from each other.
Whatever it is that we need toknow, we know the people out
there who can help us.
So, yeah, let's do some good.

Sounds good.
Thank you again for joining ustoday and look forward to the
next one.

Narrator 1 (01:03:53):
Thank you for joining us on this episode of
the Los Angeles Leaders Podcast,hosted by Christopher Luna.
We hope you found ourconversation as inspiring as we
did.
Don't forget to subscribe andleave us a review on your
favorite podcast platform.
Your feedback helps us bringmore of the content you love,
and be sure to follow us onsocial media for updates behind

(01:04:16):
the scenes content and to jointhe conversation Until next time
.
Keep leading, keep innovatingand keep making a difference.

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Rick Gibson – Principal Owner of MGR Development | Los Angeles Leaders

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Rick Gibson – Principal Owner of MGR Development | Los Angeles Leaders